Morning Note

Calendar

This Week – Fed Quiet Period before next week but we get three data points. If BLS revisions, PPI, and CPI are all negative/lower, look for a 50-bps cut to get fully price in.

Thursday – CPI, ADBE Earnings

Friday – U Michigan.

Trading Observations

• Continue to wrestle with 6500 resistance

• PPI came in very light . . . pave the way for 50 bps cut???

• Maybe today the day we finally push thru?

• How will yields react the story?  10-yr sub 4% should spark a rally

• 6550 next level to watch vs. 6450 (minor) and 6400 (more significant) support

• Can smalls finally move? https://tinyurl.com/s3ptjwj3 [tinyurl.com]

Futures

DOW +34

S&P +35

Nasdaq +125

Charts/Sentiment

Financials / Consumer / Healthcare

RKT: upgraded @ BofA - cites BofA's updated Federal Reserve rate cut forecast for the upgrade. The firm now expects two rate cuts this year from none previously and three more next year. Rocket is a "strong beneficiary" of rate cuts, as they will drive both purchase and refinance mortgage volumes. Rate cuts could help unlock refinance mortgages, where the company has 10% market share

CHWY: Down 10% on earnings. $32-$50 move from April to June looks unjustified in the numbers. Nobody cares about margins when you FY revenue guide down (see ORCL for the reverse situation).

ASST: Today’s up 80% Crypto treasury play. Eventually the rubes will run out of money here.

OCTO: Yesterday’s crypto treasury play down 6% as they issued debt and told those folks who bought it “Don’t worry, it will be fine”.

LDI: Loan depot a new short play? Up 11% on “rates are clearly headed lower”.

OPEN: Up 4% - Martin Shkreli (jailed pharma bro) is doubling down on his short call. We did a video. Company isn’t great, but supply and demand of stock has nothing to do with fundamentals sometimes.https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7359213985184825347

V/Visa: spoke at the Goldman conf. on Tues and reiterated what Mastercard said on Monday, that consumer spending remains healthy and resilient despite macro uncertainty.

GME: jump 9.2% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the video-game retailer reported Hardware and Accessories net sales for the second quarter that beat the average analyst estimate.

Technology

ORCL bankshots: CRWV+7%, CLS/VRT+5%, ANET /ALAB +4%, AMD +3.3%, CRDO/COHR+3%, AVGO+2.2%, TSM/NVDA+2%, AAOI+1.8%, PLTR/SNOW/SMCI+1.5%, MU+1.3%, CRM/MRVL/DELL+1%, MRVL/APH+0.8%

Nvidia (NVDA) +3%, Microsoft (MSFT) +1.7%, Tesla (TSLA) +0.9%, Alphabet (GOOGL) +0.2%, Meta Platforms (META) 0%, Amazon (AMZN) -0.4%, Apple (AAPL) -0.6%

AAPL: iPhone event takaways muted. Evolutionary upgrade cycle vs revolutionary - tough to see ppl raising iPhone ests much ... DUOL shorts pressed on Airpod / translation functionality (such a tough story as big tech coming at all angles)

AI complex: HUGE boost from Oracle last night - follows AVGO last Thur night. THINGS ARE SIMPLY NOT SLOWING DOWN WHATSOEVER. Positioning has cleaned up a bit too post soggy August (MIT study, Altman comments, NVDA meh reaction, MRVL/DELL disasters, lackluster ChatGPT-5 launch, etc) ... NVDA should start to work from here given Oracle not using ASICs

AI POWER UP/VRT: Vertiv @ Golman - "commented that while hyperscaler and colocator demand still drives a large part of AI/datacenter demand, it is seeing new players emerge such as neocloud. On lead times, the company said that it can generally turn products quickly (and its speed has improved) but customer project times can still be 12-18 mos. In addition, it has visibility on future projects beyond 12-18 mos"

AMD REMINDER: +3.5% in pre ... Oracle press release from June ... "Oracle will be among the first hyperscalers to offer an AI supercomputer with AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs ... OCI to deploy new zettascale AI cluster with up to 131,072 MI355X GPUs to enable customers to build, train, and inference AI at scale"

CDNS: -4.5% sympathy mover w/ SNPS nasty T+1 reaction

GOOGL: cont to see support from wide range of investors (mainly global LOs here) ... dont underestimate how UW ppl have been on GOOGL since launch of ChatGPT in early '23 ... Cleveland pos checks ystrdy (ROI/monetization focused) + GOOGL's Nanonbanana driving signups to Gemini

HPQ: -2% downgraded @ Evercore ISI - firm needs to see a clear path to EPS and FCF ests moving higher to see further upside, but views that as unlikely to happen in the near-term given a host of cross currents

ORCL: +30% biggest move since 1999; blowout RPO # ($455B vs St at $167B); signed four multi-billion dollar contracts with three diff customers in Q1 ... LT projections: we expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to grow 77% to $18 billion this fiscal year—and then increase to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion, and $144 billion over the subsequent four years

PINS: fell off cliff during GS presentation / seemed extreme giving nothing overly new BUT px action fed upon itself

SNPS: -21% unexpected weakness; Design IP business will be a major focal point as AI drivers (complex chip designs) fell short in 3Q and guide below. Not a great call.

TSM: up 2.7% in premarket trading, after the company reported August sales that were seen as strong and a reflection of robust AI demand.

Industrials 

AeroVironment, Inc. (AVAV) - 1Q26 Recap: Bullish Thesis Intact, Key Wins on Next-Gen Platforms

· AVAV delivered solid 1Q26 results, mostly aligning with Street estimates;

·  However, key takeaways include significant growth on franchise programs like SwitchBlade 600 (up 200% y/y), coupled with an emerging adoption story on various next-generation platforms within the new SCDE segment.

Ametek (AME): initiated equal weight at Barclays; $200 PT

Bioceres Crop Solutions (BIOX): downgraded to hold from buy at Canaccord Genuity; $2.50 PT

Newmont (NEM): upgraded to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital Markets

NIO Inc. (NIO): proposes offering of up to 181.2M Class A ordinary shares – stock is trading down 9% on the headlines

Ralliant Corp. (RAL): initiated outperform at Oppenheimer; $55 PT

Saia Inc (SAIA): upgraded to positive from neutral at Susquehanna; $360 PT

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