July 20th Pre-Market Brief

Good Morning

Green to start the week, which is a nice change of pace after Friday left a mark. Oil poked above $90 overnight, then Iran said maybe we'll talk, and by the time I sat down it had all faded. Nothing on the calendar today and nothing from the Fed till next week, so really we're all just sitting on our hands until big earnings start happening Wednesday (GOOG, TSLA).

Let's dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. This Chip Bounce Has No Owner

Chips are green, but don't mistake that for buyers coming back. Look at what happened in Korea overnight. Their market got hit hard as retail traders were forced out of leveraged Samsung and SK Hynix positions, and regulators jacked up the cash needed to trade those products by ten times. That's not sentiment cooling off. That's the most crowded trade on earth being pried apart by margin calls. What we're seeing here this morning is mostly shorts closing out, and that kind of bounce doesn't hold on its own. It needs Wednesday's earnings to give it a real reason.

2. You could be Watching The Wrong Oil Screen

Everyone's got crude pulled up, and crude looks fine. It spiked past $90 overnight, then gave it all back when Iran hinted at talks. But the pressure didn't disappear, it just moved down the chain to the stuff crude turns into. Diesel in Europe is now more expensive relative to crude than it's been since the late 90s, and gas is back over $4 at the pump. Refiners simply can't process fuel fast enough, so the price of the finished product keeps climbing even as the barrel cools. That's your answer for why bond yields ticked up this morning while oil fell. The inflation story is still very much alive. It's just hiding one screen over.

3. Domino's Wrote The Grading Rubric

Domino's $DPZ told a mixed story this morning. Same-store growth is slowing, which a year ago would've sent the stock lower. Instead it's up, because US sales still came in ahead of the decline analysts were bracing for, and order counts grew across both delivery and carryout. Nobody cared about the headline. They cared that people are still ordering pizza. Keep that in your pocket for Wednesday, because it's exactly how Alphabet and Tesla are about to get judged. Demand is the number that moves the stock.

Market Overview

Today’s Sponsor

7 Stocks to Ride The A.I. Megaboom

The next A.I. boom could create massive winners just like the 1990s tech surge.

We identified 7 small tech companies positioned to benefit from the next phase of A.I. growth.

See them inside this free report 7 Stocks to Ride The A.I. Megaboom.

View the 7 Stocks

Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Alibaba $BABA ( ▲ 4.67% )  
Previewed Qwen 3.8 Max over the weekend and claims it trails only Anthropic's top model. Alphabet and every hyperscaler reporting this week now has to defend a spending plan against a rival building near frontier models for less.

Micron $MU ( ▲ 1.95% )  
Leading the chip rebound after last week's washout dragged the group into a bear market.Shorts who pressed semis all week are covering this morning.

SpaceX $SPCX ( ▼ 3.34% )  
Set Thursday evening for its next Starship attempt after last week's scrub, plus reports it's in talks to rent data-center capacity to the Pentagon. Holders sitting on an all time low after six straight red days.

Hut 8 $HUT ( ▲ 10.37% )  
Signed a fifteen year, $9.8 billion lease that fully books its Texas data center.
Who is forced to act: Every other miner turned data center name gets repriced against that contract today, and anyone who doubted these leases were real just lost the argument.

Robinhood $HOOD ( ▼ 0.68% )  
Bernstein raised its target, calling prediction markets a business that could bring in over a billion in revenue by 2028.

Ryanair $RYAAY ( ▼ 5.83% )  
War driven fuel costs cut quarterly profit by a third and management warned of a difficult winter. US airline holders. This is their preview of what higher jet fuel does to margins before domestic carriers report this week.

What to Watch

Upcoming IPO’s?
MarketBeat did an excellent job on this free IPO guide on IPO’s happening this year.

Fed Decision (Next Wednesday)
The Fed goes silent before next week's meeting, so watch fuel instead. Climbing gas and diesel are what's nudging rate bets this week, not anything a policymaker says.

The Inflation Math
The government is revising how it calculates the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, and the revamp is expected to lower the reading. A cooler print from a formula change, right as fuel costs climb, muddies every inflation data point this fall.

- John

Today’s Sponsor

You’re Invited: How To Increase Your After-Tax Investment Returns

If you’re a high earner, your portfolio could be quietly costing you thousands in avoidable taxes. On July 23, join Range’s CFPs and CPAs for a live session on the tax-smart investing moves that matter most in 2026. 

You’ll learn how strategies like tax-loss harvesting, asset location, direct indexing, and withdrawal sequencing can help you grow your after-tax investment returns. Walk away with an action plan you can run immediately. 

Range focuses on comprehensive wealth management — building strategies correlating tax planning, investment management, retirement, and estate planning to build hyper-personalized wealth plans— so nothing slips through the cracks. Bring your questions; our experts will answer them live. Seats are limited.

RSVP to join for free

^{This webinar is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any security. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Range defines "high earners" as households with income over $300k.}