The Week in Markets: The Hike That Faded and the Semis That Cracked

The first Week in Markets, a new Friday edition that ties together the week’s coverage in one place. This was a week of contradictions: the softest jobs report of the year, the sharpest semiconductor selloff since March 2025, and yet a record close for the Dow and a strong week for the broad indices. Beneath the calm surface, the market spent the week repricing two things at once: the Federal Reserve’s next move, and who actually captures the profits of the AI build-out.

1. The jobs report that buried the hike

The US economy added just 57,000 jobs in June, barely half the 113,000 expected, with April and May revised lower and unemployment ticking down to 4.2 per cent only because the labour force shrank. Rate markets moved immediately: the implied probability of a July hike fell to roughly 20 per cent from 30 per cent a week earlier, and the 10-year yield eased to around 4.46 per cent. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, speaking at the ECB Forum, noted that inflation expectations had eased over the past month and signalled no urgency to move. After a spring spent bracing for hikes, the market now sees a Fed with room to wait. The full breakdown: The June Jobs Report: 57,000 and the Hike That Faded.

2. The week the semis cracked

The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell roughly 12 per cent over Wednesday and Thursday, its sharpest two-day fall since March 2025, and the third quarter is barely three sessions old. The trigger was not weak demand but a change in who supplies it: Meta confirmed it is building a cloud business to sell excess AI compute, and OpenAI cut inference prices roughly in half. If hyperscalers become sellers of capacity rather than pure buyers of chips, the scarcity premium that has powered the semiconductor complex gets questioned all the way down the stack. Our analysis of what survives that shift: Meta’s AI Cloud Pivot: The Week the Supply Premise Cracked.

3. Records everywhere else

The remarkable part of the semiconductor selloff is what did not happen: the market did not follow. The Dow rose 539 points on Thursday to a record 52,844, the S&P 500 finished the week up 1.8 per cent, and money rotated into financials, industrials and the equal-weight complex rather than leaving. The week also closed the books on the best quarter since 2020 and opened the Dow’s doors to Alphabet, which replaced Verizon in the index. Rotation, not retreat, remains the story: Inside the H1 2026 Market Rally and What the Verizon Swap Really Signals.

4. Private credit’s $14 billion gate

Away from the equity records, the private credit story continued to deteriorate on schedule. Redemption requests at semi-liquid funds reached roughly $14 billion against quarterly repurchase caps, forcing gates at several large vehicles, exactly the reflexive dynamic we have been tracking since the spring: investors who cannot exit this quarter join next quarter’s queue, and the gate that protects the portfolio advertises the stress. The new analysis: The $14 Billion Gate: Private Credit Redemptions Meet the Confidence Gap. New to the mechanics? Start with what a BDC is.

5. The IPO window stays open

Quietly, the first half of 2026 set a record for IPO proceeds, and the pipeline into the autumn remains full. A reopened primary market matters beyond the listings themselves: it gives private equity an exit route, takes pressure off private valuations, and tests how much appetite exists for risk at record index levels. The half-year review: The IPO Window Reopens: A Record First Half and What Comes Next.

The numbers

Market	Level (Thu close)	Week
S&P 500	~7,505	+1.8%
Nasdaq	n/a	+2.1%
Dow Jones	52,844 (record)	+2.0%
US 10-year yield	~4.46%	Lower on the jobs miss
WTI crude	~$68	Lower again

US markets were closed on Friday 3 July for the Independence Day holiday.

What to watch next week

Three things matter. First, the June CPI print in mid-July, the last major inflation reading before the Fed’s late-July meeting; after the jobs miss, a soft print would take the hike debate off the table entirely. Second, the start of second-quarter earnings season, with the large US banks reporting from mid-July and the first hard evidence of how the semiconductor repricing reads across to earnings. Third, the private credit redemption tape: gated investors requeue, so the next set of repurchase disclosures will show whether the $14 billion wave is cresting or compounding.