Andy Chen

The escalating conflict between the U.S. and Iran has driven a unilateral rise in oil prices. WTI crude oil futures have returned to $90, while Brent crude oil futures have returned to $100, with both benchmarks reclaiming their early-June highs. Market focus is gradually shifting from the geopolitical event itself toward expectations regarding the duration of the conflict, a variable that is becoming the key factor influencing the direction of oil prices.

Intel (INTC) released its second-quarter 2026 financial results after the U.S. market close on July 23, Eastern Time. As of press time, the stock rose 12.44% to $112.7. During the period, Intel's revenue increased by 25% year-on-year to $16.128 billion, significantly exceeding the market expectation of $14.42 billion by approximately 12%. CEO Lip-Bu Tan stated that this marked the company's strongest quarterly revenue growth in over fifteen years, driven by increased speed, stronger execution, and customer focus.

TradingKey - Increased capital expenditures from Google and Tesla rattled investors, while Brent crude’s rise to $100 pushed the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield to its highest level in nearly a year and a half, dampening market sentiment. The three major U.S. indices tumbled, led by declines in tech stocks, while memory stocks found support against the trend. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.97% to 51,711.65; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 2.15% to 25,137.69; and the S&P 500 Index declined 1.21% to 7,408.12.

On July 23, Eastern Time, Micron (MU) shares returned to the $1,000 mark, rising 4% to $1,000 as of press time. The upward movement in Micron's share price was primarily driven by three factors.

On July 23 ET, SpaceX (SPCX) shares hit a new all-time low, dropping to a minimum of $110.85 before rebounding. As of press time, the stock was up approximately 1% at $116.4. Gene Munster, founder of Deepwater Asset Management, stated on Wednesday that the likelihood of a merger between SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) now appears greater. In a post on the social media platform X, he noted, "Before the conference call, I believed there was an 80% chance of these two companies merging in the next few years. Now, I have raised that probability to 90%."

On July 23, Eastern Time, the three major U.S. stock indices declined across the board. In their second-quarter earnings reports, both Alphabet (GOOGL) and Tesla (TSLA) saw free cash flow turn negative, as massive capital expenditures pressured their share prices. However, sector performance remained divergent, with memory stocks rising against the trend and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index edging up 0.09%.

Tradingkey - On July 22, Eastern Time, shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell over 3% at one point following the release of its Q2 2026 earnings report. As of press time, the stock remained down 2.82% at $363.45. During the period, Tesla's revenue increased 26% year-on-year to $28.236 billion, significantly exceeding market expectations of $25.71 billion. This was primarily driven by strong performance in automotive revenue; Tesla stated that vehicle deliveries reached a record high in the second quarter, with continued growth in new markets and steady performance in mature markets.

TradingKey - Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) released its second-quarter 2026 financial results after the close of U.S. markets on July 22, Eastern Time. As of press time, Google’s revenue for the period reached $119.796 billion, up 24% year-over-year (23% on a constant currency basis), exceeding market expectations of $116.93 billion. This marks the company's 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. Notably, Google Cloud performance was a highlight, with revenue surging 82% year-over-year to $24.8 billion.

TradingKey - As the US-Iran conflict continues to escalate, the market awaits post-market earnings reports from Google and Tesla. The three major US stock indices saw little change, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose slightly by 0.44%. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.01% to 52,219.35 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.57% to 25,690.90 points; and the S&P 500 Index declined 0.14% to 7,499.04 points.

TradingKey — On July 22, Eastern Time, SpaceX (SPCX) shares hit a new record low, falling 5.32% to $116.97 as of publication. Reports indicate that SpaceX AI is further increasing its investment in data center construction, with a scale comparable to the gigawatt-level capacity of the existing Memphis campus. However, the company's Q1 AI-related capital expenditure has surged to $7.7 billion, approximately three times the amount from the same period last year. Morgan Stanley analysts predict that xAI will consume a total of up to $120 billion in cash between 2026 and 2027—a figure nearly 1.6 times the $75 billion raised in SpaceX's IPO.

Tradingkey - Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), called out Chinese AI company Moonshot AI on the social media platform X, accusing it of acquiring servers equipped with NVIDIA GB300 (Blackwell series) chips through Thailand to train its Kimi K3 model and building a "complex internal platform" for large-scale distillation of U.S. models. This marks the second time in just two days that the Trump administration has issued a warning regarding "intellectual property theft" by Chinese AI models. Following Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's threat of sanctions against Kimi just a day earlier, these latest allegations, which include specific chip models, represent a significant escalation in signaling.

Tradingkey - OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it has raised its compute spending forecast through 2030 to approximately $750 billion, up from the roughly $600 billion projected earlier this year. On the same day, the company announced a $20 billion investment to launch the construction of a data center project named "Project Camellia" in Savannah, Georgia. This marks OpenAI's first time building its own data center as the lead designer and constructor, signaling a shift from "tenant" to "landlord" in its computing power infrastructure strategy.

TradingKey - Shares of Nvidia competitor Cerebras Systems (CBRS) rose for a third consecutive day, returning to a one-month high. At the time of writing, the stock gained 3.89% to $216.69. Cerebras announced today a strategic partnership with cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike (CRWD). As Cerebras offers the world's fastest AI inference compute solution and CrowdStrike provides an industry-leading AI-native security platform, the two companies will join forces to provide enterprise customers deploying large-scale AI with a combination of extreme inference speeds and AI-native security capabilities.

TradingKey - This earnings season is off to a strong start, with 87% of the 54 S&P 500 components that have reported so far exceeding profit expectations. Additionally, reports that TSMC will raise prices by 10% next year boosted rallies in chip and memory stocks. U.S. stocks rebounded sharply, with all three major indices closing higher and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surging over 5%. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.74% to 52,224.64; the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.29% to 25,837.21; and the S&P 500 Index climbed 0.89% to 7,509.20.

TradingKey - Ahead of its 26Q2 earnings release, Google (GOOGL) launched three new Gemini models: Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, which is specifically designed for cybersecurity. Gemini 3.6 Flash and Flash-Lite are available starting today via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, Gemini Enterprise, and the Gemini app; Flash-Lite will also be integrated into Google Search. As its flagship AI model Gemini 3.5 Pro faces developmental pressure and competitors close in, Google is betting on cost-effectiveness.

Tradingkey - Nvidia (NVDA) has released the full specifications and benchmark data for its first self-developed data center CPU, Vera, marking its official entry into the server CPU market dominated by Intel and AMD. Company representatives confirmed that Vera chips were delivered to customers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX in June, and OpenAI plans to begin large-scale deployment starting this quarter. Following the announcement, Nvidia's stock price pulled back slightly as the market reacted tepidly to the news. As of press time, the stock was up 1.06% at $205.43.

TradingKey - Novo Nordisk (NVO) has officially filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging that Eli Lilly’s (LLY) advertisements for its blockbuster weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes injection Mounjaro are misleading and violate federal and state laws concerning false advertising and unfair competition. The essence of the lawsuit is a data war between the two pharmaceutical giants over the multi-hundred-billion-dollar GLP-1 drug market, where the key weapon on the battlefield is a set of clinical comparison data alleged to be "outdated."

Tradingkey - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on Tuesday that the Trump administration will scrutinize Chinese open-source AI models for evidence of intellectual property theft from U.S. companies, threatening to impose sanctions if such activity is confirmed. These comments come as Chinese open-source models rise rapidly at minimal costs and following a collective slump in U.S. tech stocks last week fueled by fears that "U.S. AI leadership is being shaken." This stance adds a new dimension of strategic competition to the upcoming meeting between the U.S. and Chinese heads of state scheduled in approximately two months.

Tradingkey - Memory stocks collectively surged in early trading on Tuesday (EST). As of press time, Western Digital (WDC) rose 9.05%, SanDisk (SNDK) gained 8.13%, SK Hynix (SKHY) climbed 7.90%, Seagate Technology (STX) increased 7.47%, and Micron Technology (MU) rose 6.67%. SanDisk and Micron, which at one point rose by more than 10% and 9% respectively, led the rally. The immediate catalyst was a bullish report from Morgan Stanley, which predicts memory prices will rise by at least 25% between the second and third quarters of 2026 and explicitly stated it is "buying the dip" in the storage sector.

TradingKey - Impacted by the release of the Kimi K3 model by Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI and a new round of military conflict between the U.S. and Iran, the three major U.S. stock indices reversed earlier gains to close lower. Hyperscalers provided support against the trend, while chip and memory stocks stabilized as the market awaited Google's earnings report due on Wednesday. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.59% to 51,839.32; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.05% to 25,508.07; and the S&P 500 Index declined 0.19% to 7,443.28.