Gary Black Tracker

U.S. stocks surged pre-market (SPX +1.2%, NDX +2.1%) after the U.S. and Iran reached an interim agreement halting their war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and launching 60-day nuclear negotiations, with formal signing set for June 19 in Switzerland. Brent crude fell -4.9%, 10yr treasury yields declined, and longer duration AI/tech and beaten up consumer discretionary names rose as consumer confidence was poised to recover. I’ve argued for weeks that equities should reclaim their record highs as the Middle East conflict concludes, as oil prices retreat and employment growth slows. S&P 500 earnings have continued to rise during the Iran conflict, with 2026 EPS ests now at $342 +23% YoY reflecting increased AI investment. All eyes are on this week’s Fed meeting, which is Kevin Warsh’s first as Fed Chair.

Momentum stocks (buying what has worked) remain the clear YTD winners in equities despite the brief selloff triggered by the Iran conflict. The recovery since late March has been driven largely by momentum stocks, which are +14% since the recovery began in late-March as investors have looked past geopolitical risks. As a result, momentum remains the best-performing factor globally in 2026, with gains of nearly +30% YTD.

Here are the 10 most valuable companies in the world by market capitalization as of today 6/12/2026. Market caps fluctuate daily with stock prices, so these are approximates:

I never understood the logic of $Tesla(TSLA.US) bulls’ arguments that a $SpaceX(SPCX.US) IPO would somehow benefit $Tesla(TSLA.US) shares. As I suggested a few days ago, $Tesla(TSLA.US) shares should fall near-term ceteris paribus as SPCX debuts since the cash to pay for the record $75 billion $SpaceX(SPCX.US) IPO has to come from somewhere, and the most likely source would be long duration stocks like TSLA (YTD $Tesla(TSLA.US) -18% vs NDX +11%). When a hot new Mediterranean restaurant opens in Chicago and customers flock to it, it’s rarely good for neighboring restaurants. The same bulls who said $SpaceX(SPCX.US) going public would benefit $Tesla(TSLA.US) shares are now suggesting that SPCX will buy TSLA in a $3.5 trillion merger deal. Based on what logic? Other than sharing Elon Musk as the same CEO, the business models are starkly different with very different TAMs and risk/reward profiles.

The $SpaceX(SPCX.US) IPO opened at $150 +11% vs the IPO price of $135 and is now $164 (+21% vs IPO price) and reminds me of the $Meta Platforms(META.US) IPO in May 2012. META’s IPO priced at $38, and it opened at $42 (+11% above the IPO price), and rose to $45 (+18% vs IPO price) soon after opening. Over the course of the first day, META fell to the IPO price of $38 before closing at $38.23 (+0.6% above the IPO price) as underwriters led by MS provided price support to prevent it from falling below the IPO price.

$Tesla(TSLA.US) (-2.8%) behaving about as well as other long-duration NDX tech stocks today ($NVIDIA(NVDA.US) -2.4%, $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) -2.6%, NDX -1.0%) in this higher-for-longer interest rate environment. I believe many retail investors buying $SpaceX(SPCX.US) this week will lighten up on their TSLA positions to fund their SPCX shares. I continue to believe that lead bankers $Goldman Sachs(GS.US) and $Morgan Stanley(MS.US) will engineer a Day 1 pop for SPCX IPO investors, given huge potential paydays from Anthropic and OpenAI in the months ahead. That said, I continue to view SPCX as richly priced at 300x 2025 EV/EBITDA and 120x expected 2026 EV/EBITDA assuming a $1.8 trillion market cap ($135/share) and 2026 EBITDA of $15 billion, vs 35-40% expected long-term EBITDA growth (3-3.5x PEG), and would wait for the stock to come back to earth post-IPO before buying shares post-IPO.

Brent crude retreated to $94/bbl after Iran signaled an end to its current military operations against Israel just after President Trump said the two sides were looking to agree to an immediate ceasefire following a series of strikes that threatened to derail peace talks to end the war in the Middle East. Brent crude had spiked to $98/bbl earlier today.

After U.S. job growth for May blew out forecasts in the US (+172K vs +88K est), the focus is back on inflation. The May consumer price index due Wednesday is expected to jump by +4.2% from a year ago — the highest rate in more than three years. Core CPI, which excludes energy and food, is seen rising +2.9% YoY and increasing +0.3% MoM in May vs +0.4% MoM in April, potentially providing a welcome signal to Fed policymakers.

$Tesla(TSLA.US) -6.6% today (NDX -4.3%) and -6.0% this week (NDX -4.5%) should not be a surprise to anyone paying attention to the two variables that matter:

Commentary on the relationship between the price of bitcoin and the new megacap IPOs coming to market.

To be clear, I have always argued the $SpaceX(SPCX.US) i-bankers would engineer a Day 1 pop on the $SpaceX(SPCX.US) IPO. Given the heavy involvement of $Goldman Sachs(GS.US), $Morgan Stanley(MS.US), and now $JPMorgan Chase(JPM.US), there is no question there will be excess demand at the $135/share IPO price which could still be increased. As we know from past IPOs a strong day 1 pop doesn’t always translate to strong year 1 returns.

Three issues from LULU’s conference call yesterday should give investors pause that $Lululemon(LULU.US) may still not be on the right path after a disastarous 6-month stretch which included the firing of their previous CEO.

$Lululemon(LULU.US) -11% AH after cutting its net revenue and earnings guidance for the full year, which missed consensus ests. I have been critical of LULU in the past given the revolving door of CEOs over the past five years, the strained relationship between founder Chip Wilson and the Board, and intense competition from Vuori, Alo, and Skims (Kardashian) with little or no product differentiation.

$Broadcom(AVGO.US) (-6.7% after hours) reported 2Q earnings ahead of expectations and 3Q rev guidance above expectations but 3Q guidance for AI semiconductor solutions was slightly below expectations. With $Broadcom(AVGO.US) stock up +13% in the past five trading sessions (vs NDX +2%), it would be reasonable for AVGO to retreat after today’s 2Q results and soft 3Q guidance.

$Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) and $Broadcom(AVGO.US) seem to be the big winners in Wall Street’s new appreciation for custom AI chips. Shares of $Broadcom(AVGO.US) (Broadcom) rose +4.7% on Tuesday, and were up another +2.1% after hours in front of tomorrow’s 1Q earnings report. $Broadcom(AVGO.US) may be capitalizing on the enthusiasm for rival Marvell Technology ( $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US)), whose own shares surged +33% on Tuesday and rose another +9% after hours after $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) CEO Jensen Huang touted MRVL as "the next trillion-dollar company" at the annual Computex tech trade show in Taiwan on Tuesday.

I still don’t get the logic of investors cheering for a $SpaceX(SPCX.US) $Tesla(TSLA.US) combo. One, mergers of two megacap disparate companies rarely work as target synergies do not live up to their expectations. To argue both are AI plays and there are AI synergies to combining seems naive, since we have heard repeatedly during this earnings season all tech stories (e.g. $Salesforce(CRM.US), $Dell Tech(DELL.US), $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US)) are now AI plays. Any tech combo can now promise that.

$Dell Tech(DELL.US) +17% AH after significantly beating ests behind the strength of AI servers demand. 7.2% short interest.

SK Hynix became the 15th company to reach the $1 trillion market cap club, and the third Korean chip mnfr after TSMC and Samsung Electronics. On Tuesday, both $Micron Tech(MU.US) and SK Hynix passed $1T market cap.

Stocks rose pre-market despite new US and Israeli strikes on Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, which killed Iran personnel and disrupted shipping amid mine-laying attempts. Trump had indicated negotiations with Tehran are “proceeding nicely.” Brent crude surged 3.9% to $99/bbl although 10yrTY fell -5.1bp to 4.50%.

Cover story in Barron’s today about SpaceX IPO summarizing the history of megacap IPOs. I tend to agree that while $SpaceX(SPCX.US) is likely to be overpriced at $2T valuation vs 2025 EBITDA of $6.6B (SPCX EV/EBITDA 300x, $Tesla(TSLA.US) 150x) and 2025 Revs of $18.7B (SPCX EV/Rev 107x, $Tesla(TSLA.US) 16.5x), the relatively low % float to be issued in the SPCX IPO (4%), the fact that NDX and S&P 500 will fast track how quickly SPCX can join its indices, and the distribution power of GS and MS as the two lead bankers should be enough to engineer a first day IPO pop for investors who are allocated shares.

I don’t know of a single company with a $2T market cap that doesn’t make money. That should give potential $SpaceX(SPCX.US) investors pause. $Tesla(TSLA.US)

Not that interested in $SpaceX(SPCX.US). I don’t know of any $2T market cap companies that trade at 300x EBiTDA. Given all the hype, likely to be way overpriced. Will be more interested after it falls by 50%.

Brent crude -4.4% to $106/bbl as Trump cites “final stages” of U.S.-Iran peace talks, pushing 10yrTY down -8.7bp to 4.58%. This is causing long-duration (high P/E) stocks like $Tesla(TSLA.US) to rise today, reversing the trends of the past few days.

In shorting stocks, it’s far better to short a company with deteriorating fundamentals than a rich valuation. Deteriorating fundamentals mean a bad business model where volumes are declining, or there’s no innovation, or management can’t execute, or there’s a loss in pricing power because of excess competition and a lack of differentiated products.

$Cava(CAVA.US) +6% AH after posting 1Q SSS well in excess of Street ests (+9.7% vs +6.0%E) on the strength of its new pomegranate Salmon dish and raising its FY’26 outlook, defying restaurant downturn fears. All 1Q metrics beat ests. CAVA +13% short interest will add to strength on the beat.