Oil catches its breath, but chips and AI stay shaky

Wall Street cheered the oil news yesterday, then changed its mind. After the US and Iran agreed to stop striking each other for two weeks to give talks room, oil fell about 5% and the Dow jumped nearly 600 points at one stage. Oil-sensitive stocks such as travel and airlines rose and Treasury yields eased.

By the close, though, the market was mixed. Chip stocks kept selling off, and Tesla and SpaceX were weak too, a sign that cheaper oil has not cured doubts about AI plays. CNBC's Jim Cramer warned that Nvidia backing OpenAI's data center buildout looks like the dot-com era, when suppliers financed their customers' big projects. Fundstrat's Tom Lee counters that top stocks now trade at far lower multiples than in 1999.

China's memory chipmaker CXMT soared nearly 500% on its Shanghai debut, for a market value of about $85 billion. That shows how scarce memory has become because of AI, but some warn it may be a peak in the memory cycle. When US officials floated probes into Chinese AI companies, Beijing called it «AI hegemonism» and threatened countermeasures.

Attention now turns to Wednesday's Fed meeting and big tech earnings. Futures put the odds of a hold at roughly 66% but also price some chance of a September hike, and President Trump is backing Chair Warsh while pressing him to cut.