Major Indexes Waver as Memory Stocks Shake Off Early Losses; SK Hynix Soars in U.S. Debut

Delta Stock Slides Despite Topping Earnings Estimates

FROM 12 minutes ago

Delta Air Lines (DAL) beat Wall Street estimates with its second-quarter earnings report as strong demand offset rising fuel costs. Shares are falling anyway. 

The company said this morning it earned an adjusted $1.56 per share on $19.76 billion in revenue, up 19% year-over-year. Both figures topped the consensus estimates among Wall Street analysts, despite what Delta CEO Ed Bastian said was the carrier’s “highest quarterly fuel expense in our history.” Oil and jet fuel prices skyrocketed last quarter after conflict in the Middle East closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint in the global oil supply chain. 

Delta’s third-quarter forecasts also topped estimates. The company expects revenue growth to be in the mid-teens, and earnings to be somewhere between $2 and $2.50 per share. 

Despite the strong results, Delta shares were down more than 2% in recent trading. The stock entered the day up nearly 30% since the start of the year. 

Delta was the first of the major U.S. airlines to report results. United Airlines (UAL) is expected to report Wednesday afternoon, followed by Southwest Airlines (LUV) and American Airlines (AAL) later in the month. 

–Aaron McDade

Meta’s Shifting AI Strategy Continues To Push the Stock Higher

FROM 1 hr 1 min ago

Meta was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 on Friday as investors continued to cheer the social media giant’s aggressive push to monetize its AI investments. 

In an internal memo, Meta laid out plans to double its cloud computing capacity to 14 gigawatts next year and begin producing its own AI chips with designer Broadcom (AVGO) in September, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Shares jumped nearly 5% yesterday, and the stock was up 6% in recent trading. Friday’s gains pared Meta stock’s year-to-date losses to about 4%. The stock came into this week down nearly 12% since the start of the year. 

Wall Street started to ask questions about Meta’s AI infrastructure spending this year, with some investors expressing concern the social media giant is spending hundreds of billions on data centers for its own use, unlike Alphabet (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) whose computing capacity is sold to cloud customers. 

Meta has been one of Big Tech’s laggards this year. It was the only Magnificent Seven stock to fall in both the first and second quarters. It’s 15% decline in the first half was the second-worst of the Mag Seven, trailing only Microsoft’s (MSFT) 23% slump. 

Sentiment has improved in the second half. Shares popped 9% on July 1 following reports the company is considering renting out unused computing capacity to third parties, similar to SpaceX’s (SPCX) $1.25 billion-per-month agreement with Anthropic. Shares are up nearly 20% since that report. 

Bank of America analyst Justin Post, in a note earlier this week, argued Wall Street is undervaluing Meta’s AI infrastructure. Post estimates investors are valuing Meta’s computing capacity at just $4 billion per gigawatt, compared with Amazon’s $59 billion and Alphabet’s $110 billion. Post, however, believes it’s worth $12 billion per GW, with the potential for “significant upside considering specialized AI capacity that Meta is building.” According to Post, SpaceX’s recent deals with Anthropic and Google valued its specialized capacity at about $50 billion per GW.

Investor enthusiasm for Meta’s AI push has offset regulatory and legal headwinds facing its core social media business. The EU Commission on Friday said in a preliminary report that Meta violated its Digital Services Act with “addictive” features like infinite scroll and autoplay. The commission told Meta to change the violating design features, or risk facing a fine of up to 6% of its global revenue.

Meta faces mounting scrutiny of its social media platforms and their impact on youth mental health and safety. The company lost two trials centered on child safety earlier this year, potentially setting a precedent for a slew of similar cases being litigated. 

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Names Members Of Reform Task Force

FROM 1 hr 59 min ago

The future of the Fed is in the hands of a group of bankers, business leaders, academics, and even a video game executive.

On Thursday, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh released the names of the members of five task forces he established to rethink key aspects of how the central bank does business. Reforming the Fed’s operations is a top priority for the new Fed chair, who announced the existence of the task forces at his first press conference last month.

The groups will recommend changes to the Fed’s communications with the public; its approach to controlling inflation; its use of economic data; its balance sheet of financial assets; and its view of the changes AI technology could bring to the economy. Here’s who Warsh tapped to lead those task forces. Four of the 15 are professors at Harvard, where Warsh studied law.

Click here to read the full story on the Fed’s new task forces and their leaders. 

–Diccon Hyatt

SK Hynix’s U.S. Listing Will Test Wall Street’s Appetite For Turbulent Memory Stocks

FROM 2 hr 54 min ago

South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix is set to make its U.S. debut today. It will be one of the largest share sales ever—and the market’s response could be telling.

SK Hynix priced its American Depositary Shares, or ADSs, which each represent one-tenth of a common share, at $149. The price sets the company up to raise more than $26 billion, making it the most lucrative U.S. listing by a foreign company ever, when ADSs begin trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “SKHYV” today. (They will take their permanent ticker, “SKHY,” on Monday.)

SK Hynix is the world’s leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory, accounting for more than 50% of the global market, and the second-largest supplier of NAND devices, according to regulatory filings. Demand for its technology skyrocketed in recent years as tech giants raced to equip data centers for training and running artificial intelligence. Supply couldn’t keep up with demand, causing prices for memory and data storage devices to skyrocket over the past year.

SK Hynix and its peers have effectively been printing money of late. SK Hynix’s revenue tripled to about $34.5 billion, and its profit quintupled to $26.5 billion, in the first quarter. South Korean competitor Samsung on Tuesday reported its operating profit increased 19-fold last quarter. Tech giants’ desperation to secure memory pushed Micron’s profit margins to nearly 85% in the most recent quarter from 38% last year.

The memory crunch has made SK Hynix among the world’s best-performing stocks this year. Its shares are up well above 200% in 2026, as have Micron’s (MU), while Samsung has more than doubled. (Samsung’s shares are also listed in South Korea.)

For more on what SK Hynix’s listing means for the AI trade, read the full story here.

Stock Futures Mostly Lower Ahead of Friday’s Open

FROM 3 hr 44 min ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up about 0.1% in premarket trading on Friday.

S&P 500 futures gave up earlier gains to point 0.1% lower.

Nasdaq 100 futures were off 0.5% before the open.