Son of Baconator

 

CLOSING BELL The market split Wednesday as cheaper oil helped old-economy sectors, but another technology selloff kept the Nasdaq underwater. After the bell, Micron earnings might have turned that tech frown upside down.  The S&P 500 finished flat, the Nasdaq fell 0.4%, and the Dow gained 0.4%. Industrials led with a 1.2% gain, while Energy dropped 1.6% as crude sank 4.6%. Trump added politics to the move by ordering an investigation into alleged oil-company price gouging.  Speaking of, politics were weird today. Trump canned a planned signing of a bipartisan affordable housing bill, and instead met with GOP Senators to demand voting rights laws, whatever that might look like.  On Stocktwits, $MU took the top pulse slot after earnings, but $WEN remained the loudest stream after capturing 5% of platform views and generating a 563% one-day message jump. That’s right, it’s meme stock time: Wendy’s climbed on pure market madness.  Today's Briefing:  After the Bell: Micron’s record quarter rescued the memory trade  Stocks: Wendy’s squeezed, SK Hynix targeted Nasdaq, and Anthropic accused Alibaba of harvesting Claude  Macro News: Housing stocks rallied despite Trump delaying the affordability bill  Pops and Drops & More

AFTER THE BELL Micron Quadruples Down  Micron, America’s largest memory-chip maker, jumped 13% after hours after quarterly revenue more than quadrupled from last year and its $50 billion sales forecast demolished expectations. The report reversed Tuesday’s Korea-led memory rout and briefly pushed shares above their record high.  The RIP:  $MU ( ▼ 0.31% ) gained 13.2% after hours. Adjusted EPS reached $25.11 versus $20.49 expected; revenue hit $41.5 billion versus $35.7 billion. Adjusted gross margin was 84.9% versus 81.9%, with DRAM revenue at $31.3 billion and NAND at $9.9 billion.  Bank of America’s target increase from $950 to $1,500 suddenly looks less heroic. Micron guided for $49 billion to $51 billion in fourth-quarter revenue and roughly 86% gross margin as AI infrastructure strains global memory supplies.  The risk is that Micron’s record $7.1 billion quarterly capital spending eventually catches demand, while soaring memory prices squeeze consumers buying phones, computers and cars.  Stocks sentiment is bullish, with 61% of traders leaning positive across 203,500 watchers.  @stonedbunny: “$50B guidance!!! Holy fuck”  @DTE90: “Micron is not just saying ‘we had a huge quarter.’ They are saying the business model is changing.”  @citygirlj: “sorry but it will open red”  Tell the $MU room: shortage or peak cycle? →

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STOCKS Wendy’s Serves a Squeeze  Wendy’s, the burger chain attempting a turnaround under new CEO Bob Wright, became Wednesday’s meme stock after a viral “Save Wendy’s” campaign targeted its short interest.  The company Tuesday appointed former Potbelly executive Steve Cirulis CFO and chief strategy officer. Retail traders piled in. Reportedly, the original poster who called to “Save Wendy’s” last night had their post removed for linking to a pump and dump. Classic Reddit.  On Stocks, the crowd was going insane over the stock jump.  The RIP:  $WEN ( ▲ 25.66% ) closed up 26.8% at $7.93 after reaching $8.89, up 42.1%. Short sellers might have a point. According to MTI data, Wendy’s had 50.27 million shares sold short today, representing roughly 32% of its 156.88 million-share public float. The stock traded 208.37 million shares Wednesday, more than four times the entire reported short position and 21 times its normal volume.  The CFO hire gave traders a real headline, but squeeze mechanics did the heavy lifting. The next test is whether attention survives after volume cools, because Wendy’s still needs a restaurant turnaround, not merely a viral rescue mission.  Stocks sentiment is 88% bullish with extremely high message volume across roughly 13.1K watchers. Wendy’s ranked first nearly all day, captured 5% of platform views, and generated a 562.7% jump in messages from the day before.  @Djh98 said: “$WEN This is the 2026 squeeze!” (post)  @TradesBB said: “$WEN would love to see the illegal bs that is going on behind the scenes” (post)  Stocks users showed their enthusiasm in a community poll, most opting to “Ape in”  SK Hynix Flips the Script  Speaking of the Korean memory rhoute earlier…. One day after Korea’s leveraged-ETF warning triggered a 10% KOSPI crash and hammered memory stocks worldwide, SK Hynix unveiled plans for a $29.4 billion Nasdaq offering. The Roundhill Memory ETF rebounded 13% after falling 14% Tuesday.  The RIP: SK Hynix will issue 17.79 million new shares backing Nasdaq-traded ADRs under $SKHY beginning July 10. The offering could rank among history’s three largest first-time share sales, rivaling Saudi Aramco’s 2019 IPO.  Tuesday’s forced unwind sent SK Hynix and Samsung down more than 12%, Micron down 13%, SanDisk down 14% and Western Digital down 8%. But SK Hynix’s listing plan, followed by Micron’s blowout $50 billion forecast, strengthened the case that Korea’s crash reflected leveraged positioning rather than collapsing memory demand.  Track the $DRAM memory rebound → Claude Calls Out Alibaba  Alibaba fell more than 3% to a session low after Anthropic accused operators linked to its Qwen lab of conducting the largest known distillation attack against Claude. Alibaba did not comment on the allegation.  The RIP:  $BABA ( ▼ 2.73% ) fell 3% after the report. Anthropic said the campaign generated 28.8 million Claude exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April 22 and June 5.  Anthropic claims Alibaba targeted Claude’s software-engineering and agentic-reasoning capabilities, potentially avoiding billions in development costs.  The accusation could become a policy problem. U.S. lawmakers are considering sanctions against Chinese companies found improperly harvesting American AI models, while Alibaba is already fighting its addition to a Pentagon blacklist.  Tell the $BABA room: breach or AI arms race? →

MACRO NEWS Housing Bill Builds a Rally  Housing-linked stocks surged after Congress passed its biggest affordability package in decades. PulteGroup and Builders FirstSource led the rally, while Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams gained on expectations for stronger construction demand. The bipartisan bill would accelerate construction reviews, reduce regulatory barriers and reward cities that expand housing supply.  The RIP: $BLDR jumped 11.3%, $PHM rose 7.2%, $HD gained 5.7% and $SHW added 3.2%. The PHLX Housing Index climbed 5.4%.  Trump canceled Wednesday’s signing until Congress passes his voting legislation. But if the bill is presented and he neither signs nor vetoes it within 10 days, excluding Sundays, it becomes law unless Congress adjourns and prevents its return. Maybe he was generally pissed. Congress passed a bipartisan motion to limit Trump’s ability to wage war in Iran, right after the most concrete ceasefire and peace deal.  Tell the $PHM room: breakout or policy bounce? →

TRENDING ON STOCKS Pops & Drops $QCOM ( ▼ 3.29% )  Qualcomm ⚡:jumped +9% after forecasting $40 billion in non-handset revenue  $IQV ( ▲ 8.37% )  IQVIA: climbed +8% after biotech funding optimism revived contract research stocks  $CRL ( ▲ 8.31% )  Charles River: rallied +8% after biotech funding optimism strengthened its turnaround case  $SNDK ( ▼ 2.5% )  Sandisk : jumped +7% after Micron validated surging memory prices and demand  $UAL ( ▲ 7.4% )  United Airlines: climbed +7% after crude plunged, easing jet fuel cost concerns  $BKNG ( ▲ 7.29% )  Booking : gained +7% after Priceline added Anthropic models to its platform  $WDC ( ▼ 4.01% )  Western Digital : gained +6% after Micron strengthened the storage demand thesis  $MSFT ( ▼ 2.27% )  Microsoft : fell -2%after heavy AI spending continued frustrating investors  $MSTR ( ▼ 9.35% )  Strategy: sank -9%after Bitcoin fell below $60,000 again

WHAT’S ON DECK Tomorrow’s Top Things

Macro: Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) (8:30 AM ET), Gross domestic product (third estimate) (8:30 AM ET), Weekly jobless claims (8:30 AM ET), Durable goods (8:30 AM ET).  Pre-Market Earnings: $NNOX Nano X Imaging Ltd, $DRI Darden Restaurants Inc, $YRD Yiren Digital Ltd., $WGO Winnebago Industries Inc.  After-Market Earnings: $CNVS Cineverse Corp, $XCUR Exicure Inc, $MXC Mexco Energy Corp, $MSN Emerson Radio Corp..