Trading results for 1 July 2025
Trees don’t grow to the sky – a truth clearly demonstrated by Tuesday’s trading. After two consecutive days of record highs for the S&P 500 and seven straight sessions of gains for the NASDAQ Composite, the market simply needed a breather. That is precisely what it got on Tuesday. Still, there were no clear triggers for a serious correction – investors merely seized the first convenient excuse to slow things down.
That excuse came in the form of yet another public clash between Elon Musk and President Trump. On the back of this, Tesla (TSLA) shares came under heavy selling pressure – for the 101st time – shedding more than 5% for the day (-5.34%) and ranking among the worst performers in the S&P 500. In their latest spat, Musk intensified his criticism of the president’s tax and spending bill, while Trump responded by suggesting that the Government Efficiency Department – previously headed by Musk himself – should reconsider the allocation of federal grants to Tesla and SpaceX. This raised concern among investors: renewed tensions between Musk and Trump could hinder Tesla’s progress on its autonomous driving project.
And if it were only about Tesla, that would be one thing. But the company’s weight is so great that the fallout from the conflict echoed across the entire big tech sector, putting almost the entire market under pressure from the bears. This was no full-scale sell-off, but the sour mood lingered, and the market reacted accordingly. The NASDAQ Composite posted the steepest decline, falling 0.82%. The S&P 500 – the main benchmark of the U.S. market – got off lightly, dipping a mere 0.11%.
The one bright spot on Tuesday was the Dow Jones (DJIA-30), which ended the day with a solid gain of nearly 1% (+0.91%). This was thanks to a trio of heavyweights: two companies from the healthcare sector – insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) and pharmaceutical titan Amgen (AMGN) – and Sherwin-Williams Co. (SHW), an industrial company specialising in paints and wood products. All three stocks are high-priced and saw confident gains of 3-4%, which had a notable impact on the Dow Jones, where the index is calculated as a simple average rather than a weighted one. As a result, the index delivered an impressive performance. Just a bit more – and the old Dow could also be hitting record highs, following its younger siblings, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ.
Indexes in the ITS family also posted slight losses, pulling back from recent highs. The global ITS World Index (ITSW) slipped 0.27%, while the Islamic index ITS Shariah (ITSS) lost a bit more – down 0.61%.
Notably, the top performers in the ITSS index on Tuesday were leading pharmaceutical companies – Merck & Co Inc. (MRK), AbbVie (ABBV), and AstraZeneca (AZN). More broadly, healthcare and pharmaceutical stocks held up well. The Healthcare sector was among the day’s top performers, second only to Basic Materials. These were the only two sectors where average daily gains exceeded 1%: +1.4% for materials and +1.06% for healthcare.
That is a positive signal, as healthcare stocks have lagged in recent months. Over the past quarter, they were among the few to finish in the red, with an average decline of 3.6%. Only oil and gas companies fared worse, with losses exceeding 5% (-5.4%). Now, it seems healthcare stocks may be starting to recover lost ground.
Overall, Tuesday was a fairly typical day. A pause after setting new highs was expected – and it fits neatly into the market’s broader narrative.