Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] A "buy the dip" disposition has the major averages ticking higher amid a relatively quiet morning from a headlines and earnings perspective. 

The information technology sector (+2.0%) is the strongest-performing S&P 500 sector so far, just a few basis points away from negating its 2.1% loss on Friday.

The sector's largest component, NVIDIA (NVDA 177.80, +4.08, +2.4%), reclaimed all of its own Friday losses, as chipmakers are one of many points of strength this morning. 

The PHLX Semiconductor Index is up 1.5% and now trims its month-to-date losses to just 0.1% after last week's slide. 

Elsewhere in the sector, Apple (AAPL 206.32, +3.94, 2.0%) sees early strength after Bloomberg reported that the company is seeking to develop an in-house AI similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Factory orders slumped 4.8% month-over-month in June (Briefing.com consensus: -5.1%) following an upwardly revised 8.3% increase (from 8.2%) in May. Excluding transportation, factory orders increased 0.4% month-over-month following a 0.3% increase in May. Shipments of manufactured goods jumped 0.5% on the heels of a 0.2% increase in May.

The key takeaway from the report is that the weakness in factory orders in June was largely concentrated in transportation equipment orders, so the headline isn't as bad as it appears at first blush; however, some extra attention will be paid next month to new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft—a proxy for business spending—to see if the weakness in June (-0.8%), which followed a 1.9% increase in May, persists.