July 28th Pre-Market Brief

Nasdaq futures drop while Dow looks set to rise

Author

J.L. Bernstein
July 28, 2026

In partnership with

Good Morning

Samsung and SK Hynix got hit overnight, Korea halted trading twice, and I figured we were in for an ugly one atleast around chips. The dow is carrying the market this AM and looks like chips are their own story with the rest of the market not playing along.

Fed meeting starts today, decision on rates tommorow.

Let's dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Two Stocks Ran Korea's Whole Number

Korea's Kospi halted twice overnight as Samsung and SK Hynix led the selling. Those two are more than half that index, so one sector's rough day wore the whole country's number. The trigger was a report that a Chinese firm has started mass producing the machines that print circuits onto silicon wafers, a market ASML has had to itself. That firm plans five machines this year against ASML's roughly 130, and export controls already blocked most of those sales to China anyway.

2. Sixteen Percent Growth Wasn't Enough

Corning makes the optical fiber that connects AI data centers, and it guided to sixteen percent sales growth. Analysts wanted a sliver more revenue, and that sliver is the whole story: the stock is on pace for its biggest drop since 2002. Microsoft and Meta report Wednesday into that same bar, Apple and Amazon Thursday.

3. The Dow Didn't Get The Memo

Coca-Cola and Sherwin-Williams both beat and raised guidance, and Johnson & Johnson settled 76,000 talc lawsuits. All three are Dow names, which covers most of the gap between the Dow and the Nasdaq this morning. Cheaper oil is pulling Treasury yields down at the same time, and that helps everything outside tech. The VIX sits under nineteen and is falling, so nobody is paying up for protection.

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Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Lower with Korea's memory names, though the specific trigger was broker calls putting the memory price peak in 2027. That gives every hyperscaler negotiating 2027 supply a reason to slow walk contracts, and CXMT's Shanghai debut hands them a second source to point at.

Down on its own headline, the confirmed talks to backstop up to 250 billion dollars of OpenAI's buildout. It is also falling less than the names its news is hurting, which means anyone cutting AI exposure is doing it through memory and equipment stocks. That is where the damage concentrates today.

Lost more than expected on the Air Force One program, then posted positive free cash flow where analysts modeled another burn. Deliveries reached 171 planes for the quarter. Executives on the 10:30 AM ET call have to put dates on Max 7 and 777X certification or explain what is holding them.

Raised its full year profit forecast and reported payment volume of 486 billion dollars for the quarter. That is management arguing the 60.50 per share bid from Stripe and Advent is too low. The pressure moves to the bidders now.

Core Scientific $CORZ ( ▼ 8.84% )  

Higher on an AMD deal that starts at 500 megawatts and could scale toward 2.5 gigawatts. AMD takes warrants in its own customer as part of it, the same structure the market punished Nvidia for on Monday, and AMD is lower this morning regardless.

Reports after the close into a real disagreement. Coca-Cola called the consumer environment dynamic this morning while PepsiCo said budgets tightened last quarter. Visa's payment volume settles which one is right, and every consumer name reporting behind it gets read against that number.

What to Watch

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

Fed Decision (Wednesday, 2:00 PM ET)
Hold is the base case, a hike is live, and the odds read differently depending on which market you check. The option almost nobody is positioned for is neither one: Tom Lee thinks the Fed may shrink its bond holdings instead of moving rates, which tightens conditions without a headline number. Warsh takes questions at 2:30 and he says less than any recent chair.

Trump And Netanyahu Meet On Iran
Oil is falling on the pause and on Iran's talks with Oman and Saudi Arabia about reopening Hormuz. This meeting is the next input, and Iran still denies agreeing to any ceasefire. Cheaper oil is doing real work for stocks through lower yields, so that is the thread that unwinds first.


- John

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Note: This newsletter is intended for informational purposes only. This edition is in partnership with MarketBeat.