Wall Street Ends Higher as Investors Look Past Jobs Revision and Digest Apple

U.S. stocks closed mostly higher Tuesday, with gains in large-cap benchmarks offsetting weakness in small caps, as investors weighed sweeping labor market revisions against expectations for Federal Reserve policy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 196.64 points, or 0.43%, to 45,711.6, marking a third consecutive advance. The S&P 500 added 17.52 points, or 0.27%, to finish at 6,512.67, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 80.79 points, or 0.37%, to 21,879.5. In contrast, the Russell 2000 small-cap index slipped 1.41 points, or 0.59%, to 236.84, reflecting continued pressure on economically sensitive shares.

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The moves came after the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its annual payroll benchmark revision trimming nearly 911,000 jobs from the 12 months through March. That revision, the largest preliminary markdown since 2000, confirmed that the labor market has been cooler than initially reported

Markets, however, largely shrugged at the reset. “Mega-cap momentum steadied the tape, while small caps underperformed and cyclicals weakened,” according to the BLS-focused briefing, signaling that growth-sensitive corners of the market are showing strain. Treasury yields edged higher, underscoring that investors remain focused on upcoming inflation reports and the Federal Reserve’s policy path rather than on backward-looking employment data.

Attention now turns to next week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, where investors are pricing in roughly a quarter-point rate cut in September and more than 70 basis points of easing by year-end. Analysts caution that only a decisive re-acceleration in CPI and PPI—particularly in core services and goods—could derail that outlook.

On the corporate front, Apple (AAPL) captured headlines with the debut of its iPhone 17 lineup, highlighted by the new iPhone Air. The $999 device, reported by Yahoo Finance as “the biggest changes to the iPhone since the iPhone X in 2017,” features a titanium frame, a thinner 5.6 mm profile, and the new A19 Pro chip. With the iPhone accounting for more than $200 billion in annual revenue, the redesign is expected to be central to Apple’s growth strategy heading into 2026.

Apple's Keynote delivered the expected hardware polish—thinner iPhone Air, beefier Pro camera stack, new A19 Pro and in-house N1 wireless silicon—yet the stock slid into the close, tracking its well-known pattern of rallying into event day and leaking afterward. The two swing factors were iPhone pricing and AI signaling, and both landed more cautiously than a hype-soaked tape was hoping. On pricing, Apple kept the mass-market anchors familiar at $799 for the iPhone 17 and $999 for the Air, while lifting the entry-level Pro tier to $1,099 with a higher base of 256GB storage.

That adjustment could modestly raise average selling prices without forcing most Pro buyers to alter behavior, but it leaves open questions about tariff absorption, cost structures, and elasticity at the high end. Meanwhile, Apple’s AI messaging remained restrained: plenty of silicon horsepower, little in the way of a new monetization hook. The absence of a flagship assistant upgrade or near-term services upsell weighed on sentiment, with shares reversing 1–2% from intraday highs as pricing details and muted AI signals set in. For now, investors are left waiting for pre-order data, carrier promos, and the next margin outlook to gauge whether the strategy preserves growth or compresses profitability.

Tuesday’s session underscored the market’s narrow breadth: technology giants lifted headline indices while smaller companies faltered. Unless inflation data delivers an unwelcome surprise, investors appear positioned for gradual easing, with leadership concentrated in large-cap growth.