Micron printed the kind of quarter that shifts the whole memory chip narrative, sending SanDisk and its peers surging, while Apple raised Mac and iPad prices because those same chips just got more expensive.
Today’s edition has everything you need before going into the last day of the work week.
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Elite Trade Club Insider
$195 Million in Insider Selling Just Hit Two Strong Charts
You’re watching two stocks from the outside, where the charts still look strong enough to keep buyers interested. One is sitting near a fresh high after a huge one-year move, while the other has rallied sharply but is already slipping in pre-market trading.
Our Elite Trade Club Insider readers are seeing the cleaner signal first: major holders are using strength to move nearly $195 million of stock before the crowd has fully digested the filings.
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Markets
The May PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, came in at 4.1% year-over-year… well above the 2% target and a direct line to why rate-hike bets have been climbing all week.
Apple fell about 5% after raising Mac and iPad prices to offset soaring memory costs, making it the rare name that got hurt by Micron’s excellent quarter.
Strategy logged its seventh consecutive down day, its worst losing streak since the depths of the crypto winter in November 2022, as Bitcoin slipped below $60,000.
A new report found that nearly $160 billion of this year’s $850 billion in AI infrastructure spending is being financed by debt… fuel for anyone arguing the buildout has gotten ahead of itself.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard also chose this Thursday to attack a Singapore-flagged cargo ship in Hormuz, offering oil bulls their first real catalyst in days.
DJIA [+0.14%]
S&P 500 [-0.01%]
Nasdaq [-0.46%]
Russell 2000 [+0.44%]
Market-Moving News
Retail
Walmart Just Paid $1.4 Billion for a Streaming Ad Company Most People Have Never Heard Of
Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) just acquired Vibe.co, a French streaming advertising startup, for $1.4 billion. This follows its $2.3 billion purchase of smart TV maker Vizio in 2024. Combined, Walmart now owns the screens, the ad platform, and the shopping data, connecting what people watch with what they buy.
The Ad Business Amazon Built, Walmart Wants
Amazon generates over $82 billion a year in advertising revenue. Walmart sits at roughly $8 billion. That gap is enormous. But Walmart has something Amazon does not. Over 4,600 physical stores where it can track whether an ad on someone's television actually led to a purchase in the real world.
Vibe.co adds the missing piece. A self-serve platform that lets thousands of smaller businesses launch streaming TV ads as easily as buying ads on social media. You own a small business, and suddenly running a TV commercial is no longer reserved for companies with massive budgets.
Walmart Keeps Redefining What It Is
Vizio gave Walmart the hardware for living rooms. Vibe.co gives it the software to sell ads on those screens. Walmart Connect provides the shopping data. Stack all three, and the retailer can show an ad, then prove whether your household actually bought the product afterward.
Groceries. E-commerce. Healthcare. Financial services. And now, a streaming advertising platform built to compete with the biggest ad seller on earth. You stopped thinking of Walmart as just a store a long time ago. This deal makes that even harder to argue with.
Electric Vehicles
Tesla Is Expanding in Europe at the Exact Moment Everyone Said It Was Retreating
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) is ramping production at its Berlin factory by 20%, pushing output to 7,500 vehicles per week starting in October. The company is hiring another 1,000 workers on top of 2,500 new positions already announced this year.
Battery cell production at the same plant is also expanding—three major capacity announcements at one facility in three months. Tesla's European sales have been falling. Its response is to build more, not less.
Doubling Down Where It Hurts
Europe has been Tesla's toughest market recently. Sales declined as competitors launched fresher models. Political controversy pushed some buyers away. The easy narrative was that Tesla was losing Europe.
You expect a company losing ground in a market to pull back. Tesla is doing the opposite. Expanding production, adding thousands of jobs, and investing in battery manufacturing, all in the region where the pressure has been greatest.
Model Y Demand Drove This
The production increase is a direct response to stronger-than-expected demand for the refreshed Model Y. When a factory needs to increase output by 20%, the orders behind that decision are real and growing.
That demand signal matters for your broader read on Tesla's European position. The headlines say decline. The factory says otherwise.
You create 3,500 jobs in Europe's largest economy, and the conversation about Tesla on this continent changes, whether the critics like it or not.
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Supply Chain
The Company That Never Blinks on Pricing Just Blinked
Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) just raised prices on nearly every Mac and iPad by up to $300 per device. The increases are live globally right now. MacBooks, iPads, and home devices all got hit. iPhones remain unchanged for now, but the company has not ruled out future increases.
Apple Does Not Raise Prices Like This
Apple is famous for holding price points steady across product generations. Absorbing swings in component costs is part of the brand promise. Premium products at predictable prices. This move breaks that pattern in a way the company has not done in modern history.
This aggressive signal that your favorite tech company exhausted every internal lever before passing the cost forward. That is not a casual decision at Apple. It is a last resort.
What This Means for Apple Going Forward
Apple has built its entire consumer relationship on the idea that premium means stable. Customers pay more upfront because they trust the price reflects lasting value. Raising prices mid-cycle risks cracking that trust in ways that take years to repair.
The next few months will reveal whether Apple's brand loyalty is strong enough to absorb the cost hit without losing buyers to competitors. You pay attention to how the holiday season plays out because that is when this decision either proves smart or starts hurting.
Top Winners and Losers
PTL Ltd. [PTLE] $7.37 (+40.38%)
PTL is a small Israeli transportation and logistics company that popped today with no confirmed English-language catalyst, running at 32x relative volume.
The stock is thinly traded and tiny at $45 million market cap — this is the kind of move you log and watch rather than chase into.
Methode Electronics [MEI] $18.00 (+37.51%)
Methode reported its Q4 and full-year FY2026 results Tuesday evening, guiding FY2027 net sales to $1.025-$1.075 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $72-82 million — well ahead of where the street had it.
The stock had been dead money for two years due to automotive headwinds and transformation costs; the guidance indicates the transformation is working.
Sandisk [SNDK] $2,335.00 (+21.97%)
Micron’s Q2 results — revenue up fourfold with a memory chip shortage expected to stretch past 2027 — turned Sandisk into the session’s clearest sympathy trade.
Memory storage names move together when the demand signal is this unambiguous. Buy-rated at $340 billion in market cap, and riding a supply shortage that has no scheduled end date.
IceCure Medical [ICCM] $7.02 (-24.52%)
Thursday’s IceCure is doing the exact opposite of Wednesday’s: after surging nearly 47% on cryoablation clinical data and a Terumo Japan filing, it’s giving back a quarter of that in one session.
The company also announced today that it has officially regained Nasdaq minimum bid compliance: good long-term news that has zero power to stop a post-spike reversal.
ARS Pharmaceuticals [SPRY] $8.02 (-23.91%)
ARS Pharmaceuticals disclosed Wednesday evening that Neffy, its needle-free epinephrine nasal spray, received no new formulary wins for the July insurance cycle.
The company is actively negotiating with large payers and has lowered full-year operating expense guidance as a cost-discipline signal.
A commercial-stage biotech missing a formulary cycle is a real setback — insurance coverage is the whole game for a product like this.
Greenwich LifeSciences [GLSI] $18.33 (-14.51%)
Greenwich is a breast cancer immunotherapy company with a Phase 3 HER2 vaccine candidate and a Strong Buy rating, but no specific negative catalyst today.
The stock had been on a strong run; today, the momentum is settling. The pipeline itself is unchanged.
Which economic data point is most likely to move the market meaningfully this month?
Trump Buy Candidate (Sponsored)
Jim Rickards believes the Trump administration is about to take a direct stake in a tiny $2 stock.
The Trump administration has taken a direct stake in MP Materials, Lithium America, Trilogy Metals, and USA Rare Earth.
Each time, shares sprinted higher.
Click here to see why Jim believes this one is next.
Everything Else
🚀 The next market leaders are starting to emerge, as investors look beyond the usual giants for companies positioned to capture the next leg higher.
🚗 The U.S. has denied Polestar authorization to sell its vehicles, marking another step in Washington’s tougher stance toward China-made electric vehicles.
📈 The Federal Reserve’s preferred core inflation measure rose to 3.4% in May, marking its highest annual reading since October 2023 and reinforcing concerns over persistent price pressures.
🤖 Anthropic has accused Alibaba of unlawfully extracting capabilities from its Claude AI model, escalating the dispute over AI intellectual property and model protection.
📉 Bitcoin slipped below $60,000 after the Fed's preferred inflation gauge hit its highest level since 2023.
🏛️ A U.S. lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require AI companies to report critical incidents, adding momentum to efforts aimed at strengthening oversight of artificial intelligence.
That's it for today! Please, write us back, and let us know what you think of the Closing Bell Roundup. We're always eager to hear feedback!
Thanks for reading. I'll see you at the next open!
Best Regards,
— Adam G.
Elite Trade Club
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