A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY.
Here's a full recap:1. President Trump said Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon” remains the administration’s only objective, adding that he has a “big decision” to make regarding the conflict. He also reiterated that he believes the U.S. and Iran will reach a deal after the U.S. election, while saying he would “give no credence to the election” when making decisions on Iran. The remarks come as the administration continues weighing both military and diplomatic options amid ongoing talks with Tehran.2. Meta $Meta Platforms(META.US) continues expanding Muse’s ecosystem through new partnerships aimed at turning the AI assistant into a broader consumer platform. The latest integrations include Instacart for grocery shopping and delivery, PayPal for shopping and checkout, Expedia for trip planning and hotel bookings, and Shopify for shopping across millions of merchants. The partnerships significantly expand Muse’s ability to complete real-world tasks directly within conversations, moving beyond simple chat into a full AI commerce and productivity assistant.3. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) with 2.1M contracts, $Tesla(TSLA.US) with 1.5M contracts, $Apple(AAPL.US) with 1.2M contracts, $Micron Tech(MU.US) with 964K contracts, $Meta Platforms(META.US) with 936K contracts, $Intel(INTC.US) with 816K contracts, $Amazon(AMZN.US) with 682K contracts, $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) with 662K contracts, $SpaceX(SPCX.US) with 644K contracts, and $AMD(AMD.US) with 622K contracts.4. SoFi $SoFi Tech(SOFI.US) has become the first U.S. national bank to go live with stablecoin settlement across Mastercard’s $Mastercard(MA.US) network. The company is moving its full debit and credit card program—representing more than $25B in annualized payment volume—to blockchain-based settlement using SoFiUSD, a stablecoin redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars. Merchants will not need to hold stablecoins or build new infrastructure, with funds able to settle directly into a SoFi Bank account and be withdrawn as cash. SoFi also said it is in discussions with major U.S. retailers and technology platforms, while it and Mastercard are exploring cross-border payments and remittances as the next phase of the partnership.5. SanDisk $Sandisk(SNDK.US) jumped 7% after Rosenblatt initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $2,400 price target, calling it “not your father’s SanDisk.” The firm argues AI is transforming NAND from a commodity storage product into a system-critical component of AI infrastructure, creating a significantly stronger long-term growth story. Rosenblatt also highlighted that SanDisk recently joined the S&P 100, a milestone that could increase institutional ownership and index-related demand for the stock.6. Michael Burry said he is now at full size across several positions, calling current market prices “rather attractive.” He added to short positions in Micron $Micron Tech(MU.US), Nebius $Nebius(NBIS.US), the Semiconductor ETF $SOXX, and Palantir $Palantir Tech(PLTR.US), while increasing long positions in QXO $QXO(QXO.US), Build-A-Bear Workshop $Build A Bear(BBW.US), Sprouts Farmers Market $Sprouts Farmers(SFM.US), Birkenstock $Birkenstock(BIRK.US), and MercadoLibre $Mercadolibre(MELI.US). Burry wrote, “I find the prices offered by the market rather attractive. All these positions are full positions for me now.”7. AppLovin $AppLovin(APP.US) was reiterated Buy by Citi with a $600 price target after new data pointed to accelerating e-commerce adoption. Citi said the platform had 13,105 global e-commerce clients as of September 18, up 5.1% week over week, the fastest growth rate in 5 months. International merchant growth accelerated 11.5% week over week, outpacing the U.S., while quarter-to-date weekly growth averaged 2.0%, implying roughly 11,600 e-commerce stores on the platform by Q3 2026.8. Apple $Apple(AAPL.US) unveiled a new Mac mini and Mac Studio, with a major focus on on-device AI performance. The new Mac mini features the M6 chip and delivers up to 4x faster AI performance, starting at $899. The new Mac Studio is powered by the M5 Max or M5 Ultra, with the top configuration offering up to 512GB of unified memory, 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, an 80-core GPU, and the ability to run large language models entirely on-device. Apple is also introducing Thunderbolt 5 with RDMA, enabling multiple Mac Studios to be linked together for up to 3x faster distributed AI inference. The Mac Studio starts at $2,499, while the M5 Ultra model starts at $5,499.9. IonQ $IonQ(IONQ.US) said it has demonstrated what it calls the industry's first end-to-end real-time quantum error correction decoder running on a standard off-the-shelf CPU. The system was tested on benchmark circuits simulating up to 408 logical qubits and more than 31.5M quantum operations, while adding as little as 0.02% processing overhead. The decoder runs continuously in the background, enabling quantum error correction without interrupting quantum execution. IonQ said the milestone supports its Walking Cat architecture and its roadmap toward quantum systems capable of controlling thousands of qubits.10. China imported 1,141 tonnes of gold during the first 8 months of 2026, the largest amount ever recorded for that period and already more than the country's total gold imports for all of 2025. At the current pace, annual imports are on track to exceed 1,700 tonnes for the first time. Chinese gold ETFs also added 44 tonnes over the first eight months of the year, up 18% year over year. The surge has been driven by strong investment demand, economic uncertainty, and a stronger yuan, which has made overseas gold purchases more attractive.11. Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $999M in inflows on Monday, their largest daily intake since October 2025 and the 9th-largest daily inflow since U.S. Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024. The move followed another strong session on Friday, when the funds brought in $433M. Demand was led by $IBIT, which attracted $381M, its third-largest daily inflow since launch, bringing its total over the last 3 trading days to $665M. So far in September, spot Bitcoin ETFs have attracted $1.3B in inflows after pulling in $3.5B during August, highlighting continued institutional demand for Bitcoin exposure.12. President Trump disclosed 1,156 securities transactions made on his behalf in July, totaling roughly $79M–$270M, including at least $43.6M in purchases and $35.6M in sales. The largest disclosed transactions were $5M–$25M sales of $Microsoft(MSFT.US) Microsoft and $Amazon(AMZN.US) Amazon on July 20, followed three days later by smaller purchases in both companies. Other notable moves included selling $1M–$5M of Oracle while buying stocks such as $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) Nvidia, $Intuit(INTU.US) Intuit, $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) Marvell, $Salesforce(CRM.US) Salesforce, and $Church & Dwight(CHD.US) Church & Dwight, alongside significant rotation through ETFs, Treasuries, municipal bonds, and international bond funds. The White House said the portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions and that neither President Trump nor his family directs the trades. The July filing follows 1,051 disclosed transactions in June, while Trump's 2025 annual financial disclosure reported more than 21,000 trades across 8 accounts.WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.Source: amit
