Market-Alert

Overnight Developments Two supertankers hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz — Bloomberg Two crude supertankers were struck within minutes of each other late Monday while transiting outbound through the Strait of Hormuz. The VLCC Sidr, operated by Saudi Arabia’s Bahri, was hit northeast of Khasab, Oman; the Senegal Prosperity, operated by South Korea’s Sinokor Group, took three projectiles roughly 17 nautical miles east of Khasab — inside a US-guarded corridor. UKMTO confirmed the strikes and reported no casualties and no environmental damage. Several accounts attribute them to Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles. ...

Overnight Developments U.S. strikes Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz — NBC News U.S. forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first American strikes on Iran since late July and a break in a month-long lull. CENTCOM spokesperson Tim Hawkins said Revolutionary Guard forces had been observed preparing to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the strait — the same shipping lanes the U.S. military finished clearing of mines only last week. The IRGC confirmed the strikes hit Larak, acknowledged “the martyrdom and injury of several of our fighters and compatriots,” and warned of a “retaliatory response.” ...

Overnight Developments Nvidia’s blowout Q2 reignites the AI trade — CNBC Nvidia reported after Wednesday’s close and beat on every line that mattered: $2.22 EPS on $96.2B revenue, up 106% year over year. The guidance did the real damage to the bear case — CFO Colette Kress pointed to fiscal 2028 revenue growth well above consensus, and management disclosed that AWS will buy 2 million Nvidia GPUs along with the new Vera CPU. That single datapoint undercuts the “hyperscalers are tapping out” thesis that has hung over the AI complex since spring. Nvidia also returned $26B via buybacks and dividends in the quarter. ...

Overnight Developments No breaking overnight catalyst. An explicit scan for new tariffs, sanctions, military escalation, and surprise central bank action turned up nothing that occurred after Monday’s 4pm ET close. The items circulating this morning — Iran-related sanctions commentary and the Canadian tariff schedule — are Monday-or-earlier news already reflected in Monday’s close. What is moving futures is a rebound from Monday’s semiconductor selloff, positioned ahead of NVIDIA’s earnings tomorrow. ...

Overnight Developments Two separate Asia stories hit the same nerve overnight, and both landed on the AI trade. Neither is a macro shock — no tariff, no central bank surprise — but together they knocked Korea down 3% and dragged NASDAQ futures to the worst of the three US contracts. Alibaba Prices a Record $10.2B Hong Kong Share Sale to Fund AI — CNBC / Reuters Announced Sunday, August 23: Alibaba is issuing 710 million new shares at HK$112.70, raising HK$80 billion ($10.2 billion) — roughly 3.57% dilution. It’s the largest primary follow-on ever by a Hong Kong-listed company, and the third-largest globally this year behind Alphabet and Intel. Proceeds go 100% to “full-stack” AI: chips, infrastructure, and model development. US investors were not eligible — the placement was an offshore transaction, unregistered under US securities law. ...

Overnight Developments Bitcoin tops $79,000 as another $1B of shorts gets wiped out — CoinDesk Bitcoin ran to $79,241 overnight — its highest since June — before easing back to roughly $77,650, up 6.3% from Thursday’s close and about 20% on the week. The move is mechanical as much as fundamental: short liquidations hit roughly $3 billion over 24 hours against just $264 million on the long side, the largest short-liquidation event since at least 2021 per CoinGlass. Spot ETF inflows accelerated for a second day. ...

Overnight Developments Asia’s Semiconductor Rout Deepens — Bloomberg / Business Recorder Tokyo and Shenzhen took the brunt of the global chip unwind overnight. The Nikkei 225 closed -3.2% at 65,326, its second straight heavy loss and a -5.6% two-day drawdown from Monday’s 69,220. In China, the Shenzhen Component fell -5.0% and the Shanghai Composite -2.4% to 3,894, with SMIC, Cambricon, and Hua Hong all down mid-to-high single digits. Hong Kong was the outlier, essentially flat at +0.1%. ...

Overnight Developments Two separate stories over the weekend: a policy catalyst driving the memory-chip complex, and a geopolitical escalation in Lebanon that is showing up in gold rather than equities. Commerce Secretary Warns Apple Off Chinese Memory Chips — 9to5Mac / WSJ Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the administration is “not in favor” of Apple sourcing memory from Chinese manufacturers CXMT and YMTC, speaking after touring Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston. Apple had been testing CXMT’s DRAM and negotiating with YMTC for NAND supply, reportedly for products sold outside the US. CXMT sits on the Pentagon’s 1260H Chinese Military Company list. ...

Overnight Developments No macro or geopolitical events overnight. This morning’s move is entirely earnings-driven, concentrated in AI infrastructure. Supermicro Q4 FY2026 Results — Super Micro Computer SMCI reported after the close yesterday. Q4 net sales came in at $11.1 billion (vs. $10.2B in Q3'26 and $5.8B a year ago), with gross margin at 17.5% — up from 9.9% last quarter and 9.5% a year ago. Net income was $1,178 million against $195 million in Q4'25. Full-year FY2026 revenue landed at $39.1 billion, nearly double FY2025’s $22.0 billion. ...

Overnight Developments Nothing broke overnight. No new tariffs, no central bank surprises, no geopolitical shock. A scan of the last 12 hours turned up no event that clears the bar for moving the S&P 500 half a percent at the open. What we have instead is the continuation of yesterday’s split tape. The Dow closed at a record on Wednesday while the Nasdaq fell 0.83%, almost entirely on Alphabet’s 4.05% drop after the DeepMind leadership exodus. Futures this morning are tracing the same line: Nasdaq down, Dow up. This is a rotation, not a risk-off event. ...