From Monday to Friday mornings, focusing on macro trends, U.S. stocks, AI, precious metals, crude oil, and other directions. Recap markets with data, seize opportunities with trends. Presented by PANews.
Nonfarm Jolts Rate Hike Expectations, Hormuz Stalemate Reignites Oil Price Premiums
Last Friday, U.S. July Nonfarm Payrolls unexpectedly decreased by 23,000, far below the market expectation of an 80,000 increase. Moreover, employment data for May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000, and the labor force participation rate fell to its lowest level in over five years. After the data release, the market quickly trimmed bets on a Fed rate hike in September, with the probability dropping from about 55% to 40%. U.S. stocks immediately staged a robust rally.
As of the close last Friday, the Dow rose 0.28%, the Nasdaq gained 1.30%, and the S&P 500 climbed 0.62%, setting another record closing high. Tom Siomades, Chief Market Economist at AE Wealth Management, believes that weak employment should have raised concerns, but strong earnings reports are becoming the dominant force in current pricing.
Following the Nonfarm report, all eyes turn to Wednesday's U.S. July CPI release. A Reuters survey expects headline CPI year-over-year to drop to 3.4% from 3.5% in June, with core CPI falling to 2.5% from 2.6%; FactSet forecasts point in a similar direction. Citigroup suggests that if core inflation softens for a second consecutive month, a September hike can be essentially ruled out. However, Bank of America cautions that core services inflation might rebound 0.3% month-over-month, meaning the rate hike option still cannot be completely taken off the table.
The weekend U.S.-Iran talks did not yield a final agreement. Iran and Oman indicated they are "very close" to establishing new shipping routes, but Iran has linked reopening the strait to the lifting of sanctions, unfreezing assets, ending the blockade, removing military threats, and compensation for damages. Trump told Axios that the U.S. is currently "playing it low-key," focusing on economic pressure and a semi-negotiation stance, with no rush for military escalation. Personnel changes in Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Houthi claims of attacking Saudi Arabia's Jizan refinery, and attacks on UAE oil tankers collectively pushed oil prices higher on Monday. Brent crude rose over 2% at one point, trading above $84, while WTI traded around $78. Goldman Sachs still believes Brent's reasonable range is $80-$90, but until an agreement is formally reached, oil prices are likely to remain highly volatile around geopolitical news.
Gold continues its strong momentum. Spot gold rose 2.3% last Friday, surpassing $4,300, and briefly broke above $4,370 during the session. For the week, it gained over 7%, marking its best weekly performance of the year. Silver rose about 3% in a single day, with weekly gains reaching 10%. Since July 20th, global gold ETF holdings have increased by 24 tons, with UBS even predicting gold prices could rise to $5,000 in the first half of 2027.
'Short Storage, Long Optics' Weekend Debate Intensifies, AI Infrastructure Sector Sentiment Swings Wildly
Last week, AI funds began selecting winners anew, with software, optical communications, and AI infrastructure clearly strengthening, while the memory/storage sector underwent adjustments. Coherent rose 13.44%, AAOI gained 9.2%, Credo climbed 8.45%, Lumentum advanced 6.22%, and Corning increased 5.4%. Meanwhile, Seagate fell 4.71%, Western Digital dropped 3.8%, SanDisk declined 3.68%, SK Hynix slipped 3.9%, and Micron edged down 0.44%.
Market discussions even emerged around a "short storage, long optics" trading theme. Storage bull Jukan turned tactically cautious, citing reasons including redemption pressure on Korean leveraged ETFs, the potential for Rubin Ultra to reduce HBM configuration per rack, and market concerns that memory prices might peak in the next two quarters. "White-Haired Stock God" Serenity believes the fundamentals of memory haven't fundamentally changed, and the market is merely rotating from one "bottleneck" to another.
Goldman Sachs TMT trader Peter Callahan further defined this shift as a structural revaluation within the AI infrastructure space: network traffic generated by AI agents is surpassing human traffic, optical components are outperforming memory, and corporate AI budgets continue to expand. Last week, the Nasdaq 100 rose 5%, and the VIX fell to around 14, indicating a renewed increase in market risk appetite.
The software sector also staged a strong rebound. Atlassian surged 35% post-earnings, Palantir rose nearly 40% for the week, and the software sector climbed 19% over two weeks, marking its strongest two-week performance since 2020. Among the 436 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings, 85.1% exceeded analyst profit expectations, well above the long-term historical average. GPUs, optical modules, power, network equipment, and software applications are becoming the new profit-validating sectors.
Specific Company Actions and Stock Price Movements:
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SpaceX rose 15.83% last Friday, gaining about 23% over two consecutive days. The massive lock-up expiration, initially seen as potential selling pressure, instead triggered a short-covering rally. After the company's tradable shares increased from about 639 million to 1.55 billion, the stock price rebounded towards its $135 IPO price. Over 250 million shares remain sold short, with option volume reaching 2.24 million contracts, including 1.3 million call options, hitting a record high.
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Palantir rose 10.32%, up nearly 40% for the week. U.S. commercial revenue grew 149% year-over-year. Total contract value for U.S. commercial business exceeded $2 billion in Q2, up 153% year-over-year. Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to Buy, as its sovereign AI positioning gained institutional recognition.
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Nvidia rose 2.27%, gaining over 11% for the week. Nvidia continues to benefit from the AI capital expenditure cycle. Reports also emerged that Nvidia will invest $2 billion in AI data center power developer Lancium, with an additional $1 billion investment upon reaching power access milestones, bringing the potential total to $3 billion. Lancium has secured 4GW of power resources in Texas. Nvidia's move indicates the AI competition is extending from chips to power infrastructure.
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Optical communications emerge as the new hardware theme in AI: Coherent rose 13.44%, AAOI gained 9.2%, Credo climbed 8.45%, Lumentum advanced 6.22%, and Corning increased 5.4%. The market's trading logic is shifting from HBM capacity expansion towards high-speed inter-rack connectivity and 800G/1.6T optical communications. Goldman Sachs' Peter Callahan noted that since Q3, optical stocks have outperformed memory stocks by over 20 percentage points. Coherent rose for seven consecutive sessions, gaining 73% during that period. Earnings reports from Lumentum and Coherent this week will serve as a key stress test for AI optical module demand.
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The storage/memory sector came under clear pressure: Seagate fell 4.71%, Western Digital dropped 3.8%, SanDisk declined 3.68%, SK Hynix slipped 3.9%, and Micron edged down 0.44%. The market is concerned that the memory price cycle is nearing its peak. Additionally, deleveraging in Korean leveraged ETFs might further increase short-term supply pressure on chip stocks. Citigroup's target price cut for Micron exacerbated worries about potential future peaks in DRAM and NAND prices.
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Apple rose 0.29%, while the ChangXin Tech concept gained traction. The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is testing ChangXin Memory (CXMT) chips for iPhones and MacBooks to alleviate memory shortages triggered by the AI boom. The report also stated that Apple has held preliminary talks with CXMT about component supply, aiming to use the chips in some devices sold in China.
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Berkshire Hathaway resumed net stock purchases. In Q2, Berkshire bought $23.5 billion worth of stocks and sold $3.7 billion, marking its first net stock purchase in over three years. As of June 30, Alphabet became its largest holding, followed by American Express, Apple, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola. The market views this move as a significant signal that the Buffett system is raising its equity risk exposure again.
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Other giants: Google fell 0.96%, mainly due to a major internal restructuring where DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis moved to Chairman, shifting daily management to accelerate Gemini commercialization, causing internal cultural turbulence. Tesla rose 2.83%, jointly launching the $16.8 billion Terafab project with SpaceX.
This Week's Focus:
August 10th (Monday)
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Unitree Robotics STAR Market subscription: One of the most anticipated humanoid robot IPOs of the year, with online and offline subscriptions starting simultaneously. Subscription enthusiasm will directly reflect risk appetite in the A-share robotics industrial chain, potentially boosting sentiment for sectors like reducers, servo motors, sensors, and controllers.
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ChangXin Technology included in the MSCI China All Shares Index: ChangXin Technology is added to the index due to its IPO listing. Market focus is on passive fund allocation and sentiment diffusion across the domestic memory industrial chain. Combined with news of Apple testing CXMT chips, attention on domestic DRAM, packaging/testing, equipment, and material chains may increase.
August 11th (Tuesday)
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12:30 Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Interest Rate Decision; 13:30 RBA Governor Bullock Press Conference: The market widely expects the cash rate to remain unchanged at 4.35%. Key focus is on whether cooling inflation, weakening employment, and real estate risks prompt the RBA to signal future rate cuts.
August 12th (Wednesday)
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Lumentum, CoreWeave, Super Micro Computer to report earnings after U.S. market close: Results and capital expenditure guidance from optical module leader Lumentum and compute rental leader CoreWeave will directly test real consumption in AI infrastructure. Super Micro's gross margin (expected 15-17%) and order conversion speed will determine sentiment for the computing server sector.
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Dense release of U.S. EIA, OPEC, and IEA monthly reports: The three major energy reports will collectively examine global crude oil supply/demand, inventories, OPEC+ production discipline, and demand outlook. If reports indicate tightening supply or heightened Hormuz risks, oil prices may continue rising, reigniting inflation expectations. If demand expectations are revised down, the momentum for an oil price rebound could be limited.
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20:30 U.S. July CPI: The market expects U.S. headline CPI year-over-year to fall to 3.4% from 3.5%, and core CPI year-over-year to drop to 2.5% from 2.6%. If the data is lower than expected, bets on a September rate hike will continue cooling, potentially pressuring U.S. Treasury yields and the dollar lower, benefiting the Nasdaq, gold, long-term bonds, and high-valuation growth stocks. If CPI is hotter, the market will reprice tightening risks, potentially pressuring U.S. stock valuations, especially AI/tech stocks.
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20:00 Tencent Holdings Q2 Earnings Conference Call: The headline earnings report for Hong Kong's core heavyweight this week. Market focus is on game business recovery, commercialization of Video Account ads, fintech profit margins, AI capital expenditure, Hunyuan model, Yuanbao, and WeChat AI feature progress.
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Unitree Robotics Subscription Payment: As a high-profile humanoid robot IPO, payment results and market sentiment will continue to influence robotics concept stock sentiment.
August 13th (Thursday)
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Cisco, Coherent, Cerebras to report earnings after U.S. market close: Cisco will verify demand for AI network equipment. Coherent will verify the strength of high-speed optical communications and 800G/1.6T optical module demand. If orders, gross margins, and guidance are strong, the "long optics" trade may continue. If results disappoint, the recently surging optical module sector faces profit-taking pressure.
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06:00 Google New Product Launch Event: Expected to launch Pixel 11 series, Pixel Watch 5, and Pixel Buds Pro. The core focus is deep integration between the Tensor G6 and the Gemini ecosystem. If on-device AI experiences exceed expectations, it could catalyze the AI phone, on-device models, sensors, and Android ecosystem chain.
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20:30 U.S. July PPI: PPI will indicate whether business costs continue to pass through to end consumers. If PPI is hot, even with mild CPI, the market may worry about recurring inflation. If PPI cools simultaneously, the "inflation falling + policy pressure easing" trade will be further reinforced.
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21:00 SanDisk Investor Day: Market focus is on NAND supply/demand, enterprise SSDs, capital expenditure, high-bandwidth memory roadmap, and long-term profit margin targets. As memory stocks face recent pressure, SanDisk's stance will directly impact sentiment for Micron, Western Digital, SK Hynix, and the A-share memory chain.
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JD.com Q2 Earnings Conference Call, SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor earnings.
August 14th (Friday)
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U.S. SEC 13F Quarterly Holdings Filing Deadline: The filings will disclose U.S. hedge fund and other institutional long equity holdings as of June 30th. The market will closely observe whether large institutions increased allocations to AI, optical communications, power, energy, gold, and financial stocks. Note that 13F filings have about a one-and-a-half-month lag and only cover long positions, but they remain an important window for judging institutional style shifts.
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Applied Materials earnings after U.S. market close: Market focus is on DRAM, advanced packaging, wafer fab equipment demand, and changes in orders from China.
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Bill Gates visits South Korea, discusses SMR cooperation with SK Group and HD Hyundai: Market focus is on nuclear energy, small modular reactors (SMRs), and their integration with AI data center power demand. If cooperation details progress, it will strengthen the "AI power infrastructure" trading logic.
