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J. Edward Moreno3h

Fermi rises after announcing nuclear deal with South Korean firms ahead of Trump visit

Fermi rose in early trading after it announced a nuclear deal with South Korean industrial firms Doosan Enerbility and Hyundai Engineering & Construction ahead of President Trump’s visit to the country this week.

Other nuke stocks that hit headwinds last week initially ticked up in sympathy with the Fermi news. Zero-revenue retail favorite Oklo — the subject of a skeptical story in the Financial Times last week — and Nuscale, another developer of still unapproved cutting-edge small modular reactors, both rose in early Monday trading but had given up their gains by midmorning.

Fermi, which was cofounded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, plans to use nuclear energy to power data centers. The company is up about 20% since it went public earlier this month.

On Friday, the stock rallied after a wave of positive initial analyst coverage. Mizuho, Evercore, Cantor Fitzgerald, and other banks all initiated coverage on Fermi by giving it a “buy” rating.

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JPMorgan recommends bullish options bets on Amazon and Meta ahead of earnings this week

JPMorgan analysts who cover Amazon and Meta are optimistic on the results these two hyperscalers will report this week, and Bram Kaplan, head of America equity derivatives strategy, has mapped out a similar approach to position for upside in both stocks.

Amazon is JPMorgan’s top pick among internet stocks for this earnings season, and both the Jassy-led and Zuckerberg-led companies are rated as “overweight” by the bank, in part because of tax benefits thanks to the OBBBA. The former reports on Thursday after the close, while the latter is slated to deliver results on Wednesday postmarket.

Kaplan’s tactic is to position for strength — but not too much strength — from both stocks as investors react to the quarterly figures. His recommendations:

Buy the Amazon $235 strike call that expires this Friday while selling the $245 strike;
But the Meta $780 strike call that expires this Friday while selling the $805 strike.

Both are call spread trades, but there’s a bit of a different rationale for why in each company.

Skew on Amazon is fairly flat, per Kaplan. That is, there’s not too big of a difference between the implied volatility of close-to-the-money call options and those that are further out of the money, making call spreads relatively cost-efficient. In the case of Meta, Kaplan says that earnings volatility is “cheap,” with the options market implying a move of plus or minus 6.1% coming into this week, versus an average one-day reaction of plus or minus 7.5% going back to Q3 2014. However, it’s a very well owned stock, he noted, which could cause a more muted reaction even in the event of strong results.

JPM Meta AMZN

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Qualcomm surges after revealing new AI chips with Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN as first big buyer

Qualcomm took over leadership of the semiconductor rally this morning after announcing new AI chips for data centers, sending shares soaring.

The AI200 and AI250 are expected to be available in 2026 and 2027, respectively. These new solutions are “redefining what’s possible for rack-scale AI inference,” per Senior Vice President Durga Malladi.

In a separate press release, Qualcomm said Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN is poised to deploy 200 megawatts in these upcoming models starting next year for inference, formalizing an announcement made earlier this year. HUMAIN previously also revealed a deal in May with Nvidia to build “AI factories of the future.”

The AI boom remains more constrained by demand than supply, and this launch represents Qualcomm’s foray to take more market share.

Nvidia, the leader in AI GPUs, pared some of its gains on the announcement, while competitor Advanced Micro Devices turned negative after the news hit the wires.

China could start making “substantial” purchases of US soybeans, America’s biggest agricultural export

A new trade deal could restart billions in soybean exports.

Flags of China and United States of America covered in soybeans. Concept of Chinese and American agricultural imports, exports, trade agreement, trade war, tariffs, production and commodity markets

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Semiconductor stocks soar on telegraphed trade truce with China

Semiconductor stocks, which were sold hard when US-China trade tensions flared up earlier this month, are being scooped up again in earnest after top officials from both countries indicated that positive discussions this weekend had cleared the runway for the world’s two largest economies to reach a deal.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF fell nearly 6%, its worst one-day drop since April, on October 10 when President Trump said he was mulling a “massive increase” on imported Chinese goods, later floating the potential for levies of 100%. It’s up nearly 2% as of 9:04 a.m. ET, with the likes of Micron, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Broadcom outperforming.

Other stocks in the group doing well are wafer fab equipment makers Applied Materials and Lam Research, which had recently drawn the ire of US lawmakers because of their exposure to China — their most important market. Cadence Design Systems, an electronic design automation company that’s seen restrictions on its China business imposed and then removed this year, is also up.

“With tariffs and trade threats back and forth the last few weeks escalating on the China rare earth threats it appears a much broader trade framework/deal could be on the table this week between US and China which would be a huge groundbreaking moment for the tech sector and markets,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote. “This continues to be a lingering overhang on tech stocks that could be removed as the far reaching impact around the AI Revolution from chip production, Nvidia/AMD sales into China, software IP complexity, TikTok, and rare earth restrictions are all on the table in this game of high stakes poker between Trump and Xi.”

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Equity futures rally, but rare earth stocks sink, as top officials bring US-China trade deal close to the finish line

Stock futures are starting off the week on a positive footing after top US and Chinese economic officials said they ironed out many contentious trade issues ahead of a much-anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping this week.

US Treasury Scott Bessent said the two sides created “a very successful framework” for their leaders to discuss at a planned meeting on Thursday in South Korea during the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, while China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, agreed that both parties reached “a preliminary consensus.”

The seemingly successful table-setting has S&P 500 equity futures up 0.83% as of 5:52 a.m. ET, extending gains after the benchmark US stock index set intraday and closing record highs on Friday.

Bessent also told the press that Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, which caused temporary angst in markets earlier this month, is “effectively off the table.”

The Treasury Secretary added that he expects China to delay any restrictions on rare earth exports for a year and will start purchasing US soybeans in size once again.

While that’s positive news for a host of US companies that rely on an uninterrupted supply of minerals whose output is dominated by China, it’s also taking the wind out of the sails of some North American producers. As of 6 a.m. ET, Critical Metals is down more than 8%, USA Rare Earth is down 7%, Lithium Americas was down 3%, while United States Antimony Corp. is being hit the hardest, down more than 15%. Even MP Materials, which saw the Pentagon take a 10% stake in July, hasn’t been spared in early trading, down 5%, as the apparent trade truce reduces some of the urgency to boost local supply.

United States Antimony might also be down on the news that Australian mining company Larvotto Resources has rejected UAMY’s advances, shooting down the $723 million (AUD) scrip bid to acquire the firm proposed last week.

The TikTok deal and fentanyl were also among the topics discussed by negotiators this weekend, as were the tit-for-tat shipping fees that were implemented by both nations at major ports.

President Trump, for his part, told reporters, “I think we’re going to have a deal with China.”

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