To The Moon

All three indexes closed lower on Tuesday, the Dow worst of them at 1.18 per cent, $S&P 500(.SPX)$ down 0.58 per cent and $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ Composite down 0.32 per cent. Chips went the other way on the same day: Intel put on 9.05 per cent to close at US$104.47, back above US$100 and the biggest gain in the row. The indexes went one way and the chips went the other, and that is the split this day comes down to.

What pushed the indexes down was oil. WTI moved above US$94 and Brent came close to US$99, and what pushed oil up were attacks in the Middle East. The attacks fell over the weekend, so they were not in Friday's closing prices and only arrived at Tuesday's open. The downside adds up quickly from there: oil jumped, bets on September tightening went from about 52 per cent in the previous session to about 60 per cent, and the ten-year Treasury yield stood at 4.803 per cent against 4.789 per cent when it was last read. Christopher Waller, a Federal Reserve governor, has said his September vote turns on the inflation figures due on 11 September, and this move in oil lands right in front of that print.

The upside does not add up so neatly: of the whole row that rose, only Intel had anything of its own — Northland Capital Markets moved it to Outperform with a US$120 target, and none of the others had a thing. $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ closed 5.90 per cent higher at US$505.74, $Broadcom(AVGO)$ followed with 2.98 per cent at US$368.56, and $Marvell Technology(MRVL)$ rose 0.83 per cent to US$225.41 — nothing of their own to be found on any of the three that day. They went where Intel's one item took them.

Over in compute it is plainer still: $CoreWeave, Inc.(CRWV)$ closed 11.72 per cent higher at US$99.83, having touched US$104.59 during the session, and announced nothing at all itself; the contract went to a rival, Nebius, which Palantir named a preferred partner for sovereign AI and which closed 7.73 per cent higher at US$243.88. The market did not read that as business taken away from CoreWeave. It read it as good news for the whole lane and bought CoreWeave along with it. Lumentum closed 11.04 per cent higher at US$978.53, where all that is available is sector-level talk about demand for AI optics, nothing belonging to the company itself. $Bloom Energy Corp(BE)$ closed 9.63 per cent higher at US$277.22 on its S&P 500 entry, which is still running.

The names carrying the most news were the ones that moved least. $Micron Technology(MU)$ closed 1.61 per cent lower at US$1,000.26, twenty-six cents above the round number, and traded below it during the session. $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$ opened at US$1,769.43, reached US$1,807.35 intraday, then closed back at US$1,737.99, 0.12 per cent under the previous day, with everything it had gained in the session sold back. Of the three, only $SK hynix(SKHY)$rose, 4.83 per cent higher at US$185.55. Yet the memory news kept coming: Goldman Sachs saying the worst may be over for Micron and SanDisk, Kioxia dismissing a tie-up with SK hynix while promising to ease chip price rises, Druckenmiller exiting Micron in favour of Alphabet. All three are timestamped after the close, and not one of them made Tuesday's price; the earliest they reach one is Wednesday.

Which is to say that most of these prices on Tuesday were set not by each name's own news but by the item next door: one upgrade at Intel carried the whole chip row, one contract at Nebius carried CoreWeave, and the memory names, holding more news than anyone, filed all of it late.

That only goes so far. The first counter-example sits inside the row that rose: Nvidia closed 2.01 per cent lower at US$225.73, moving down while its sector moved up, with nothing of its own to explain that either. Distance from the highs explains little too — Nvidia was less than 5 per cent below its 52-week high of US$236.54 and still fell; $Intel(INTC)$ was about 27 per cent below US$142.35 and rose the most; yet $Micron Technology(MU)$ sat about 20 per cent below US$1,255 and SanDisk about 26 per cent below US$2,354.39, roughly as far back as Intel, and neither moved. Beyond that, oil and Friday's inflation print are the one line everybody shares. Once rates start moving, it stops mattering who is next door.

Two names have to put up numbers over the next two days. Apple's event is on 9 September, which is today, with the folding iPhone as the main act and two prices in circulation, US$2,400 and US$2,000, both from before the event; the stock closed 1.17 per cent lower on Tuesday at US$316.22, about 8 per cent below its 52-week high of US$344.57. Oracle closed 2.36 per cent higher at US$162.52 after Morgan Stanley raised its target, and reports after Thursday's close, with the market looking for US$1.78 a share on revenue of US$19.53 billion; a day after that comes the inflation print Waller says his vote turns on.

Micron is still parked on that line at US$1,000.26. It is holding more news than any of them. All of it has to wait for the next close.

The above is personal analysis, not investment advice.

💬 【Talking Point】

Goldman Sachs said the worst may be over for $Micron Technology(MU)$ and $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$, and it said so only after both had closed. When a call on a name lands after the bell like that, do you take the next open, or make yourself sit through a full session before touching it?

💰 【Bounty】

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