Altman Holds Out for a Trillion 💸

Welcome back to the Day Trading newsletter 📈

That was the week the AI trade finally blinked.

After two years of straight-up momentum, the Nasdaq just logged its worst week since the spring, hammered by hot inflation, fresh Fed-hike chatter, and a Friday gut-punch out of OpenAI.

Let’s get into it 👇️ 

📆 Tuesday 6/30 — Nike Q4 FY26 Earnings (after the close): First real scorecard on CEO Elliott Hill's turnaround. Analysts expect about $0.11 in EPS on roughly $10.9 billion in revenue, a ~2% sales decline. Watch China and inventory commentary.

📆 Wednesday 7/1 — ISM Manufacturing PMI (10am ET): June's first read on factory activity. A figure above 50 signals expansion; markets want proof that tariffs and inflation aren't choking production.

📆 Thursday 7/2 — June Jobs Report (8:30am ET): The marquee event, pulled a day early for the holiday. Consensus is around 172,000 new jobs. A hot number would pour fuel on September rate-hike bets and could rattle an already jittery market.

📆 Thursday 7/2 — Weekly Jobless Claims (8:30am ET): Released alongside payrolls. Claims have stayed low; a sudden jump would be the first crack in an otherwise resilient labor market.

📆 Friday 7/3 — U.S. Markets Closed (Independence Day observed): Stock and bond markets are shut for the holiday, following an early 1pm ET close on Thursday. Expect thin, choppy trading ahead of the long weekend.

🔻 The Nasdaq capped its worst week since the spring, sliding 4.6% as money fled crowded tech for safer corners of the market. The S&P 500 fell roughly 2% on the week while the Dow actually gained about 0.6%, a split that shows investors rotating out of AI megacaps and into value and defensive names. Friday alone marked the Nasdaq's fifth straight down session.

💵 The Fed's preferred inflation gauge ran hotter than expected in May, with core PCE climbing to 3.4% — its highest since 2023. Headline PCE pushed past 4% on an annual basis, the fastest pace in three years. The report all but cements the new "higher for longer" mood and keeps a September rate hike squarely on the table.

📉 Bitcoin cratered to about $58,000, its lowest level since 2024, as a hawkish Fed and a surging dollar punished risk assets. The slide triggered roughly $1.26 billion in liquidations across more than 200,000 traders in 24 hours, with leveraged longs taking the brunt. Non-yielding assets like crypto and gold tend to suffer most when rate-hike bets climb.

🚀 SpaceX shares have surrendered almost all of their post-debut pop, sliding back toward their $150 opening level after peaking above $225 earlier this month. The rocket maker debuted June 12 and briefly ranked among the most valuable U.S. companies before the rally unraveled. Its slump is the same one now making OpenAI think twice about going public. 

💰️ ON Semiconductor agreed to buy Synaptics in an all-stock deal worth about $7 billion, its largest acquisition ever. Announced Thursday, the deal hands Synaptics holders 1.35 Onsemi shares each — a 19% premium — and pushes the chipmaker deeper into "edge AI." Onsemi shares slid on the news, a typical reaction to a big all-stock buyout.

🥇 Gold slid to a seven-month low below $4,000 an ounce this week before steadying, still on track for another weekly loss. The same hawkish Fed signals lifting the dollar and Treasury yields make zero-yield gold less attractive, and easing US-Iran tensions cooled safe-haven demand. It clawed back about 1% Friday but couldn't undo the week's damage.

🛢️ U.S. crude fell about 3.7% Friday to settle near $69 a barrel, its lowest since February, as Middle East supply fears faded. More tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran is poised to ramp up sales, draining the war-risk premium that spiked in the spring. WTI is now down more than 20% over the past month — a rare break for inflation-weary drivers heading into the July 4 weekend.

📈 The economy looked sturdier than first thought, with first-quarter GDP revised up to a 2.1% annual pace in its final estimate. That's a meaningful bump from the prior 1.6% read and complicates the case for rate cuts: a stronger economy plus stickier inflation is exactly the mix that pushes the Fed toward hikes, not cuts. 

OpenAI is leaning toward delaying its blockbuster IPO until 2027 rather than accept a valuation below its $1 trillion target, according to a New York Times report Thursday citing three people involved in the company's internal deliberations.

CEO Sam Altman is reportedly digging in: he wants a trillion-dollar price tag at listing and has called any cut to that figure a "nonstarter," even if it means waiting another year.

The cold feet trace back to a rough debut for SpaceX, whose stock soared above its IPO price this month before giving back nearly all of those gains, spooking bankers who fear retail investors won't show up for OpenAI either.

The report sent the AI trade slamming into a wall on Friday.

When the most hyped private company on earth signals it doesn't trust the market to pay up, every AI-adjacent stock feels it.

The clearest casualty was SoftBank, OpenAI's biggest backer with a stake set to reach roughly $65 billion by October. Its shares cratered around 12% Friday (the steepest drop since August 2024) wiping out about $38 billion in market value as investors recalculated when (and whether) that windfall arrives.

The broader tape followed: chip stocks led the Nasdaq to a fifth straight losing session, and the index finished the week down 4.6%.

What to watch: 

• Whether the rest of the AI IPO pipeline (the names lining up behind OpenAI) starts pushing back timelines too. If a $1 trillion company would rather wait than test the public market, that's a tell about how fragile sentiment has gotten.

• Keep an eye on SoftBank, the chip names, and any sign that "AI fatigue" is hardening into something deeper than a bad week.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.