Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

Oil’s retreat propels US stocks higher

Front-month West Texas Intermediate futures are down more than 4%, while Brent futures are off more than 2% as of 1:25 p.m. ET as traders glom on to some optimistic signs about the flow of oil through the all-important Strait of Hormuz:

  • A Pakistani-owned tanker passed through the strait this weekend while broadcasting its signal, per Reuters, “indicating ‌that some countries are able to negotiate safe passage for their vessels despite the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.”

  • US President Donald Trump said that some “fairly local” countries would soon be helping ships traverse the strait (while having added that other countries are “not enthusiastic” about the prospect of participating).

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF and Invesco QQQ Trust are both up over 1% amid oil’s retreat.

That being said, the newsflow is far from universally positive:

Reuters reports that the UAE’s crude output has been cut in half since the Mideast conflict started; Bloomberg says Kuwait’s production has suffered a similar decline.

Trump urges allies to help reopen Strait of Hormuz as tanker traffic nearly vanishes

Trump urges allies to help reopen Strait of Hormuz as tanker traffic nearly vanishes

  • A Pakistani-owned tanker passed through the strait this weekend while broadcasting its signal, per Reuters, “indicating ‌that some countries are able to negotiate safe passage for their vessels despite the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.”

  • US President Donald Trump said that some “fairly local” countries would soon be helping ships traverse the strait (while having added that other countries are “not enthusiastic” about the prospect of participating).

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF and Invesco QQQ Trust are both up over 1% amid oil’s retreat.

That being said, the newsflow is far from universally positive:

Reuters reports that the UAE’s crude output has been cut in half since the Mideast conflict started; Bloomberg says Kuwait’s production has suffered a similar decline.

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Luke Kawa
2m
Nvidia surges after Jensen Huang sees at least $1 trillion in revenues through 2027

Jensen Huang is delivering the keynote address at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in San Jose.

Jensen Huang at 2026 GTC in San Jose
markets
Matt Phillips

Sandisk and memory stocks rip ahead of Nvidia CEO’s speech

Memory stocks such as Sandisk, Micron, and disk drive makers Western Digital and Seagate sprinted ahead Monday, as this week’s big AI conference for tech bellwether Nvidia gets underway with a speech from the CEO slated for this afternoon.

As Luke Kawa pointed out earlier, CEO Jensen Huang’s speechifying at high-profile company announcements or industry events hasn’t always been a good thing for Nvidia shares. (The chip designer is holding its GPU Technology Conference, or GTC, this week.)

But Huang’s pronouncements have, at times, been pretty dang helpful for share prices of some companies in the orbit of the AI gods. Perhaps foremost among them are the memory stocks that have blasted toward the top of the S&P 500 in terms of price performance in recent years.

Case in point: the nearly 30% gain that Sandisk posted on January 6, the day after Huang’s keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in which he spotlighted memory as a key bottleneck constraining the AI build-out. (Fellow memory plays Western Digital, Seagate Technology Holdings, and Micron also posted double-digit gains that day.)

Memory stocks have been the highest-profile outlet for bullish AI industry impulses this year, and notable comments from Huang could put the wind back in their sails after they had slowed in recent weeks.

Of course, there are also other things happening in the sector, such as Micron’s announcement Sunday that it completed an acquisition of a new manufacturing site in Taiwan.

Either way, memory stocks are pushing higher after having exhaled a bit lately.

What Wall Street’s looking for from Jensen Huang’s keynote GTC address

What Wall Street’s looking for from Jensen Huang’s keynote GTC address

But Huang’s pronouncements have, at times, been pretty dang helpful for share prices of some companies in the orbit of the AI gods. Perhaps foremost among them are the memory stocks that have blasted toward the top of the S&P 500 in terms of price performance in recent years.

Case in point: the nearly 30% gain that Sandisk posted on January 6, the day after Huang’s keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in which he spotlighted memory as a key bottleneck constraining the AI build-out. (Fellow memory plays Western Digital, Seagate Technology Holdings, and Micron also posted double-digit gains that day.)

Memory stocks have been the highest-profile outlet for bullish AI industry impulses this year, and notable comments from Huang could put the wind back in their sails after they had slowed in recent weeks.

Of course, there are also other things happening in the sector, such as Micron’s announcement Sunday that it completed an acquisition of a new manufacturing site in Taiwan.

Either way, memory stocks are pushing higher after having exhaled a bit lately.

Luke Kawa
5h
What Wall Street’s looking for from Jensen Huang’s keynote GTC address

GTC may stand for GPU Technology Conference, but investors are looking for Nvidia to go beyond GPUs.

Nvidia Holds Its GTC: Artificial Intelligence Conference
markets
Matt Phillips

Bitcoin’s push toward $74,000 leads crypto-linked stocks higher

Crypto-linked stocks such as Coinbase, MARA Holdings, Strategy, Cipher Mining, and IREN are up early as bitcoin’s recent bounce continues.

Shortly before 9 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading around $74,000, near its highest levels since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 that marked the start of open hostilities.

Bitcoin is up roughly 25% since it slipped below $60,000 in intraday trading on February 6. Crypto watchers are spotlighting the neighborhood of roughly $77,800 — near the 50-day moving average — as the next price point to watch to see whether the recovery could stick.

Bitcoin continues to climb despite war with Iran, oil price shock

Bitcoin continues to climb despite war with Iran, oil price shock

Shortly before 9 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading around $74,000, near its highest levels since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 that marked the start of open hostilities.

Bitcoin is up roughly 25% since it slipped below $60,000 in intraday trading on February 6. Crypto watchers are spotlighting the neighborhood of roughly $77,800 — near the 50-day moving average — as the next price point to watch to see whether the recovery could stick.

markets
Luke Kawa

When Jensen Huang speaks, Nvidia usually falls

Ahead of Nvidia’s GTC keynote address this afternoon, I’ll make a confession: I find often find myself a bit entranced when CEO Jensen Huang speaks. It’s something about his oration and imagination — and the ability to back that up with the products that enable ever-increasing sales and profits.

However, lately, the market has been anything but impressed. Through 2025 and 2026, most of Nvidia’s major events (earning reports, CES, or GTC) were met with selling pressure.

That’s a track record the CEO will be looking to improve upon during today’s keynote address, slated to begin at 2 p.m. ET. And he’s being spotted to an early lead, with shares up a little less than 2% as of 10:42 a.m. ET.

The GTC, or GPU Technology Conference, is Nvidia’s twice-a-year event to discuss its outlook and product roadmap.

Note: On all of Nvidia’s down days in the above chart, shares also underperformed the S&P 500 on the session.

High-profile events have not, by and large, been positive catalysts for the stock. This probably doesn’t have much to do with anything the leader of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company actually says, and is more a function of how high expectations get any time you can circle an Nvidia date on the calendar.

The two recent exceptions were:

Update: A previous version of this post/chart misstated the reaction associated with Nvidia’s Q1 2026 earnings.

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