☕️ [Task Coins Giveaway] Daily Market Talk

Midday update: Trump claims "complete blockade" of Strait of Hormuz, oil volatile. Intel AI demand drives Q2 guidance beat, stock soars over 20% after hours. OpenAI drops GPT-5.5, Anthropic's valuation hits $1T. Singapore core inflation accelerates to 1.7% (6-month high). Time for today's 3 big questions 👇

💬 Today's 3 Big Questions

1. Trump claims "complete blockade" of Strait of Hormuz until a nuclear deal is reached; Iranian oil exports effectively halted — How is Wall Street positioned for this risk? Are they buying energy stocks to hedge or just underpricing the potential for things to drag on for weeks?

2. Intel's AI-driven Q2 guidance smashes expectations, stock soars 20%. OpenAI launches GPT-5.5, Anthropic's valuation hits $1T — Has the AI trade entered a new phase of "democratized infrastructure," or is the market overestimating how quickly enterprise demand will materialize?

3. Singapore March core inflation accelerates to a 6-month high of 1.7% — transportation and retail prices leading the rise — Given these new readings, what stage of the rate hike cycle do you think Singapore is in, and how should investors position for the next MAS statement?

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⏰ Deadline: 24 Apr 2026, 11:59 PM (SGT)

📊 Quick Market Recap

🌍 Global Macro & Markets

Trump: US has "complete control" of Strait of Hormuz, blockade to stay until Iran agrees to deal.US officials say they are enforcing the blockade by force, already seizing several vessels trying to transit Iranian waters. Iran says negotiations have shifted away from nuclear issues to "ending the war", demanding compensation and the lifting of sanctions, with a key condition being a permanent ceasefire. Oil remains volatile, with WTI hovering around $90-$100/bbl.

Wall Street had a mixed session overnight. The S&P 500 fell -0.41% to 7,108.40, the Nasdaq shed -0.89%, but the index's sharp losses were largely offset by strength in tech giants, as investors are pricing in a geopolitical risk premium. Defence and energy stocks helped cushion the broader market's fall.

🇺🇸 US Markets: AI Demand Fuels Tech Surge

Intel's Q1 earnings and Q2 guidance smashed all estimates, sending its stock soaring >20% in after-hours trading. Q1 revenue came in at $13.6 billion (+7% YoY), beating estimates of $12.4 billion, while EPS of $0.29 also beat the Street's $0.01 forecast. The key surprise was Q2 revenue guidance of $13.8–14.8 billion (in just one quarter), well above the $13 billion consensus. Data center revenue surged 22% to $5.1 billion as AI infrastructure investment continues to fuel demand for server chips.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted that the next wave of AI — moving from training to inference and AI agents — will shift workloads toward CPUs. Intel's foundry business also secured its first customer for next-gen 14A process technology: Elon Musk's Tesla. The company also joined the Terafab project, partnering with SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla.

OpenAI launched GPT-5.5 overnight, positioning it as its most intelligent and intuitive flagship model yet. The model demonstrates significantly better performance in agentic coding, computer use, and scientific research, while relying on fewer tokens per equivalent task.

Anthropic's valuation surged to $1 trillion on private secondary markets, surpassing OpenAI's $880 billion valuation for the first time in the AI startup war. Demand for Anthropic shares has skyrocketed as enterprise customers are shifting budgets to its models. In March alone, 73% of new corporate AI spending went to Anthropic — OpenAI's share shrank from 50% to just 27% in just 10 weeks.

Nokia's AI cloud bet is paying off: Q1 operating profit jumped 54% to hit a 16-year high with strong demand for data center equipment and networking infrastructure.

Netflix announced a $25 billion share buyback after its recent stock slump, signaling long-term confidence in its content and ad-tier strategy.

Other movers: SAP rose 10% after hours on 19% cloud revenue growth. Tesla, which is raising capex for FSD and robotaxi, fell 3%. In AI infrastructure, cloud and memory names continue to see strong momentum.

🇸🇬 Singapore Markets

Singapore's March core inflation surged to a six-month high of 1.7% (up from 1.4% in February), while headline CPI rose to 1.8%. The acceleration is driven by rising transportation costs (fuel, aviation), retail goods and a broader pickup in services inflation. With MAS having already raised its 2026 core inflation forecast to 1.5–2.5% in last week's policy statement, economists expect the central bank to maintain its tightening bias into Q2, though the pace of further moves will be data-dependent.

CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust — Q1 NPI rose 7.9% YoY to S$314.4 million with total portfolio occupancy at 95.2%. Gearing ratio edged down to 38.5% from 38.6% at end-2025, as part of the trust's asset rotation strategy (selling Asia Square Tower 2 and buying Paragon mall).

CapitaLand Investment secured a S$2.4 billion real estate mandate from Income Insurance, expanding its institutional capital management footprint significantly.

Suntec REIT's Q1 DPU surged 23.9% YoY to 1.936 cents, helped by lower financing costs and better leasing momentum for its Singapore office and retail portfolio.

Other corporate updates: Frasers Centrepoint Trust's 1H DPU rose 1.4% to 6.136 cents on the back of Nareit's operational improvements. KORE REIT's Q1 distributable income rose 4.3% YoY. Seatrium priced S$400 million bonds at 2.95%, while Lendlease REIT issued S$120 million perpetual securities at 4.28%.

S REITs are emerging as relative safe havens amid Middle East volatility, though rising bond yields and insurance costs are becoming headwinds. The key for REIT investors is to focus on asset quality and inflation-indexed rental structures, which can help protect DPU in a higher-inflation environment.

📅 Key Events Tonight

🇺🇸 US April Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Final) — 10:00 PM SGT
🇺🇸 US initial jobless claims (released overnight)
📊 Earnings from P&G, Chifeng Jilong Gold

Disclaimer: For reference only, not investment advice.