Top 20 US Stocks by Trading Volume on July 18: Meta Reportedly Leasing Computing Power to Anthropic in Deal Potentially Worth Up to $100 Billion

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On Friday, the top stock by trading volume was Micron Technology, which closed down 0.5% with a turnover of $53.876 billion. The stock has declined on five of the past six trading days, falling 13.31% for the week.

The second most traded stock was NVIDIA, which closed down 2.21% with a turnover of $29.147 billion. During Friday's session, Apple's market capitalization briefly surpassed NVIDIA's, reclaiming the title of the world's most valuable company for the first time in over a year. Investors are now optimistic that the iPhone maker can stage a comeback in the artificial intelligence race, while it does not need to commit the massive, increasingly risky capital expenditures on data centers that other major tech giants are making.

By the market close, NVIDIA's market cap had once again overtaken Apple's, narrowly holding onto the top spot globally.

The third most traded stock was SanDisk, which closed down 4.02% with a turnover of $27.488 billion. The stock fell over 29% for the week, marking its third weekly decline in the past four weeks.

The sixth most traded stock was Meta Platforms, which closed down 2.79% with a turnover of $14.104 billion. According to reports, Meta Platforms is in preliminary discussions with Anthropic to lease computing power from its data centers to the latter. The potential partnership would last for two years and could be worth up to $100 billion.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Meta is planning to develop a cloud computing business, which includes the possibility of leasing computing power to other companies.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a previous interview that all of the company's computing power is currently used for internal projects, but the market offers very attractive rates for such power, leading him to consider leasing some of it externally.

Zuckerberg said at the time, "The market rates for computing power are very high. In some cases, it might be more economical to lease out the power or consider such deals rather than using it for internal projects."

The ninth most traded stock was Tesla, which closed down 2.61% with a turnover of $11.635 billion. The stock fell 6.6% for the week.

The twelfth most traded stock was SpaceX, which closed down 5.43% with a turnover of $10.383 billion. The stock has now fallen for six consecutive trading days as of Friday's close. Following the last-minute abort of a Starship test flight on Thursday and continued post-IPO volatility, SpaceX shares weakened further on Friday.

The test launch of the Starship heavy-lift rocket was originally scheduled for a 90-minute window opening at 5:45 PM Thursday from the Texas launch site, but an engine ignition failure forced the company to cancel the launch.

Elon Musk posted on X, "Multiple engines failed to complete ignition, and the system automatically triggered the launch abort procedure. We are currently draining the propellant and expect to attempt another launch within a few days."

Musk later added that two Raptor engines would be removed and replaced, with the next launch attempt scheduled for early next week.

SpaceX completed the largest initial public offering in history this past June, raising $85.7 billion with an offering price of $135. Its stock has experienced significant volatility since listing, making investors particularly attentive to the results of each rocket test flight.

This was the first test flight of the third-generation Starship since SpaceX's IPO. The previous test flight in May also ended in failure: the Starship's second stage ultimately crashed into the Indian Ocean, five of the 33 Raptor engines failed to re-ignite, and the Super Heavy booster could not achieve a controlled landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The fourteenth most traded stock was Netflix, which closed down 7.26% with a turnover of $9.591 billion. The company's reported second-quarter earnings were close to Wall Street expectations, but it announced it would reduce the frequency of disclosing user viewing behavior data.

The Q2 earnings report released on Thursday showed revenue of $12.56 billion, a 13% year-over-year increase. The company attributed the double-digit growth to increased advertising revenue, membership growth, and pricing changes. CFO Spencer Neumann said on the earnings call that the pricing adjustments were "progressing well."

Despite the growth, Netflix's revenue was slightly below the Wall Street consensus estimate of $12.59 billion, while earnings per share of 80 cents slightly exceeded the expected 79 cents.

Furthermore, the company narrowed its full-year 2026 revenue forecast range, adjusting it from the previous $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion to $51.0 billion to $51.4 billion.

Netflix announced that its "What We Watched" viewing data report would change from its current semi-annual schedule to an annual one, published in the first quarter each year. The company stated, "Separating the report from earnings results aims to focus attention on the core financial metrics—revenue and operating profit. Following this change, we will still provide industry-leading data on a per-title basis and total hours viewed."

Co-CEO Greg Peters said on the earnings call, "There is not a linear relationship between hours viewed and revenue and profit, because not all hours viewed are equal. Live programming is a great example of that." Previously, Netflix had stopped reporting subscriber numbers in early 2025.

Peters also noted that while live programming accounts for only about 5% of the company's budget, it is expected to account for only about 1% of total viewing hours. However, six of the company's ten biggest days for new sign-ups over the past five years have occurred after live events.

The sixteenth most traded stock was Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which closed down 2.77% with a turnover of $8.275 billion. The stock fell 8.2% for the week. After the U.S. market closed on Friday, former President Donald Trump announced that TSMC would commit an additional $100 billion in investment to Arizona.

The twentieth most traded stock was Applied Materials, which closed down 5.57% with a turnover of $5.459 billion. The stock fell more than 12% for the week.

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