To The Moon

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.