Small Caps Rise, SpaceX Falls

 

CLOSING BELL The market split Monday as small caps and the Dow climbed while mega-cap tech pulled the S&P 500 and $QQQ lower. Oil fell, but energy climbed after the U.S. delegation in the Middle East came back with some major victories: for oil mongers.  Eight sectors finished green, led by energy at +1.3%, even as WTI fell below $74 after Treasury opened a 60-day window for Iranian oil sales. $IWM’s +0.9% gain against -0.3% for the S&P 500 and $QQQ says the tape rotated beneath the index damage, but communication services and consumer discretionary still lost 2.1% and 1.7%.  Legendary stock market wizard and FOMC head Alan Greenspan died Monday at the ripe age of 100, a hardcore “giant of a man” who led the Federal Reserve for nearly twenty years.  Stocktwits traders crowded into $SPCX’s post-IPO wreckage, debated whether $PLTR had found a floor, and chased fresh biotech data in $DFTX and $MLTX.  Today's Briefing:  After the Bell: SpaceX’s bond sale overwhelmed a $6.3B computing deal  Stocks: Alphabet lost AI talent, Micron gained Anthropic, and Palantir found an Army counterpunch  Macro: Treasury gave Iran a 60-day license to sell oil for dollars  Pops and Drops & More

AFTER THE BELL SpaceX Meets Gravity  SpaceX shares collapsed Monday, extending their post-IPO losing streak after the company announced a fresh unsecured bond sale. The plunge erased roughly $400 billion in market value and pushed $SPCX below its first-day close, even after SpaceX signed Reflection AI to a Colossus 2 computing deal worth up to $6.3 billion. Investors cared more about valuation, losses, and SpaceX’s enormous capital needs than another AI contract.  The RIP:  $SPCX ( ▼ 16.43% ) sank 16.4% to $154.60 on 166M shares, closing below its $160.95debut close. Reflection will pay $150M monthlybeginning July 1, potentially totaling $6.3B through 2029. Either company can terminate after three months with 90 days’ notice. Sounds great, but the firm said Monday it would issue an undisclosed amount of money in bonds to pay for a bridge loan.  The deal gives SpaceX another revenue stream beyond rockets and Starlink, joining Colossus agreements with Anthropic, Google, and Cursor. But the community watched a firm raise $85B last week say it needed even more.  The community remained bullish:message volume was extremely high across roughly 83,500 watchers.  @dennismccain: “A company that loses money is borrowing more money. What’s left for the common shareholder?” (post)  @Galaxy_Class_Investor: “Was happy to pick up some shares at a bargain price today.” (post)  Make your $SPCX case: compute platform or capital furnace →

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STOCKS DeepMind’s Talent Tax  Alphabet, the parent of Google Search, Cloud, and DeepMind, lost one of its most decorated AI researchers to Anthropic. The news helped push the stock to its worst sell off day in a year.  Expert John Jumper’s exit became the catalyst for broader fears that Google’s model advantage means less if rivals keep hiring the people who built it. Last week, VP and co-lead of Gemini Noam Shazeer left too.  The RIP:  $GOOGL ( ▼ 4.99% ) fell 5.0% to $349.68on 52.1M shares, erasing roughly $269B in market value. Jumper, an AlphaFold pioneer who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry, is joining Anthropic after leaving Google DeepMind.  The community is split: Sentiment finished neutral with normal message volume among roughly 218,000 watchers.  @starman1564: “they lose 1 employee to Anthropic and stock tanks 6%?” See post. @SuperBigBoss: “Down 7 % on a single quit was a little overdone. Oversold on daily.” See post. @RecklessTortuga: “added 1,500 shares this morning. I’ll buy into sell offs here.” See post. Tell the $GOOGL room: talent leak or overreaction → Anthropic Needs Memory, Micron is Selling  On Monday, Micron, the chipmaker behind DRAM, NAND, and high-bandwidth memory, said it signed Anthropic as a supply partner and invested in the AI lab’s latest funding round.  The RIP:  $MU ( ▲ 6.83% ) gained 6.8% to $1,211.38 on 52.1M shares. The agreement covers Micron memory and storage products plus an undisclosed investment in Anthropic. Micron reports fiscal third-quarter results Wednesday after the close.  The partnership validates demand, but it does not lower Wednesday’s bar. Holders need HBM pricing, capacity, and guidance strong enough to support a stock already priced for a memory supercycle. Anything merely good risks becoming sell-the-news material.  The community is divided: Sentiment finished neutral with low message volume among roughly 202,000 watchers.  @esrouter: “People have lost their minds. Short the living bejeezus out of this.” See post. @JohnCohrin: “ER in 2 days…you know tutes and everyone will load up these next 2 days.” See post. Make your $MU call: press or trim → Europe Out, Army In Palantir, the data and AI software contractor, spent Monday getting punished over European sovereignty risk before answering with a fresh U.S. Army role after the close. France said it wants a domestic replacement for the AI consultant, while Washington keeps pulling Palantir deeper into defense infrastructure.  The RIP: $PLTR fell 7.0% to $119.50, touched $119.20, and traded 56.1M shares. France selected ChapsVision for future DGSI intelligence work. After the close, the Army named Palantir’s software part of its NGC2 common data-layer baseline.  France is the warning: European governments can decide sovereignty matters more than product quality. The Army announcement reinforces Palantir’s U.S. defense moat, but Tuesday’s reaction will show whether that counterpunch can offset a growing international procurement problem.  The Stocks community leaned bearish:Message volume remained normal among roughly 321,000 watchers, though dip buyers were circling.  @dennismccain: “It’s now approaching fair value and likely will move into that buy zone between $80 and $120.” See post. @JDKING: “extremely oversold” See post. Sound off in $PLTR: Europe risk or Army moat →

MACRO Iran Gets Dollar Oil The U.S. Treasury on Monday gave Iran a 60-day license to produce and sell oil, accept dollars, and ship crude to American buyers through Aug. 21, temporarily suspending sanctions that pushed Tehran into shadow-fleet sales to China. It was the first filmed, inperson meeting between Tehran negotiators and U.S. counterparts, led by VP JD Vance.  “We laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal,” Vice President JD Vance said Monday. “There is still a lot to do.” WTI fell 2.6% below $74 as  The RIP: WTI settled at $73.86, down 2.6%, after trading between $73.24 and $78.14. Hedge funds held their largest bearish U.S. crude position in nearly five months. Iranian exports fell from more than 1.5M barrels per day before the April blockade to 260,000 bpd in May. $USO lost 1.9%, while $XLEgained 1.3%.  “As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday. “An oil gusher,” President Donald Trump said Monday, describing flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The phrase is a century old, found in the oil rush that hit California, depicted in Upton Sinclair's book Oil!, or the movie based on that book titled There Will Be Blood.  While critics called this a major financial concession packaged as a negotiating window, it helped oil budge. Iran gets legitimate access to dollars before Washington has secured the details of nuclear inspections, while oil traders get new supply that could disappear again in 60 days.  The contradiction was in equities. $XLE rose 1.3%, $XOM gained 0.5%, $CVX added 0.8%, and $OXYclimbed 0.3%, even as the $XLE stream stayed 66% bearish with high message volume. That suggests the crude short is crowded and energy investors are not pricing permanent normalization.

TRENDING ON STOCKS Pops & Drops $DFTX ( ▲ 49.8% )  Definium Therapeutics : exploded +48% after Phase 3 depression trial cleared every endpoint  $SMCI ( ▲ 15.66% )  Super Micro: surged +16% after unveiling Nvidia Vera Rubin data-center blueprint  $MLTX ( ▲ 15.36% )  MoonLake :jumped +10% after Week 52 Phase 3 results held up  $COHR ( ▲ 9.22% )  Coherent: climbed +9% after management said datacom demand still exceeds supply  $GLW ( ▲ 7.65% )  Corning: rallied +8%after Truist lifted its price target to $205  $ACN ( ▼ 2.46% )  Accenture : slipped -3% after Morgan Stanley and Susquehanna slashed targets

WHAT’S ON DECK Tomorrow’s Top Things

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