July CPI Cools to 3.4% · AI Earnings Deliver Mixed Signals, Memory Shortage Deepens · Burry Doubles Down on Nvidia and Palantir Shorts

Wall Street closed Wednesday with a cooler-than-expected inflation reading reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady in September. The July Consumer Price Index rose 3.4% year over year, down from 3.5% in June, while core CPI eased to 2.5%, both matching forecasts. Under the surface, AI-driven earnings produced a sharply split tape: Cisco and Coherent beat estimates but sold off on execution concerns, while SpaceX and Nebius surged on AI revenue momentum. Memory-chip supply constraints tightened further, and Michael Burry added to high-profile bearish bets against Nvidia and Palantir.

Macro, Inflation and the Fed

• The July CPI report showed headline inflation easing to 3.4% year over year from 3.5% in June, with monthly prices up 0.1% after a surprise 0.4% drop. Energy prices rose during the month as the U.S.-Iran ceasefire collapsed, but gasoline fell 2.9% from June while still running 24.6% higher year over year. Broader energy prices declined 1.5%, and the core measure rose 2.5% YoY with a 0.2% monthly gain, in line with expectations. 原文
• The cooler core reading bolsters the case for the Federal Reserve to keep policy unchanged at its September meeting. Economists interpreted the deceleration in underlying inflation as taking a September rate hike off the table, even as headline energy costs remain volatile due to the Iran conflict. 原文
• Household balance sheets are showing strain: the New York Fed reported that the share of mortgages at least 30 days delinquent hit its highest level since 2015 in the second quarter, while serious car-loan delinquencies (90+ days) reached a high not seen since 2010. 原文
• Labor force participation among Americans 55 and older dropped to 36.9% in July, down from 40.3% in February 2020, and Bank of America Securities attributed the acceleration in early retirement to wealth effects from a surging stock market. 原文

AI Infrastructure, Chipmakers and the AI Earnings Season

• Cisco Systems delivered a fiscal fourth-quarter beat and guided fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street expectations, citing sustained demand for AI networking gear. Yet shares fell more than 4% in extended trading after initially rising 3%, as a services revenue miss and lofty investor expectations overshadowed the record results. Cisco stock remains up more than 60% so far this year. 原文 原文
• Coherent posted a blowout fiscal Q4 with adjusted EPS of $1.74 against a $1.62 consensus and revenue of $2.05 billion, up 34% year over year. First-quarter fiscal 2027 guidance of $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion also topped estimates, but shares fell 5% after an earlier 8% surge fueled by peer Lumentum's strong results. 原文
• Oracle expanded its cloud frontier by partnering with Quantinuum to bring quantum computing to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, giving OCI customers access to Quantinuum's Helios computer. Cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 93% year over year last quarter, total revenue rose nearly 21% to $19.2 billion, and remaining performance obligations surged 363% to $638 billion. But planned capital spending of $70 billion for fiscal 2027 and total debt of $164 billion (debt-to-equity near 3.9) are generating valuation uncertainty; the stock still sits 57% below its prior high. 原文
• SpaceX jumped as much as 11% after releasing Grok 4.6 and holding an all-hands meeting where Elon Musk said AI revenue will exceed all other space revenue as soon as September. Musk called AI "extremely important" and "vital" to SpaceX's future, adding that AI revenue will "significantly exceed" the rest of the business in the fourth quarter, aided by compute contracts with Anthropic and Alphabet's Google. 原文 原文
• Nebius shares soared 28% after its second-quarter AI cloud infrastructure numbers beat expectations, with renewed short pressure possibly amplifying the move. 原文
• Bloom Energy reiterated its position as "a standard for AI onsite power," reporting second-quarter revenue of $1.06 billion, up 165.5% year over year. CEO KR Sridhar said all major U.S. hyperscalers and more than a dozen neoclouds and AI labs have approved its fuel-cell solutions; Oracle previously more than doubled its electricity order from 1.2 GW to 2.8 GW. 原文
• Bank of America named Nvidia its top sector pick ahead of the Aug. 26 earnings report. Analyst Vivek Arya estimates fiscal Q2 revenue of $94 billion to $95 billion, roughly $3 billion to $4 billion above Nvidia's own $91 billion guidance, and projects Q3 guidance of $107 billion to $108 billion versus a $104 billion consensus. With a $350 price target (about 56% upside) and a forward P/E near 16, Arya argues the Vera Rubin GPU cycle marks the beginning of a multi-quarter upgrade cycle. 原文

Memory-Chip Shortage, NAND Dynamics and Semiconductor Supply

• Morgan Stanley warned that memory “Chipflation” is a multi-year structural headwind and that enterprises are accelerating purchases of PCs, servers and storage arrays to lock in favorable prices — a dynamic the firm calls the “fear of missing procurement.” Analysts see further upside for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TD Synnex and Lenovo as enterprise hardware estimates rise. 原文
• Counterpoint Research data shows Samsung retained the top spot in NAND shipments with a 25% share in Q2, followed by SK Hynix at 22%, YMTC at 14% and Micron at roughly 13%. More importantly, enterprise SSDs accounted for 48% of global NAND shipments, nearly doubling from 26% a year earlier, as AI inference workloads drive demand for high-capacity, high-performance storage. 原文
• SanDisk rose nearly 10% Wednesday after unveiling a new 2-terabit QLC 3D flash memory developed with Kioxia, featuring a 4.8 Gbps interface rate and 33% better read/write performance than the prior generation. The stock also has support from Argus Research’s Buy rating with a $1,600 price target and a board-approved $15.5 billion share repurchase program. 原文
• SanDisk’s broader story remains a generational debate: fiscal Q4 revenue surged 372% to $9 billion and adjusted EPS jumped from $0.29 to $39.25, but shares fell 12% on light Q1 guidance. The company locked in eight long-term contracts with $93.9 billion in revenue floor pricing and $16.5 billion in financial guarantees, leaving the stock at just 5.7 times forward earnings. 原文 原文
• Intel completed an upsized $20 billion share sale, pricing 210.5 million new shares at $95 each, to fund its AI-focused manufacturing push. Despite a 348% one-year return and a 165% rally this year, a DCF-based intrinsic value of roughly $89 per share suggests the current price sits about 9.5% above fair value, and the stock passes only two of six valuation checks. 原文 原文
• Netlist launched a new ITC patent-infringement action against Micron, Super Micro, HPE and Lenovo, helping NLST reach a fresh three-year high. Roth Capital raised its price target to $15 from $10 with a Buy rating, citing potential licensing or settlement; NLST rose as much as 9%, Micron gained over 6%, HPE rose 3%, and SMCI jumped more than 10% after its own Q4 earnings beat. 原文

Single-Stock Moves, Legal Cases and Corporate News

• Meta shares fell about 1.6% as 29 states opened a trial accusing the company of improperly collecting and using children’s data; four states are also challenging addictive platform designs and consumer-safety representations. Meta has estimated potential damages could reach $1.4 trillion, though the immediate risk is less about fines and more about remedies that could restrict algorithms, infinite scrolling and AI models built on children’s information. 原文
• Wendy’s stock jumped as much as 14% after reports that Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is seeking an investor consortium to take the chain private. Trian owns 16% of Wendy’s and has held discussions with outside investors, including in the Middle East. The company’s Q2 U.S. same-restaurant sales fell 7% while traffic dropped 12.5%, and it withdrew its 2026 financial outlook. 原文 原文
• Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest bought 292,873 Rocket Lab shares worth about $23.4 million after the company’s post-earnings slide. Rocket Lab’s Q2 revenue rose 62% to a record $234 million, while backlog surged 137% to $2.36 billion with more than 90 launches contracted. The purchase signals confidence that Neutron execution is a temporary volatility issue rather than a deteriorating fundamentals story. 原文
• Definium Therapeutics announced a second positive Phase 3 study for its LSD-based drug, sending the biotech stock higher. 原文
• In other notable news, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will exit her role later this month, according to President Trump; and Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion. 原文 原文

Investor Positioning and Market Warnings

• Michael Burry doubled down on his bearish bets against Nvidia and Palantir. In his Cassandra Unchained report, he disclosed adding to Palantir put options struck in the low-to-mid $100s with March 2027 expiration, maintaining a long-term verdict of under $1 per share. He also added Nvidia puts with strikes in the low $100s expiring December 2026 and June 2027, while increasing his position in Molina Healthcare at $198, arguing the health insurer is significantly undervalued. 原文 原文
• Burry also targeted Nvidia’s $500 billion AI-infrastructure financing strategy, arguing that structures involving private credit, asset-backed debt and Nvidia capital ultimately funding GPU purchases echo the leverage dynamics that fueled the 2008 crisis. He wrote, “Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss,” and warned that residual-value support of up to 25% could be tested if rapidly advancing chips depreciate faster than expected. 原文
• Jamie Dimon issued a nine-word warning to stock investors, noting that margin debt is at its highest level ever — topping $1.5 trillion in June, up 49% year over year. He cautioned that “there’s a lot of margin debt you don’t see,” including prime brokerage debt, hedge funds, Treasury arbitrage and leveraged ETFs, and concluded that “market leverage is pretty high.” Historically, a rapid rise in margin debt has been tied to a market downturn within 12 months. 原文
• Mark Cuban revealed he sold most of his Bitcoin in May 2026, calling it “disappointing” after it failed to act as a gold-like hedge during the U.S.-Iran conflict. Gold had hit an all-time high of $5,589 per ounce in January, while Bitcoin dropped in the immediate aftermath of the strikes. Cuban remains more positive on Ethereum’s smart contracts and DeFi applications, and dismissed most altcoins and memecoins as “garbage.” 原文
• Berkshire Hathaway’s second-quarter holdings show new CEO Greg Abel’s growing comfort with tech: Alphabet and Apple are top-five positions, with Apple at 20.1% of the equity portfolio, Alphabet Class A at 6.8% and Class C at 1.8%. Abel added to Alphabet and invested $10 billion in its June $80 billion equity offering. Berkshire also agreed to buy Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion and repurchased roughly $4.5 billion of its own stock, making it a net buyer for the first time in 14 quarters. 原文
• Michael Burry, however, says he no longer finds Berkshire Hathaway an attractive investment, fearing that successor Greg Abel lacks Warren Buffett’s “patience for the fat pitch” and viewing recent deployment of the near-$400 billion cash pile as “frame moves” rather than investment moves. 原文

Crypto, Commodities and Energy

• Bitcoin was trading near $64,000 as Elon Musk’s AI-driven disinflation warning gained renewed attention. Musk has argued that if AI and robots expand output dramatically, governments must issue dollars or face massive disinflation, while critics point to the inflationary risk of printing money. Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply positions it as a hedge against currency dilution, even as AI-related job cuts reached 27,000 in Q1 2026, up 40% year over year. 原文
• Gold remains in focus: Franco-Nevada reported 18% year-over-year growth in gold-equivalent ounces, with margins per GEO up 179% since 2022 versus gold’s 160% price rise. The company maintains $4.3 billion in available capital and is tracking toward the upper half of its 510,000–570,000 GEO guidance range. JPMorgan has separately reiterated a $5,000/oz gold call by the fourth quarter. 原文
• The national average gasoline price climbed back to $4.03 per gallon, the highest level ever recorded this late in the calendar year, according to AAA and GasBuddy. Prices are about $0.16 higher than a month ago, reflecting renewed oil volatility after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire collapsed. 原文
• Tesla filed documents in Texas to build a $10.1 billion solar panel factory southwest of Houston, dubbed Project Crystal Sun, which could create about 9,700 full-time jobs. The company has applied for tax incentives and says it is exploring other sites across multiple U.S. states. 原文

Policy, Taxes and Political Economy

• The Trump administration is weighing capital gains tax changes to boost midterm prospects, including indexing cost basis to inflation and raising the primary-home exemption. The Yale Budget Lab estimates inflation indexing would hand the top 0.1% an average $350,000 tax break while leaving the bottom 40% of households unchanged; only about 15% of homeowners would benefit from the home-sale exemption change. Such a plan could cut Treasury revenue by $200 billion and, if done by executive action, add up to $950 billion to national debt by 2035. 原文 原文
• Trump Media’s Truth API drew a lawsuit from The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which called the sale of early access to President Trump’s “market-moving” posts “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.” More than 10 firms are paying $60,000 to $100,000 per month for the service, and Trump Media separately reported a Q2 loss of $238 million, driven by cryptocurrency writedowns. 原文 原文
• The U.S. Treasury paid out $33.4 billion in tariff refunds in July, marking a third straight month in which refunds exceeded tariff revenue; total payouts have now surpassed $100 billion since the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s blanket tariffs. 原文
• Social Security’s 2027 COLA is projected at 3.6% by The Senior Citizens League, with AARP seeing 3.5%; that would lift the average retiree benefit by about $75 per month, the largest increase in four years. Separately, Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed expanding payroll taxes above $250,000 to close most of the program’s funding gap, but the plan faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress, and the trust fund’s projected depletion date has moved earlier to 2032. 原文 原文

Valuations and Market Outlook

• Tech stocks are getting cheaper even as earnings remain strong: the forward P/E premium for tech relative to the S&P 500 has compressed to about 10%, down from roughly 35% a year ago. That valuation reset makes the group more sensitive to earnings delivery, but for now, the projected profits behind that multiple remain intact. 原文
• Among the big hyperscalers, analyst one-year price targets imply the most upside in Meta, with a median target of $750 (+26.6%), followed by Alphabet at $426.50 (+20.6%), Amazon at $325 (+18.4%), and Microsoft at $555 (+11%). Microsoft’s 31% rally from July 23 to Aug. 7 — after Azure surpassed $100 billion in full-year revenue — makes its lower expected upside look more like a function of recency than weak fundamentals. 原文
• For income investors, dividend-growth screens are gaining favor: the Invesco High Yield Equity Dividend Achievers ETF (PEY), which requires 10 consecutive years of dividend growth before ranking by yield, yields 4.11%, charges 0.04% and is up 18.5% in 2026. Meanwhile, analysts flag Kraft Heinz, Western Union (yielding more than 13%) and Nike as names at elevated risk of cutting payouts within the next three years. 原文 原文

The day’s tape left investors with a clear bifurcation: AI demand remains robust, but the market is beginning to separate the winners from the overextended. Tame July inflation gives the Fed room to stay patient in September, while labor-market softening and rising household delinquencies point to accumulating stress. In the memory complex, structural shortages and AI inference demand are providing pricing power, though leverage risks flagged by Burry and Dimon hang over the broader rally. With Nvidia’s earnings due Aug. 26 and the Fed’s September meeting looming, volatility is likely to continue.