CLOSING BELL

Good afternoon, and happy Thursday. The market was basically to end the short week, and two day start to the third quarter.

It was a record high for the Dow Thursday, as weak jobs data didn’t do much to curb green names like Apple. The S&P 500 was nearly perfectly flat. Labor participation- the measure of the population who are either employed or seeking employment fell to its lowest in 50 years, outside of the outbreak of Covid.

Softer payrolls helped the Fed-pause case, but it did not save the names that needed perfect positioning.

Stocktwits chatter stayed glued to the unwind: $SNDK led the memory-stock pain, $META gave back its cloud-compute pop, $TSLA turned a delivery beat into a sell-the-news mess, and $IREN got hit by dilution backlash.

Today’s Briefing:

• After the Bell: OpenAI reportedly floated giving Washington a 5% stake as AI firms try to manage policy risk

• Stocks: Tesla sold off despite a delivery beat, while Jersey Mike’s filed to bring its sandwich empire public

• Macro News: June payrolls cooled enough to lower hike pressure, but not enough to hand bulls a clean easing story

• Pops and Drops & More

AFTER THE BELL
OpenAI Wants Uncle Sam 🤖

OpenAI, the private ChatGPT maker backed by Microsoft, reportedly discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake as Washington tightens its grip on the AI model race. The proposal, first reported by Financial Times, would create a public wealth-style vehicle for AI equity, turning “share the upside” from a Bernie Sanders talking point into a very real pre-IPO bargaining chip.

The RIP: OpenAI proposed a 5% U.S. government stake, after Trump floated public stakes in AI firms last month. The administration already owns roughly 10% of Intel and 15% of MP Materials.

The read-through is bigger than OpenAI. If the government starts asking frontier AI firms for equity in exchange for regulatory calm, model makers, cloud providers, and chip suppliers all get a new political variable in the valuation math. For $MSFT, the question is whether Washington’s blessing lowers OpenAI’s IPO risk, or whether every major AI winner just inherited a sovereign shareholder problem.

Take the $MSFT side: AI toll road or policy risk →

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STOCKS
Tesla Beat And Bled 🚗

Tesla, the EV and energy-storage company, dropped Thursday after reporting a blowout Q2 delivery number that still was not enough for a stock that had already rallied into the print. The setup was classic Tesla: the car business finally showed real growth again, and traders immediately asked whether the AI/robotaxi premium had already done the heavy lifting.

The RIP: $TSLA fell 7.5% Thursday on 71.7M shares. Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles vs. roughly 406,000 expected, up from 384,122 a year ago. Energy storage deployments rose to 13.5 GWh from 8.8 GWh in Q1.

Gary Black called it a sell-the-news move after shares jumped 12% earlier in the week. Baird’s Ben Kallo called deliveries a “big beat,” while William Blair’s Jed Dorsheimer said Megapacks remain critical to the AI data center and power buildout. The next test is July 22 earnings, where investors will want margins, energy profitability, robotaxi progress, and Optimus receipts, not just another victory lap over delivery estimates.

Community is bullish, message volume is high across ~1.1M watchers.

<blockquote align="center" class="stocktwits-embedded-post" data-origin="https://stocktwits.com" data-id="658144107"

$TSLA like clockwork it’s a sell the news event every single time

Make your $TSLA case: EV rebound or sell-the-news trap →

Subs Hit The Street 🥪

Jersey Mike’s, the fast-growing sandwich chain backed by Blackstone, filed Thursday to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker JMKE. The pitch is pretty clean: nearly all-franchised economics, two decades of positive same-store sales growth, and a U.S. store target that says Subway has not heard the last of the Shore.

The RIP: Jersey Mike’s systemwide sales rose 13% to $4.3B in 2025. Same-store sales grew 3% in 2025 and 50% from 2020 to 2025. The chain has roughly 3,300 U.S. locations and targets 7,500 more domestic stores.

This is a restaurant IPO, but the public-market read-through is franchise math. Jersey Mike’s is 99% franchised, Blackstone owns a majority stake, and former Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison is now running the playbook. Watch $BX for the sponsor angle, $WING for the franchise-growth comp, and $MCD, $YUM, and $QSR for how investors price scaled quick-service brands when traffic is harder to earn. 🥪

MACRO NEWS
Jobs Miss, Fed Waits 🧭

The June jobs report finally cooled off Thursday, but not enough to pull the Fed away from its inflation-first posture. Traders got a weaker hiring print, lower hike odds, and one very annoying reminder: bad news only helps stocks when the crowded parts of the market are not already wobbling.

“For now, the labor market is holding, giving the Fed opportunity to stay focused on price stability,” Jeffrey Roach, LPL Financial chief economist, said Thursday.

The RIP: Nonfarm payrolls rose 57,000 vs. 113,000 expected. April was revised down 31,000 to 148,000, May down 43,000 to 129,000. Unemployment fell to 4.2%, labor force participation dropped to 61.5%, and average monthly job growth slowed to roughly 111,000.

“This jobs report lets anyone concerned about an imminent Fed hike breathe a sigh of relief,” Adam Sarhan, 50 Park Investments CEO, told Reuters.

The contradiction is that a jobs miss lowered near-term hike pressure, but it did not hand traders a clean easing story. The unemployment rate fell because fewer people were in the labor force, not because hiring suddenly got hot again. Rate-sensitive names like $IWM, $KRE, $DHI, and $LEN get breathing room if hike odds keep fading, but the AI-heavy tape still has its own valuation problem. Weak jobs can buy time, not fix crowding. 🧭

TRENDING ON STOCKTWITS
Pops & Drops

$GPC ( ▲ 12.92% )  Genuine Parts: ripped +14% after dividend payout revived breakup revaluation trade

$CCXI ( ▲ 11.96% )  Churchill Capital XI ⚡: surged +13% after Agility Robotics SPAC deal kept squeezing

$SLS ( ▲ 12.89% )  SELLAS Life Sciences ⚡: jumped +11% after REGAL trial approached final AML readout

$MRNA ( ▲ 10.01% )  Moderna: climbed +10% after flu shot approval hopes rebuilt biotech bid

$HONA ( ▲ 8.74% )  Honeywell Aerospace: popped +9% after Honeywell Aerospace spinoff found fresh buyers

$MSTR ( ▲ 7.9% )  Strategy: jumped +8% after Bitcoin rebound revived crypto proxy appetite

$AAPL ( ▲ 4.84% )  Apple: climbed +5% after China memory waiver hopes eased cost fears

$LUMN ( ▼ 10.07% )  Lumen ⚡: tumbled -10% after Alkira deal failed to calm debt fears

$IREN ( ▼ 10.39% )  IREN ⚡: dropped -10% after CEO stock grants sparked dilution backlash

$TER ( ▼ 13.63% )  Teradyne: tanked -14% after chip equipment unwind punished AI suppliers again

$SNDK ( ▼ 14.13% )  SanDisk ⚡: cratered -15% after memory profit taking wrecked AI winners again

ST EDITOR’S PICKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🌐

😨 Trump Financial Disclosure Shows 21,000 Trades in 2025

👾 Robinhood’s New Chain Has Everything Except a Token and Americans

🏠️ Job seekers giving up: Labor force participation rate falls to lowest in 50 years, outside of Covid era

💰️ Microsoft commits $2.5 billion and 6,000 employees to new AI implementation unit

At least 22 killed in Kyiv as Zelenskyy warns of ‘massive Russian strike’

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