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CLOSING BELL

The war is back Wednesday, and oil rallied another 6% while semis fell but tech overall held its ground.

Crude jumped 6% after Trump said the cease-fire may be over and U.S. Central Command said American forces hit more than 80 targets tied to Iran’s vessel attacks near the Strait of Hormuz. Energy led, materials lagged, and the banks stayed heavy while $NVDA and $AVGO kept tech from looking worse.

Chinese stocks rallied on rumors Alibaba’s e-commerce was improving, while the Korean leading stock index hit a bear market after Samsung’s great report kept the region in the red.

Earnings season is coming, and the earnings surprises that sent Q2 reports to record beats will be tough to repeat, according to Christian Mueller-Glissmann, head of asset allocation research at Goldman Sachs.

Stocktwits heat ran outside the megacap tape, with $WULF, $NBIS, $VG, and $ANET carrying the loudest AI infrastructure and energy-adjacent debates.

Today’s Briefing:

• After the Bell: Nvidia looks cheap, Intel looks stretched, and the AI chip trade got weird

• Stocks: Apple handed Broadcom a $30B U.S. chipmaking commitment

• Macro News: Warsh’s Fed minutes said less, created task forces, and left traders guessing

• Pops and Drops & More

AFTER THE BELL
The Weirdest AI Pair Trade 🧠

Intel, the legacy chipmaker trying to rebuild itself as a U.S. foundry champion, has become the expensive momentum stock. Nvidia, the AI GPU king still sitting on the most dominant profit pool in semiconductors, has become the cheap one. What a twist!

Investors are paying up for Intel’s comeback story while marking down Nvidia’s already-proven AI cash machine. The market is not saying Intel is fixed and Nvidia is broken: the easy AI trade got crowded, and now traders want the underdog narrative.

The RIP: $NVDA ( ▲ 3.65% ) rose about 4%. $INTC ( ▼ 0.14% ) fell about 3%. Nvidia is down 16% from its May 14 high, after erasing roughly $1T. Nvidia trades near 18x forward earnings, about where it was in 2019. Intel is up roughly 200% in 2026 and sits above its 200-day average by a record margin.

That valuation gap is the story. Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan has rebuilt confidence, 18A is finally shipping through Panther Lake, HSBC sees foundry engagements starting in 2H26, and Apple and Google collaboration reports keep feeding the U.S. manufacturing thesis. But a lot has to go right.

Nvidia’s bear case is also real: custom chips, memory cost pressure, China uncertainty, and customers trying to reduce dependence. But the company still had 97% of the server GPU market at the end of 2025, analysts keep raising profit estimates, and fiscal 2027 sales are projected near $393B. The cheaper stock is the one with the cleaner numbers.

Nvidia’s forward P/E estimate is a lot closer to how it was priced in 2019

Community is split but tilted toward buying the Nvidia dip, while Intel’s room is treating the pullback like a loyalty test. Nvidia sentiment is 52% bullish across ~652k watchers. Intel sentiment is 56% bullish across ~204k watchers.

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STOCKS
Apple Pays Broadcom 📡

Apple turned Broadcom into Wednesday’s cleanest U.S. chipmaking winner, expanding a multiyear partnership for silicon and wireless connectivity parts. Broadcom popped. The deal adds a long-duration Apple revenue floor, while Apple barely moved because this is supply-chain security, not a new product cycle.

The RIP: $AVGO ( ▲ 4.83% ) rose 4.8%. $AAPL rose 0.9%. Apple’s commitment is expected to exceed $30B, produce more than 15B U.S.-made chips, include $1.5B for Fort Collins, Colorado, and run through 2031.

The key detail is that this is not just another Apple supplier headline. Broadcom will produce advanced radio frequency components, including FBAR filters, and wireless connectivity technologies that help Apple devices connect to cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth networks. The SEC filing also pointed to custom ASIC silicon products for multiple generations of Apple devices, giving Broadcom a longer runway than a normal component order.

For Apple, the story is political and operational: more domestic manufacturing, less supply-chain risk, and another piece of its $600B U.S. investment pledge. For Broadcom, the story is simpler: Apple just gave Hock Tan a bigger, stickier customer commitment while investors are already rewarding AI and custom silicon scale.

Community is bearish despite the headline. AVGO sentiment is 37% bullish / 63% bearish across ~70k watchers, while AAPL sentiment is 38% bullish / 62% bearish across ~982k watchers.

MACRO NEWS
Fed Says Less 🤐

The June Fed minutes showed a committee split on direction but weirdly short on actual argument, despite Fed Chair Kevin Warsh calling it a ‘family fight’ like some weird copyright free version of Family Feud.

The RIP: Fed held rates at 3.5%-3.75% by a 12-0 vote last month. Minutes ran 14 pages. The post-meeting statement was about one-third normal length. Warsh outlined 5 independent task forces. A few officials saw a case for hikes.

“Participants generally assessed that information received over the intermeeting period suggested that upside risks to price stability remained elevated while downside risks to achieving maximum employment had moderated a bit,” the minutes said.

The market wanted a fight over hikes, cuts, tariffs, AI demand, energy shocks, and labor cooling. The Fed mostly gave it process reform, fewer words, and a promise to stop leaning so hard into guidance. 🏦

TRENDING ON STOCKTWITS
Pops & Drops

$WULF ( ▲ 12.8% )  TeraWulf ⚡: surged +13% after Anthropic signed $19B Kentucky AI lease

$NBIS ( ▲ 10.91% )  Nebius ⚡: ripped +11% after Anthropic lease eased neocloud demand fears

$ANET ( ▲ 8.77% )  Arista ⚡: jumped +9% after Wall Street chased 1.6T AI switch launch

$CRWV ( ▲ 7.75% )  CoreWeave ⚡: popped +8% after Anthropic lease revived the neocloud trade

$FLUT ( ▲ 2.74% )  Flutter ⚡: climbed +3% after Michael Burry disclosed new sports-betting stakes

$SLS ( ▲ 1.93% )  SELLAS Life Sciences ⚡: climbed +1% after CEO defended REGAL trial data maturity

$MRNA ( ▼ 7.48% )  Moderna: tumbled -7% after analysts warned cancer-vaccine upside looked priced in

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🤑  Read the global brief that reads the world like a trader reads a tape — geopolitics, markets, and tech in 5 minutes, every morning. *

😨 The $2 trillion chip sell-off hits a make-or-break level: Chart of the Day

🏠️ Oil ends at its highest price in over two weeks as flare-up in U.S.-Iran hostilities suggests end to cease-fire

💰️ FanDuel says US World Cup game brought record bettors for soccer

📺️ Trump muses about new blockade in Strait of Hormuz, taking over Kharg Island

*3rd Party Ad. Not an offer or recommendation by Stocktwits. See disclosure here. 

WHAT’S ON DECK
Tomorrow’s Top Things 📋

Macro: Weekly jobless claims (8:30 AM ET), Existing home sales (10:00 AM ET). 📊
Pre-Market Earnings: $AVXL Anavex Life Sciences Corporation, $PEP PepsiCo Inc. ☀️
After-Market Earnings: $DGNX Diginex Ltd.. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

Get In Touch 📬

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