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July 31, 2026 - 15:51
4 minutes
(Bloomberg) — Another wave of buying lifted beaten-down chipmakers in the final stretch of a month that saw an unwinding of strategies that have powered the stock rally from war-driven lows.A key gauge of semiconductor giants including Nvidia Corp. and Broadcom Inc. climbed 1.5%, trimming a monthly plunge that’s set to be the worst since 2008. Amazon.com Inc. jumped 14% after reporting a fifth quarter of cloud sales growth. Apple Inc. tumbled 8.5% as component shortages weighed on its sales forecast. An advance in oil lifted bond yields. The yen’s intervention-fueled rally stalled.Despite the insatiable demand for all things related to artificial intelligence, companies have been under intense volatility after a massive equity-market run, with lofty expectations leaving little room for disappointment. Chipmakers have faced intense swings on concerns about increased competition, possible overcapacity and whether the billions of dollars in AI investments will pay off.“Is the momentum unwind done?” said Max Kettner at HSBC. “A ‘momo’ reversal could lead us to new all-time highs in equities.”Billionaire Ken Griffin’s deal with embattled hedge fund Situational Awareness helped trigger a relief rally in global AI stocks, leaving traders debating whether the worst is over or more market turbulence is on the way.For some market participants, forced liquidations of AI investments by Situational Awareness helped explain the relentless pressure on shares in July, as one wave of selling ricocheted around the world and spiraled into another. The move by Griffin’s Citadel hedge fund to snap up most of Situational Awareness’ remaining public equities on Thursday has eased fears of a disorderly unwind with hard-to-predict ripple effects.“News around the unwind of AI hedge fund Situational Awareness gives markets a welcome narrative to justify the renewed selloff in chip stocks in the past two weeks,” Kettner said. “Technicals have also become much cleaner now, in our view. This creates a powerful backdrop for a positive reversal of ‘momo’.”Corporate Highlights:Moonshot has a computing power agreement with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. for the use of around 20,000 Nvidia Corp. chips, underscoring China’s continued reliance on Western semiconductors to fuel its AI development, according to people with knowledge of the companies’ operations. Anthropic PBC said its AI models breached three organizations during cybersecurity tests that went awry, a little more than a week after its chief rival, OpenAI, disclosed a similar incident. ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. and Chevron Corp. plowed blowout profits into debt reduction rather than huge buyback increases, a sign of caution about how long war-driven price rallies will last. A Novo Nordisk A/S experimental drug failed to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes in a large study. Reddit Inc. projected revenue in the current quarter revenue that beat Wall Street estimates, but shares fell after the social-media company failed to announce any new data licensing agreements. Roblox Corp. reported second-quarter daily active users that missed analysts’ expectations, reflecting the ongoing impact of new child-safety measures. Some of the main moves in markets:StocksThe S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 9:49 a.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.4% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.1% The MSCI World Index was little changed CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.4% The euro fell 0.5% to $1.1467 The British pound fell 0.4% to $1.3408 The Japanese yen was little changed at 159.54 per dollar CryptocurrenciesBitcoin fell 2.2% to $63,314.31 Ether fell 2.6% to $1,869.46 BondsThe yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced six basis points to 4.73% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to 3.20% Britain’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 5.04% CommoditiesWest Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.4% to $85.62 a barrel Spot gold fell 1.9% to $4,023.73 an ounce ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
