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Luke Kawa2/18/25

Intel soars as Broadcom, TSMC acquisition chatter heats up

In the semiconductor space, Intel is the beautiful swan turned ugly duckling turned beautiful swan once again.

Shares are soaring as The Wall Street Journal reports that TSMC and Broadcom are looking at acquiring separate parts of the American chipmaker. It’s what you would expect: Broadcom is interested in its design business, while the Taiwanese company is interested in its manufacturing unit. TSMC is facing pressure from the White House to beef up its US chip production — purchasing Intel’s foundry business would certainly be one way to do that.

Reports of a possible acquisition of Intel, either in whole or as parts, have been swirling around the company for months. This chatter heating up was the key factor behind the stock’s more than 20% gain last week, its best performance since January 2000 (just prior to the bursting of the dot-com bubble).

Neither firm has submitted an offer to Intel, per WSJ.

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Nate Becker & Matt Phillips14h

Oil drops, yields fall, and stocks rise on reports the US has sent Iran a plan to end war

Oil, stock, and bond markets flipped their positions yesterday and continued into premarket trading Wednesday, as investors digest the latest reports on a potential wind-down of the war in Iran, with The New York Times reporting that the US has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the conflict.

While the details of the proposal remain unclear, it reportedly includes US demands from prior nuclear talks in Geneva and has been shared with Israel — though Israeli officials remain skeptical that Iran will agree to all conditions, according to Axios.

At the time of writing, international benchmark Brent crude futures are down around 4% to ~$100 a barrel, while US benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures also sank roughly to $88 a barrel. Yields on two-year and 10-year Treasuries continued their overnight declines and theSPDR S&P 500 ETF extended its after-hours rally into premarket trading.

Global markets have breathed a sigh of relief, with the broader Stoxx Europe 600 up 1.3% and all sectors (besides oil and gas stocks) in the green. Asia-Pacific markets closed higher Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi gaining 2.9% and 1.6%, respectively. S&P 500 futures rose 0.84% and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 1%.

Spot gold and silver both jumped roughly 1.8% as the decline in oil prices eased inflation fears.

From the Times’ report yesterday:

“The United States has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East, according to two officials briefed on the diplomacy, reflecting the Trump administration’s eagerness to find an offramp from the conflict as it grapples with its economic fallout.

It was unclear how widely the plan, delivered by way of Pakistan, had been shared among Iranian officials and whether Iran was likely to accept it as a basis for negotiations. Nor was it clear whether Israel, which has been bombing Iran together with the United States, was on board with the proposal.

But the delivery of the plan showed that the administration was ramping up efforts to conclude a war, now in its fourth week, that has drawn in several other countries.”

Some individual shares had outsized reactions to the news. Gold miners Freeport-McMoRan and Newmont, which have been battered since the war started, are still rising this morning. Ammonia maker CF Industries — which had risen on expectations of rising prices for fertilizer products linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — is going the other way.

US natural gas producers such as APA Corporation, EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Diamondback Energy declined after-hours on the news.

United States Said to Have Sent Iran a Plan to End the Middle East War

While the details of the proposal remain unclear, it reportedly includes US demands from prior nuclear talks in Geneva and has been shared with Israel — though Israeli officials remain skeptical that Iran will agree to all conditions, according to Axios.

At the time of writing, international benchmark Brent crude futures are down around 4% to ~$100 a barrel, while US benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures also sank roughly to $88 a barrel. Yields on two-year and 10-year Treasuries continued their overnight declines and theSPDR S&P 500 ETF extended its after-hours rally into premarket trading.

Global markets have breathed a sigh of relief, with the broader Stoxx Europe 600 up 1.3% and all sectors (besides oil and gas stocks) in the green. Asia-Pacific markets closed higher Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi gaining 2.9% and 1.6%, respectively. S&P 500 futures rose 0.84% and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 1%.

Spot gold and silver both jumped roughly 1.8% as the decline in oil prices eased inflation fears.

From the Times’ report yesterday:

“The United States has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East, according to two officials briefed on the diplomacy, reflecting the Trump administration’s eagerness to find an offramp from the conflict as it grapples with its economic fallout.

It was unclear how widely the plan, delivered by way of Pakistan, had been shared among Iranian officials and whether Iran was likely to accept it as a basis for negotiations. Nor was it clear whether Israel, which has been bombing Iran together with the United States, was on board with the proposal.

But the delivery of the plan showed that the administration was ramping up efforts to conclude a war, now in its fourth week, that has drawn in several other countries.”

Some individual shares had outsized reactions to the news. Gold miners Freeport-McMoRan and Newmont, which have been battered since the war started, are still rising this morning. Ammonia maker CF Industries — which had risen on expectations of rising prices for fertilizer products linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — is going the other way.

US natural gas producers such as APA Corporation, EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Diamondback Energy declined after-hours on the news.

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Luke Kawa, Max Knoblauch15h

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks close lower after fluctuating as traders digest war updates

Stocks pared steeper losses on hopes of US-Iran talks, but were unable to maintain gains on reports that the US is deploying 3,000 troops to the Middle East.

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Matt Phillips16h

Amid Mideast conflict, investors cling to faith in the AI build-out

Data center build-out stocks showed impressive resilience to the slump that hit big indexes Tuesday.

In fact, construction companies, server system makers, fiber-optic technology stocks, and memory makers — all cornerstones of the AI trade — were having a pretty good day, suggesting the market sees the wave of AI construction continuing, war or no war.

Optical stocks seen as crucial to efficiently transmitting the flood of information AI data centers both produce and depend on were surging. Corning, Lumentum, Coherent, and Ciena Corp. ramped.

Server rack makers HP Enterprise and Dell jumped. Construction and engineering companies like Sterling Infrastructure, MasTec, and Comfort Systems USA, which have benefited from the growth in building data centers, posted solid gains.

Hard disk drive makers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital were also positive, though other memory plays such as Sandisk and Micron were in the red.

It was an impressive display of positivity on a day when the S&P 500 (SPDR S&P 500 ETF) and the Nasdaq 100 (Invesco QQQ Trust) were both fluttering between positive and negative territory for completely understandable reasons.

After all, the 82nd Airborne is heading to the Middle East, suggesting the US is considering sending troops into Iran. US crude oil is back above $90 a barrel and climbing, as the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially shut.

Additionally, the problems in the private credit market continue, with major fund managers preventing investors from withdrawing all the money they would like to. We even had a weak auction for US two-year Treasury notes — investors seemed to think the offered yield might not be sufficient to offset inflation risks stirred up by the war — that sent short-term interest rates up sharply.

But apparently it will take more than all that for investors to worry that the AI build-out may be halted, delayed, or even just trimmed back.

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Stocks get a bump on CNN report that Iran is willing to listen to proposals to end war

Stocks got a small bump midday Tuesday as CNN reported on what appeared to be a softening in Iran’s position toward ending the war in the Middle East.

The S&P 500 briefly turned green following the report, before paring some of those gains in the afternoon.

From the CNN report:

“An Iranian source told CNN on Tuesday that there had been ‘outreach’ between the United States and Tehran and that Iran is willing to listen to ‘sustainable’ proposals to end the war.

‘There has been outreach between the United States and Iran, initiated by Washington, in recent days, but nothing that has reached the level of full-on negotiations,’ the source said. ‘Messages have been received through various intermediaries to scope out whether an agreement to end the war can be reached.’”

Markets had zoomed Monday as President Trump said there had been discussions between the two nations, but they gave back some of their gains after Iran starkly denied the claim. Markets seemed to read this new reporting as a softening of Iran’s position.

Iranian source says there has been US "outreach" and Tehran "willing to listen"

Iranian source says there has been US "outreach" and Tehran "willing to listen"

“An Iranian source told CNN on Tuesday that there had been ‘outreach’ between the United States and Tehran and that Iran is willing to listen to ‘sustainable’ proposals to end the war.

‘There has been outreach between the United States and Iran, initiated by Washington, in recent days, but nothing that has reached the level of full-on negotiations,’ the source said. ‘Messages have been received through various intermediaries to scope out whether an agreement to end the war can be reached.’”

Markets had zoomed Monday as President Trump said there had been discussions between the two nations, but they gave back some of their gains after Iran starkly denied the claim. Markets seemed to read this new reporting as a softening of Iran’s position.

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