Five straight losing sessions had left investors twitchy heading into Monday's open.
Then the bid showed up, the megacaps lit up green, and by the close the S&P 500 (SPX | ???1.20%) and the Nasdaq (COMPX | ???2.07%) had stitched together their cleanest day in two weeks. But strip the chart back one layer and the more interesting story isn't the rebound, it's the one giant that refused to participate.
Microsoft is sliding toward its worst calendar month since the global financial crisis, and the market gave it no relief on a day when relief was on tap for everyone else.
The Rundown
- A broad tech rebound lifted all three major US indices after a brutal five-session stretch, with semis and megacaps doing the heavy lifting.
- Two index reshuffles dominated headlines, one of the world's largest companies joined the Dow, and a high-profile space name graduated into both the Russell 1000 and (soon) the Nasdaq 100.
- An eight-billion-dollar deal reshaped the satellite-connectivity landscape and gave a private-launch competitor something to think about.
- The software giant everyone thought was untouchable is on track for its worst month since 2008, and contrarian money is starting to circle.
The Bounce That Didn't Quite Include Everyone
After last week's tech-led drawdown, Monday was supposed to be the relief day. Mostly, it was. The Dow Jones (DJI | ???0.59%) joined the move higher in slightly more reluctant fashion, but the Nasdaq's two percent print told the cleaner story, the dip-buyers showed up where they had retreated last week.
The session's standouts were the names that had taken the deepest cuts. TESLA INC (TSLA | ???8.46%) led the megacap charge with a chunky single-day move that owed more to oversold positioning than to any specific catalyst. ALPHABET INC-CL A (GOOGL | ???4.82%) and AMAZON.COM INC (AMZN | ???3.20%) both posted high-single-digit gains in sympathy.
The chip complex bounced too, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed nearly four percent higher after spending the morning underwater. NVIDIA CORP (NVDA | ???1.27%) was the calmer presence in that group, and MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC (MU | ???1.14%) clawed its way back from a nine-percent intraday hole to finish in the green.
What was missing? The largest software company in the world.
Microsoft Is Now a Standalone Story
MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT | ???1.18%) closed lower on a day when its peers were ripping. That's not a one-session anomaly, it's the continuation of a pattern that has now built into something genuinely uncomfortable for shareholders.
The stock is down roughly 20% on the month and close to 25% year-to-date. Both of those figures are notable on their own. Stacked together, they put June on track to be the worst calendar month for Microsoft since the financial crisis. Half a trillion dollars of market cap has evaporated in four weeks.
The bear case is no mystery at this point. Investors are second-guessing the company's capital allocation around AI, datacenter and infrastructure spend is running at a pace that demands a fast and visible return, and that return has not yet shown up in the operating numbers the way the spending has shown up in the balance sheet.
The deeper anxiety is more existential: if AI native-tools eat into the productivity-software franchise that built the modern Microsoft, what exactly is the floor under the multiple?
The operating results are still solid. That's the disconnect. And it's why familiar contrarian names - Michael Burry and Bill Ackman among them - have moved into the stock as the selling pressure has compressed the valuation to levels we haven't seen in years. So far, the broader market has been content to let them sit on those positions alone. Monday was just another data point in that trend.
Index Reshuffles Steal Half the Headlines
Two index changes did most of the talking outside the price tape itself. Alphabet officially joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday, taking the slot vacated by VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC (VZ | ???5.24%). Verizon's exit was punctuated by an ugly preannouncement, the company flagged an expected loss of $700 to $800 million for the second quarter, tied to its classification of certain assets from the British BT Group joint venture as held-for-sale. Two separate stories, one bad day for the same name.
SPACE EXPLORATION TECHN-CL A (SPCX | ???7.15%) had its own debut. Monday was its first session in the Russell 1000, and the stock will be added to the Nasdaq 100 ahead of the open on July 7. That second inclusion is the one that matters mechanically, passive ETF demand follows Nasdaq-100 membership, and the implied flow is meaningful for a name of this size. The shares moved accordingly.
Eight Billion Dollars to Take a Run at the Satellite Incumbent
The session's biggest single corporate event came from the space sector. ROCKET LAB CORP (RKLB | ???15.93%) announced an $8 billion enterprise-value acquisition of IRIDIUM COMMUNICATIONS INC (IRDM | ???25.44%), paying $54 per share in a cash-and-stock structure. The deal is expected to close around mid-2027 and would be Rocket Lab's largest transaction by a wide margin.
The strategic logic is straightforward enough to understand without parsing the fine print. By combining its own launch capacity with Iridium's established satellite network, Rocket Lab becomes a vertically integrated player aimed squarely at the direct-to-smartphone satellite-connectivity market, a category currently dominated by SpaceX and increasingly contested by Amazon's Kuiper project.
The market read it as a credible move. Iridium investors got the cleaner side of the trade with a 25 percent pop; Rocket Lab still managed a 16 percent gain of its own, which tells you the equity market is comfortable with the price tag.
Comcast Spins, Charter Connects, Strategy Pivots
COMCAST CORP-CLASS A (CMCSA | ???4.53%) confirmed it is separating its media operations - NBCUniversal and Sky - into a standalone entity over the next twelve months or so. Mike Cavanagh, currently co-CEO, will run the spun-off media business.
Former CFO Michael Angelakis takes the helm of the remaining telecom side. The reorganization is the kind of move investors have been quietly asking for, and the tape rewarded it.
CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS INC-A (CHTR | ???9.38%) had an even better day, on the back of a Bloomberg report from Friday confirming exclusive discussions between Charter and SpaceX on a consumer telephony product.
The shape of the deal would have Charter routing part of SpaceX's mobile traffic through its own internet infrastructure, a structure that creates a fresh, defensible revenue stream for the cable operator at a moment when the core business is mature.
STRATEGY INC (MSTR | ???12.60%) - the company formerly known as MicroStrategy - also had a meaningful session. Management presented a new capital framework that includes board authorization to sell up to $1.25 billion in bitcoin under specified conditions, intended to support its preferred-share program and broaden its capital toolkit.
The bitcoin price stabilized around $60,000 on the day. The stock has been roughly halved since this time last year, mostly tracking the underlying token, so a session like this one is welcome, but it doesn't reverse the trend.
The Other Side of the Tape
Not every name participated in the rebound. TOPBUILD CORP (BLD | ???15.45%) put up its worst day since March 2020 as positioning begins to clear ahead of the QXO acquisition announced back in April. Deal-arb spreads tightening this aggressively are almost always positioning-driven, but a 15 percent move is large enough that I'd want to understand whether anything has changed in the regulatory backdrop.
Macro: Oil Settles, the Calendar Tightens, the Jobs Print Looms
Crude rebounded modestly. WTI added 2.2 percent to $70.75, holding near pre-conflict levels and supported by the weekend ceasefire announcement between Washington and Tehran. President Trump confirmed that fresh negotiations would take place in Doha on Tuesday at Iran's request. Treasury yields stayed close to home and the euro firmed slightly to 1.1425 against the dollar.
The week ahead is back-loaded. JOLTS job openings land on Tuesday, the ADP private-payrolls report on Wednesday, and the headline nonfarm payrolls print on Thursday. Friday's session is closed for the Fourth of July observance, which compresses everything into the first three days. Expect liquidity to thin out as the week progresses.
Bottom Line
Monday delivered the bounce the market was hoping for, but it also reminded us that not all megacap names are interchangeable any more.
Microsoft sitting out a session like this one is the kind of detail that nags. The broader index moves are real, the rotation into space, satellite-connectivity, and bitcoin-adjacent names tells a story about where the marginal capital wants to go, and the index reshuffles add a clean mechanical tailwind to two specific tickers heading into July. But the Microsoft drawdown is becoming a thesis test in its own right.
The question I'd be asking myself heading into the second half: do I believe the contrarian buyers know something the tape doesn't, or is the tape telling me the AI capital cycle is repricing the largest software franchise on the planet? Both can be true. They cannot both be true forever.
ChartMill Market Desk - Kristoff
With regard to the stocks discussed in the article above; the author owns individual shares in Microsoft and Nvidia.
This daily update is prepared by ChartMill for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
Read full article here »
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Big Tech Catches a Bid But Microsoft Is Walking Toward Its Worst Month Since 2008
Five straight losing sessions had left investors twitchy heading into Monday's open.
Then the bid showed up, the megacaps lit up green, and by the close the S&P 500 (SPX | ???1.20%) and the Nasdaq (COMPX | ???2.07%) had stitched together their cleanest day in two weeks. But strip the chart back one layer and the more interesting story isn't the rebound, it's the one giant that refused to participate.
Microsoft is sliding toward its worst calendar month since the global financial crisis, and the market gave it no relief on a day when relief was on tap for everyone else.
The Rundown
The Bounce That Didn't Quite Include Everyone
After last week's tech-led drawdown, Monday was supposed to be the relief day. Mostly, it was. The Dow Jones (DJI | ???0.59%) joined the move higher in slightly more reluctant fashion, but the Nasdaq's two percent print told the cleaner story, the dip-buyers showed up where they had retreated last week.
The session's standouts were the names that had taken the deepest cuts. TESLA INC (TSLA | ???8.46%) led the megacap charge with a chunky single-day move that owed more to oversold positioning than to any specific catalyst. ALPHABET INC-CL A (GOOGL | ???4.82%) and AMAZON.COM INC (AMZN | ???3.20%) both posted high-single-digit gains in sympathy.
The chip complex bounced too, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed nearly four percent higher after spending the morning underwater. NVIDIA CORP (NVDA | ???1.27%) was the calmer presence in that group, and MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC (MU | ???1.14%) clawed its way back from a nine-percent intraday hole to finish in the green.
What was missing? The largest software company in the world.
Microsoft Is Now a Standalone Story
MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT | ???1.18%) closed lower on a day when its peers were ripping. That's not a one-session anomaly, it's the continuation of a pattern that has now built into something genuinely uncomfortable for shareholders.
The stock is down roughly 20% on the month and close to 25% year-to-date. Both of those figures are notable on their own. Stacked together, they put June on track to be the worst calendar month for Microsoft since the financial crisis. Half a trillion dollars of market cap has evaporated in four weeks.
The bear case is no mystery at this point. Investors are second-guessing the company's capital allocation around AI, datacenter and infrastructure spend is running at a pace that demands a fast and visible return, and that return has not yet shown up in the operating numbers the way the spending has shown up in the balance sheet.
The deeper anxiety is more existential: if AI native-tools eat into the productivity-software franchise that built the modern Microsoft, what exactly is the floor under the multiple?
The operating results are still solid. That's the disconnect. And it's why familiar contrarian names - Michael Burry and Bill Ackman among them - have moved into the stock as the selling pressure has compressed the valuation to levels we haven't seen in years. So far, the broader market has been content to let them sit on those positions alone. Monday was just another data point in that trend.
Index Reshuffles Steal Half the Headlines
Two index changes did most of the talking outside the price tape itself. Alphabet officially joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday, taking the slot vacated by VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC (VZ | ???5.24%). Verizon's exit was punctuated by an ugly preannouncement, the company flagged an expected loss of $700 to $800 million for the second quarter, tied to its classification of certain assets from the British BT Group joint venture as held-for-sale. Two separate stories, one bad day for the same name.
SPACE EXPLORATION TECHN-CL A (SPCX | ???7.15%) had its own debut. Monday was its first session in the Russell 1000, and the stock will be added to the Nasdaq 100 ahead of the open on July 7. That second inclusion is the one that matters mechanically, passive ETF demand follows Nasdaq-100 membership, and the implied flow is meaningful for a name of this size. The shares moved accordingly.
Eight Billion Dollars to Take a Run at the Satellite Incumbent
The session's biggest single corporate event came from the space sector. ROCKET LAB CORP (RKLB | ???15.93%) announced an $8 billion enterprise-value acquisition of IRIDIUM COMMUNICATIONS INC (IRDM | ???25.44%), paying $54 per share in a cash-and-stock structure. The deal is expected to close around mid-2027 and would be Rocket Lab's largest transaction by a wide margin.
The strategic logic is straightforward enough to understand without parsing the fine print. By combining its own launch capacity with Iridium's established satellite network, Rocket Lab becomes a vertically integrated player aimed squarely at the direct-to-smartphone satellite-connectivity market, a category currently dominated by SpaceX and increasingly contested by Amazon's Kuiper project.
The market read it as a credible move. Iridium investors got the cleaner side of the trade with a 25 percent pop; Rocket Lab still managed a 16 percent gain of its own, which tells you the equity market is comfortable with the price tag.
Comcast Spins, Charter Connects, Strategy Pivots
COMCAST CORP-CLASS A (CMCSA | ???4.53%) confirmed it is separating its media operations - NBCUniversal and Sky - into a standalone entity over the next twelve months or so. Mike Cavanagh, currently co-CEO, will run the spun-off media business.
Former CFO Michael Angelakis takes the helm of the remaining telecom side. The reorganization is the kind of move investors have been quietly asking for, and the tape rewarded it.
CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS INC-A (CHTR | ???9.38%) had an even better day, on the back of a Bloomberg report from Friday confirming exclusive discussions between Charter and SpaceX on a consumer telephony product.
The shape of the deal would have Charter routing part of SpaceX's mobile traffic through its own internet infrastructure, a structure that creates a fresh, defensible revenue stream for the cable operator at a moment when the core business is mature.
STRATEGY INC (MSTR | ???12.60%) - the company formerly known as MicroStrategy - also had a meaningful session. Management presented a new capital framework that includes board authorization to sell up to $1.25 billion in bitcoin under specified conditions, intended to support its preferred-share program and broaden its capital toolkit.
The bitcoin price stabilized around $60,000 on the day. The stock has been roughly halved since this time last year, mostly tracking the underlying token, so a session like this one is welcome, but it doesn't reverse the trend.
The Other Side of the Tape
Not every name participated in the rebound. TOPBUILD CORP (BLD | ???15.45%) put up its worst day since March 2020 as positioning begins to clear ahead of the QXO acquisition announced back in April. Deal-arb spreads tightening this aggressively are almost always positioning-driven, but a 15 percent move is large enough that I'd want to understand whether anything has changed in the regulatory backdrop.
Macro: Oil Settles, the Calendar Tightens, the Jobs Print Looms
Crude rebounded modestly. WTI added 2.2 percent to $70.75, holding near pre-conflict levels and supported by the weekend ceasefire announcement between Washington and Tehran. President Trump confirmed that fresh negotiations would take place in Doha on Tuesday at Iran's request. Treasury yields stayed close to home and the euro firmed slightly to 1.1425 against the dollar.
The week ahead is back-loaded. JOLTS job openings land on Tuesday, the ADP private-payrolls report on Wednesday, and the headline nonfarm payrolls print on Thursday. Friday's session is closed for the Fourth of July observance, which compresses everything into the first three days. Expect liquidity to thin out as the week progresses.
Bottom Line
Monday delivered the bounce the market was hoping for, but it also reminded us that not all megacap names are interchangeable any more.
Microsoft sitting out a session like this one is the kind of detail that nags. The broader index moves are real, the rotation into space, satellite-connectivity, and bitcoin-adjacent names tells a story about where the marginal capital wants to go, and the index reshuffles add a clean mechanical tailwind to two specific tickers heading into July. But the Microsoft drawdown is becoming a thesis test in its own right.
The question I'd be asking myself heading into the second half: do I believe the contrarian buyers know something the tape doesn't, or is the tape telling me the AI capital cycle is repricing the largest software franchise on the planet? Both can be true. They cannot both be true forever.
ChartMill Market Desk - Kristoff
With regard to the stocks discussed in the article above; the author owns individual shares in Microsoft and Nvidia.
This daily update is prepared by ChartMill for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
Read full article here »