AI Stocks Rebound on Jobs Report, SpaceX-Nvidia Deal
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- AI stocks staged a broad rebound, with the S&P 500 gaining 3.6%, the Nasdaq climbing 5.2%, and the Dow rising 3%, all touching record highs; the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) jumped 7.6%
- Nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly fell 23,000 in July, easing rate-hike fears and pushing the probability of a Fed hold at its September meeting to 55% from 45% on Thursday
- Situational Awareness, a leveraged hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, collapsed last week, triggering forced selling that Jim Cramer called a "clearing event" for the AI trade
- SpaceX announced Q2 capex of $18.4 billion and said it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture; shares fell 13% Wednesday before finishing the week up 23% after its first IPO lockup expiration
- Nvidia ended the week up more than 11% — its best weekly performance in over a year — even as AMD slipped 7% despite solid quarterly results
- Corning topped the week's performance after being upgraded to a buy-equivalent 1, with the Investing Club also adding to Intel and Johnson & Johnson, exiting Honeywell Aerospace over guidance concerns, and trimming CrowdStrike (~146.5% gain) and Palo Alto Networks (~172% gain)
Why it matters: The SpaceX-Nvidia endorsement crystallized Nvidia's AI infrastructure dominance at a moment when hyperscalers were hedging with custom chips, giving Nvidia its best week in over a year even as AMD fell 7% despite solid results. The week's gains were driven primarily by Friday's weak jobs report shifting Fed hold odds from 45% to 55%.
Ask SkimNews
