Market Snapshot

River1 Asset Management
September 22, 2025

Morning Note

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Calendar

This Week – Way too many Fed speakers against a backdrop of few earnings keeps us in macro.

Monday – 5 Fed Speakers. Miran is one of them. We will see if he’s the new “lower rates” mouthpiece.

Tuesday – 3 Fed Speakers including Powell at 12:35pm. Services PMI. AZO and MU earnings.

Wednesday – New Home Sales

Thursday –7 Fed Speakers. Goolsbee likely the most important (hawk). Durable goods, initial jobless claims. COST and KMX earnings.

Friday – Core PCE

Trading Observations

- For a moment, smalls FINALLY broke to new high after nearly 4 years https://tinyurl.com/2w7cev76 [tinyurl.com]
With small tech in particular ramping https://tinyurl.com/3bzw24e6 [tinyurl.com]
Post Opex, so some weakness early not unusual and we see how things progress
Short-term overbought
Relatively quiet news week ahead with MU Tues night and PCE Fri morning
6475-6500 support with blue skies above
We are at the top of a LONG TERM trendline (100 year+) either we go parabolic or lifting gets heavier? https://tinyurl.com/792hzn8s [tinyurl.com]
GS Total Positioning Indicator is STILL slightly underweight US equities https://tinyurl.com/mrbfh9fy [tinyurl.com]
Also Cathie performance breaking out https://tinyurl.com/5e6tw28w [tinyurl.com]
Cybersecurity names worth at least looking into https://tinyurl.com/u9ftjs8u [tinyurl.com]

Futures

DOW -203

S&P -19

Nasdaq -68

Charts/Sentiment

CNN Fear/Greed Index

U.S. 10 Year Treasury

Gold

Bitcoin

Financials / Consumer / Healthcare

PNC – Baird positive post management meetings. Core PPNR and fundamental growth remained strong. Investors want to know who they will buy next, but no bites, and likely a longer timeline.

FI – Baird positive after meeting with management, but their timeframe is 12-18 months because they see 3-6 months more even and 2026 EPS guidance potentially below expectations.

LEN – Downgraded to underperform at Ray Jay.

Visa – Downgraded to hold at Erste Group.

ODP (Office Depot) – Up 32% on news Atlas is taking them out.

BBBY – Up 5% on announcement of a dividend of warrants to its shareholders.

HOUS, COMP – Announced they will merge in an all-stock deal. HOUS up 57%, COMP down 10%.

MTSR - Up 61% after PFE announced they will pay $4.9B for the name in hopes to enter the obesity pill game.

TEM – Up 6% after receiving FDA clearance of one of its devices (Pelosi holding).

SRPT – Up 6% on a bullish BMO note.

PFE are up 1.7% in premarket trading after the company agreed to acquire obesity drug developer Metsera (MTSR +61%) in a deal valued at $47.50 per share in cash plus CVR.

Technology

AI Bullets – OPENAI plans to spend ~$450B over the next 5 years renting servers, including $100B for backup servers, to ensure it can meet spikes in demand (Altman apparently thinks OpenAI may one day require more power than the entire US grid can provide for its servers) (The Information)

GOOGL – continues to print fresh highs. All day. Every day. +5.8% last week and now up 17 out the last 19 weeks. DoJ decision mother of all clearing events and still view GOOGL as #1 megacap into year-end

GOOGL – is planning four major subsea cable connectivity hubs in Africa, in an effort to boost its presence and provide cloud access and AI services to 500 million people across the continent by 2030 (Twittersphere)

AV Wars – (1)TSLA +1% wins approval to test AVs in Arizona ... UBER -0.8% .... (2)NVIDIA reportedly incubating a Robotaxi project

KLAC – downgraded @ MS - valuation call - " KLA's ops have strengthened through the year as the co's growth drivers have gone from strength to strength, but sees relative outperformance given at a 30% valuation premium versus Applied and Lam

Memory Bullets / Px Hikes – (1)Commodity DRAM and NAND prices set to rise in 2026 as AI chip boom creates shortage ... (2)Samsung to hike DRAM prices up to 30% in 4Q25 as shortage bites (DigiTimes)

MU/Miron #s Tues night – 9.6% implied move ..... positioning main concern given +37% in Sept, fueled by avalanche of bullish memory data points (price increases, increased memory capacity/needs fueled by AI, demand > supply tightness, etc) .... Few negatives headlines led by 3.6% pullback on Friday (ppl looking for excuse to ring register)

ORCL/TIKTOK – +1% as headlines hit - TIKTOK’S ALGORITHM TO BE SECURED BY ORACLE IN TRUMP-BACKED DEAL

QUBT – Quantum Computing shares slump as much as 14% in premarket trading on Monday after the company announced a $500 million oversubscribed private placement.

SNAP – +6.7% on 1mm shrs ... disruption at TikTok could led to churn/uncertainty which bodes well for SnapChat (near-term at least); not sure if missing positive checks

RDDT – (-2.6%) Yipit saying Int’l DAU tracking slightly above/ US slightly below

Industrials

LEN – downgraded to underperform from market perform at Raymond James

RTX – European flights disrupted as RTX's Collins Aerospace falls victim to cyberattack

TSLA – Piper bullish - says Tesla remains its top idea for investing in autonomous vehicles and robotics (what Ives has been saying for past yr)

TSLA – SpaceX’s rocket setbacks has NASA worried about substantial delays in returning astronauts to the moon, with China at risk of beating the US (NYT)