Crude oil, gold, and silver are all sliding to start the day, while equities are up a smidge. Treasuries and the dollar are mostly flat, while Bitcoin continues to mark time in the mid-$70,000s.
The $1 trillion club keeps getting bigger. The furious rally in semiconductor and AI stocks pushed Micron Technology Inc. (MU) from a market capitalization of $500 billion to $1 trillion in just 48 days. That’s the shortest such sprint ever. It took tech behemoth Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) more than ten times that long to reach $1 trillion.
MU, LLY, BRK.B (Market Cap)
Data by YCharts
MU is now the 12th US company with a 13-figure valuation. Most are in the tech sector, though companies like pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) and financial conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) have also made the cut. SpaceX will almost certainly join the club as soon as it goes public next month. It could launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO) as soon as June 11.
How is Ford Motor Co. (F) getting its groove back? By pivoting from EVs to AI! With demand ebbing for Electric Vehicles, the automaker decided to launch a new energy storage unit called Ford Energy. Batteries that would once have gone into EVs will now be marketed as backup power for AI data centers and electric utilities.
Ford’s ace in the hole is a partnership with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) – the world’s largest battery company. That will allow Ford to ramp up production and ink deals more quickly.
Finally, the cost of homeownership continues to climb. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit 6.65% in the most recent week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s the highest in nine months. Rising inflation pressures and a shift in expected Federal Reserve policy have fueled the recent increase. Rate futures markets are now pricing in a slight chance of a Fed rate hike in early 2027 rather than one or more additional cuts.
