☕️ [Task Coins Giveaway] Daily Market Talk — STI Hits Fresh Highs as SpaceX Shrugs Off $100B Share Unlock

Singapore's banks delivered a clean sweep this week: DBS, SGX and Venture Corp all beat, then OCBC and UOB followed with strong earnings of their own, sending $FTSE Straits Times Index(STI.SG) to fresh highs. Meanwhile $SpaceX(SPCX.US) faced its first major share unlock since going public, roughly $100 billion of insider stock hitting the market, and the stock rose anyway as retail investors piled into call options. Add a fresh selloff in storage names and a reversal in oil, and it's a lot to unpack. Let's dig in 👇

💬 SpaceX rallied through a $100B share unlock while SG banks send the STI to fresh highs — which trend do you trust more, retail conviction or steady local fundamentals?

📊 Quick Recap — What Moved & Why

🇺🇸 US — SpaceX Shrugs Off a $100B Share Unlock

🔑 Key Event: $SpaceX(SPCX.US) faced its first major post-IPO lockup expiration Thursday, with 911.5 million insider shares (about $100B worth) becoming eligible to sell, even though the stock already sat roughly 50% below its post-IPO high. Instead of selling off, $SpaceX(SPCX.US) rose about 5-6% as retail investors bought heavily, including a rush into short-dated call options. $Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US) fell 0.9% to 53,885, snapping its win streak, while $S&P 500(.SPX.US) slipped 0.2% and $NASDAQ Composite Index(.IXIC.US) was roughly flat.

"I've been holding NVDA long-term, and thanks to the big catalyst from Elon Musk it broke out, so I added to my position, expecting more short-term upside." — @升烟

👀 Other to Watch

• Western Digital ($Western Digital(WDC.US)) and SanDisk ($Sandisk(SNDK.US)) → extended Wednesday's guidance-miss selloff into Thursday, falling another 16-19% and 11-13% respectively, as several banks (Mizuho, UBS, Jefferies) cut price targets; $Micron Tech(MU.US) slipped about 6% in sympathy.
• AppLovin ($AppLovin(APP.US)) → Wednesday's after-hours crash carried through Thursday's session, closing down 17-19% to a 52-week low.
• Atlassian ($Atlassian(TEAM.US)) → Q4 revenue rose 28% to $1.77B, beating estimates, with cloud revenue up 31%; shares surged 31-35% after hours.
• Airbnb ($Airbnb(ABNB.US)) → guided Q3 revenue as high as $4.77B, above expectations on strong US and European travel demand; shares rose about 9%.
• Alphabet ($Alphabet(GOOGL.US)) → priced a $25B multi-tranche bond offering that drew about $115B in orders, one of the largest AI-capex-linked debt deals this year.
• $AMD(AMD.US) → announced it's acquiring AI-inference chip startup Taalas; terms undisclosed.
• Datadog ($Datadog(DDOG.US)) → revenue rose 36% to $1.12B and full-year guidance was raised, but shares plunged 17-19%, a historic-scale drop, after management said its largest customer will cut usage starting Q3.
• Cloudflare ($CloudFlare(NET.US)) → revenue rose 36% to $696M, beat estimates and raised guidance on AI-agent traffic growth; shares jumped about 15-18% after hours.

🇸🇬 Singapore — DBS, SGX, OCBC & UOB All Beat as STI Hits Fresh Highs

🔑 Key Event: Singapore's banks delivered across the board this week. DBS ($DBS(D05.SG)) extended its post-earnings rally into a third session, SGX ($SGX(S68.SG)) posted record full-year results Thursday (adjusted net profit +24.6%, dividend raised 52% to S$0.57), and Venture Corp ($Venture(V03.SG)) jumped nearly 7% on its own results. OCBC ($OCBC Bank(O39.SG)) and UOB ($UOB(U11.SG)) followed Friday morning, both beating estimates with double-digit profit growth. $FTSE Straits Times Index(STI.SG) closed Thursday up 1.03% to 5,638.99 and extended gains to about 5,656 (+0.3%) Friday morning.

"DBS's record S$3.08B profit is less telling than its compressing net interest margin — even with the raised payout, the trailing yield still falls short of my buy hurdle." — @TheInvestingIguana

"Holding a 5x leveraged long on DBS, I see the pullback as short-term profit-taking rather than a deterioration in the business, so I'm staying patient rather than reacting to it." — @Rainwijaya

👀 Other to Watch

• Sembcorp Industries → rose about 2% in early Friday trading, extending the week's gains.

🇭🇰 HK/China — Insurers Slammed as China Taxes Offshore Policies

🔑 Key Event: Hong Kong's insurers were hit hard Thursday after a Caixin report said mainland China has begun levying a 20% personal income tax on returns from offshore (HK-sold) insurance policies. AIA ($AIA(01299.HK)) fell about 6-8% and Prudential dropped 6-10%, dragging HSBC and Standard Chartered lower too. $Hang Seng Index(00HSI.HK) closed down 1.49% to 25,530, and extended losses into Friday morning, down a further 0.3-0.4% to about 25,440; $Hang Seng China Enterprises Index(HSCEI.HK) fell 1.22% Thursday.

👀 Other to Watch

• Chip and AI-linked names also fell Thursday as the US storage-earnings selloff revived AI-profitability worries across the region.
• Nasen Technology ($NASN TECH(02261.HK)) → began trading Friday following its HK listing; check the live price in Longbridge before posting, first-day data wasn't available at research time.

🌍 Other

• Oil reversed sharply, with Brent up about 4% to the $82-83 range and WTI up roughly 3% to about $77-78, after Iran's state news agency published a restrictive draft plan for the Strait of Hormuz, undoing the de-escalation optimism from earlier in the week.
• Trump signed a 15% tariff on polysilicon and derivative products (wafers, solar cells), plus minimum import price floors, targeting China's dominance in the industry; the tariff takes effect December 4, not immediately.
• China's July trade data, released Friday, showed a surplus of about $125.6B, with exports up 23.9% and imports up 36% year-on-year.

📅 Key Events Tonight / Next Week

• 🇺🇸 US July jobs report (nonfarm payrolls) → tonight, 8:30pm SGT.
• 🌍 China July CPI & PPI → Sun Aug 9.
• 🇭🇰 FIT Hon Teng ($FIT HON TENG(06088.HK)) → interim results board meeting, Aug 10.
• 🇭🇰 Tencent Music ($TME-SW(01698.HK)) → Q2 results, Aug 11.
• 🇺🇸 US CPI (July) → Aug 12.
• 🇸🇬 CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT) → results webcast, Aug 12.
• 🇭🇰 Tencent ($TENCENT(00700.HK)) → H1 2026 results, board meeting Aug 12.
• 🇺🇸 Applied Materials ($Applied Materials(AMAT.US)) → fiscal Q3 2026 results, Aug 13 after close.
• 🇭🇰 JD.com ($JD-SW(09618.HK)) → Q2 results, Aug 13 before US open.
• 🇺🇸 US PPI (July) → Aug 14.

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🚫 No duplicates · ⏰ Deadline: Aug 7, 2026, 11:59 PM SGT

Not investment advice, just market talk 🙏