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Happy Tuesday
Stocks slipped as Iran peace talks stalled and oil ran back above $93. Tim Cook also handed Apple's keys to hardware chief John Ternus after 15 years. Today felt like the market finally breathing after the straight-line rally.
Let’s dig in...
Today's Big Picture
1. Iran Ceasefire Close To Breaking
The White House paused Vance's trip to Islamabad after Tehran wouldn't commit. Trump said he won't extend the Wednesday deadline and the military is ready. Oil reversed back above $93 WTI. The whole market is trading this one deadline right now.
2. Tim Cook Steps Down After 15 Years
Apple named hardware chief John Ternus as CEO starting September 1. Cook stays on as executive chairman to handle government relations. Apple has already slipped to the third-largest company behind Nvidia and Alphabet because the Street sees it as an AI laggard. Picking a hardware guy tells you Apple is betting on AR glasses and AI devices to climb back.
3. Warsh Hawkish, But Still Might Not Get Confirmed
Kevin Warsh told Senator Kennedy he's "absolutely not" going to be Trump's sock puppet. He also floated a real Fed overhaul: killing forward guidance, fewer press conferences, shrinking the $6.7 trillion balance sheet. Problem is Senator Tillis is still blocking the vote over a DOJ probe of Powell, and Kalshi bettors give Warsh only a one-in-four shot of getting confirmed before Powell's term ends May 15.
P.S. Don’t put off learning about AI, its scary but it’s also exciting and can be helpful and ethically utilized.
Some Friends at Outskill are putting on a free learning workshop this weekend. Check it out and learn some useful new skills.
Market Overview
Index Performance
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Stock Spotlight
Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 1.32% )
is putting another $5 billion into Anthropic now with up to $20 billion more tied to milestones. Anthropic committed to $100 billion on AWS over ten years and locked in 5 gigawatts of Trainium chips.
UnitedHealth $UNH ( ▲ 7.36% )
beat Q1 with $7.23 adjusted EPS on $11.72 billion in revenue. Management hiked full-year guidance by 50 cents. Biggest winner on the tape today.
Intel $INTC ( ▲ 1.32% )
got upgraded to Buy at HSBC with the price target almost doubling to $95. The call is server CPU revenue coming in at $14.2 billion next quarter versus consensus of $13.1 billion.
CrowdStrike $CRWD ( ▲ 3.67% )
got upgraded to overweight at KeyBanc with a $525 target. KeyBanc thinks the fears around Anthropic's new Mythos cybersecurity model are overdone.
Big Name Updates
GE Aerospace $GE ( ▼ 5.54% )
beat by a wide 26 cents and booked $23 billion in orders. CEO Larry Culp told CNBC they'd have raised full-year guidance if not for the Iran war.
Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 0.61% )
got a bullish Bank of America note arguing robotaxi is an early-stage monetization story. BofA calls autonomy the biggest change agent coming to the auto industry.
Meta $META ( ▼ 0.24% )
is installing software to track employee keystrokes, mouse clicks, and screen snapshots to train its AI models. Uncomfortable look.
Other Notable Company News
Colgate-Palmolive $CL ( ▼ 1.9% )
got upgraded to buy at Rothschild with a $100 target. Their take: the war selloff is overdone since most growth comes from regions not really affected.
Spirit Aviation $FLYYQ ( ▲ 136.11% )
doubled after Trump told CNBC he'd "love" to see someone buy the airline.
Avis Budget $CAR ( ▲ 17.52% )
kept squeezing. Two investors effectively control more shares than actually exist once you count synthetics.
AST SpaceMobile $ASTS ( ▼ 1.68% )
had BofA flag risk to its 45-satellite year-end target after losing BlueBird 7. BofA models roughly a seven-satellite shortfall.
Reddit $RDDT ( ▼ 5.68% )
got started at Buy by DA Davidson with a $200 target. The thesis is still under-monetized versus peers.
Sector Watch
Sector | Symbol |
|---|---|
Communication Services | |
Technology | |
Consumer Discretionary | |
Energy | |
Financials | |
Industrials | |
Utilities | |
Materials | |
Real Estate | |
Healthcare | |
Consumer Staples |
Bond Market
The 10-year yield climbed to 4.29 and the 5-year moved 6 basis points higher on Warsh's hawkish tone. The dollar strengthened, which pushed gold back below $4,700.
Tomorrow brings a $22 billion 30-year auction. After today's clean 10-year, this one tells us whether foreign buyers still want long duration at these yields.
Policy Watch
Fed
Trump refused every off-ramp on the DOJ probe of Powell in a pre-hearing CNBC call.
Warsh dodged whether Trump won 2020 when Warren pressed him.
He also refused to weigh in on the Lisa Cook firing case now at the Supreme Court.
Tillis said flatly: drop the investigation and he'll vote Warsh through.
Iran Ceasefire
Vance's trip to Islamabad got paused after Tehran ghosted US negotiating positions. Trump said he's not extending the Wednesday deadline. Zacks' Brian Mulberry still thinks the Strait of Hormuz dispute gets resolved by week's end.
Fiscal & Trade
Trump told CNBC he'll "remember" companies that seek tariff refunds after February's Supreme Court ruling. He also said he'd love someone to buy Spirit Airlines and floated government help on a deal.
International
Bank of Japan expected to hold rates next week, with June 15-16 as the next hike window.
BOJ will likely raise its inflation outlook because of the Iran oil shock.
European Parliament study says Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control roughly three-quarters of the EU cloud market.
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What to Watch
Iran Ceasefire Expires Wednesday Night
Either a deal lands, the military moves, or the truce collapses. Oil will tell the story before the headlines do.
Tillis-Trump Standoff Over The Powell Probe
This is what's actually holding up the Fed chair vote. Either Trump drops the probe or Tillis folds, and nobody's blinking yet.
Thanks for reading - you are now the more informed 🙂
- John
Note: This newsletter is intended for informational purposes only.