The Nasdaq closed higher as memory and chip names rebounded from last week's selloff. The Dow briefly crossed 53,000 for the first time before pulling back. The S&P gained. WTI held near $69 as OPEC+ production increases started hitting a market that no longer needs the supply.

Trump rang the opening bell from the Oval Office to launch Trump Accounts, tax-advantaged investment accounts for children under 18 with $1,000 in government seed money. More than 6 million families signed up. SpaceX (SPCX) joins the Nasdaq-100 tomorrow, triggering forced buying from $800 billion in index-tracking funds.

The session bounced but the structural stories are the ones that carry into the week.

The memory bounce is mechanical relief after a brutal week. The real tests are Samsung's earnings tomorrow and SK Hynix's US listing Friday. Both arrive before the Fed minutes Wednesday. Position for the data, not the bounce.

Forget terrorism. Forget oil prices. Forget everything the evening news told you.

After two private meetings with U.S. Congressmen on March 2nd — and weeks of digging into what those conversations uncovered — I'm convinced we launched those strikes for a completely different reason.

If you have even a single dollar invested in the U.S. stock market, what I've found will directly impact you — starting August 12th.

Discover the real reason here

Anthropic signed a 20-year lease with TeraWulf (WULF) for a data center campus in Kentucky worth over $19 billion in expected revenue. The facility can support 400 megawatts with first power delivery in the second half of 2027. TeraWulf surged. CoreWeave (CRWV) and Iren (IREN) also jumped sharply.

A 20-year infrastructure commitment is not a capex cycle. It is a generational bet. Anthropic is saying AI inference demand will require dedicated physical infrastructure for two decades minimum. That framing changes how you value every company in the supply chain between the data center and the model.

The AI capital cycle narrative has been about quarterly order books and chip demand. A 20-year lease is a different animal. It locks in counterparty, geography, and power capacity across multiple technology generations. Whatever chips run in that Kentucky facility in 2040, Anthropic will still need the building and the power.

This is essentially the opposite trade of Meta's (META) excess-capacity signal from last week. Meta is saying it built too much for near-term demand. Anthropic is saying it needs dedicated capacity for two decades. Both hyperscalers cannot be right at the same time. Q2 earnings decide which read the market backs

Physical AI infrastructure with contracted revenue and long-term tenants is the most durable layer of the AI trade. TeraWulf's 20-year Anthropic lease is exactly the asset profile that survives AI capex anxiety. Own the building. The chip inside it gets replaced every few years anyway.

OPEC+ agreed to increase oil output by 188,000 barrels per day in August, the fifth consecutive monthly increase. The group has now restored roughly 940,000 barrels per day of supply since the process began. WTI is near $68. Before the Iran war it was near $73. JPMorgan said the surge in oil supply is about to collide with a market that simply does not need it.

Four months ago the Strait of Hormuz was partially closed and oil was above $100. The war premium drove three consecutive hot inflation prints and pushed Fed hike odds from zero to nearly 70%. That same oil market is now facing a glut as Hormuz traffic stabilizes, OPEC+ pumps more, and global strategic reserves stop buying because they do not need to refill yet.

The inflation story that defined the first half of 2026 is reversing in the commodity that started it. The June PCE number already showed energy contribution fading. If WTI holds near $68 to $70 through July, the next PCE print is structurally softer before the Fed even has to act.

Falling oil into a Fed that was already leaning toward patience is the specific setup where duration recovers. Homebuilders, utilities, and rate-sensitive sectors all benefit if the next PCE print confirms the energy disinflation trend. Watch WTI relative to $65. Below that level the glut narrative accelerates.

He predicted Trump’s election in 2016….

He even predicted the rise of COVID-19 writing:

“The chance we don’t have something on the scale of a national pandemic in the next few years is near zero”

That was three months before the first reported case.

If he’s right again, God Bless America…

Because this crisis will be tectonic in scale…and it's going to begin with the bubble popping in AI. 

Click here to view his latest warning

Microsoft (MSFT) announced it is eliminating 4,800 jobs, including 3,200 from the Xbox division through fiscal year 2027. The chief people officer said technology is transforming faster than at any point in her 27 years at the company. The stock dropped.

This is the same Microsoft that fell 18% in June, its worst monthly performance since the dot-com bust in 2000. The company is cutting its gaming workforce while simultaneously spending billions on AI infrastructure. The market is watching that contradiction and not yet convinced the AI investment will pay off before the legacy cost base erodes revenue.

The Xbox cut matters beyond Microsoft. Gaming is a consumer discretionary product. Cutting one-fifth of a gaming division signals the consumer-spending squeeze reaching media and entertainment. This is the same compression showing up across every consumer vertical the letter has been tracking. General Mills (GIS) cut prices and gained 8%. Nike (NKE) beat with a tariff refund attached. Constellation (STZ) held guidance below the street. Microsoft is now cutting gaming. Every dollar that goes to gas or AI subscriptions is a dollar not going to Xbox.

Microsoft's disconnect between AI spending and stock performance is the clearest warning in large-cap tech right now. The market is not rewarding AI investment. It is rewarding AI revenue. Until Microsoft shows Copilot translating to measurable revenue acceleration, the stock stays under pressure relative to chip and infrastructure names.

ASML (ASML) received a price target hike of more than 30% from Bernstein to $2,300. The thesis: unprecedented expansion in both logic and DRAM capacity driven by AI is structural and multi-year. ASML sits upstream of every new fab in the Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron pipelines. If all three are expanding simultaneously, ASML collects from all three.

The Fed minutes from Warsh's first meeting land Wednesday. Standard Chartered already predicted they will be unusually short, describing them as "honey, I shrunk the minutes." Warsh explicitly avoided policy guidance in the statement and press conference. He is unlikely to let it slip through the minutes. Expect to read a lot and learn very little.

Forget EVERYTHING you’ve heard about the Iran war.

Especially the reasons why we’re bombing the country.

Because THIS is the real reason.

The bounce today was real but the tests this week are the ones that matter. Samsung earnings tomorrow. Fed minutes Wednesday. SK Hynix US listing Friday. Three separate reads on whether the AI trade has durable demand behind it or just durable optimism.

WTI holding near $68 while OPEC+ pumps more is the quietest story with the biggest macro consequences. If oil stays soft through the July PCE print, the inflation story that drove the first half is officially over. That is when rate-sensitive sectors get their real second-half bid.