5 Things to Watch on
July 2, 2026

Stocks are trading higher by more than +0.3% in premarket despite a weaker-than-expected jobs report, released a day early ahead of the July 4 Independence Day holiday. June nonfarm payrolls came in at 57,000, well below the 114,000 consensus and the prior month's downwardly revised 129,000. The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.2%, beating expectations of 4.3%, while the labor force participation rate slipped to 61.5% from 61.8%.

Apple (AAPL) is planning an ambitious iPhone launch across the second half of this year and first half of 2027, with at least five new models and more foldable handsets than previously expected, as it looks to gain market share amid an industrywide supply crunch. The company has asked suppliers to prepare about 10M foldable iPhones this year, up from an earlier target of 7M-8M units. The push comes as smartphone makers race to broaden foldable lineups, a segment led by Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and Huawei.

OpenAI has found a way to cut its inference computing costs in half, with the efficiency gains reducing the number of Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs needed to serve free ChatGPT users to just a couple hundred. It remains unclear exactly how OpenAI achieved the breakthrough or how long the gains will hold as larger, more resource-intensive models continue rolling out. The news follows Broadcom's (AVGO) unveiling of Jalapeno, the first chip from its OpenAI partnership, built specifically to run inference for large language models, with Celestica (CLS) helping industrialize the platform.

SoftBank Group (SFTBY) and its SoftBank Corp. telecom unit are launching SB Neo, a new U.S. neocloud business set to supply AI computing resources to major enterprises starting next year. SoftBank Corp. will hold 51% and SoftBank Group 49%, with the venture tapping the parent's 10-gigawatt-scale energy and AI buildout to serve hyperscalers with large-scale training and inference capacity. The launch comes a day after SFTBY was reported to be in talks for a $10B margin loan backed by its stake in OpenAI.

Lime (LIME), the bike and scooter rental company formerly known as Neutron Holdings, rose +4% from its $25 IPO price in its trading debut yesterday, opening at $27 per share. The offering raised $167M and valued the company at $1.7B, providing liquidity as roughly $500M in debt comes due by year end. CEO Wayne Ting had flagged doubts about Lime's ability to continue as a going concern in a May SEC filing. Uber (UBER), which holds a 24% stake in LIME, accounted for more than 14% of its 2025 revenue.