Ahead of Powell’s speech, internal divisions persist within the Federal Reserve, with some officials advocating for further interest rate hikes.

Nvidia’s earnings report has once again become a watershed moment for AI trading in the US stock market. The company’s fiscal Q2 revenue hit $96.2 billion, up 106% year-over-year; data center revenue reached $89 billion, surging 117% YoY. Its fiscal Q3 revenue guidance of $108 billion is above market consensus. More importantly, Nvidia projected its next fiscal year revenue will grow by around 70%, significantly easing market concerns that AI capital expenditure (capex) has peaked. After the earnings release, Wall Street quickly revised up its valuation anchors: Goldman Sachs raised Nvidia’s price target from $285 to $300, Citi from $300 to $315, JPMorgan Chase from $280 to $320, and Bernstein SocGen hiked theirs sharply to $400. Institutions including Mizuho, Stifel, Evercore and Melius also followed suit in raising price targets, indicating the divergence among sell-side analysts on the sustainability of AI chip demand is narrowing. The secondary market reaction was immediate: Nvidia rose 8.7% on Thursday, adding around $441.5 billion in market cap, driving the Nasdaq up 1.6% and the S&P 500 up 0.7. Against the backdrop of previous market skepticism over overheated AI trades, cloud vendors’ capex returns and Nvidia’s complex financing arrangements, this earnings report effectively reinjected confidence into the entire AI infrastructure chain. However, new pricing priorities are emerging. The market will continue to monitor the production ramp of the Rubin platform, whether gross margins can stay at high levels, the recovery of revenue from China’s data centers, and whether Nvidia’s potential balance sheet commitments will rise after it promotes AI data center construction through collaborative financing.

Nvidia’s stock rose 8.7% on Thursday, marking its largest single-day gain since April 2025, driving a roughly $442 billion increase in the company’s market capitalization — the second-largest single-day market cap growth ever for a global individual stock. Nvidia’s total market cap now stands at around $5.5 trillion, remaining the world’s most valuable publicly listed company. This market cap gain is second only to Microsoft’s record single-day increase of $450 billion set less than a month ago, and exceeds the total market capitalization of the vast majority of S&P 500 index constituents. The chipmaker previously saw a $440 billion single-day market cap jump in April 2025, and also suffered a nearly $600 billion single-day wipeout amid market concerns over the DeepSeek model. The stock rally was primarily fueled by the company’s earnings guidance: Nvidia projects its revenue will grow approximately 70% in the next fiscal year, far outpacing the market consensus estimate of around 45%. JPMorgan Chase believes this guidance may still be conservative, as Nvidia explicitly stated its forecast is constrained by supply limits, while the unconstrained potential demand growth rate is higher.

Crypto KOL Ansem says that 2017’s market-favored altcoins are essentially not very different from 2026’s meme coins. He argues that the former are nothing more than "meme coins with whitepapers" that attract investors via founders and project narratives. In contrast, Ansem notes that current meme coins at least openly admit they are trades centered on market attention, rather than attempting to package themselves with complex technology or use case narratives. Based on this assessment, he states his bullishness on meme coins is higher now than ever before.

Beating AI Express: OpenAI has launched its second Startup Fund, a $400 million vehicle fully funded by the company itself. The first fund, raised in 2021 with $175 million from external investors including Microsoft (with no capital contributed by OpenAI), allowed OpenAI to claim a portion of investment profits, though most economic returns went to limited partners (LPs). Now, by fully backing the second fund, OpenAI will retain most of the investment gains rather than routing them to external LPs. The first fund has invested in 24 companies, including AI coding tool Cursor and legal AI firm Harvey, and has fully deployed its capital. Notably, Cursor was just acquired by SpaceX this month, with the deal carrying an implied equity value of $60 billion. The new fund will continue to focus on early-stage AI startups, planning to invest in 8 to 10 companies annually, targeting direct lead investments. Individual investments start at several million dollars, typically capped at $50 million, with potential for up to $100 million for high-priority projects. Previously, despite bearing the OpenAI name, the Startup Fund relied primarily on external capital. Now that the first fund has delivered results, OpenAI is committing $400 million to continue investing, taking on the risk itself and retaining a larger share of returns.

According to Fortune, Grayscale CEO Peter Mintzberg wrote in a post that Bitcoin rose roughly 20% last week, marking its strongest three-day rally since 2023, signaling the months-long "crypto winter" is fading. However, he noted that markets should not focus solely on short-term rallies or sell-offs; the more significant trend is the long-term integration of digital assets into the mainstream financial system. Mintzberg pointed out that in 2025, Bitcoin's daily fund flows through exchange-traded products (ETPs) often exceed $500 million, roughly 12 times the daily value of new Bitcoin issued by miners. While U.S. spot Bitcoin ETPs saw net outflows for eight consecutive weeks earlier this year, they have returned to net inflows for three straight weeks as of late July. A survey by EY of more than 350 institutional investors also found that 73% plan to increase their allocations to digital assets. Corporate adoption is also advancing steadily. In 2025, roughly 60% of Fortune 500 executives said their companies are running blockchain projects, while firms including Fidelity, Visa, and Stripe are expanding their stablecoin operations. Mintzberg believes AI and blockchain are not mutually competitive; the demand for machine-native micropayments and instant cross-border settlements generated by AI agents could further drive public blockchain adoption.

SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the company is exploring ways to deepen cooperation with Japanese memory chip customers and suppliers, and is carefully evaluating how to jointly develop the NAND flash market. Regarding its significant indirect stake in Kioxia, he noted there are "no definite plans at present." After Toshiba reduced its holdings this month, BCPE Pangea Cayman2—the investment vehicle holding relevant shares for SK Hynix—has become Kioxia’s largest shareholder with a 14.19% stake. SK Hynix holds bonds convertible to nearly all voting rights of this investment vehicle; under the prior agreement, its voting rights will not exceed 15% before 2028 unless Kioxia consents. Additionally, SK Hynix is investing over $4 billion to build its first U.S.-based HBM packaging facility in Indiana. The factory’s cleanroom is scheduled to open in October 2028, with next-generation HBM set for mass production in the second half of 2029, and approximately 1,000 employees are expected to be hired once full operations launch. The company is also still evaluating the possibility of listing its U.S. NAND subsidiary Solidigm, though no decision has been made yet.