Tuesday, 28 July 2026 - Markets Mixed to open the busiest week of the second quarter corporate earnings season

US equity markets mixed to open the busiest week of the second quarter corporate earnings season (with 177 S&P 500 companies slated to report, including nine Dow components), with oil prices dropping sharply following reports of a ceasefire between the US and Iran while semiconductor stocks remained under pressure – Dow rose +263-points or +0.51%. Salesforce Inc (up 6.07%) was the leading performer in the 30-stock index. Apple Inc – which releases its second quarter result on Thursday night AEST (30 July) - rose +1.17% to a record closing high of US$336.91 and touched a record intra-day high (US$339.57), usurping NVIDIA Corp (down -4.99%) as the largest company by market capitalisation. Apple last held the top spot at the close on 2 May, 2025. NVIDIA fell following a WSJ report that it is in talks with OpenAI to guarantee US$250B in financing for a massive Ohio data centre project, raising concerns in some quarters around circular funding.Reuters reported that Iran would pause military attacks if the U.S. continued its own pause, albeit Tehran denied the reports. Separately, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) over the weekend reported that President Trump called off an escalation of the conflict. Meanwhile, President Trump told reporters while aboard Air Force One that Washington was having "good talks" with Iran and there was a chance of a peace deal, but warned ⁠U.S. strikes would resume if the negotiations failed to deliver.