Daily Brief — June 25, 2026

Top of Mind

Micron's (MU) blockbuster quarter — revenue quadrupled, gross margins hit a record 84.9%, and Q4 guidance crushed estimates — has fully reignited the AI trade after days of tech weakness. Nasdaq futures surged 2%+ premarket, with QCOM, WDC, and Sandisk all up 12%+. The memory shortage is now explicitly expected to extend beyond 2027, giving the entire semiconductor complex fresh runway. Meanwhile, Brent crude erased all its Iran-war gains, settling below $72.48/bbl as Hormuz flows recover, while the PCE print came in hot at 4.1% headline — cementing hawkish Fed expectations but failing to dent the tech rally. Positioning note: dealer gamma is likely long on MU after the 18% pop; expect pin action near $150 strike. If oil stays weak, watch for speculative long fuel spreads (airlines, refiners) into month-end.

Catalyst Radar

• Today: PCE data out (4.1% y/y, core 3.4%). Fed stress test results released (banks passed, JPM $50B buyback).
• Next week: FOMC minutes (July 1), ISM Manufacturing (July 1), monthly jobs report (July 2). Quarterly rebalancing for indices next Friday.

Analyst / Opinion Columns

• BofA's Raedler (Bloomberg) warns the AI trade is vulnerable: "The moment customers ration usage or a hyperscaler cuts capex, defensives roar." He recommends rotating into consumer staples and pharma, and sees German bunds outperforming ahead of an AI turning point.
• WSJ Heard on the Street–style analysis ("Turbocharged Earnings") flags that the current 20%+ earnings growth is an accounting artifact: hyperscalers are capitalizing AI outlays, so their income statements look clean — but a wave of depreciation is coming. Analysts' D&A estimates for Meta in 2028 have a 24% standard deviation vs 4% for revenue, a massive blind spot.
• WSJ Markets A.M. (the "Where's the Beef?" piece) notes the Wendy's meme spike fits the classic short-squeeze pattern: household name, heavy short interest, a catalyst (CFO hire), and a billionaire (Peltz) in the mix. But warns the gains are fleeting — Wendy's has trailed the S&P by 89pp over two years.

Markets

• Equities: S&P 500 futures +0.8%, Nasdaq 100 futures +2.1%, Dow +0.2%. MU +18%, QCOM +10%, WDC +12%, AMD +3.6%, NVDA +1.5%. Wendy's extends meme rally (+12% premarket). Darden -3% after Olive Garden same-store sales miss.
• Commodities: Brent crude at $71.90 (-1.2%), erasing all wartime gains; WTI at $69.50. Gold flat at $3,995, silver below $60 — safe-haven appeal fading as rates expectations harden. Bitcoin futures dipped to $58,995 overnight, put volume 2:1 over calls in IBIT options.
• Rates: 10y Treasury yield 4.41% (+1bp); 2y at 4.15%, now above the fed funds rate (3.50-3.75%) — a historical signal that the Fed's next move will be a hike.
• Flows: Ares Management's $11B private-credit fund limited redemptions to 5% after $1.5B in Q2 requests (14.4% of NAV). Advisers are recommending rotating out of non-traded BDCs into listed ones trading at a 25% discount to NAV.

Economy

• PCE: Headline +4.1% y/y (in line), core +3.4% (slightly above expectations). Consumer spending accelerated. The economy grew 2.1% annualized in Q1 (revised up).
• ECB rate-hike expectations are being pared back as oil collapses; Oxford Economics now sees a "one and done" after this month's hike. Markets still fully price one more quarter-point move.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are taking on more duration gap risk — a half-point rate move now costs $1.2B and $1.6B respectively — as Trump pushes them to lower mortgage costs, but that leaves the GSEs exposed if rates keep rising.

Business/Finance

• JPMorgan (JPM) named Doug Petno (CIB) and Troy Rohrbaugh (Consumer) as co-presidents in a succession move; Marianne Lake retires. Fed stress test passed, JPM announced $50B buyback, MS $20B.
• Merck agreed to acquire Bio-Techne (TECH) for $73/share (~$11.3B enterprise value).
• Volkswagen sold 51% of its heavy-engine unit Everllence to Bain Capital for ~$8.4B, part of a broader portfolio simplification.
• UniCredit now controls 42.5% of Commerzbank after the initial offer period and will reopen its bid until July 3.
• Braskem filed for emergency creditor protection in Brazil after out-of-court debt restructuring talks failed.
• BlackBerry raised FY27 revenue guidance, driven by its embedded AI platform, shares +8% premarket.

World/Geopolitics

• Oil supply surge: Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura terminal is set to restart loading crude inside the Persian Gulf; three Bahri VLCCs are approaching. Iraq threatened to leave OPEC over quota limits, then walked it back within hours. Iran's IRGC warned ships not to use unauthorized routes through Hormuz.
• Defense stocks slide after Germany scrapped the €12B F126 frigate program (Rheinmetall -16% in two days), exposing political risk in European rearmament assumptions.
• Venezuela earthquakes: Two tremors of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 killed hundreds; Trump pledged rapid U.S. disaster assistance. Rubio said it's a "setback" for stabilization efforts, while US-controlled Venezuelan oil exports hit $3.7B in April.
• CoinEx identified as major hub for Iranian illicit crypto flows, with $3.84B in transactions since 2019, including funds from the Central Bank of Iran and Revolutionary Guard wallets.

Technology/AI

• Qualcomm nearly doubled its 2029 non-handset revenue forecast to $40B, with $15B target from AI data center chips. Meta will use its new Dragonfly C1000 CPU.
• Micron has now signed 16 long-term strategic customer agreements (SCAs) totaling $22B in financial commitments, with price floors that lock in robust gross margins above historical peaks. CEO says shortage extends beyond 2027.
• Apple (AAPL) will raise product prices due to the memory crunch; Cook said the situation is "unsustainable." BofA expects an additional $100 hike on iPhone Pro models.
• IBM unveiled the world's first sub-1nm chip technology, shares +3% premarket.
• Anthropic is hiring aggressively for APAC data center roles in Australia and Japan, signaling a major geographic expansion of AI compute capacity.

Standouts

• WSJ: Morgan Stanley is weighing a $1.33B operational hub in Dallas with a 90% tax abatement — follows Wall Street's Texas migration trend.
• Bloomberg: China is marketing a record €5B euro-denominated sovereign bond, with orders already exceeding €23B.
• CNBC: GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen sacrificed a $35B bonus plan to focus on the eBay acquisition effort, but hasn't resolved the $10B vs $50B valuation gap.
• Bloomberg: Bank of America's Raedler (see Analyst section) explicitly says "defensives are ready to roar" if AI capex gets cut — watch utilities, pharma, staples.
• WSJ: Ares Management's $11B private-credit fund saw a surge in redemption requests from foreign investors, limiting payouts to 5% of NAV.