July 10th Market Overview

Happy Friday

Market closed the week higher, big tech doing most of the lifting.

SK Hynix's U.S. ipo today gave folks a fresh way to play the memory chip boom. I like seeing risk appetite hold up, but the Middle East is still the part of this market I cannot ignore, the constant shaky headlines this deep into the year are a real concern. I can’t even count how many ceasefires haven’t worked out and the market seems to feel similar at this point.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. SK Hynix's Debut Reshuffled The Chip Trade
   SK Hynix priced at $149, opened at $170, and raised $26.5 billion, the largest U.S. listing a foreign company has ever done. The catch: Micron and the other memory names slipped as buyers rotated into the new name. The AI trade isn't fading. It's just picking new favorites.
   

2. The Week Ended Green, Iran And All
   The S&P and Nasdaq closed out a winning week even as the U.S. and Iran traded fire again. That's the tell worth noticing: the market is treating the conflict as a headline, not a threat to earnings. Nvidia and Meta did most of the lifting.
   

3. Oil Slipped As Iran Talks Restarted
   Oil eased today after Qatar and Pakistan helped nudge the U.S. and Iran back toward the table. Bigger picture, the IEA now sees global oil demand falling this year, the first drop since 2020. Keep in mind, inventories are thin, so any flare-up still moves prices fast.

Market Overview

Index Performance (Korean exchange today)

Stock Spotlight

Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 3.53% )  
helped carry the market higher. It's one of SK Hynix's biggest memory customers, so today's debut was a quiet vote for its whole supply chain.

Delta Air Lines $DAL ( ▼ 1.63% )  
beat on revenue and profit, but the stock still fell. Its fuel bill hit nearly $2 billion, the highest ever. The offset: its own Pennsylvania refinery has brought in $2.09 billion this year on strong margins.

Meta Platforms $META ( ▲ 6.2% )  
had its best week since early 2024. Bank of America thinks its AI buildout may cost far less than feared, closer to $22 billion per gigawatt versus an earlier $45 billion guess.

Big Name Updates

Circle Internet Group $CRCL ( ▲ 4.86% )  
won approval to run a national trust bank. That lets it eventually hold the reserves behind its USDC stablecoin itself, instead of parking them at outside banks.

Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 1.81% )  
lost a credit notch from S&P, down to one step above junk. The agency pointed at Oracle's heavy spending and how much it leans on OpenAI as a customer.

PepsiCo $PEP ( ▼ 0.38% )  
got cut to neutral by Citi, which also trimmed its price target. The bank sees no quick fix for soft food and drink sales in North America.

Other Notable Company News

EasyJet $EZJ ( ▲ 2.39% )  
agreed to a $7.6 billion buyout from Apollo, dropping an earlier deal with Castlelake.

Vodafone $VOD ( ▲ 12.54% )  
has a new top shareholder after French billionaire Xavier Niel bought E&'s stake for $5.95 billion.

J.B. Hunt $JBHT ( ▼ 0.95% )  
drew an outperform upgrade from Bernstein, with a $329 target, on a bet that truck rates turn higher.

WD-40 $WDFC ( ▲ 11.36% )  
beat on earnings and raised its full-year outlook.

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Sector Watch

Bond Market

The ten-year Treasury yield barely moved and the dollar sat flat. T. Rowe Price's Adam Marden said to expect sharper swings in shorter-dated Treasurys as the Fed gets more reactive to each data print.

Policy Watch

Fed

The Fed told Congress it's still set on getting inflation down. Warsh isn't tipping his hand on the next rate move.

Housing

Trump says he won't sign the housing affordability bill, calling it a protest over a separate voting bill. It becomes law anyway.

• A bill can pass after a 10-day waiting period even without a signature.

• It's meant to make homebuilding easier and widen mortgage access.

• It also reins in big corporate buyers of single-family homes.

Energy

Trump promoted a "Freedom Fuel Network" of cheaper gas stations as pump prices climb. Prices are ticking up partly on Ukrainian strikes against Russian refineries, with the midterms under four months out.

Iran

Qatar and Pakistan are working to restart U.S.-Iran talks. An administration official said the technical talks continue even after both sides resumed strikes this week.

What to Watch

The AI company quietly automating every Walmart distribution center. 
23 billion in orders on the book.

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Warsh On Capitol Hill
Fed Chair Warsh testifies to the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Wednesday. Traders will hang on any hint about inflation or the next rate move, even if he rarely gives one.

SK Hynix's Real Test
SK Hynix moves to its permanent ticker $SKHY on Monday, with options starting Tuesday. That's when we find out if the debut had legs or was just opening-day hype.

Boeing's Max 7 Decision
The FAA could sign off on Boeing's 737 Max 7 later this month. That would finally clear the smallest Max jet for passengers after years of delays.

- John

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