The artificial-intelligence trade was mounting something of a comeback on Thursday as investors got over the worst of their fears about the flare-up in tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

The benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were up 0.4% each. Wall Street believes it's still in both sides' best interest to agree to a truce, even after President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the cease-fire was "over."

Some of 2026's best performers were benefiting from the improvement in sentiment. Lumentum Holdings, the optical networking stock that has more than doubled this year, rose 11% to lead the S&P 500.

Semiconductor companies KLA and Applied Materials were close behind, gaining 7.5% and 8.3%, respectively. Lam Research was 6.7% higher.

Glassmaker Corning, which has transformed into a burgeoning data-center infrastructure play, added 8.3%. Memory-chip makers and data-storage stocks were broadly rising: Western Digital, Micron Technology, and Sandisk each advanced more than 7%, while Seagate Technology rose 6.6%.

Broadcom was 1.4% higher, adding to gains from the previous session after Apple said it plans to invest more than $30 billion in an extended partnership with the chip maker.

These stocks also were making moves:

AstraZeneca slumped 7.1% in the U.S. after the British pharmaceutical company said that its gene silencing drug Wainua failed to meet the primary efficacy endpoint in a late-stage trial. Ionis Pharmaceuticals, the biotech co-developing Wainua, cratered 20%, while rival drugmaker Alnylam Pharmaceuticals jumped 8.5%.

PepsiCo fell 4.5% after the maker of beverages and snacks said it had lost market share in North America, overshadowing a second-quarter earnings beat.

Levi Strauss rose 1% after the jeans designer beat analysts' second-quarter earnings target. The company also raised its full-year outlook, although by less than Wall Street was expecting.

Salesforce declined 2.6% after KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader downgraded the software company to Sector Weight from Overweight, citing doubts that its Agentforce AI platform will lift the stock.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com and Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 09, 2026 10:58 ET (14:58 GMT)

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