Stock & Bull Markets

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? Alphabet's AI horsepower

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals Wall Street strategists busted into 2026 overwhelmingly bullish, with one big caveat: AI had to deliver measurable returns this year, Axios Markets author Madison Mills writes. Why it matters: Two weeks in, investors are getting their wish, as Alphabet is lending its AI horsepower to several companies, while much of its risk is in the rearview. Alphabet's market cap hit $4 trillion on Monday after two major partnerships were announced that showed Wall Street the kind of real-world AI applications it wanted to see this year: Apple confirmed it would use Alphabet's large language model, Gemini, to run Siri. Walmart will use Gemini as part of an AI-powered shopping effort. Keep reading.

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💰 $2 trillion gold, silver wipeout

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals Gold and silver plunged this morning, slamming the brakes on a frantic rally and wiping out more than $2 trillion in value globally. The big picture: The precious metals act as safe havens in times of market turbulence. But their sharp run-ups the last few months also attracted plenty of speculation. That hit a wall overnight, amid the reports President Trump will pick Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed, an outcome that will presumably lead to lower interest rates. The dollar rallied, reversing recent weakness and making the metals that much more expensive. By the numbers: Gold futures fell more than 5% in the overnight hours, while silver futures fell more than 12%. Bloomberg reported it would be the worst day for silver since 2020, and for gold since 2013. Both precious metals have been on a historic run, with silver in particular tripling over the last year. The sell-off spread to global stock markets as well.

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💰 Walmart's stock-market value passed $1 trillion this morning — an affirmation of its transformation into an online powerhouse. It's the first traditional retailer to reach the milestone, Axios' Jeffrey Cane writes.

📈 Walmart joins $1 trillion club

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals Walmart, the world's largest retailer, entered an exclusive club yesterday: $1 trillion companies, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes. Why it matters: It's a validation of Walmart's multichannel, global strategy, putting it in the same echelon as tech giants like Nvidia and conglomerates like Berkshire Hathaway. 💰 Stunning stat: At $1 trillion, Walmart is worth more than Costco, Home Depot and Target combined.

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AI eats software

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals Investors lost over $400 billion this week to the realization that entire industries could be replaced by AI, Axios' Madison Mills writes. Before yesterday's rally, when the Dow topped 50,000 for the first time, the S&P 500 software and services index had shed about $1 trillion in market value in a week. 📉 What happened: Anthropic released a suite of software-killing tools — prompting investors to reconsider software companies' value. One, Claude Code, promises to write code on users' behalf, essentially creating software at will. The other, Cowork, offers plugins designed to help AI agents operate like a full-time coworker. "The releases appeared to many to confirm a doomsday scenario for the $1.2 trillion software industry, in which companies will be able to 'vibe code' their own tools ... and cancel their subscriptions," The Wall Street Journal reports. 🐂 Reality check: Some investors are still bullish on software stocks, especially now that prices have fallen. And big incumbents will be hard to replace. "With AI, code may become cheap, but context is expensive," PitchBook noted in a report. "[Y]ou can't LLM your way past 10 years of customer data." 🧠 The stock drubbing "was quickly met with skepticism from software company chiefs, analysts and some executives who oversee technology procurement," the Journal notes. "While few dispute the potential for AI to remake the business-software sector — along with virtually every facet of the economy — most believe the impacts will be more diffuse and delayed than this week's selloff suggested." 🔮 What's next: Investors' fears about AI's impact on software companies could spread to other industries ripe for disruption.

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💰 Charted: Corporate power shift

Data: J.P. Morgan Asset Management. (Royal Dutch Shell and Shell Oil operated as two legal entities before they were integrated in 2005.) Table: Kavya Beheraj/Axios Only four of the top 10 biggest companies in America by market cap last year were on the list a decade before: Apple, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. Why it matters: Big tech, particularly the Magnificent Seven, might seem like an enduring force, but life comes at you fast. The biggest companies change over time, Axios Markets author Emily Peck writes. 📈 Stunning stat: The top 10's total market cap in 2025 was an astonishing $19.4 trillion. In 2015, it was $3.2 trillion.

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⚡ AI powers Nasdaq

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals The AI trade is getting investors used to a cycle of panic-driven selling, followed by overly euphoric rallies, followed by more panic, Axios' Madison Mills writes. 💭 At first, AI made Wall Street's dreams come true, driving the S&P 500 higher by double digits three years in a row. Keep reading ...

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💵 The greenback strikes back

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals After a year of bad press, the U.S. dollar is strengthening against other currencies since the Iran war began, Axios' Emily Peck reports. Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, tells Axios: "This is completely normal price action, and it does mean that people still think of the U.S. dollar as a safe haven." 🛢️ A spike in oil prices tied to the war sparked a global market disruption that's only just beginning to play out. Investors are selling holdings in overseas stocks and assets in Europe and Asia, and they're cashing out into U.S. dollars. That dynamic increased demand for the greenback, pushing up its value. 💸 Another factor: Oil trades in dollars. Higher prices mean you need more dollars to buy it, again pushing up demand. Go deeper.

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👾 1 for the road: Nintendo gets Pokémon bump

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals. Note: As of 1:30 p.m. ET today Nintendo is getting extra life, thanks to surprisingly hot sales for the latest Pokémon game, Alex Fitzpatrick writes. The company's stock is up over 15% this week on the runaway success of Pokémon Pokopia — a "life simulation" game about rebuilding a post-apocalyptic world in the Pokémon universe. 🕹️ Nintendo sold a whopping 2.2 million copies of the hit Switch 2 game in its first four days alone. The stock bump is super for Nintendo, which faces skyrocketing prices for computer memory fueled by the AI rush. Go deeper ... Gameplay trailer.

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😵‍💫 Charted: Stocks under the surface

Data: Bespoke Investments. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios The S&P 500 appears relatively calm on the surface this year, but dig a little deeper and you'll find some wild swings. Why it matters: The index has fallen just 3% for the year, but that masks some big-time volatility. By the numbers: 57 stocks are up by at least 20%, and 47 stocks are down by at least 20%, according to an analysis conducted Friday afternoon by Bespoke Investment Group. 📈 Winners: Energy and defense industry stocks like Valero (+43%), Occidental Petroleum (+40%) and Lockheed Martin (+34%). 📉 Losers: Workday, which makes HR software imperiled by the SaaSpocalypse, has declined 39% this year. Oracle, an AI darling stock, is down 20%. Salesforce, the SaaS king, off 27%.

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💰 Charted: Superstar stock domination

Data: Stripe analysis of data from Fama and French, Piper Sandler. Chart: Axios Visuals The stock market is increasingly dominated by a few huge and extremely profitable "superstar" companies, Axios Markets author Emily Peck writes. The most profitable third of publicly listed U.S. stocks account for roughly two-thirds of total market capitalization — the highest share on record, going back to 1963. The AI boom made the biggest companies even more profitable last year, says Ernie Tedeschi, chief economist at Stripe. The big guys aren't simply the Magnificent 7 tech companies, but include Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase. "We're just seeing explosive growth in established companies," Tedeschi tells Axios. 🔭 Zoom out: The U.S. stock market is incredibly top-heavy — just a few firms make up nearly 40% of the S&P 500's total market cap. The current level of concentration in the market is now higher than it was in 1932, according to data cited recently by Morningstar. Go deeper: Why it's not a bad thing.

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Wall Street falls to its worst drop since the Iran war as the Nasdaq sinks 10% below its record

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell sharply Thursday, and oil prices rose as doubt took over again from hope on Wall Street about a possible end to the war with Iran.

https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-trump-iran-oil-8118f58d75859b9fc74ab133fa9e8c3e?

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💰 Market's twin movers

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Jeffrey Cane/Axios Forget earnings reports or other corporate announcements. The stock market really has just two main catalysts this year: AI anxiety and President Trump, Axios Markets author Emily Peck writes. Why it matters: It's like a pinball machine where the flippers are Truth Social and Anthropic blog posts. Before the war, fears that AI would reshape a range of industries were dragging stocks down — a concern that hasn't gone away. Last week, cybersecurity stocks fell on a report that Anthropic's new model Mythos poses "unprecedented cybersecurity risks." Trump's social posts have amplified the markets' war-driven volatility.

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💰 New data: Venture-capital rocket

Data: PitchBook. Chart: Ryan Lawler/Axios Megaspending on AI companies drove venture-capital investments to a five-year high in Q1, Axios Pro Deals' Ryan Lawler writes. By the numbers: Companies raised more than $208 billion from venture capitalists in the first three months of 2026, more than doubling from a year earlier, per PitchBook data. AI megarounds drove that total, including xAI's $20 billion raise in January and $30 billion raised by Anthropic in February.

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💸 Big stock shrug

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Noah Bressner/Axios Surprise! The S&P 500 nearly hit a record high yesterday despite the biggest energy shock in history, rising inflation and dire warnings about slower economic growth, Axios Markets author Emily Peck writes. Why it matters: Investors are shrugging off big risks from the Iran war — and the market's resilience may give Republicans hope of avoiding a self-inflicted economic collapse heading into November. The index closed up 1.2% yesterday, just 0.2% off its record high reached on Jan. 27. A relief rally took hold the day after the ceasefire agreement was announced last week. By Monday, stocks were back to pre-war levels — and now they're even higher. 👓 Between the lines: Companies have also just started reporting their quarterly results, and Wall Street is expecting a big earnings season driven in part by AI. Keep reading.

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Struggling shoe retailer Allbirds makes bizarre pivot to AI, adds $127 million in value

Allbirds made a surprising announcement Wednesday that it is pivoting from shoes to artificial intelligence.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/allbirds-bird-stock-shoes-ai.html?

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📈 Charted: Record stock run

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Noah Bressner/Axios Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit new all-time closing highs yesterday: The S&P 500 rose 0.8% and closed above 7,000, topping its Jan. 27 high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 1.59% and crossed 24,000 — its highest level since last October. Key reasons stocks are up big, via Axios Markets author Emily Peck: Investors now believe the Iran war will fade and that Americans will continue to spend. Less visible mechanical moves from hedge funds put billions of dollars into the market. Go deeper: Why stocks surged to a new record.

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🚀 Mag 7 comeback

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Emily Peck/Axios The harder they fall, the higher they rise: The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks led the S&P 500 down in March and their rally has supported the index's bounce back up in April.

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👀 Trump bump "one tweet away"

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals Wall Street is adjusting to a new reality where a single well-timed post from President Trump can drive stocks and oil prices, Axios' Emily Peck and Erin Davis write. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon joked yesterday that a big change in economic outlook is "only one tweet away." Two occasions over the past month when Trump's posts on the Iran war appeared to drive stocks sharply higher (charted above): On March 23, some two hours before the U.S. market opened, Trump posted that the U.S. and Iran had "very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of hostilities." On April 17, stock prices were falling, but minutes before the market opened, Trump posted: "The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage, but the naval blockade will remain in full force and effect." It happened again yesterday when Trump posted he would extend the ceasefire as stocks slumped over worries that the U.S. and Iran would not negotiate a resolution.

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US stock markets close down (S&P 500 -0.4%, Dow -0.4%, Nasdaq -0.9%) (More) | Tesla shares fall over 3% after missing revenue expectations, though Q1 revenue rose by 16% year over year (More)

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📈 Intel's best day in 39 years

A surge for Intel following a blowout profit report led the stock market to more records yesterday: The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and topped its prior all-time high, set on Wednesday. The Nasdaq also set a record, thanks to the jump for tech.

• Strong profit reports like Intel's have helped Wall Street rally to records, and the S&P 500 has leaped nearly 13% in a little under a month, AP reports.

💻 Intel led the way yesterday, roaring past its 2000 peak during the dot-com boom to an all-time high. The Silicon Valley pioneer soared 23.6% for its best day since 1987 after reporting much stronger Q1 results than analysts expected.

• CEO Lip-Bu Tan said AI's next wave is increasing demand for Intel's chips and products.

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US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.4%, Dow -1.1%, Nasdaq -0.2%) as investors worry Iran conflict could intensify again

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🏷️ Stat du jour: SpaceX eyepopper

Data: S&P Capital IQ. (SpaceX's ratio is based on the reported $1.75 trillion valuation it is seeking in its IPO, and the 12 months through March 31.) Chart: Lucinda Shen/Axios With a $2 trillion valuation in sight, SpaceX is set to have the highest price-to-sales ratio on the S&P 500, far outstripping the likes of Nvidia and even Tesla, Axios' Lucinda Shen writes for Pro Deals. The unprofitable company would top every Magnificent 7 company and far exceed Tesla, which sits at a 16x P/S ratio.   SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, yesterday. Photo: Eric Gay/AP SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight yesterday — an upgraded version that NASA is counting on to land astronauts on the moon. The spacecraft reached its destination, the Indian Ocean, despite some engine trouble, before erupting in unexpected flames on impact, AP reports. Musk congratulated the SpaceX team on "an epic first Starship V3 launch & landing! You scored a goal for humanity."

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📈 Market May-mentum

Data: FactSet; Chart: Matt Phillips/Axios The S&P 500 ripped to new records in May, rising 5.2%, Matt Phillips reports. Falling oil prices, easing interest rates and strong earnings results set off a blistering AI rally. 🤖 Tech led the way with a 16% increase, thanks to stocks like Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (+50%), Sandisk (+55%), Cisco (+32%) and Micron (+88%). Semiconductor shares — as measured by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index — posted a second consecutive month of astronomical gains (charted above). 🧐 Reality check: There are plenty of reasons to wonder whether the market's AI-fueled enthusiasm is getting out of hand, from rising margin debt to elevated valuations. Go deeper ...

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💸 America's record stock wealth

Data: Federal Reserve, FactSet. Chart: Matt Phillips/Axios Americans are letting it ride with a record share of their wealth in the stock market, Axios' Matt Phillips writes. Why it matters: It means the AI-driven rally is enriching Americans more than usual but exposing them to potentially painful losses from a reversal. A record 33% of the U.S. household sector's total wealth was in stocks at the end of 2025, according to Federal Reserve data. That beats the roughly 30% during the meme-stock-and-SPAC mania of 2021 — and the 27% share reached in Q1 2000, just as the internet boom peaked. Keep reading ..

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🦾 Chart du jour: AI effect

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Noah Bressner/Axios As stocks have rallied to record highs, a relatively small number of giant, AI-related tech stocks have been powering the gains while others tread water or worse, Axios markets correspondent Matt Phillips writes. "The outperformance of these AI infrastructure providers accounted for about 20% of the total increase in equity prices in 2023–2024 and 70% since 2025," Goldman Sachs market analysts wrote in a note yesterday. 📈 The Dow hit another record yesterday, jumping 875 points (1.7%) to 51,561.93, led by banks, small companies and other stocks that were left behind by AI euphoria. Health care also contributed. Go deeper. But AI stocks are sliding after going on the tear you see above. "Sentiment took a further knock after S&P Dow Jones Indices said it will keep its existing eligibility criteria for benchmarks such as the S&P 500," Bloomberg reports. That means SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI would have to wait at least a year to benefit from demand from passive index-tracking funds.