New Chair Kevin Warsh was inaugurated on May 22 and faces his first FOMC on June 17. Markets fully price in a hold, but if Warsh uses the CPI and PPI surprises to abandon an easing bias and signal a tightening lean, the December 25bp hike timeline could move forward. BlackRock's Rick Rieder described the current environment as "the most intense momentum trading in history — not a bubble, but a risk" and flagged the Fed's policy path as the key market risk.

The eurozone is sustaining a gradual easing stance in an environment where inflation is lower than in the United States, but the pace of further cuts could be adjusted depending on how much of the Iran energy shock transmits to Europe. EUR/USD is at 1.1586, modestly dollar-weak.

The Bank of Korea raised its 2026 growth outlook from 2% to 2.6% on the strength of semiconductor exports, but with May employment falling and global rates expected to stay higher for longer, a watchful stance appears more likely than an additional cut. A ₩9.3T surge in household lending in May, now under financial authority emergency management, is an additional constraint on monetary easing.

Consumer prices hit their highest level since April 2023. The energy index rose +3.9% month-over-month, accounting for more than 60% of the monthly increase, while food was up +3.1% YoY. Core CPI (excluding energy and food) came in at just +0.2% MoM — below expectations.

Producer prices surged +1.1% MoM (well above consensus of +0.7%). Wholesale gasoline prices rose +23.4%, accounting for 80% of the PPI gain, confirming that Iran war-driven energy shocks are transmitting directly into production costs.

President Trump withdrew a third strike plan hours after threatening to seize Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran's oil exports. Brent crude spiked to $96 before plunging to $88.73 on Iran deal hopes, while the S&P 500 surged +1.75%. RBC's Helima Croft cautioned that "the Supreme Leader's signature is unconfirmed and Israel has denied" any deal, warning against premature optimism.

The offering priced at $135 per share (implying a $1.75T valuation), with 556.6M shares issued. Retail investors were allocated 30% of the offering, drawing more than $100B in subscriptions. Morningstar's fair value estimate is $780B — roughly half the IPO price — while the company is still reporting operating losses (-$1.9B in Q1 2026), fueling a valuation debate.

BofA's Vivek Arya upgraded Intel from Underperform to Buy — skipping a rating — and raised his price target from $96 to $135. He cited an addressable global server CPU market expanding to over $170B and Google's order for 3 million TPUs to be produced at Intel Foundry in 2028 as key supporting evidence.

FY2026 capital expenditure exceeded its own $50B guidance, and the company guided to $70B for FY2027. Oracle is the only major hyperscaler funding its AI infrastructure expansion through long-term debt ($124.7B) rather than operating cash flow, erasing $72B in market cap in a single session.

SpaceX IPO enthusiasm and continued confirmation of AI infrastructure investment drove a sharp rally in semiconductor equipment stocks. Barclays raised its wafer fab equipment market outlook from $139B to $154B.

The two sides agreed to maintain a combined 30% tariff (20% fentanyl tariff + 10% reciprocal tariff) while pausing additional high-rate tariffs for 60 days. A bilateral trade commission was established to leave room for future reductions, though USTR is separately pursuing an additional 12.5% tariff based on forced labor grounds.

$4.4B exited major ETFs including BlackRock's IBIT, Fidelity's FBTC, and Grayscale's GBTC. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) sold 32 Bitcoin — its first sale in four years — shaking the HODL narrative.

The KOSDAQ index jumped 45.30 points to close at 996.93. Institutional investors poured ₩703.3B in concentrated buying at 1:58 PM, triggering the market's 10th circuit breaker of the year. Despite quad-witching volatility, Alteogen (+10.16%) and Jusung Engineering (+23.37%) each posted sharp gains.

Per Korea Customs Service data, semiconductor exports reached $11.068B (trade surplus: $5.282B), accounting for 38.7% of total exports — an all-time record.

Year-over-year operating profit growth of +405.5%. Surging demand for HBM4 in AI semiconductors is the primary driver, with 2026 HBM revenue projected at ₩40.5T (+38%).

Discussions are underway for Samsung Electronics to fabricate the memory I/O die for Google's 10th-generation TPU at its 2nm foundry process. As TSMC's 1.4nm capacity faces constraints, Big Tech is diversifying toward Samsung Foundry.

The K-Defense Big 4 is projected to generate a combined Q2 operating profit of ₩1.5T. Revenue recognition from K9 self-propelled howitzers and Chunmoo MLRS exports to Poland, plus FA-50 export volumes, are driving results.

The Personal Information Protection Commission imposed a fine of ₩624.681B for the leak of 37.55 million users' data — 4.6 times the fine levied on SKT (₩134.7B).

Retail subscriptions exceeded $100B, with the 30% retail allocation making general investor participation the largest ever for an IPO. The gap between Morningstar's fair value ($780B) and the offering price ($1.75T), however, reflects irrational market enthusiasm.

Oracle's debt-dependent model ($124.7B in long-term debt) has emerged as the central case in the AI infrastructure return-on-investment debate. The contrast with semiconductor equipment stocks (LRCX, AMAT +8%) surging on the same AI spending news is instructive — the market is re-recognizing that the beneficiaries of AI spending are the hardware supply chain, not cloud software.

With short-term bullish consensus at an extreme, contrarian sell signals are emerging. The post-Iran rally is occurring at a high near a 20% surge — making a medium-term correction scenario difficult to rule out.

Structural rotation in which institutions sell Bitcoin and move into NVDA and semiconductor stocks has been identified as the primary driver of the 13-day consecutive ETF outflow streak. Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick argued that "ETF holdings themselves have been stable since February" and that panic is unnecessary, but actual outflows continue.

Re-accelerating inflation has eliminated expectations of a mortgage rate decline, driving housing costs to a structurally ceiling-level burden. With Fed cut hopes gone, this is the backdrop for real estate's underperformance (XLRE -0.16%).

Maintained his "this is not a bubble" stance while warning that "I've never seen momentum trading this intense in history." He recommended "dynamic patience" — holding core positions while staying flexible to near-term overreactions. He specifically highlighted that the crowding unwind around large IPOs and convertible bond absorption is still ongoing.

Maintained strong skepticism on the Iran agreement. She noted that Trump's "deal imminent" rhetoric has been repeated dozens of times over three months, the Supreme Leader's signature remains unconfirmed, and Israel has denied any deal. She also flagged that most vessels in the Strait of Hormuz are sailing with AIS transponders off, making it difficult to track actual oil flows.

KKR, NVIDIA, Vistra, and Kuwait Investment Authority launched Helix Digital Infrastructure with over $10B in committed capital. The observation that "more than 25% of announced data center projects are not delivering on schedule" was notable, with the broader message that "AI and cloud are driving the infrastructure buildout of a generation — the railroads, the highway system, the internet itself."

Called the SpaceX IPO a "milestone moment" heralding a new wave of space technology investment, though he added a note of "tempered expectation" around extreme figures like a $29T TAM.

Presented an extremely bullish numerical model for SpaceX: "Leasing gigawatts of satellite power at $15B per gigawatt, launching dozens of gigawatts, could generate over $300B in annual revenue." He also described a SpaceX-Tesla merger as "more than a reasonable assumption."

Offered sharp critical analysis of the SpaceX IPO. He described it as one of the most expensive stocks in history at a P/S ratio of 107x and pointed to an excessive number of exit clauses in the data center leasing contracts with Anthropic and Google. He projected "at least a 25% chance that one of the contracts falls through within two years."

Argued that AI would paradoxically create labor scarcity. His logic: "The productivity explosion from AI raises real wages, leading one member of a two-income household to voluntarily exit the workforce — reducing labor supply."