The US stock market closed mixed yesterday. Companies from different sectors received different results of the day. For example, if we consider the Dow Jones index, the utilities and technology sectors rose at the end of the day, but the financial sector, medical, telecommunications and oil and gas closed in the red. In general, the Dow Jones fell by 209 points to 34,577.37 on July 6, which is a 0.6% drop. The S&P 500 index lost about 9 points and at the close was equal to 4,343.54 points, which is a 0.2% drop. The Nasdaq 100 index rose by 59 points and at the close showed 14,786.36 points, which is a 0.4% increase. Among the most actively traded stocks, Apple (+1.47%), Amazon (+4.69%), Visa (+0.41%), Nike (+0.23%) and American Express (+0.63%) showed the best dynamics. Among the losers were shares of Chevron (-1.96%), Caterpillar (-1.95%), Walt Disney(-1.93%), Ford(-2.88%), General Electric (-3.29%), and Bank of America(-2.62%).
Meanwhile, very interesting news came from the United States, which raised the fortune of Jeff Bezos to an absolutely record value of $211 billion. The fact is that the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) refused a contract with Microsoft to create a cloud infrastructure. The reason for this was the lawsuit of Amazon, which is owned by Jeff Bezos. In 2019, the Pentagon held a tender among several companies, but due to the difficult relationship between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos, Amazon failed to win it. Amazon eventually sued and in February 2020, the court satisfied the requirements of Bezos' company, and also suspended the execution of the contract with Microsoft. Now, it has become known that the Pentagon is going to divide the entire project between several companies at once, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Amazon shares then soared up by 4.69% and are now trading at $3,674 apiece.
Today, stock markets will closely monitor the US Federal Reserve Protocol. Recall that the last meeting of the FRS provoked a storm of emotions in the stock and currency markets, as Jerome Powell hinted at the beginning of discussions on curtailing the quantitative stimulus program in the coming months. And although from our point of view this hint is still just a hint, nevertheless, the US stock markets have shown good growth in the last couple of weeks. Thus, today the markets will be waiting for the decoding of Jerome Powell's rhetoric. The main thing that the markets want to understand is when the Fed will really discuss the completion of the QE program and what are at least approximate deadlines for the implementation of this scenario. We also recall that in the United States, inflation has recently risen to a record 5%, which forces investors and traders to literally demand that the Fed take appropriate measures. And one of the possible measures may be just the reduction or completion of the QE program, which inflates the money supply in the United States, provoking an increase in inflation.