Call the ambulance… but not for me-tah!
🤖 Chips Trip Up the Nasdaq
- The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% Wednesday as another wave of selling hit semiconductor stocks. The Nasdaq shed 0.7%, while the Dow finished little changed in a session where the headline indexes looked weaker than most stocks actually were.
- Breadth was surprisingly healthy, meaning more stocks rose than fell. Chipmakers carry enormous weight in today's market, so sharp declines in a handful of AI favorites is usually enough to drag the broader indexes lower.
- Sandisk, Micron Technology and Intel led the retreat as investors once again questioned whether the AI trade has simply sprinted too far, too fast.
📈 Meta Bucks the Trend
- While chip stocks stumbled, six of the Magnificent Seven moved higher. Meta led the group after Bloomberg reported the company is exploring selling surplus computing power to outside customers.
- Computing power is exactly what it sounds like — the processing capacity used to train and run AI models.
- Renting excess capacity could open another revenue stream instead of leaving expensive infrastructure sitting idle.
📊 Jobs Report Ahead
- Trading was relatively subdued as Wall Street headed into the Fourth of July long weekend (Friday’s a day off), with many investors reluctant to place big bets before Thursday's closely watched jobs report.
- Economists expect the June nonfarm payrolls report to show about 115,000 new jobs. Payrolls track how many jobs the US economy created and are one of the Federal Reserve's favorite gauges of economic strength.
- Early Thursday, optimism faded as US stock futures slipped into the red. Meanwhile, Asia struggled, with South Korea's Kospi dropping 8% and the small-cap Kosdaq falling 6.8%, adding another dose of caution before Wall Street's next big macro test.