Morgan Stanley: Confidence in the Current Bull Market Remains Strong, U.S. Stock Rally to Further Broaden

At the close of U.S. stock trading, per BIT (bit.com) market data, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.93%, the S&P 500 gained 0.51%, and the Nasdaq added 0.48%. Semiconductor, storage, and optical communications sectors saw broad gains, while crypto-related stocks declined across the board. Apple rose more than 1% to hit a new all-time closing high, with its total market value approaching $5 trillion. Semiconductor and storage sector performance: Seagate Technology (STX) up 1.20%; Western Digital (WDC) up 1.44%; SanDisk (SNDK) up 1.38%; Micron Technology (MU) up 0.16%; NVIDIA (NVDA) up 0.22%; Intel (INTC) down 3.45%; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) up 0.22%. Crypto-related stocks declined across the board: Strategy (MSTR) down 1.86%; Coinbase (COIN) down 2.06%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.30%; BitMine Immersion (BMNR) down 1.68%; SharpLink Gaming (SBET) down 3.22%. Optical communications-related stocks saw broad gains: Pure Photonics ETF FOTO up 1.57%; Marvell Technology (MRVL) up 1.15%; AAOI (Applied Optoelectronics) up 0.37%; LITE (Lumentum Holdings) up 1.36%; COHR (Coherent Corp.) up 1.80%; CIEN (Ciena Corporation) down 0.42%; FN (Fabrinet) up 4.78%; AXTI (AXT Inc.) up 4.01%; NOK (Nokia) down 0.38%.

Anthropic is in preliminary negotiations to lease up to 1 gigawatt of computing capacity from a data center developer owned by Apollo Global Management, a major move to reduce its reliance on cloud service providers. According to people familiar with the talks, Anthropic is exploring becoming a direct tenant of projects developed by Stream Data Centers, a 27-year-old firm with data center facilities across multiple U.S. locations. Anthropic plans to deploy tensor processing units (TPUs) designed by Broadcom and Google in the data centers.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), U.S.-listed Circle closed down 4.3%, and once fell more than 3% in after-hours trading. The news comes as Jeremy Fox-Geen will step down as chief financial officer, and Circle has launched the selection process for its next CFO.

Here’s a roundup of the latest developments in the Middle East: Peace talks: According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. officials said President Donald Trump has rejected Iran’s proposed seven-day ceasefire plan and told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterm elections. A knowledgeable official revealed that the U.S. has informed Iran and mediators that Trump has no intention of lifting the maritime embargo. Iranian Foreign Minister: Iran is willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, but has put forward relevant conditions; the strait will open once the U.S. accepts the seven-day plan. U.S. officials (on the seven-day plan): The U.S. is holding active, constructive discussions with Iran via intermediaries, and both sides continue to communicate on nuclear issues. Al Jazeera reported that U.S.-Iran negotiations have entered the technical consultation phase, but Iranian media Fars News cited Iranian sources as saying the report is "untrue". Iranian President: Supports the resumption of the memorandum of understanding, which will create conditions for substantive negotiations. He also stated that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons and is willing to advance negotiations with the U.S. Senior Iranian official: Even if the U.S. accepts Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will not make concessions on its nuclear program. Strait of Hormuz: Preliminary data shows the number of commercial vessels passing through the strait has dropped to single digits. U.S. officials noted that nearly 40 million barrels of crude oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz, while the U.S. and Iran are holding active discussions via mediators. The Pakistani Prime Minister called for the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to remain open.

Autopsy records from the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office have ruled the death of Hsin-Ju, former partner and platform head at Hack VC, a suicide. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) said an investigation into the incident is ongoing. Earlier reports noted that Hsin-Ju, 37, was found dead near an on-ramp to Interstate 15 in California’s Mojave Desert on August 24 — exactly one day after she claimed she would expose details about Hack VC. At the time, investigators had said the cause of death was still pending, with uncertainty over whether it stemmed from extreme heat, a medical emergency, mechanical failure, or another factor. On August 23 local time, Hsin-Ju tweeted that she had rejected a settlement offer from Hack VC and would release evidence related to her tenure at the firm on August 26. She had previously alleged that while at Hack VC, she was forced to continue working during a medical emergency, and the company threatened to blacklist her in the industry if she resigned early before completing an event. After the incident, she accused the firm of mishandling her health insurance post-departure and continuing to pressure her during legal proceedings. She has since fired her lawyer and stated she would rather forgo a settlement than keep the matter private. In response, Hack VC tweeted that it had seen Hsin-Ju’s posts and was deeply concerned about her well-being. The firm added that its understanding of the incident differs significantly from what Hsin-Ju has shared, but it does not wish to discuss details publicly out of respect for privacy.

According to GMGN data, privacy-themed meme token MASK on the Solana blockchain surged past $31 million in market cap to hit an all-time high early this morning. The token has rallied over 300% in 24 hours, with its current market cap standing at $20 million and trading volume reaching $4.1 million in the same period. Meme coin MASK uses ZEC as its liquidity pool pairing, providing liquidity via the ZEC/MASK trading pair, and additionally imposes a 3% transfer tax. BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins lack real use cases and are subject to extreme price volatility, so investment caution is advised.