US equities rallied sharply this week. The S&P 500 rose from 7,489.72 to 7,757.64, a gain of 267.92 points or 3.58% for the week. As it happens recently, Technology was the main engine behind it. Excluding the tech sector, the market rose 1.45%.

The S&P 500’s cap-weighted gain of 3.58% exceeded its 2.49% equal-weight gain by 1.09 percentage points. Technology carried 37.78% weight, returning 7.07%, and contributing 200.18 points to the index. Other sectors that made significant gains include Consumer Cyclicals carrying 8.99% weight, returning 2.89% and contributing 19.45 points as well as Industrials carrying 8.42% weight, returning 2.91%, and contributing 18.36 points.

Even within the technology sector, there were winners and losers. NVIDIA [NVDA] was the largest individual S&P contributor for the week, returning 11.56% and adding 68.06 points to the index. Microsoft [MSFT], Broadcom [AVGO], and Palantir [PLTR] joined NVIDIA on the upward trend with each contributing respectively +25.30, +21.03, and +13.11 points. Palantir [PLTR] was an outsized low-weight S&P winner, returning 39.78% at a 0.44% weight and contributing 13.11 points. Western Digital [WDC] (-20.29% for the week), Datadog [DDOG] (-12.70% for the week), and Seagate Technologies [STX] (-5.07% for the week) were the biggest laggards in the tech sector offsetting the index gains with respectively -4.25, -1.24, and -1.14 points.

Below are the top 10 winners outside the Technology sector by their contribution to the index. Though, Meta Platforms, Tesla, and Amazon can hardly be separated from the Technology sector.

The week began with a renewed technology and AI bid where Tuesday’s earnings from Palantir helped revive the AI trade. By Friday, a surprise decline in the US jobs growth shifted attention toward Federal Reserve policy: stocks rose as the softer labor report eased concerns about a near-term rate increase. Both S&P and Dow reported record closes during the week as earnings strength combined with optimism around geopolitical developments in the Middle East.

Looking forward to next week, the macroeconomic events to watch are the Wednesday’s July CPI, Thursday's PPI and jobless claims, and Friday’s retail sales and University of Michigan sentiment and inflation-expectations releases. Friday’s jobs-driven rally shifted the market narrative toward Federal Reserve policy, making the next inflation reading the litmus test of the rates-sensitive optimism. The key question is whether inflation, labor, and demand data reinforce or complicate the rate-policy decision.