Weekly Market Pulse: June 22–26

Week in Review
It was a volatile, event-packed week dominated by Micron’s record earnings, Qualcomm’s data center coming-out party, and a PCE inflation shock that reignited rate-hike fears. The semiconductor sector swung wildly — hammered on Tuesday’s broad selloff, surging on Wednesday’s earnings catalysts, then fading into Friday as May PCE printed at 4.1% YoY, the highest since early 2025 and well above the Fed’s 2% target.
For the week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both posted losses. The Nasdaq fell roughly 1.5% on a weekly basis, dragged by persistent chip stock weakness despite Wednesday’s snap rally [WSJ, Reuters]. The PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped ~3% for the week, unable to hold Wednesday’s Micron-driven gains. Small caps outperformed — the Russell 2000 closed at a record on Friday as rotation away from mega-cap tech continued [WSJ].
The FOMC’s hawkish hold at 3.50–3.75% from the prior week set the tone, and May’s PCE data only reinforced the “higher for longer” rate narrative. Core PCE accelerated to 3.4% YoY, up from 3.3% in April [CNBC, Reuters]. Markets now price in a ~45% probability of a rate hike at the July FOMC meeting.
Key events that shaped the week:
| Day | Event |
|---|---|
| Mon June 22 | SMCI surges 15.6% on new platform launch; semiconductors head lower |
| Tue June 23 | Massive chip selloff — Philly Semi index drops 7.9% in worst day since June 5 crash |
| Wed June 24 | MU record earnings +15% after hours; QCOM unveils Dragonfly CPU with Meta; NVDA annual meeting |
| Thu June 25 | PCE inflation at 4.1% YoY; ON Semi announces $7B Synaptics deal, stock drops 23% |
| Fri June 26 | Markets close lower weekly; chip stocks continue slide; Russell 2000 at record |
AI Semiconductors
NVIDIA (NVDA) — $192.53
- Held its 2026 Annual Stockholder Meeting on June 24, with CEO Jensen Huang outlining the Blackwell production ramp and Vera architecture commercialization timeline [NVIDIA IR]. The Vera CPU narrative — pitched as a credible x86 alternative for AI inference — was a recurring theme
- Stock continues to underperform the broader semiconductor space, up only ~12% YTD vs SMH’s ~85% gain. Kalshi prediction markets are pricing a ~60% probability of GPU price declines in H2 2026 as competition intensifies [CNBC]
- The $25B bond offering from the prior week closed successfully with $85B in orders, but the stock has shed nearly $10 from the June 19 close. The Nvidia thesis remains intact structurally, but near-term price momentum is absent
- Shares closed the week near $193 — well below the 50-day moving average
Broadcom (AVGO) — $365.02
- AVGO ex-dividend on June 22 for the quarterly dividend (record date was June 22) [Broadcom IR]
- No major ticker-specific news this week, but the stock tracked the broader sector — down early week, recovering Wednesday, then fading Friday
- The $100B FY2027 AI chip revenue target remains intact, with Google TPU and Meta IPU demand providing multi-year ASIC visibility
- Trading near $365 — down from the $450+ range before the Q2 guidance-induced selloff in early June
Marvell (MRVL) — $266.77
- Jensen Huang recently called Marvell a potential “next trillion-dollar AI chip stock” — an extraordinary endorsement from the Nvidia CEO that underscores Marvell’s centrality to AI cluster interconnect [Motley Fool, June 25]
- The 800G/1.6T optical interconnect ramp thesis continues to build. AI cluster scale-out is driving DSP and retimer demand that Marvell is uniquely positioned to capture
- CFO transition is underway — outgoing CFO Willem Meintjes and incoming Dan Durn (ex-Adobe) are in the handoff period
- Shares at $267 are well off the $310 level from two weeks ago, but the structural catalyst remains intact
AMD (AMD) — $521.58
- Caught in the broad sector selloff with no ticker-specific catalyst this week
- The MI400 launch in 2H 2026 remains the dominant near-term catalyst — AMD claims 320B transistors and 432GB HBM4 on the next-gen GPU. RDNA 5 for consumer graphics is also expected
- AMD shares have been range-bound between $500 and $550 since the June 5 crash, unable to break out without a definitive product milestone
- ROCm ecosystem continues to gain developer traction, but CUDA’s software moat remains the key headwind
Qualcomm (QCOM)
- The week’s biggest strategic story: Qualcomm’s Investor Day on June 24 unveiled the Dragonfly C1000 data center CPU, with Meta signed as the first multi-generation customer [Qualcomm IR, CNBC]
- The Dragonfly C1000 is a custom Arm-based CPU for data center workloads, targeting production ramp in H2 2028. Qualcomm also announced the acquisition of Modular AI (compiler/MLIR technology) to support the Dragonfly software stack
- QCOM also revealed a high-bandwidth compute (HBC) memory architecture as an HBM alternative — a bold technical bet
- The Tenstorrent acquisition ($8-10B) was discussed but not formally announced at Investor Day. Jim Keller’s architecture team would be transformative for Qualcomm’s AI inference ambitions
- Stock was up mid-week on the announcements but faded on Friday as the broad market weakness pulled everything down
- Key metric: Dragonfly C1000 production in 2028 means no revenue impact for ~2 years — this is a story stock for now, not a fundamentals story
ARM Holdings (ARM)
- Shares slipped ~3.9% for the week, closing near $334 [Yahoo Finance]
- The architecture licensing super-cycle — mobile → PC → data center — continues to validate. Qualcomm’s Dragonfly C1000 is built on Arm architecture, reinforcing the data center TAM expansion thesis
- Mizuho’s $500 price target (raised from $250) keeps the bull case alive, but ARM trades at a steep premium that leaves it vulnerable in risk-off sessions
Memory & Storage
Micron (MU) — Record Q3 Earnings
- The week’s most important event: Micron reported record Q3 FY2026 results on June 24, absolutely demolishing consensus [Micron IR, CNBC, Reuters]:
- Revenue: $41.46B vs $35.85B estimate (beat by 15.6%)
- Adjusted EPS: $25.11 vs $20.78 estimate (beat by 20.8%)
- Gross margin: 84.9% — up from ~60% a year ago, reflecting the structural memory pricing supercycle
- Operating cash flow: $25.5B; adjusted FCF of $18.3B
- $22B in multi-year customer deals signed during the quarter — including HBM3e supply agreements
- Stock surged 15% after hours on Wednesday, but then gave back ~7% on Friday as profit-taking and the PCE inflation headwind hit
- Micron has sold out its entire 2026 HBM allocation. The key question for Q4 guidance: 2027 HBM4 pricing visibility
- The SK Hynix capacity tripling announcement (June 10) provides a bullish memory backdrop — demand is real and structural
Western Digital (WDC)
- Surged 4% on Thursday following Micron’s earnings — the memory validation trade lifted HDD names alongside DRAM/NAND [Yahoo Finance]
- Morgan Stanley’s $650 price target (30%+ upside) remains active. The global HDD shortage driven by AI data center storage demand is structurally bullish
- WDC has crossed 50% gross margins with 45% YoY revenue growth — the structural re-rating thesis continues
- Sold off ~7% on Friday in sympathy with the broad chip weakness
Sandisk (SNDK)
- Rallied 21% on Thursday — the biggest single-day mover among memory names, as Micron’s results validated the entire NAND pricing supercycle [Yahoo Finance]
- The spin-off from WDC in 2025 has allowed SNDK to focus purely on NAND flash — AI training clusters require massive near-line storage, and SNDK is a direct beneficiary
Foundry & Equipment
TSMC (TSM) — $432.35
- Announced a 5–10% price hike on all leading-edge 7nm and below wafer processes on June 23 — its most aggressive pricing action in years [Yahoo Finance, GuruFocus]
- The hike applies across N7, N5, N3, and N2 nodes, varying by volume and customer. This is structural pricing power from being the sole high-volume advanced node manufacturer
- Stock jumped overnight on the news, then faded as the broad market took over. Closed the week near $432
- CoWoS capacity remains fully booked through 2027. The pricing hike signals that TSMC expects demand to outstrip supply for years
Super Micro (SMCI) — $30.63
- Surged 15.66% on Monday, June 22 — the best single-day performance among the tracked pool — after introducing a new AI server platform [Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance]
- On June 23, SMCI broadened its AI at the Edge portfolio with Intel-powered platforms optimized for low-latency inference and industrial applications [SMCI IR]
- The $39B in disclosed AI server orders continues to anchor the narrative, but dilution from the $7B equity raise keeps the stock under pressure
- Trading at $30.63 — still near post-raise lows despite the Monday spike. The thesis hinges on converting that order backlog to recognized revenue
Intel (INTC)
- Shares hit a new 52-week high of $141.45 during the week, extending the post-Apple-foundry-deal rally [MarketBeat, Yahoo Finance]
- The stock has surged ~494% since the US government took a 10% stake in August 2025 [Fox Business] — a remarkable turnaround driven by foundry customer wins and CHIPS Act funding
- No new ticker-specific news this week, but the Apple deal momentum from the prior week continued to lift the stock
- INTC closed at $140.94 on June 22 [Yahoo Finance] — the question is whether valuation can keep expanding without additional foundry customer announcements
ASML, Applied Materials (AMAT), Lam Research (LRCX), KLA (KLAC)
- All four equipment makers were caught in the Tuesday chip selloff but showed better relative strength than the broader semi space
- Cantor Fitzgerald raised price targets across the group on June 10 (reported in prior weeks) — the WFE spending forecast of $145B+ in CY2026 provides a structural floor
- ASML’s raised 2026 guidance (€36-40B revenue) and high-NA EUV adoption for sub-2nm nodes remain the structural demand drivers
- No ticker-specific news this week, but the equipment sub-sector continues to benefit from the broadest secular demand driver in semiconductors: everyone needs more fab capacity
ON Semiconductor (ON)
- The week’s most dramatic single-stock story: ON Semi announced a $7 billion all-stock acquisition of Synaptics on June 25, pursuing a “Physical AI” strategy combining ON’s sensor/power expertise with Synaptics’ human-machine interface tech [CNBC, WSJ, ON Semi IR]
- Stock crashed 23% on the news — the worst single-day move in the tracked pool — as investors reacted negatively to the dilutive all-stock structure and questioned the strategic rationale [CNBC, Motley Fool]
- CEO Hassane El-Khoury defended the deal, calling it “transformational for intelligent systems in the Physical AI era” [CNBC]
- Synaptics shareholders will receive 1.350 ON shares per Synaptics share. The deal is expected to close in mid-2027
Cloud & Hyperscaler
Google / Alphabet (GOOG)
- No ticker-specific news this week. The $80B stock sale and Berkshire Hathaway’s $10B participation from prior weeks remain the dominant capital structure narrative
- The $5.3T+ combined hyperscaler AI capex trajectory over the next several years frames the opportunity, but free cash flow sustainability concerns are mounting [Goldman Sachs via Yahoo Finance]
- Key tension: AI revenue growth vs capex growth. Google Cloud revenue is growing but not fast enough to offset the cash burn rate
Microsoft (MSFT)
- The ~$190B CY2026 AI capex guidance remains active, with $25B through lease accounting. Some analysts project negative aggregate FCF for the hyperscaler cohort by Q3 2026 as capex grows 70% annually vs 23% cash flow growth [24/7 Wall St]
- Copilot adoption continues to mature as the enterprise AI revenue stream, but no new catalyst emerged this week
Amazon (AMZN)
- Stock slipped below a key technical level on Thursday — falling through its 200-day moving average for the first time in months [Investor’s Business Daily]
- The capex sustainability debate hit Amazon hardest this week, as AWS remains the cash flow anchor but AI infrastructure spending ($125B in FY2026) is outpacing free cash flow generation
- Shares are now essentially flat YTD — the worst performer among the hyperscaler cohort
Oracle (ORCL)
- No ticker-specific news this week. The $67B in AI infrastructure contracts disclosed in Q4 FY2026 provides multi-year revenue visibility via a $638B RPO backlog
- The market’s concern remains dilution from the ~$40B FY2027 capital raise
Meta (META)
- Signed a strategic multi-generation agreement with Qualcomm for Dragonfly C1000 CPUs — Meta will use Qualcomm’s custom data center silicon for its growing compute footprint [Qualcomm IR, CNBC]
- This is a significant validation of both Qualcomm’s data center pivot and Meta’s willingness to diversify away from x86
- The Muse Spark AI model API delay from prior weeks continues to weigh on sentiment, but the Qualcomm deal is a net positive
Apple (AAPL)
- No ticker-specific news this week. The Apple–Intel foundry deal from the prior week and the Siri AI rollout from WWDC remain the dominant narratives
- The third-party AI chatbot integration with Siri in iOS 27 creates a long-term platform opportunity, but near-term stock performance has been range-bound
Key Themes
-
Memory Supercycle Validated. Micron’s $41.5B quarter with $22B in customer deals proves the memory pricing supercycle is real and structural. HBM3e demand is so strong that Micron sold out its entire 2026 allocation. The bull case for MU, WDC, and SNDK is intact — the question is 2027 pricing visibility.
-
Qualcomm’s Data Center Ambition. The Dragonfly C1000 CPU with Meta as launch customer is a credible shot at the data center. But H2 2028 production means this is a 2028 story, not a 2026 one. The stock will trade on narrative until revenue materializes.
-
Inflation Resurgence. May PCE at 4.1% is the highest since early 2025. Core PCE at 3.4% is well above the Fed’s target. The probability of a July rate hike is now ~45%. Tech valuations — particularly for names without near-term earnings growth — are vulnerable.
-
Chip Sector Volatility. The Philly Semi index experienced another 7.9% single-day drop (Tuesday June 23), its second major crash this month. Every rally has been sold into. The sector has shed trillions in market value since June 1 and has yet to find a sustainable floor.
-
Equipment Outperformance. Despite the broader semi weakness, WFE spending of $145B+ in CY2026 provides a structural floor for ASML, AMAT, LRCX, and KLAC. Cantor Fitzgerald continues to raise targets.
The Week Ahead
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 29 | Pending home sales (May) |
| June 30 | Consumer Confidence (June) — Conference Board |
| July 1 | ISM Manufacturing PMI (June) |
| July 2 | June Jobs Report — the most important macro data point of the month |
| July 3 | Markets close early — Independence Day holiday |
Key themes to watch: The June jobs report on July 2 is the next critical macro data point. A strong print would cement the “no rate cuts” narrative and could trigger another tech selloff. A soft print would provide relief for rate-sensitive tech names. Memory stocks (MU, WDC, SNDK) should stabilize after the post-earnings profit-taking — watch for analyst target revisions following Micron’s blowout quarter. ON Semi’s Synaptics deal will continue to be debated — watch for activist interest or competing bids. And Qualcomm’s Dragonfly gets the full analyst treatment next week — expect price target revisions and model updates across the sell-side.
Sources: Reuters, CNBC, WSJ, Seeking Alpha, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, MarketBeat, SEC filings, company investor relations. This is not financial advice — do your own research.
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