u/iOCharts_

Micron’s latest results caught my attention because the scale of the change is pretty significant.

• Q4 revenue: $54.23B vs. $11.32B a year earlier
• Non-GAAP gross margin: 87.0% vs. 45.7%
• Data Center revenue: $18.0B
• Data Center gross margin: 90%
• FY2026 operating cash flow: $89.68B
• Adjusted free cash flow: $62.31B
• Customer contract liabilities: $12.9B vs. $568M the previous quarter
• FY2026 capital spending: $27.37B

The part I find more interesting than the earnings multiple is the customer deposits and contracts.

Customers are putting money down to secure future supply, while Micron is committing billions to expand capacity. That gives the company more visibility than a typical memory upcycle, but it doesn't eliminate the biggest risk.

Eventually, that new capacity has to meet demand.

If AI infrastructure spending keeps absorbing the additional HBM and memory supply, the current margins could remain unusually strong. If supply starts growing faster than demand, memory pricing can change quickly.

I’ve been looking at the gap between what’s happening in bonds and how equities are trading.

• 10Y Treasury yield: 5.28%
• Brent crude: above $100/barrel
• Nasdaq futures: -0.1%
• S&P 500 futures: slightly lower
• Dow futures: slightly lower

The combination matters because higher yields can make expensive growth stocks harder to value, while higher oil prices add another inflation variable.

Yet equities have remained fairly resilient.

The next thing I’m watching is earnings. Q3 results start picking up this week, with Levi Strauss, Applied Digital, PepsiCo and Delta reporting before earnings season accelerates later in October.

If yields stay around these levels, I think earnings guidance becomes more important than the index move itself.

I’ve been watching oil more closely because the move is starting to show up across other parts of the market.

The latest jump came after Trump rejected Iran’s seven-day truce proposal, keeping uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz and regional energy supply.

What matters to me isn’t the daily oil price, but how long elevated energy costs can persist.

Higher oil prices can put more pressure on inflation expectations, while markets are already pricing a higher chance of another Fed hike in October. The dollar has also been trading near a two-month high.

Gold has moved lower at the same time, with the stronger dollar adding another factor for the metal.

So I’m keeping an eye on four things together:

• oil
• Treasury yields
• the dollar
• gold

The interesting part for me is whether this remains mainly an energy-market story or starts becoming a broader market driver.

I noticed Nvidia increased its share buyback authorization by $150B, bringing the total remaining authorization to $235B through fiscal 2028.

What caught my attention is that this is happening while the business is still growing at a very high rate.

• Q2 FY2027 revenue: $96.2B, +106% YoY
• Data center revenue: $89B
• Net income: $59.7B, +126%
• Stock: +20% YTD

I’m mainly looking at how Nvidia balances continued AI infrastructure spending with returning capital through buybacks.

For me, this is one of those cases where looking at revenue growth, margins, cash generation and share count together gives more context than looking at the stock price alone.

The S&P 500 has 500 companies, but a relatively small group is driving an increasing share of the index.

Apple and Nvidia now account for more than 15% of the S&P 500, while the 10 largest holdings are approaching 40%. A decade ago, the top 10 were around 17%.

Apple is up about 25% YTD and Nvidia about 21%, which has increased their weight as their market caps have grown.

That doesn't automatically make the concentration good or bad. It does mean that movements in a relatively small number of mega-cap companies can have a larger effect on the index.

For investors tracking the broader market, I'm watching whether performance starts spreading further across the rest of the S&P 500, or remains concentrated in the largest names.

The S&P 500 has reached a point where Apple and Nvidia alone account for more than 15% of the index, according to the source.

A few numbers stood out:

• Apple: +25% YTD
• Nvidia: +21% YTD
• Apple + Nvidia: 15%+ of the S&P 500
• The S&P's top 10 holdings: nearly 40%
• A decade ago, the top 10 were around 17%

That doesn't automatically make concentration good or bad. It does mean the index's performance is increasingly influenced by a relatively small group of companies.

For me, the interesting thing to track is whether the rest of the index starts contributing more, or whether the gap between the largest companies and everyone else keeps widening.

AI-related stocks are leading Monday's market rebound, with several names moving sharply higher:

• Intel +5.3%
• Meta +2.6%
• Accenture +6.1%
• AMD and Super Micro also gained in premarket trading
• Nasdaq futures were up about 1.1%

Accenture's move came after announcing a $2B AI partnership with Anthropic.

What I'm watching is whether the move stays concentrated in the biggest AI names or continues spreading across the broader AI supply chain.

Brent fell to $101.20 and WTI to $97.80 on Monday, both at their lowest levels since September 10.

The part I’m watching is the supply side.

Saudi oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz averaged 2.9M barrels/day over the past six days, compared with around 700K bpd in August, according to JPMorgan.

At the same time, markets are watching for possible US-Iran diplomatic talks.

So the oil move isn't just about the headline price. Supply flows and the geopolitical premium are changing at the same time.

$100 is the level I’m watching now.

Bitcoin pushed above $84K on Monday, its first move above that level in eight months, even after the Clarity Act failed to advance in the Senate last week.

What caught my attention is the reaction across crypto-related stocks too:

• BTC +5.47%
• MSTR +16.39%
• COIN +11.66%
• CRCL +7.86%
• HOOD +9.12%

The regulatory setback clearly hasn't stopped the current move. The market seems to be focusing more on price and crypto activity than the bill itself, at least for now.

I'm watching whether this strength holds beyond BTC, especially across the listed companies tied to the crypto market.

Bitcoin reached a two-week high Friday and moved back above $80,000, even after the Fed raised rates earlier this week.

But BTC wasn't the only move.

Over the past month, according to the article:

• ETH: +35%
• SOL: +41%
• BNB: +25%
• Crypto market cap: $2.66T
• BTC: roughly +25% in August, still down 8% YTD

The move was partly attributed to U.S. spot ETF inflows and short covering, while derivatives positioning was described as bullish.

For me, the useful part isn't just BTC crossing $80K. It's seeing whether the broader market is participating or whether the move is concentrated in a few large tokens.

Fed hiked rates to 3.75%–4.00% and USD initially pushed to a 7-week high

Then oil started coming back down and the dollar gave some of the move back

Been watching how much the FX reaction changes when yields, oil and the dollar are all moving at the same time

Feels like one of those situations where just trading the Fed headline can be pretty misleading

Anyone else watching this on USD pairs today?

NVDA vs MU vs SK Hynix vs Samsung

I've been comparing them on:

- Valuation

- Revenue growth

- Margins

- Earnings growth

- Capex

- HBM exposure

The recent semiconductor selloff makes the comparison more interesting. NVDA, MU, SK Hynix and Samsung all have AI exposure, but they're exposed to different parts of the supply chain.

SK Hynix and Samsung have also become much more important to the HBM story, while Micron has been seeing strong memory demand.

If AI infrastructure spending stays strong, which part of the semiconductor supply chain looks the most interesting from here?

Bank of America expects investment banking fees to fall 10%–20% in Q3 from last year.

The bank also said trading revenue is likely to be flat as some financing and prime brokerage activity cooled.

BAC fell 5.1% Monday, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley also dropped.

But Citi gave a more positive update, expecting market revenue to grow by the mid-single digits and investment banking revenue to rise by the low single digits.

Same market, very different numbers depending on the bank.

Oracle's AI business is growing fast, but the cost of building it is getting pretty big too.

Q1 numbers:

• Revenue: $19.3B, +30%
• Cloud revenue: +62%
• Cloud Infrastructure: +121%
• RPO: $664B
• Capex: $28.5B
• Free cash flow: -$5.4B

And now Oracle has started another round of layoffs. The company had already cut around 21,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, in the last fiscal year.

Larry Ellison also canceled a plan that could have allowed him to sell up to 50M Oracle shares, worth around $7.5B. No shares were actually sold.

The AI demand is clearly there. I'm more curious about how much money Oracle has to spend to turn that $664B backlog into actual revenue and cash flow.

That’s what I’d be keeping an eye on.

I started comparing individual stocks against the S&P 500 more often.

Sometimes the “good” return isn't that impressive once you see the benchmark.

Do you guys actually track relative performance?

This is a pretty rough week for Novartis.

On Monday, pelacarsen failed its Phase III cardiovascular trial. The drug successfully lowered Lp(a), but that didn't translate into fewer cardiovascular events. Shares fell more than 3%.

Then Tuesday brought another setback.

Del-desiran, which Novartis acquired through its $12B purchase of Avidity, failed to meet the primary endpoint in a Phase III trial for myotonic dystrophy. Novartis shares fell 10.9%, wiping out roughly $32B in market value.

That's what makes this more than just two bad trial results.

Novartis has been using acquisitions and new pipeline drugs to support growth as older products face future patent pressure. Now two important programs have missed their key trials within days of each other.

And that puts more attention on remibrutinib.

The company is still maintaining its 5–6% annual sales CAGR target through 2030, but the question is whether the remaining pipeline can support that outlook.

What I'm watching now isn't just NVS.

It's whether these failures change how investors value pharma M&A and late-stage pipeline assets.

If you're looking at the sector, does this make you more cautious about buying growth through acquisitions, or is this simply the normal risk of drug development?

A stock can look completely different depending on whether you look at 1D, 1Y or 5Y.

I've been trying to start with the longer timeframe first.

Curious if anyone else does this.