BlockBeats News, July 31st. Last night, the US Q2 core PCE inflation cooled down, leading to a sharp drop in short-term rate hike expectations. On the other hand, Microsoft's better-than-expected financial report seemed to once again instill confidence in AI investment, coupled with the end of selling pressure from the liquidation of large AI funds earlier, triggering a short squeeze rebound in tech and momentum stocks. The S&P 500 rose by 1.66%, the Nasdaq 100 by 3.4%, marking the third largest daily gain of the year.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Microsoft skyrocketed by over 15%, achieving the largest single-day market cap increase in Wall Street history for a single stock, also marking its largest single-day gain in the past 18 years. In addition, storage stocks surged, with SanDisk rising by nearly 26%, Wall Street's AI stock guru's previously heavily invested neocloud concept stocks NBIS and IREN rising by over 27% and 30% respectively. Micron, a US stock, also saw a rare rebound, rising by 17.52%. Earlier AI star stocks MRVL rose by 12.18% and Micron by 18%.

It is worth noting that today the foreign exchange market is full of twists and turns, with the Japanese yen surging by over 3% intraday, reported to be due to Japan's intervention. The US dollar index once fell by over 0.9%, marking the largest single-day drop since January, erasing all the gains accumulated after Powell's debut. Additionally, South Korea's foreign exchange authorities also reportedly conducted a rare US dollar selling intervention on Thursday.

US Treasury Secretary Besant responded saying that Japan may have intervened in the foreign exchange market. In my view, the yen seems to be "severely undervalued".

Finally, Apple released its company's third-quarter financial report ending June 27, 2026, reporting a year-on-year revenue growth of approximately 16% to $1.0942 trillion, slightly above analyst expectations, with earnings per share (EPS) increasing by about 29% year-on-year to $2.02, nearly 7% higher than analyst expectations. Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh stated that the third-quarter EPS and operating cash flow both reached record highs for the same period in the company's history.

However, the market performance indicates that Apple's seemingly better-than-expected financial report did not impress investors. Prior to the earnings release, Apple's stock price dropped by 1.4% in regular trading hours, and after the report was published, the post-market decline further expanded, falling by over 4%.