A mixed opening on Wall Street; Chip stocks climb, SpaceX falls

16:35

Wall Street opens the trading day with a mixed trend. The Nasdaq falls by about 0.3%, the S&P 500 adds to its value by about 0.1% and the Dow Jones advances by about 0.4%.

The chip giant Micron Climbing ahead of the financial reports it is expected to publish on Wednesday after the close of trading. In general, the basket fund SOXX which tracks the chip sector, is up about 1.5% and is trading at an all-time high. on the other hand, SpaceX of Elon Musk is down for its third trading day in a row and has weakened by more than 6%.

16:10

Trading in the futures contracts on Wall Street is now underway with slight increases of up to 0.3%. At the same time, oil prices recorded decreases of about 2%, after Qatari and Pakistani brokers announced that the US and Iran agreed on a road map on the way to reaching a final deal within 60 days. Brent oil traded around $78 per barrel, while American WTI oil traded around $74 per barrel.

Among the stocks that stand out in early trading: the chip giant Micron Climbing about 5%, ahead of the financial reports it is expected to publish on Wednesday after the close of trading. In general, the basket fund SOXX which tracks the chip sector, is up over 2% in early trading and is trading at an all-time high. on the other hand, SpaceX of Elon Musk is down on its third trading day in a row and has weakened by about 3%.

14:12

The U.S. government bond market opens the trading week with falling rates and rising yields along the entire curve, amid a reassessment of inflation risks by investors. The yield on the 2-year bond rose to 4.0442% (its highest level since February 2025), the benchmark 10-year yield climbed to 4.5048%, and the yield on The MCM for the year reached 4.136%. The movements in the physical bond market are attributed to the completion of gaps after the Friday holiday in the US, alongside the impact of the Fed Chairman’s hawkish remarks from last week and the volatility in oil prices following the geopolitical tensions with Iran.

Garfield Reynolds, Markets Live strategist, commented on the impact of the political situation on the markets and noted that “the 60 days of negotiations between the US and Iran that are supposed to begin now, also create the potential for a renewed flare-up of tensions. Such a situation will threaten to boost crude oil prices again, and will take bond yields up with them.”

14:00

Trading in Europe follows a mixed trend, with the British FTSE 100 index recording an increase of 0.2%, against the backdrop of the Prime Minister’s resignation. On the other hand, the main indexes on the continent weaken slightly, the German DAX sheds 0.2% and the French CAC falls by 0.7%.

The energy market shows a mixed trend. In the oil sector, a split trend is recorded, with the price of WTI oil rising by 0.5% to $77, while Brent oil weakened by 1.6% and traded at $79.3 per barrel. on the other hand, The natural gas contracts lead the increases with a jump of 2.8% to the level of 3.3 dollars.

13:12

stock Spice X Down more than 4% in early trading today on Wall Street, following the wave of sales that caused the stock to fall in the last two full trading days, and this after the surge it recorded following its historic, record-breaking IPO.

13:04

Upheaval in the South Korean stock market, chip giant SK Hynix this morning overtook Samsung and became the company with the highest market value in the country ($1.35 trillion), for the first time in 26 years. Dr. Ilan Gildin, hedge fund manager at Carney Family Office: “In 2003, its share price was only 135 won. A penny stock that investors have already written off completely, and almost sold itself to Micron just to survive another chip cycle. Its shares have soared 342% this year.” Gildin explains the turnaround: “What’s driving the change is one product – the memory chips that feed the AI ​​industry. The AI ​​revolution has turned what used to be a commodity in the tech world into a critical bottleneck. SK Hynix currently holds 61% of the global AI memory market, while Samsung, the company that invented the concept of dominance in the memory worlds, holds only 17%. And so the AI ​​revolution continues to change world orders.”

12:25

Political drama in London with a mild reaction in the markets when the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Keir Starmer, announced his resignation. Despite the political upheaval, the markets’ initial reaction remains subdued and suggests that the move has already been largely priced in. The British pound weakened slightly by 0.2% against the dollar and traded at $1.32, while 10-year government bond yields remained stable at 4.8452%. The relative calm is attributed to the fact that bond yields had already jumped last Friday, after Starmer’s apparent successor, Andy Burnham, won a special election that would allow him to return to the House of Representatives. Burnham has recently been careful to send reassuring messages to investors and distance himself from his past statements that Britain is “enslaved to the bond markets”.

Futures contracts in the US offset most of the declines from the early morning hours and traded stably, amid geopolitical developments and the publication of the PCE inflation index data on Thursday. The contracts on the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones registered an almost zero increase. On the other hand, the contracts on the S&P 500 index maintain a slight negative tendency and subtract 0.1%.

Brent oil futures have moved into a negative trend and show a 1.7% drop to a level of around $79 per barrel. This is after the mediators Qatar and Pakistan announced that officials from the US and Iran agreed on a road map to reach a final agreement within 60 days of the end of the war. In the US market, WTI oil contracts offset an early jump of 3% and are now trading with a moderate increase of about 0.5% around $77 per barrel.

11:50

Trading in Europe is currently in a mixed trend with a slight downward trend, with the leading indices trading around base levels and showing relative stability. The pan-European index registers a minimal decrease of 0.1%, while the main indices in Germany and the United Kingdom show zero fluctuations. Heavier but moderate pressures are felt in the south of the continent and in France, where the CAC 40 index falls by 0.4%.

Early trading on Wall Street indicates a mixed and stable opening, with Nasdaq futures registering an almost zero increase, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones contracts slightly weakening by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively;

In the commodities and currencies sector, gold loses 0.8% and Bitcoin registers a slight decrease of 0.2%. The energy market shows a mixed trend, with WTI oil rising by 0.5% to $77, but Brent weakening by 1.7% to around $79 per barrel.

The stock markets in Asia closed the trading day on a mostly positive trend, drawing a boost from the strong performance in China and Japan. The Chinese Shanghai index led the increases with a jump of 1.8%, followed immediately by the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo, which recorded an impressive climb of 1.5% (an increase of over 1,100 points) to a level of 72,353.96 points. Positive momentum was also registered in Seoul, with the South Korean KOSPI strengthening by 0.7%. On the other hand, Hong Kong was against the flow and locked in the red territory with a decrease of 0.6%.

10:23

Trading in Europe opened this morning stably – Frankfurt rose by 0.2%, London and Paris unchanged.

08:49

Against the background of the geopolitical processes, a mixed trend is recorded in the Asian stock exchanges – in Switzerland, the first session of the talks at the senior level as part of the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran ended tonight – “encouraging progress has been achieved, including the establishment of a mechanism that will allow the continuation of technical talks between the parties”, Qatar and Pakistan said in a joint statement.

The Nikkei 225 index in Japan jumps by 1.95% to a new record and crosses the 72 thousand points mark for the first time, while the Topix index adds 1.29%. In South Korea the Kospi index rises by 1.22%, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng index falls by 1.7%.

The futures contracts on the leading indices on Wall Street are trading with decreases of up to 0.5%, against the background of investors examining the latest developments in the talks between the US and Iran and waiting for the upcoming inflation data, which may affect the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

Contracts on the S&P 500 index fall by 0.4%, contracts on the Nasdaq lose 0.6%, and contracts on the Dow Jones index weaken by about 183 points, or 0.4%.

The abbreviated trading week that ended on Thursday closed with gains led by technology stocks and mainly chip manufacturers. The Nasdaq index jumped about 2%, the S&P 500 index added about 1.1%, while the Dow Jones index rose about 0.1%.

At the center of the trade was Intel’s stock, which jumped after President Trump claimed in a post he published on his social network that the company had signed a deal with Apple to design and manufacture chips in the United States. “Stupid presidents have taken our economy for granted and allowed Taiwan and others to steal our chip factories,” Trump wrote.

This week’s story belongs to SpaceX stock, which fell 3.6% on Thursday to a level of slightly less than $185 per share. This morning it is down by over 4% in early trading.

The stock surged from an IPO price of $135 to an intraday high of more than $225 on Tuesday as investors flocked to one of the most talked about IPOs in recent years. Since then, however, the stock has lost about 20% of its value.

An interesting figure published by Yahoo Finance is the VWAP price (weighted average price by trading volume) in the last five trading days. That’s $181.71 per share. This index reflects the average price at which the stock was traded, while weighing the volume of transactions, and is used by many traders to assess the positioning of investors in the stock – this means that the average investor who purchased shares of SpaceX on the open market after the offering saw almost all of his profits wiped out, after a sharp sale in the stock wiped out a large part of the jump recorded following the offering.

in the commodity market. Oil prices continue to fall this morning and trade at a three-month low, with Brent oil trading around $79 per barrel, but the market estimates that even if the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal, the high energy prices of the recent period will continue to affect inflation around the world in the coming months.

Still in the commodity market, gold continued to absorb pressure and its price was locked at a level of about $4,170 per ounce. According to Todorova, “It is a struggle between two opposing forces. In the short term, higher interest rates harm gold, which does not bear a yield. In the long term, the central banks continue to purchase gold at a high rate and the hedge funds hold record levels.”

In the crypto market, Bitcoin continues the negative trend, trading around $64,000. Bloomberg attributed the decline to concerns thatstrategy the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, will need to sell more Bitcoin to fund dividend payments to investors. Recall that at the beginning of the month, the founder Michael Saylor, who is known to be a big believer in the cryptographic currency, who promised in the past that he would never sell Bitcoin, sold a small amount of Bitcoin to finance dividend payments, which spooked the market and sent the currency into a wave of sales. Also, expectations for an interest rate hike in the US were noted as a factor that may weigh on the currency.

Macro. Despite some moderation in inflation concerns, the Fed’s hawkish interest rate decision last week jumped the probability that the markets are pricing in an interest rate hike by the end of the year to the 90% range.

Modi Shafferer, chief strategist at Bank Hapoalim claims that the Fed’s “hawkishness” has led to the fact that the markets are now pricing in a 94% probability that the interest rate will rise already in September (14% before the announcement) and about 1.5 interest rate increases in 2026, despite the sharp drop in oil prices and inflation expectations.

“The interest rate announcement not only abandoned the forward guidance that leaned towards ‘June’, but also included an unequivocal commitment to maintain price stability (deliver price stability). We will also note that 9 of the 18 members of the committee now anticipate an interest rate increase in 2026.” However, Shafferer points to the governor of the Bank of Israel who presented a slide this week indicating that “there is a strong connection between geopolitical events and monetary policy around the world”, “so given the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the sharp drop in oil prices – it is not at all certain that the Fed will rush to raise interest rates,” says Shafferer.

“We would also note that despite the relatively ‘hawkish’ Dots forecast – most Fed members still expect a lower interest rate in 2028 than its current level (and significantly lower than market expectations)”

This coming Thursday, the PCE index for the month of May will be published. The analyst consensus is for a monthly increase of 0.5%, which will reflect an annual inflation rate of 4.1%. At the same time, the core index, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, is expected to show an annual increase of 3.4%.

Alex Zbzinski, Meitav’s chief economist, noted in his weekly review that “historical experience shows that when core PCE inflation was in the 3.0-3.5% range, a significantly higher interest rate was usually required.” However, in view of the fact that a significant part of the inflationary pressures this time are less sensitive to interest rates, Zabrzynski estimates that the Fed would prefer to wait and examine the effect of the end of the war before raising interest rates again.