Elon be like: “Nvidia and Chill?” 

It’s Wednesday my dudes, and the Dow notched its fifth straight record close owing a girthy chunk of the milestone to Elon Musk pledging loyalty to a company he doesn't even run. The 30-stock index added 263 points, or 0.5%, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.2% and ended a four-day win streak just one session after its first-ever close above 7,700. The Nasdaq fell 0.8%, because most of big tech spent Wednesday in the corner thinking about what it did. 

The main event, of course, came off the back of SpaceX’s earning call yesterday where Musk announced that his little red rocket company’s AI computing infrastructure will run exclusively on Nvidia processors from here on out. "We're exclusive to Nvidia," he said, right after calling it "the best AI computer." Nvidia climbed 4% on the compliment alone and dragged the Dow across the record line… a very fine day for the Leather Mafia himself (read: Jensen Huang), who now collects checks from every hyperscaler in America plus one rocket company.

SpaceX, meanwhile, is the one writing that check, and shareholders finally saw the receipt. In its first quarterly report since going public in June, capital expenditures hit $18.4 billion, six times last year's number and well beyond what analysts penciled in, with the majority going to AI. That is a metric f*ck ton of GPUs. The rest of the quarter actually beat expectations. Nobody cared. The stock ate 13% anyway.

And because Musk can’t keep himself from saying something stupid, his response to the carnage was to promise more: over 2 gigawatts of computing by year-end, 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, Nvidia racks physically launched into orbit, robots on the moon (sure), and a $1 trillion annual revenue target he moved UP a year to 2030, with "a nonzero chance" of hitting it in 2029.

Friendly reminder, SpaceX's first post-IPO lockup expires Thursday, unlocking more than 900,000 shares and roughly doubling the tradable float, which means insiders finally get their first chance to dump diversify. The stock already sits about half below its June high which means if the people who built the company start heading for the exits, Elon mouth breathers are going to get another well-done lesson in what it means to be exit liquidity. 

Elsewhere, in chips… AMD fell 6% after earnings that came in ahead of estimates, which sounds fine until you remember the stock ran roughly 140% this year and was priced for the rapture. Gross margins landed at 54% against the 56% the Street wanted, and "slightly ahead" does not feed a multiple like that. Rough day for Lisa Su all around: she also had to listen to Musk pledge chip monogamy to her cousin's company on a live earnings call (yes, they're actually related… look it up).

“But what about Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s former employer?” - you, probably…

Google (read: Alphabet) slipped 4% after announcing an AI reshuffle and the exit of chief scientist Jeff Dean… the engineer compilers apologize to… after 27 years. He's off to co-found a research startup called Discovery Loop, and Google is signing on as a founding investor, which means the company is literally seed-funding its own brain drain. The market read the new org chart and hit sell.

Shake Shack jumped nearly 9% after Starboard Value's Jeff Smith went on Bloomberg TV and mentioned his firm has backed up the Brinks truck worth hundreds of millions of dollars, likely making it the largest active shareholder in what is now, legally, a Stake Shack. And finally, over in your local druggies favorite industry, copper climbed 1.3% to $6.7275 a pound, its highest level in records going back to 1988, up nearly 19% this year and 11% since the Iran war began. Disney tacked on almost 2% despite a mixed quarter… earnings beat, revenue barely missed… because the parks business grew 10% and the Mouse's core competency of charging $9 for a churro remains recession-proof.

Aaaaaand scene. 

That was Wednesday for ya. The Dow five-peated, the S&P's streak died of tech poisoning, and oil went nowhere (WTI settled at $75.22) while the Strait of Hormuz headlines marinate. Thursday we find out whether SpaceX insiders love the mission as much as Elon loves Nvidia. Place your bets accordingly, friends. Until next time… 

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.
 

☕ Market Gossip

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> Major Hedge Funds Targeted in Wave of Attempted Cyberattacks (Bloomberg):  Cyber Rule #1. Have “Situational Awareness”... 

> Salad and Go files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after cyclospora fears worsened its challenges (CNBC): Weight loss “Wait, loss?” 

“WTF” Meme of the Day

Peak Alpha… 

 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Robinhood, Alphabet, and Disney as mentioned in the article.