Stock Market Today: July 14, 2026 — CPI Cools, Tech Rallies, IBM Craters 25%

The Trading Day at a Glance — July 14, 2026

US stocks closed higher on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, as a cooler-than-expected June inflation print overshadowed a historic single-day collapse in IBM shares. The S&P 500 rose 28.25 points, or 0.38%, to close at 7,543.59. The Nasdaq Composite led the major averages, gaining roughly 233.8 points, or 0.9%, to finish at 26,107.01 as semiconductor and AI-infrastructure names rallied. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was essentially flat, adding just 9.63 points (+0.02%) to 52,508.27, held back almost entirely by IBM's crash. The Russell 2000 gained 11.60 points, or 0.39%, to 2,964.76. The dominant theme: a "double print" day where soft CPI data and blowout bank earnings drove a broad risk-on rally in growth stocks, even as a single mega-cap profit warning nearly wiped out the Dow's gains on its own.

VIX, Yields, Dollar, and Commodities

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 0.63 points, or 3.67%, to close at 16.53 as the cooler inflation print calmed hedging demand. The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up roughly 2 basis points to about 4.63%, holding near Monday's levels as reflation risk from the Iran-driven oil spike offset the disinflationary CPI surprise. The ICE US Dollar Index eased to around 100.8, down modestly from Monday's 100.9. WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) climbed roughly 2.4% to settle near $78.60 a barrel, with Brent crude up about 2% near $85, as the Strait of Hormuz standoff extended into a second day — Iran's Revolutionary Guard closed the strait again over the weekend after US strikes hit more than 80 targets inside Iran, and the Trump administration's new 20% cargo transit fee kept a geopolitical premium in the market. Gold futures (GC=F) slipped roughly 1% to around $4,065 per ounce, giving back some of Monday's safe-haven bid as risk appetite returned to equities.

July 14, 2026 Sector Performance

Energy and technology led the tape — oil-driven gains for XLE and a chip-led rally for XLK — while defensive sectors including health care, staples, and real estate lagged as capital rotated toward growth and cyclicals on the soft CPI print.

XLE led all 11 sectors, up 3.2% as WTI crude extended its Strait of Hormuz-driven spike, pushing the sector to +32.7% year-to-date. XLK was close behind at +1.29%, with semiconductor strength offsetting the IBM-driven enterprise-software selloff elsewhere in tech, and remains up 27.8% for the year. XLV was the day's laggard, down 1.93%, as money rotated out of defensives; XLP (-1.38%) and XLB (-0.8%) also lagged in a session where six of 11 sectors advanced.

July 14, 2026 Biggest Stock Movers

IBM -25%. IBM logged the worst single-day decline in its history — surpassing its prior record of -23.7% set on Black Monday, October 19, 1987 — after disclosing preliminary Q2 results well short of expectations: adjusted EPS of $2.93 versus a $3.01 consensus, and revenue of $17.2 billion versus $17.86 billion expected. CEO Arvind Krishna pinned the shortfall on software and infrastructure weakness as enterprise clients diverted capital spending toward hardware — servers, storage, and memory — ahead of expected price increases. The warning triggered a sympathy selloff across enterprise software and IT services, dragging down NOW (-7% to -8%), CRM (-5%), ACN (roughly -4%), and CTSH (-7%).

GS (Goldman Sachs) +9.16%. Goldman posted one of its biggest earnings beats in years: EPS of $20.98 versus a $14.10 consensus, and net revenue of $20.3 billion versus $16.4 billion expected, driven by outsized equity-trading gains and a smaller boost from FICC and investment banking. The stock's double-digit percentage move made it the best-performing member of the Dow.

TSEM (Tower Semiconductor) +11.36%. Tower jumped after announcing a $3 billion expansion of its Japan chipmaking capacity, backed by a $1 billion grant from the Japanese government, to build out 300mm silicon photonics, silicon-germanium, and advanced optical packaging lines — a bet on continued AI-infrastructure demand that helped power the broader semiconductor rally.

CLSK (CleanSpark) +15.6%. CleanSpark surged after signing a 20-year infrastructure lease with an investment-grade technology company at its Georgia data-center campus, with the deal expected to generate roughly $6.6 billion in contracted revenue over its initial term — and as much as $11.6 billion if two five-year extension options are exercised.

C (Citigroup) -4%. Citigroup beat on every headline number — EPS of $3.15 versus a $2.74 consensus and $24.8 billion in revenue, its best quarter in a decade, on record equity-trading results — and still sold off. Shares spiked to an intraday high of $144.29 before reversing to close near $134, even after management paired the report with a $30 billion buyback authorization and a 12% dividend increase. Citigroup's CFO acknowledged the bank's equities franchise still trails larger rivals, a "sell the news" reaction despite the numbers.

What Moved the Stock Market July 14, 2026

The session was dominated by a rare "double print" — Q2 bank earnings landing the same morning as June CPI. The Consumer Price Index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in June, the largest one-month drop since April 2020, pulling annual inflation down to 3.5% from May's 4.2% and well below the 3.8% forecast. Core CPI (ex-food and energy) came in flat on the month, cooling the annual rate to 2.6% from 2.9%, also below the 2.8% estimate. Energy prices fell 5.7% for the month, the largest contributor to the headline decline, reflecting conditions during the June collection period before the US-Iran ceasefire frayed again over the weekend. That geopolitical thread carried into Tuesday's session: Iran's Revolutionary Guard kept the Strait of Hormuz shut following the weekend's US strikes, and Washington's new 20% cargo transit fee kept crude bid even as equities rallied on the inflation data.

Earnings Highlights: Bank Earnings Blowout, IBM Warning

Q2 2026 earnings season opened in force Tuesday with five money-center banks reporting before the bell. JPM (JPMorgan Chase) delivered one of its largest beats in recent history — EPS of $6.14 versus a $5.85 consensus and revenue of $58.02 billion versus $50.19 billion expected — sending shares up 2.5%. GS blew past estimates as detailed above, while BAC (Bank of America) notched its fifth straight quarterly EPS beat at $1.21 versus consensus (roughly 7.7% above expectations) on $31.6 billion in revenue, with shares up 1.93%. On the downside, IBM's preliminary Q2 warning was the day's dominant single-stock story, wiping out roughly a quarter of the company's market value and serving as the first large-scale, quantifiable evidence that AI-driven memory and hardware spending is reallocating corporate IT budgets away from software and services vendors.

What to Watch Tomorrow — July 15, 2026

• June PPI, 8:30am ET — the producer-price counterpart to Tuesday's soft CPI print, another read on whether the disinflation trend is broadening.
• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first congressional testimony, before the Senate Banking Committee at 10am ET — markets will parse his tone on rate policy after Tuesday's cooler inflation data.
• MS (Morgan Stanley) earnings before the open — analysts expect EPS of $2.73, up 28.2% year-over-year, capping the first wave of bank earnings.
• Strait of Hormuz developments — continued escalation or a fresh ceasefire attempt between the US and Iran will likely keep whipsawing oil and energy-sector performance into Wednesday's session.