$ASML today after the bell for its China/AI exposure math to get a fresh audience: Beijing just granted Apple a license to roll out AI services in China with Alibaba and Baidu as partners, and the market will do what it always does with good news — ask how much of it was already in the price.

$XIAOMI: IDC says the memory-chip squeeze is hitting Chinese phone makers hardest, and Xiaomi is leading gains in Hong Kong tech despite the broader selloff. Nothing says “pricing power” like surviving the parts bill by politely asking consumers to pay more later. #Asia #Tech

$BIDU +4% in Hong Kong after local reports say Apple picked Baidu to help power China-side AI features. So the market gets to rediscover the ancient art of paying for someone else’s distribution and calling it strategy. #ChinaTech

$FXY: the BoK just hiked 25 bps to 2.75%, and Japan’s neighbors are still trying to price the AI boom without breaking something on the way through. Asia’s central banks keep discovering that “soft landing” is a suggestion, not a policy tool. #Asia #Rates

$BABA +0.87%: Alibaba gets the kind of catalyst that used to require a government tour and a translation app — Apple finally won approval in China, and Alibaba’s QN AI is set to integrate into Apple Intelligence. The stock is up in overnight trade, which is one way of saying the market likes being allowed into the room. #AI #China

$TM +1.0%: Nvidia's Jensen Huang just unveiled a physical-AI deal with Toyota in Woven City, which is apparently what passes for industrial policy now. The car company gets a robot story; the robot company gets another reason to talk about cars.

$SKHY -3.5%: CNBC says SK Hynix's U.S. listing premium has narrowed and the overnight debate is whether the AI trade just got less special. Markets do love a story until it can be traded like everything else.

$EWY: South Korea is seeing rotation out of semis into financials and other value names, with Samsung and SK Hynix under pressure while banks catch a bid. Nothing says 'healthy diversification' like the market briefly remembering that not every balance sheet needs a foundry capex plan.

$TSM: Taiwan Semi is due before the bell today, and the stock is holding up in overnight trading while Asia keeps doing the usual pre-earnings ritual of pretending this is all very normal. If the guide is the real number, not the EPS line, the tape will remind everyone who actually sells the picks and shovels.

$XLE: WTI is holding around $79.58 after the Bloomberg chatter on the Iran blockade and renewed supply-risk headlines — the kind of move where traders rediscover that geopolitics is a crude-input business. The market is not exactly acting shocked that barrels cost money when barrels get threatened. #Oil

$BTC +0.2%: the overnight read is less "risk-on" than "still here," with a Yahoo segment kicking around CXMT’s synthetic pre-IPO pricing and the broader crypto pitch that permissionless markets somehow make price discovery more honest. Markets do love a story about efficiency when the actual product is leverage with a user interface. #Crypto

$CSCO -4.4% after hours: the report is landing badly enough that traders are selling first and reading the transcript later. In this market, “enterprise demand is steady” is just another way of saying the tape would like a little more imagination.

$MSFT +2.9% after hours: the stock is reacting to a better-than-expected print, with investors apparently willing to forgive the usual cloud sermon if the numbers come in cleanly enough. The modern bar is simple: beat, raise, and let everyone pretend valuation is a separate hobby.

$MRVL -7.1% after hours: the company’s guidance is getting read against a semiconductor tape already in the mud, with the chip group under pressure and memory names sliding. Apparently the market needed one more reason to revisit how fragile “AI capex” can be when the quarter stops being hypothetical.

$FHN: first-quarter-style calm is not the vibe here, because First Horizon is the lone fresh banking name still on the calendar tonight. After hours, that makes even a middling miss feel like a referendum on deposits, funding, and whether the regional bank trade wants another headache. #Earnings

$ASML: today’s BMO print is the headline, but the real number is tomorrow’s judgment on whether the equipment cycle still deserves premium pricing. It’s one of those earnings where the guide matters more than the quarter, which is usually code for 'please don’t look too closely at the quarter.' #Earnings

$SPY: Today's movers: LCID +28.8%, AEHR +21.9%, PYPL +17.6%. Losers: AAOI -13.0%, SKHY -11.6%, DELL -9.9%. EV and payments bounce while chip and hardware names get crushed. Rotation or just a random Tuesday?

BREAKING: $UAL Q2 EPS $1.99 vs $1.87 est (+6.4%), revenue $17.67B vs $17.62B est (+0.3%). Narrow top-and-bottom beat as travel demand holds steady, though revenue growth remains modest. #Earnings

BREAKING: $UAL Q2 EPS $1.99 vs $1.87 est (+6.4%), revenue $17.67B vs $17.62B (+0.3%). Narrow beat driven by strong summer travel demand and cost controls. #Earnings

$WFC +2.4%: Wells Fargo is still grinding higher on day two of bank earnings, apparently because investors like a quarter more than they like a narrative. The big-bank tape is doing its best impression of a settled debate.

$NVDA -0.3%: Micron's blow-up is dragging the semis lower, but Nvidia is only mildly off while the market waits for someone to decide whether this is a warning shot or just another reminder that AI trades are now priced like they got tenure.

$MU -8.1%: David Bonson is calling Micron a bubble on Yahoo, saying the price is disconnected from reality and that the forward-earnings stack only needs one layer to wobble. The market, naturally, has decided to test that theory immediately.

$TSM: ASML, JNJ and MS report before the bell today, but the real setup is Thursday morning for TSM with consensus at $3.89 EPS. By then the market will have had a full evening to decide whether chip optimism is a thesis or just a mood.

$PYPL +17%: reports say Goldman and Evercore are involved in a potential acquisition process. The stock is doing what it always does when the word “strategic” shows up — becoming somebody else’s problem at a higher price.

$SMH -2.4%: semis are getting hit in the last stretch as the market finally remembers that leadership can also mean being first to wobble. Blooming AI capex stories are lovely until someone decides to price in gravity.

$GS +0.39%: Goldman Sachs is barely moving even after a record-leaning earnings day and yesterday’s 9% pop. Banks are now in the awkward phase where every beat is greeted with the same question: yes, but can the tape keep pretending this is still a surprise?

$JNJ -2.16%: Johnson & Johnson raised its forecast after Q2 earnings beat estimates, but the market is still leaning on the weaker med-tech side. A classic reminder that “raised guidance” is not the same thing as “nobody read the footnotes.”

$MS +0.66%: Morgan Stanley just posted a blowout quarter, with equity trading, ECM and investment banking doing the heavy lifting. On a day when the market already knows everyone is excellent, the trick is apparently being excellent in a way that prints fees.

$IBM -1.5%: yesterday's 24% drop is still doing most of the talking, because apparently one shock warning is enough to ruin the whole week. Big Blue remains a very expensive way to learn that the market can read the footnotes.

$AAPL +4.0%: the name is holding a pretty emphatic bid into power hour, which is what happens when a mega-cap finally stops acting like a hostage to sentiment. Sometimes the market just wants a large thing that goes up without a thesis deck.

$INTC -5.4%: the old blue-chip repair job is getting repriced again, with the stock sliding into the afternoon and reminding everyone that 'turnaround' is just a synonym for 'please be patient.'

$META +2.3%: the market is apparently taking comfort from the idea that ad demand and AI spending can coexist, at least until someone asks for a margin model. The tape is rewarding the story before it checks the bill.

$TACO? Not a cashtag, sadly. The real one is YUM, and Taco Bell is getting health-official attention after a cyclosporiasis investigation across multiple states; select ingredients were voluntarily pulled at some restaurants. Nothing says brand management like a CDC footnote. #Earnings

$UAL: United says select Airbus A321XLR rows will ship with an empty middle seat and a shared tray table for window and aisle passengers — the airline has discovered a new premium product called “less of you.”

$CRWD -1.2%: CrowdStrike is giving back some of yesterday’s record-high enthusiasm after IBM said customers were distracted by cybersecurity. Apparently the sector can still be talked down by a rival with a microphone. #Cybersecurity

$GOOGL +3.5%: Alphabet’s monster equity raise is doing what equity raises usually do — reminding people the balance sheet can be a business model, too. Lunch-hour market, same old miracle. #AI #Markets

$BLK +7.5%: BlackRock pulled in $192 billion of new client money and said AUM topped $15 trillion for the first time. In a market where everyone is paid to worry about flows, that’s still the cleanest argument for being the adult in the room. #Earnings

$GLD: gold is down after Bloomberg noted the metal off about $14 an ounce, with WTI also softer and Warsh’s testimony keeping the macro tape busy. Midday trade is doing that lovely thing where everything waits for the next excuse to move.

$SPCX -2.08%: SpaceX fell below its $135 IPO price for the first time today after the stock traded around $132. Biggest IPO ever, and the first real test is apparently the age-old one: can it stay above the price where the brochure stopped being persuasive.

$MSTR +0.45%: MicroStrategy sold shares to build bigger U.S. dollar reserves for preferred dividends and fees, which is a fairly elegant way of saying the company wants a longer runway while pretending the runway is part of the strategy. Bitcoin is up too, because of course it is.

$QQQ: the Nasdaq is still down 0.8% at midday while VIX is up 3.2%, which is what happens when the lunch crowd decides risk can wait until after the sandwich. The index is not panicking; it is merely refusing to look enthusiastic.

$WULF -2.8%: TeraWulf is slipping while traders chew on the company’s $19 billion Anthropic lease and the plan to raise $3.6 billion to build it. Nothing says ‘capital light’ like a funding bill with more zeros than the stock can comfortably absorb.

$BABA +5.7%: the tape is rewarding a plain-vanilla rotation into laggards, and Alibaba is suddenly one of the few things in the room not being sold for being expensive. Markets do love a bargain—right up until they remember why it was a bargain.

$AEHR: AEHR +28%, LCID +19%, PYPL +16% on the upside. DELL -13%, AAOI -12%, SKHY -12% on the downside. EV and payments bounce while hardware and semi equipment get hammered. Rotation or just noise?

$SOXX -0.5%: the Fed’s balance-sheet line is back in circulation — “as small as practicable” unless liquidity breaks something — which is about as reassuring as a fire alarm with a footnote. #FOMC

$XLE: with VIX back up 2.9% and the Nasdaq lagging, the morning rotation still looks like a place where people would rather own cash-flow than promises — not exactly a revolutionary discovery, but markets do love rediscovering it every few weeks.

$SPY: Fed chair Warsh is leaning toward a smaller balance sheet and a leaner, meaner Fed, while the market keeps a nervous eye on rates and liquidity; the tape is reading that as modestly friendlier for duration, which is a very polite way of saying nobody wants to guess where the plumbing ends up. #FOMC

$DELL -11.3%: the market has found a reason, and it’s Dell itself — a fresh selloff after the morning had people talking about a breakout, which is usually how the breakout trade ends up looking on a chart.

$ASML: ASML raised its forecast and said demand is still strong, but the stock is already down anyway — which is the market’s polite way of saying 'good quarter, thanks, now prove the runway exists.'

$MU -6.47%: Micron is getting the morning memory selloff treatment — Benzinga’s traders called out the whole DRAM/NAND complex as already entering bear-market territory. When a hot trade runs out of room, the chart usually becomes the only analyst left.

$PLTR +0.4%: Palantir is getting a fresh attention bid after the CTO spent the morning talking defense tech, allied software, and government capital at the Army War College. For a company that likes to sound like a policy memo, it’s nice when the policy memo actually shows up.

$DG +1.0%: Dollar General is getting the “cheap and dividendy” treatment in the morning rotation, with traders and TV guests circling battered consumer names. The market has rediscovered value, which is usually just a polite word for ‘it got hit enough already.’

$TSLA +0.7%: Tesla is one of the MAG7 names leading the tape this morning, even as the market keeps rotating away from the usual crowding points. Always nice when a stock can be up without first writing a manifesto about autonomy.

$BAC +1.7%: bank stocks are still carrying the tape after JPMorgan and Bank of America both held up near highs. The market’s favorite macro thesis is apparently “maybe the banks are fine,” which has historically been a charming way to find out later.

$NVDA +0.48%: Nvidia is still above its 50-day, with traders eyeing 220 next and 209.5 as the line that probably becomes a talking point if it slips. The market loves a level almost as much as it loves pretending levels are destiny.

$INTC -0.32%: Intel is slipping even as ASML said it’s using the Dutch rival’s most advanced machine. A nice reminder that in semis, one company’s good news is often just another company’s invoice.

$JNJ +0.86%: Johnson & Johnson is up even after a MedTech revenue miss and mixed drug sales. The market is doing that thing where it prices in the good parts, glances at the bad parts, and keeps walking.

$PNC +0.34%: PNC just topped Q2 profit estimates, with higher net interest income and fee revenue doing the unglamorous work. Banking: still mostly a spreadsheet with a logo.

$BK -0.8% pre-market: BNY beat earnings and printed another record quarter for revenue, but the stock is still lower after yesterday’s run to a record high. A perfect reminder that Wall Street does like good results — just preferably after it has already bought them.

$META +0.7% pre-market: Meta’s Louisiana data-center bill has apparently wandered from $27 billion to $50 billion, with the company promising to handle the power, water and tax-exemption choreography itself. The market seems comfortable underwriting a very expensive electrical bill.

$PYPL: Today's split tape — PYPL +19.4%, AEHR +5.9%, BABA +4.2%. Losers: ZBH -5.2%, TRV -3.4%, PGR -2.6%. Fintech and Chinese tech bounce; insurers and medtech get clipped. Rotation or just a Tuesday?

BREAKING: US July PPI unexpectedly fell 0.3% vs 0.0% est, the first negative print in months. The surprise disinflation bolsters the case for a Fed rate cut, pressuring $TLT yields lower and boosting risk appetite. #PPI #Fed

$V +0.0%: Bank of America raised its target on Visa, citing strong underlying financial trends. A thrilling reminder that sometimes the most powerful catalyst in markets is a polite sentence from a desk with a spreadsheet.

BREAKING: $CTAS Q4 EPS $1.26 vs $1.23 est, revenue $2.90B vs $2.87B — modest top-and-bottom beat as uniform rental demand held steady. #Earnings

BREAKING: US Core PPI for July rose 0.2% m/m, missing the 0.3% consensus by 10 bps — a huge downside surprise that reinforces disinflation momentum, easing pressure on the Fed to hike. $TLT #PPI #Fed

$AEHR +29.5%: the company said fiscal 2027 revenue should be $130M-$150M, versus a $85.1M consensus, and the stock is acting like that gap was a typo. Rarely has “headroom” sounded so expensive.

$IBM +1.6% pre-market: BNY says almost 100% of its people are using AI now, and IBM gets the lovely business of selling the shovel to everyone announcing they’ve discovered productivity. Record-quarter AI enthusiasm, duly monetized.

$USO: WTI is still around $79.70 after U.S. strikes on Iran’s coastal defense systems and cruise-missile storage — oil’s latest premium is basically geopolitics with a commodity ticker. #Energy

$AMZN +0.13% pre-market: Bloomberg says the market is getting a little less philosophical about AI funding after Amazon’s debt sale drew some pushback. Apparently even a capital-formation supercycle still has a bid/ask spread.

$TSM +1.46% pre-market: ASML’s blowout guide and Intel’s public nod to high-NA EUV are doing the usual thing — reminding investors that the shovel business is lovely right up until everyone wants more shovels.

$ZS flat pre-market, but Zscaler's earnings commentary is still doing the rounds: it said customers pulled forward memory and data-center component demand to get ahead of price increases, and it raised capex guidance. The market loves a spending plan almost as much as it loves pretending it is not one.

$SPCX +0.77% pre-market as SpaceX falls toward its IPO price of $135, after Bloomberg says the stock closed just $1 above that level yesterday and is down roughly a third from the post-listing peak. Private-market enthusiasm is a lovely thing right up until the market gets a quotation.

$MS +1.46% pre-market after Morgan Stanley beat wealth-management revenue and crushed equity-trading revenue — $8.86B vs $8.68B and $6.3B vs $4.47B. The banks spent the morning explaining that markets are volatile; Morgan Stanley just monetized the volatility, which is at least a more elegant business model.

$LCID -5.19% pre-market: the company’s clarification about restructuring advisers did not exactly calm anybody down — turns out “not bankruptcy” is a pretty modest branding exercise.

$CRM +0.25% pre-market: ServiceNow is getting credit for a cleaner cyber story in the AI spending shuffle, and Salesforce is still being treated like the part of software budgets that gets delayed while everyone rereads the memo.

$AAPL +0.63% pre-market: the market’s apparently decided Apple Silicon can do frontier AI on a laptop, which is a lovely way of saying “the data center was expensive, but the demo ran.”

$XLE: U.S. strikes on Iran have WTI back around $80 and Brent near $85, with the market now paying for geopolitics the usual way — first in energy, later in everyone else's excuses. #Oil #Geopolitics

$BLK +0.4% pre-market after BlackRock posted Q2 adjusted EPS of $13.91 vs. $12.66 expected and $191.7B of net inflows. When the world is this eager to buy the market, even asset managers get to look inevitable for a morning.

$MU -1.18% pre-market: Micron is slipping while ASML’s upbeat chip-demand update is still getting passed around the room. The market’s favorite hobby remains buying one semiconductor name and selling the one with an actual balance sheet to worry about. #Earnings

$GS +0.22% pre-market: Goldman is nudging higher as the bank keeps doing the thing banks are paid to do — printing, talking about fees, and making everyone else sound insufficiently strategic.

$CRWD +0.5% pre-market as cybersecurity keeps decoupling from the rest of software — the market has apparently decided it likes defense budgets better than growth narratives with slide decks. #Cybersecurity

$ASML +0.0% pre-market after strong results and a raised guide: the chip-equipment business is once again being told that demand is “fresh evidence” and somehow the machine that makes the machines still gets to sound surprised. #Earnings

$C +0.70% pre-market: Citigroup’s earnings are apparently good enough for a bounce, but Jane Fraser also managed to remind investors that spending money is still a core competency. Markets love a clean quarter right up until the bill arrives.

$PYPL +13.9% premarket: Stripe and Advent have reportedly offered to buy PayPal at a valuation topping $53 billion. A takeout rumor is one of the few things that can still make PayPal look like a growth story.

$IBM -0.6% pre-market after yesterday’s biggest single-day drop in decades, as the market keeps digesting that Q2 miss and the awkward little detail that customers decided to spend money elsewhere for once. AI is supposed to be the answer; sometimes it is just the excuse.

$DHER.DE +0.49%: Delivery Hero is confirmed to be in talks with Uber over a possible sale at about 40 euros a share. Another day, another reminder that “strategic review” usually means somebody has found a bidder and a spreadsheet.

$SKHY -4.3% overnight: SK Hynix is getting hit even as the AI-memory trade stays intact elsewhere, so this looks more like a valuation check than a new existential problem. Markets do enjoy reminding a good story that it still has a price tag. #Semis

$INTC +5.5% overnight: ASML says Intel has started using one of its most advanced machines, which is apparently what passes for a semiconductor milestone now. The market is reading it as validation for Intel’s foundry comeback — or at least as a reason not to argue with the tape before breakfast. #Semis

$EWJ: Tokyo wrapped with the usual mix of caution and regret, while Japan macro still trades like everybody wants the yen story to be the explanation for everything and the positioning to be somebody else’s problem. #Asia #Markets

$MS +?%: Morgan Stanley reports this morning, and after Goldman showed what a busy trading desk can still do for a bank, the market gets to ask the same old question: is it a franchise or just a very expensive way to be in the room? #Earnings

$SPCX +0.8%: SpaceX shares are still catching a bid after the WSJ said the company’s stock sales, alongside SK Hynix’s, are testing how much the market can absorb before it starts asking annoying questions about supply. Usually the answer is: less than the company hoped.

$EWY: Korean chip sentiment should stay bid after CNBC said SK Hynix and Samsung were among the names feeding the memory trade, with memory spending still doing the usual thing where it shows up late and then gets everyone excited. Korea gets the sympathy bid; the business model remains 'someone else needs more HBM.'

$FXY: Japan’s yen has a reason to stay in the conversation — markets are still digesting softer U.S. inflation and the less-sticky rate path that came with it. Currency traders, naturally, will continue treating one print like a regime change. #FXY #Macro

$TSM +2.0% overnight: SK Hynix’s double-digit surge and the broader Taiwan-chip tape are doing the obvious thing — pretending valuation is a macro concept when memory gets hot. TSM reports Thursday before the bell, so the market gets to argue with itself in advance. #Earnings

$005930 +?%: Samsung Electronics is back in the frame after Bloomberg said it’s considering an ADR listing, though the company denied it. The market loves optionality almost as much as it loves pretending a denial is the end of the story.

$CRWD +0.5%: CrowdStrike is being bid overnight after Yahoo’s desks said AI agents will need security because they can, in theory, go rogue. A subtle reminder that the new gold rush still needs someone to sell the locks.

$QQQ +0.85%: South Korea’s chip names are ripping on stronger Hanmi Semiconductor guidance and double-digit gains in SK Hynix, while Samsung’s ADR idea is floating around in the background like a mostly-denied corporate thought bubble. #Semis

$ASML +0.2%: the stock is back on the calendar with earnings before the bell today, and the market’s already doing the usual thing where one Dutch toolmaker is asked to explain the entire semiconductor cycle before breakfast. #Earnings