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Last night, U.S. stocks surged across the board, driven by strong corporate earnings and optimistic geopolitical sentiment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.71%, closing above 54,000 for the first time and setting a new all-time high. The S&P 500 gained 1.79%, also breaking its previous record, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.59%, led by technology stocks. Market sentiment rapidly shifted from recent volatility to a strong buying momentum, with indices climbing from near one-month lows to new highs within just a few trading days.
The Strait of Hormuz agreement is nearing implementation, and oil prices have fallen for three consecutive days.
The macro event most closely watched by the market is signs of de-escalation in the Strait of Hormuz situation. According to Axios, the United States, Iran, and Oman are nearing an interim agreement, set to be formally announced locally on Wednesday, aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz, restoring the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, and creating conditions for subsequent nuclear negotiations. Benefiting from this geopolitical development, concerns over disruptions to global energy supplies have eased, causing a sharp decline in international oil prices. WTI crude fell 5.58% yesterday, with a 13.27% drop in August, and is currently trading around $73.50; Brent crude has broken below $80, touching a low of $77.70, and is down approximately 12% this month.
This arrangement is tentatively set for 60 days and may be extended in the future. Under the current proposed plan, all inbound vessels will use the northern route near the Iranian coast, while outbound vessels will use the southern route near the Omani coast, coordinated jointly by Oman and Iran.
The agreement also includes a key provision: the parties plan to complete mine clearance in the central shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days. According to Bloomberg, Iran has softened its stance and is, for the first time, considering allowing European nations to participate in the mine clearance in exchange for the trust of shipping companies and insurance institutions. During the 60-day interim arrangement, no tolls or related fees will be charged. In the long term, Oman proposes establishing a “voluntary fund,” modeled after the Malacca Strait, financed jointly by Gulf states and relevant European member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to support channel maintenance, search and rescue, and security. In addition to Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have also participated in the mediation.
Despite rapid progress in the negotiations, multiple uncertainties remain. Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guard remains divided on foreign involvement in demining and control of shipping lanes, and there is a precedent of previous agreements collapsing, leading to escalated military conflict.
Falling oil prices ease inflation concerns, reducing the probability of a September rate hike.
The sharp decline in oil prices has significantly eased inflation concerns, with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield falling about 6 basis points to around 4.6%, providing additional support for risk assets. Institutions such as Wells Fargo note that lower oil prices help alleviate energy price pressures, but overall price stickiness remains, making it unlikely for inflation to normalize overnight.
The U.S. dollar edged lower, while the yen's rally stalled. Regarding interest rates and institutional views, CME FedWatch shows a 57.1% probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike in September, down significantly from 67.2% the previous day, with a 42.9% chance of no change. Markets are closely monitoring this Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls report; strong data could reinforce expectations of a rate hike, while weak data may increase the likelihood of holding rates steady. Institutions such as JPMorgan believe that, amid oil prices driving Treasury movements, employment data will serve as a key short-term pricing catalyst.
AI trading is making a comeback, with capital once again placing faith in the "compute-power → applications → infrastructure" cycle.
Last night, AI remained the strongest sector in U.S. equities. Unlike previous rallies driven solely by chip stocks, this AI surge was more comprehensive: Palantir demonstrated with strong earnings that AI applications can drive revenue growth; the semiconductor, memory, and optical communications sectors reflected ongoing demand for computing power; and Caterpillar indicated that demand for data center construction is now extending into traditional industrial equipment sectors.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 6.55%, marking its fourth consecutive day of gains, with most of its 30 components rising. Key sectors including memory chips, optical communications, AI software, data center infrastructure, and industrial equipment performed strongly. The Nasdaq-100 Index rose approximately 3.3% in a single day, its largest one-day gain since May 2025.
Major tech stocks also rose broadly, with NVIDIA up over 2%, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla up over 1%, Google up 1.11%, but Amazon down over 2%. Over the past four trading days, the seven largest tech stocks collectively rose nearly 10%, indicating that capital is flowing back into large-cap growth stocks.
Goldman Sachs’ Chief Technology Trader, Peter Callahan, believes this rally is driven by four factors: the market has already undergone a risk-off adjustment, leaving positions cleaner; technical conditions have improved; the Nasdaq 100 remains approximately 10% discounted compared to its five-year average valuation; and the earnings season has bolstered investor confidence in profitability.
However, the Goldman Sachs trading desk also noted that market volume is 7% below the 5-day moving average, indicating relatively low activity. This suggests that, despite the strong index rally, not all capital has fully returned; future gains will depend on whether earnings reports and macroeconomic data can continue to support the upward momentum.
Specific project actions and stock price fluctuations:
Palantir rose 29.45%, strongly breaking through its 200-day moving average: the company’s second-quarter revenue surged 93% year-over-year to $1.935 billion, with U.S. commercial revenue jumping 149%. CEO Alex Karp called it an “extraordinary” quarter and noted that demand for AI sovereignty is being unleashed. Related AI software stocks also rose: Datadog and Shopify gained over 5%, ServiceNow and AppLovin climbed over 3%, while Adobe and Salesforce advanced over 2%.
Caterpillar surged over 5%, hitting a new all-time high: The heavy equipment giant reported its first-ever quarterly sales exceeding $20 billion in Q2 (a 24% year-over-year increase) and raised its full-year guidance across the board. Wells Fargo strategist Ohsung Kwon noted that Caterpillar is one of the "most AI-exposed" traditional stocks, with the spillover benefits from data center construction just beginning. The industrial sector has performed strongly this year, rising approximately 20%.
SpaceX rose 9.43%, but plunged nearly 9% after hours due to concerns over high capital expenditures: Yesterday, Musk confirmed that AI services will exclusively use NVIDIA’s architecture and aim to enter the U.S. telecommunications market. Space-related stocks overall advanced, with Rocket Lab up nearly 6% (after securing a $397 million contract from the U.S. Space Force) and AST SpaceMobile up nearly 11%. The first post-earnings report showed Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion, a 92% year-over-year increase, and a significant rise in EBITDA; however, AI-related capital expenditures reached $15.8 billion, with expectations that spending will remain high in upcoming quarters.
AMD rose 7% during trading and fell nearly 8% after hours: CEO Lisa Su expects data center sales to double by 2027 and announced partnerships with Anthropic and others. The semiconductor sector surged, with ARM up 17.36%, Marvell rising nearly 13%, Intel climbing nearly 11%, Qualcomm gaining 7.23%, Broadcom advancing nearly 7%, and TSMC rising over 2%. The Q2 earnings report showed revenue of $11.54 billion, a 50% year-over-year increase, exceeding expectations, but the Q3 revenue guidance did not fully impress the market.
NVIDIA rose 2.56%: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced the official open-sourcing and commercial release of Alpamayo 2 Super, an open-source inference model designed for autonomous driving, aimed at advancing applications such as autonomous taxis, robotics, and logistics vehicles. Meanwhile, SpaceX stated that its future AI services will exclusively run on NVIDIA systems, with plans to deploy NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale systems both on Earth and in space.
Micron Technology rose 7.62%, regaining its position in the $1 trillion market cap club: Bank of America reiterated a Buy rating and a $1,550 price target, viewing the recent pullback as an “excellent buying opportunity” and expecting memory chip prices to return to normal levels by 2027–2028. The entire storage sector advanced, with SanDisk up 10.84% (following the announcement of the first standard specification for High Bandwidth Flash memory by SK Hynix), Rambus up over 9%, SK Hynix up over 8%, and Western Digital up over 4%.
Intel shares rose 10.84%: Media reports indicate that Intel’s EMIB-T advanced packaging technology has made progress, with packaging yields approaching 90% and costs approximately 50% lower than TSMC’s CoWoS solution. Intel expects to offer this packaging service at scale by 2027, while continuing construction of its large wafer fabrication campus in Ohio, targeting full operation by 2031.
Oracle rose 2.74%: However, its stock price has been halved since June, and its five-year credit default swap spread has surged to a record high exceeding the peak seen during the 2008 financial crisis. Due to aggressive debt financing for AI data center construction, its current debt burden has reached $129.5 billion, prompting S&P Global to downgrade its credit rating to BBB-, just one notch above junk status. Moody’s has warned that its leverage ratio could approach five times, and the market is deeply concerned about the risk posed by the mismatch between its 15-year lease agreements and short-term AI contracts.
Bitdeer rose as much as 23% intraday before closing up 0.09%: Bitdeer signed a 16-year data center hosting and services agreement with Norwegian cloud startup Volta Infra to deploy NVIDIA GPUs and serve leading AI labs. Meanwhile, Anthropic is reported to have reached a $10 billion, six-year computing agreement with Volta.
Arista Networks (ANET) rose 3.04% during trading and surged 12.5% after hours, supported by strong demand for AI networking; Q2 revenue slightly exceeded $3 billion, a 37.7% year-over-year increase, and the company raised its 2026 guidance for the third time, forecasting full-year revenue of $12.6 billion, representing approximately 40% annual growth.
Apple rises nearly 2%: Apple has begun preparing for its September launch event, with U.S. retail employees eligible to apply for on-site roles; the event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Separately, it was reported that Apple has requested a judge to immediately prohibit OpenAI from using its trade secrets and to return all confidential information.
Next, pay attention to:
Major earnings report on August 5: Circle, Uber, Eli Lilly, BeiGene, and more.
August 6 (Thursday)
SpaceX lock-up expiration: Up to 911.5 million restricted shares of SpaceX are set to unlock, with an estimated potential value nearing $100 billion based on the latest share price—representing the largest liquidity stress test of the week. If selling pressure remains limited after the unlock, it will bolster market confidence in the ability to absorb high-valued tech assets; if selling pressure is concentrated and released, it could weigh on sentiment toward Nasdaq and Musk-linked assets.
05:00 PM: SanDisk and Western Digital post-earnings reports: These will directly impact sentiment in the storage sector. After recent consecutive corrections by Micron, SanDisk, and SK Hynix, the market will closely focus on enterprise SSDs, NAND prices, AI data center storage demand, inventory cycles, and second-half guidance.