Stocks are slipping in early trading, while crude oil is rising and gold and silver are mixed. Treasuries are unchanged and the dollar is ticking higher.
Crude oil is climbing back toward $80 a barrel after hard-liners in Iran offered up maximalist demands for re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. They included an end to the US naval blockade, the freeing up of frozen Iranian asses, the end of sanctions, and other requests that President Trump is unlikely to agree to. The US hasn’t responded with new military strikes, but the lack of an agreement has energy traders on alert.
USO, INTC, META (YTD % Change)
Source: TradingView
Intel Corp. (INTC) said it will sell $15 billion in stock to raise money for spending on AI programs, purpose-built silicon, and advanced packaging. The chipmaker’s shares have surged 158% in 2026 thanks to the AI boom and the company’s turnaround efforts. But they dropped about 4% amid dilution concerns tied to the share sale.
Meta Platforms Inc. (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg endorsed open-source AI models in a 6,500-word essay – and released a new model called Muse Glimmer. It’s an open-weight entry, which means users can access the various numerical values that help guide its behavior. Competitors like Anthropic and OpenAI offer closed models that are less customizable. Meta stock is down 8.9% year-to-date, in part because of concerns over the cost of its AI efforts.
Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) is getting even more bullish on the market here. Strategists at the firm raised their year-end target for the second time this summer, saying the S&P 500 Index (^SPX) should rise to 8,000 instead of 7,800. The team led by Dubravko Lakos-Bujas cited strong earnings growth and optimism that AI-fueled capex is starting to produce returns.
