The AI capex bill everyone was dreading finally landed. Alphabet beat on sales and grew Cloud 82%, but guided 2026 spending to a staggering $195-205B, swung to negative free cash flow, and fell about 4% after the close. Tesla joined it minutes later, down about 3% on a margin miss. Throw in oil at a six-week high near $96 and Tencent's worst day in over a year, and the AI trade is firmly back on the defensive. Let's dig in 👇

💬 Big Tech beat on sales but the Street is fixated on the capex bill: Google's $200B and Tesla's negative cash flow. Is this the moment you fade the AI-spend leaders, or do you trust the payoff and keep buying?

📊 Quick Recap — What Moved & Why

🇺🇸 US — Beats on Top, Capex Fear Underneath

🔑 Key Event: The regular session was quiet, with the S&P 500 easing 0.1% to 7,498.96, the Dow roughly flat at 52,218.58 and the Nasdaq off 0.6% to 25,690.90 (Russell 2000 -0.9%), as firmer oil and higher yields capped any push higher. The real action came after the close. Alphabet (GOOGL) fell about 4% even though revenue of roughly $119.8B beat and Google Cloud grew 82%, because it raised 2026 capex guidance to $195-205B and free cash flow turned negative on a record quarter of spending. Tesla (TSLA) slipped about 3% as revenue rose 26% but adjusted EPS of $0.33 missed (down 18% YoY), auto gross margin eased to around 16.3% excluding credits, and free cash flow ran near -$1.1B. Nasdaq futures softened after hours, setting a cautious tone into Thursday.

👀 Other to Watch

• Super Micro (SMCI) up about 20% → the stock jumped in Wednesday trade after its post-close guidance to a 15-17% gross margin and a record backlog of roughly $60B did all the talking.
• AT&T (T) up about 3% → an earnings beat, with 432,000 postpaid phone net adds against expectations near 338,500.
• ServiceNow (NOW) down about 5% → the software bellwether slid amid nervousness over enterprise-software and AI-related growth heading into its print.
• IBM roughly +2% after hours → reported Q2 after the close and firmed despite a revenue miss.

🇸🇬 Singapore — STI Prints Another Record, Banks Carry It

🔑 Key Event: The local tape keeps grinding higher on the back of the banks. The STI closed at a fresh record 5,595.42 on Wednesday (+1.24%, +68.70 pts), topping the prior high of 5,559.72 set on July 15, before easing intraday Thursday on profit-taking to around 5,554. All three big banks sit at all-time highs and the move stays narrow, so attention is turning to Q2 bank earnings in early August, with the enlarged S$6.5B Equity Market Development Programme providing a structural tailwind beneath it all.

👀 Other to Watch

• DBS (D05) to a fresh high around S$73-74 · OCBC (O39) ~S$28.45 · UOB (U11) record S$44.19 on Jul 9 → the big three at or near records, with results reportedly due in early August.
• Singapore Airlines (C6L) ~S$7.68 → heads into its Jul 24 AGM having flagged tangible progress on its 25.1% Air India stake and said an impairment review concluded no write-down was needed.
• UMS Integration (558) up about 2.7% to around S$2.63 → the semiconductor-equipment name caught a bid alongside broader chip sentiment.
• Macro → Q2 GDP grew 5.7% YoY on the advance estimate (beating the 5.5% consensus), and June NODX rose 20.7% YoY with electronics up 105.1% on AI demand, though the headline missed the 30.2% forecast.

🇭🇰 HK/China — Rally Unwinds, Tencent Cracks

🔑 Key Event: The state-fund bounce faded fast. After the national team deployed around RMB 60B (about US$9B) into state-owned shares on July 19-20 through China Reform Holdings and China Chengtong, Hong Kong handed the gains back. The HSI fell 0.95% to 24,892, losing the 25,000 level, while the Hang Seng TECH index dropped 3.04% to 4,668 and the HSCEI eased 1.31% to 8,251. The damage was concentrated in China internet and gaming names, which rolled over hard.

👀 Other to Watch

• Tencent (0700.HK) -7.05% to HK$440.6 → its biggest one-day drop in over a year, on worries about Q2 mobile-gaming revenue, heavy fund selling in the quarter and a buyback suspended during its pre-results window. NetEase fell about 7.4% and Alibaba (9988.HK) closed down about 2.9%.
• Gold miners bucked the tape → Chifeng Gold jumped more than 15% to lead the sector, with other Hong Kong gold names also firmer as money rotated into defensives.
• Zhongji Innolight (A-share 300308.SZ) → launched its Hong Kong listing on Jul 22, offering 54.5M shares at up to HK$1,010 to raise roughly US$7B , reportedly the city's largest share sale in about seven years. It is said to have locked in about US$3.45B from cornerstone investors including Temasek, BlackRock, Hillhouse, Alibaba and Tencent, with pricing expected around Jul 29 and a debut near Jul 30.
• Moonshot AI (Kimi) → still eyeing a Hong Kong listing within about six months and reportedly sounding out a new pre-IPO round at a valuation approaching US$50B, up from the roughly US$31.5B round it is closing.

🌍 Other

• Oil → Brent traded near $96.4 (+2.5%) and WTI near $88.2 (+1.5%), up roughly 30% on the month as the US-Iran conflict around the Strait of Hormuz drags on and keeps energy and inflation risk in the frame.
• FX → the yen sat near 163.1 per dollar, its weakest since the mid-1980s, with Japan's finance minister signalling readiness to intervene against excessive moves.
• Tariffs → Trump's temporary 10% blanket tariff expires on Friday Jul 24, with the administration reportedly set to replace it with two-tier duties of about 10% on roughly 14 economies and 12.5% on the rest.
• Crypto → Bitcoin held near $66.8K and crypto equities extended their rebound, with Strategy (MSTR) closing up about 4%, amid optimism over the CLARITY Act market-structure bill that Treasury Secretary Bessent recently described as on the "one-yard line."

📅 Key Events Tonight / This Week

• 🇪🇺 ECB rate decision · today, Thu Jul 23 (deposit rate at 2.25%, a non-projection meeting and the biggest macro anchor)
• 🇺🇸 Intel & Nokia earnings · Thu Jul 23 (Intel after the US close; Nokia in the European morning)
• 🇺🇸 Initial jobless claims · Thu Jul 23 (~20:30 SGT)
• 🇺🇸 S&P Global Flash PMIs (July) and New Home Sales · Fri Jul 24
• 🇸🇬 SIA 54th AGM · Fri Jul 24
• 🇸🇬 MAS quarterly monetary policy statement · Mon Jul 27
• 🇭🇰 Zhongji Innolight HK IPO pricing · around Jul 29, debut near Jul 30
• 🇺🇸 FOMC meeting · Jul 28-29
• 🇺🇸 June durable goods (Jul 27), then Q2 GDP advance and June PCE · Jul 30
• 🌍 US-Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz flows · ongoing (oil driver)

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🚫 No duplicates · ⏰ Deadline: July 23, 2026, 11:59 PM SGT

Not investment advice, just market talk 🙏