Hello. $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ closed up 8.74 per cent on Thursday at US$227.98, and one report called it the largest single-day gain in market value the company has ever made; $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ rose 1.37 per cent. Another headline was blunter: $S&P 500(.SPX)$ was up that day because of Nvidia and nothing else. The other side of it appeared the same day: one report's headline said Nvidia is getting too big, and that this is a problem in itself. An index leaning on a single stock looks good on the way up and works the same way in reverse. The day before, it had fallen first and turned higher only on the 70 per cent growth

Hello. US markets barely moved during Wednesday's session — $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 0.02 per cent and $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ rose 0.09 per cent, with everyone waiting on one set of results after the close. They arrived, and the numbers were better than anyone had expected. Record revenue of US$96.221 billion, up 106 per cent year on year, with data centre revenue up 117 per cent; consensus was about US$92.38 billion, so revenue came in about 4 per cent ahead, and adjusted earnings per share was US$2.22 against US$2.09 expected, about 6.22 per cent ahead. Guidance for the current quarter is about US$108 billion, and revenue in financial year 2028 is expected to grow about 70 per

Hello. Nvidia does not report until after tonight's US close. Not one of Tuesday's five biggest gainers rose because of it. $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ itself closed up 2.19 per cent at US$213.05, snapping a seven-session losing streak, and added 0.29 per cent after hours. The indices rose with it: $S&P 500(.SPX)$ up 0.32 per cent and $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ 0.62 per cent, with coverage noting $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ had posted a third straight triple-digit gain. On the results themselves, the options market is pricing a swing of about US$280 billion in market value, with anothe

Hello. On Monday the chip chain was sold from end to end. $Micron Technology(MU)$ closed down 5.83 per cent at US$910.43, $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$ fell 6.45 per cent, $SK hynix(SKHY)$ 4.92 per cent, $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ 3.49 per cent, $Marvell Technology(MRVL)$ 3.27 per cent and $Intel(INTC)$ 3.12 per cent, while the optical name $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI)$ dropped 13.77 per ce

Hello. Last friday's US session was a quiet one — $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ closed up 0.35 per cent, $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ 0.41 per cent and the Dow 0.98 per cent — though the week as a whole still finished lower. What mattered happened after the close. On 23 August $BABA-W(09988)$ announced and priced a placement of new shares worth HK$80 billion, about US$10.2 billion, sold at an 8.4 per cent discount, with the net proceeds going into full-stack AI infrastructure. That is the fourth such raise in the same week. Intel sold US$20 billion of stock at US$95 a share;

Hello. The Treasury's buyback tool was upsized again, and the bond market bought it for half a day. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said on Thursday that the size of each long-dated Treasury buyback had gone from US$2 billion to at least US$4 billion, and could rise further. The 30-year yield fell as much as 10 basis points and the dollar index weakened — and then the bond market pushed back. The reason is simple enough: buybacks deal with liquidity, while the deficit, inflation and the term premium have not moved at all. There was a new variable that day: the consumer. $S&P 500(.SPX)$ closed down 0.87 per cent and $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ 1.32 per cent, about 600 points — Barro

Hello. The long end, which had been pressing on everything for three days, got held down on Wednesday. The 30-year Treasury yield first set a 19-year high intraday, then turned back after the US Treasury said it would at least double the size of its liquidity support buybacks in 10- to 30-year securities. The 30-year fell as much as 9 basis points to 5.19 per cent, closed near 5.20 per cent, and is down to 5.18 per cent today. But technology did not come back. $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ closed up 0.21 per cent and $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ 0.22 per cent, and most of that came from healthcare while tech kept being sold. One headline put it plainly: the tech sell-off resumed an

Hello. Three companies reported on Tuesday. Put the three side by side and no order makes sense. $Fabrinet(FN)$ beat on revenue by about 3.1 per cent and on earnings per share by about 7.5 per cent, both records — and closed down 19.38 per cent at US$482.59. $Home Depot(HD)$ beat on both lines, posted net sales of about US$47.9 billion and its best comparable sales since 2022, and reaffirmed full-year guidance — and closed down 0.12 per cent. $BIDU-SW(09888)$ missed on both revenue and profit, with earnings per share about 22.7 per cent short — and closed down 12.73 per cent. Full marks fell 19 per cent, a pass fell 0.

Hello. The first thing to move this week was not a set of results. It was policy. The US government spoke up and asked Apple to steer clear of Chinese memory chips. That one request lifted the entire memory chain on Monday. $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$ closed up 8.88 per cent at US$1,786.85, and $Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF(SNXX)$ rose 17.73 per cent in a day. $Micron Technology(MU)$ closed up 4.13 per cent at US$1,011.75, back above US$1,000. $Western Digital(WDC)$ rose 5.35 per cent, $SK hynix(SKHY)$ 3.04 p

Hello. The weekend is over, and the most striking thing left from Friday's close was a pair of numbers pointing opposite ways: $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ up 6.50 per cent, $Broadcom(AVGO)$ down 5.94 per cent. Both are AI chip names, and they spent the day going in different directions. What the market was reading that day was not results. It was second-quarter position disclosures. Stanley Druckenmiller's 13F showed him loading up on Amazon and AMD while dumping a batch of chipmakers, and a Soros fund was adding AMD too, alongside $Micron Technology(MU)$, $Appli

Hello. The last of this week's AI hardware papers came in overnight, and both were sold. $Applied Materials(AMAT)$ earned US$3.50 a share, ahead of forecasts, grew revenue 25 per cent year on year, said AI-related demand hit a record, and guided next-quarter revenue above Wall Street expectations. It closed down 2.48 per cent and fell another 5.13 per cent after hours, to US$507.11. $Coherent(COHR)$ was starker. Its report the previous evening beat on both lines — earnings of US$1.74 a share against US$1.6474 expected, revenue of US$2.046 billion against US$2.025 billion — and it closed down 7.99 per cent yesterday at US$327.23, giving back the whole of the prior day's 8.24

Hello. The figure this market had spent two days sitting still for landed last night, and all four parts of it came in on the nose: July CPI was 3.4 per cent year on year and 0.1 per cent on the month, with the core at 2.5 per cent and 0.2 per cent. Traders trimmed their bets on a September rate rise, with the odds easing to about 33 per cent. The gate opened. The water did not run towards the mega-caps. Of the Magnificent Seven, only $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ rose, up 3.03 per cent. $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ fell 3.38 per cent, $Microsoft(MSFT)$ 2.26 per cent, $Amazon.

Hello. In the last piece Nvidia was out raising up to US$500 billion for AI infrastructure and the market had started asking where the money would come from. Last night we got half an answer: the money is there, but the people putting it up and the people spending it went in opposite directions. The providers all rose: KKR up 6.88 per cent, Apollo 6.26 per cent, Brookfield 4.77 per cent, Blackstone 3.89 per cent and BlackRock 1.54 per cent. The spenders fell for a second day: Alphabet down 3.61 per cent, its fourth decline in five sessions; $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ down 2.09 per cent, $Broadcom(AVGO)$ 1.5 per cent, $Apple(AAP

Hello. The biggest story last night was Nvidia out raising money: it is working with Blackstone, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, KKR and others on a consortium to fund AI infrastructure, for as much as US$500 billion, to be spent on AI chips, power generation and data centres. $英伟达(NVDA)$ fell 2.86 per cent on the news. It didn't fall because demand is short. It fell because people have started to wonder whether Nvidia is creating that demand itself: it has signed agreements worth hundreds of billions of dollars with participants across the AI ecosystem, lifting overall demand and valuations, while those counterparties themselves depend on the AI boom staying alive. That structure has a name. Circular financing. Jensen Huang answered on

Hello. Friday's payrolls report was genuinely bad: July payrolls fell by 23,000, the May and June gains were revised down by a combined 103,000, and hourly earnings rose just 3.2 per cent year on year. $S&P 500(.SPX)$ rose 0.62 per cent to a record close. $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ rose 1.30 per cent and $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ 0.28 per cent. Data that bad turned out to be good news, because the market immediately cut the odds of a September rate rise to about 44 per cent. Loosen the rate outlook and valuations get room to breathe: $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ ros

Hello. The largest first tranche of any IPO lock-up in US market history came free last night: 911.5 million $SpaceX(SPCX)$ insider shares became eligible to sell, taking the freely tradable count from about 639 million to roughly 1.55 billion in one step. The shares rose 6.14 per cent. The day the selling actually happened wasn't last night. It was the day before. On Wednesday the stock fell 13.61 per cent on about 200 million shares, the heaviest turnover since 18 June; last night volume hit 251 million and set another high, yet the price went up. Heavier volume than Wednesday, and the price went the other way — the people who wanted to sell had mostly finished on Wednesday. Someone went back through three comparable cases: in ea

Hello. Here is the paper $Western Digital(WDC)$ handed in last night: revenue of US$3.747 billion, up 43.8 per cent year on year, net profit up twelvefold, a gross margin of 54.4 per cent that beat consensus by more than 200 basis points. On the call, management said long-term contracts are now booked out to 2031. It fell 11.66 per cent after hours. $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$ reported the same night with an even louder set of numbers: revenue of US$8.965 billion, up 371.6 per cent, a gross margin of 84.6 per cent, non-GAAP earnings of US$39.25 a share — all three ahead of expectations — and a US$14 billion buyback thrown in on top. It closed down 5.40 per cent and fell another 7.

Hello everyone. When last night's US session closed, $S&P 500(.SPX)$ and $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ were both at records, $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ above 54,000 for the first time. Not long after the bell, $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ was down 8.68 per cent. It wasn't alone. $SpaceX(SPCX)$ was up 9.43 per cent at the close and dived 8.04 per cent after hours, at one point down almost 9 per cent. The two traced almost the same roller coaster: lifted in the session, knocked down after the bell. And neither paper wa

Good morning. Somebody got paid last night. Not the name you're thinking of. $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ rose 14.25 per cent after hours on Monday. The same day, $Micron Technology(MU)$ rose 0.79 per cent and $SK hynix(SKHY)$ fell 0.70 per cent. I ended the last piece saying $Apple(AAPL)$ had signed for the shortage and the side collecting the money hadn't. On Monday it signed. The signature doesn't belong to a memory maker. Palantir's quarter: revenue of US$1.935 billion, up 93 per cent year on year, commercial revenue growing at around 150 per cent, a

$Apple(AAPL)$ fell 7.35 per cent on Friday, the only mega-cap to drop hard. The same day, $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ rose 15.32 per cent and $Alphabet(GOOG)$ 6.88 per cent. I left a question hanging last time. Tim Cook's line — memory is tight, it will hit next quarter — went into Apple's guidance, and it went into somebody's revenue too. Friday answered. It answered half. Apple's column got copied down; the column belonging to whoever collects the money got rubbed out. $Micron Technology(MU)$ -5.90%, $SanDisk Cor