The market climbed Tuesday after tech dragged the indexes into a strong quarter-end finish while the macro tape refused to hand traders a cleaner rate-cut story. It was the best quarter for blue chips on the S&P 500 since 2020.

May job openings held at 7.6M, consumer confidence rose to 91.2, and yields ticked higher, which means the market got growth without a cleaner rate-cut setup. Stocks shrugged anyway because quarter-end risk appetite is apparently doing cardio. Gold climbed slightly on the consumer confidence news, but the commodity has been falling like a rock as Kevin Warsh took his FOMC chair without much recent drama, and the SCOTUS said Trump has to mostly leave them alone this week. More on that below, just know that gold prices love drama.

Stocktwits was all over the split tape: $NKE was the after-hours argument, $AMD and the chip-tool names owned momentum, and $CRCL stayed the cleanest “dip or disaster?” debate.

Today's Briefing:

Nike, the sneaker and apparel giant, reported fiscal Q4 results after Tuesday’s close that beat Wall Street’s low expectations, but the stock still slipped after hours. The headline EPS beat looked massive, but most of it came from a tariff-recovery benefit, while the core sales fell. Q4 revenue and direct sales were down 1%, and 7%.

The RIP: $NKE ( ▼ 1.04% ) fell about 3% after hours after closing -1.0%. GAAP EPS was $0.72 vs. roughly $0.12-$0.13 expected. Revenue was $10.97B vs. about $10.85B expected, down 1%. Gross margin rose 890 bps to 49.2%.

The bull case is that wholesale revenue grew 4%, North America footwear improved, and selling and administrative expense fell 2%. The bear case is that Nike Direct dropped 7%, Converse cratered 32%, Nike Brand revenue fell 3% currency-neutral, and Greater China EBIT dropped 20%. That makes this less of a victory lap and more of a “prove it again without the tariff refund” quarter. 🪄

Community is extremely bullish, message volume is extremely high across ~136.6k watchers.

Jump into $NKE: turnaround or tariff trick →

Offerpad Founder, Chairman, and CEO Brian Bair joins Boardroom Exclusives to talk about eliminating transaction friction through an expanded suite of on-demand housing products, meeting shifting seller expectations in a high-tech ecosystem, and driving near-term profitability.

*3rd Party Ad. Not an offer or recommendation by Stocktwits. See disclosure here.

ASML, Applied Materials, and KLA, the chip-equipment suppliers that help manufacturers build advanced semiconductors, ripped Tuesday after South Korea lined up a monster AI infrastructure push. Samsung and SK Group plan to build four chip plants in Korea, feeding the market’s favorite new equation: more memory demand means more fabs, and more fabs means more tool orders.

The RIP: $ASML ( ▲ 5.65% ) rose 5.6%, $AMAT climbed 4.1%, and $KLAC jumped 8.4%. $SMH gained 3.8%, while $SOXX rose 4.3%. Korea is targeting at least 1,350T won, or roughly $880B, across chips and data centers, including 800T won, or about $516B, for Samsung and SK chip plants.

The bull case is simple: AI memory demand is forcing Samsung and SK Hynix to spend, and the toolmakers sit upstream of that capex. Analysts are already chasing the move, with Susquehanna raising ASML’s target to €2,350 and seeing the wafer-fab equipment market reaching $250B in 2028. The risk is just as obvious: if every memory maker builds at once, investors eventually stop saying “capacity expansion” and start whispering “oversupply.” 🏗️

Community was split across the group: $AMAT was extremely bullish with high message volume, while $ASML and $KLAC both screened bearish despite the rally.

Make your $ASML case: buildout or blowoff →

The Supreme Court blocked President Trump’s firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook on Monday, drawing a hard line around central-bank independence. The highest court made a separate decision allowing the president more room to fire other independent regulators, and the dichotomy means one thing: the Fed is special; don’t mess with it. The market read is simple: regulatory agencies just got more political, but the Fed is still not supposed to be a campaign-office annex.

"Not only the fact of independence but also the appearance of independence is key to the Federal Reserve's design," the justices wrote Monday. "At minimum, Cook was entitled to some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response.”

The RIP: Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Cook can remain while her lawsuit proceeds. Fed governors serve 14-year terms and Cook’s runs to 2038. In a separate case, the Court ruled 6-3 that FTC commissioners can be fired at will, overturning a 1935 precedent.

"The Federal Reserve occupies a unique role in the U.S. Government and maintains critical responsibility for the stability and success of the U.S. and world economies," Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Justice, wrote Monday.

Trump won broader removal power over regulators, but lost the immediate fight to treat the Fed like just another executive agency. That matters because rate credibility is not abstract. $KRE and $XLF care about policy stability and supervision, $CME is the rates-volatility proxy, $TLT is the bond-market tell, and regulatory names like $COIN and $HOOD are more exposed if agency independence keeps weakening. The Court basically told markets: the president gets a longer leash, but not long enough to yank the Fed around. 🧱

$FCEL ( ▲ 20.84% ) FuelCell ⚡: soared +24% after Fit Energy 380 MW data-center deal

$BE ( ▲ 10.07% ) Bloom Energy ⚡: ripped +22% after Brookfield framework expanded to $25B for AI

$SNDK ( ▲ 10.89% ) SanDisk: surged +11% after Bernstein raised target on memory pricing

$AXON ( ▲ 9.79% ) Axon: surged +10% after $220M ICE Taser contract drew scrutiny

$VRT ( ▲ 9.07% ) Vertiv: jumped +9% after AI data-center power trade broadened again

$LUNR ( ▲ 2.0% ) Intuitive Machines ⚡: climbed +3% after NASA lunar delivery awards revived space

$QXO ( ▼ 3.03% ) QXO ⚡: slid -2% after TopBuild merger dilution worries kept churning

$VZ ( ▼ 3.99% ) Verizon: fell -4% after Alphabet replaced it in the Dow

$CRCL ( ▼ 17.55% ) Circle ⚡: cratered -18% after stablecoin competition hit crypto equities

🤑 Read the global brief that reads the world like a trader reads a tape — geopolitics, markets, and tech in 5 minutes, every morning. *

😨 ‘Pulling A Bloom’? FCEL Stock’s Monster Quarter Rally Has Retail Comparing It To BE’s Playbook

🏠 Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits

💰 Bitcoin tracks worst month since June 2022 as one strategist says token could drop to $40,000

📺 NVDA Stock Eyes Worst First Half Since 2022: Retail Patience Wears Thin As Board Member Trims Stake For Third Time This Year

*3rd Party Ad. Not an offer or recommendation by Stocktwits. See disclosure here.

Macro: Fed Chair Kevin Warsh speaks (9:30 AM ET), S&P Global Final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) (9:45 AM ET), Construction spending (10:00 AM ET), Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing PMI (10:00 AM ET). 📊

Pre-Market Earnings: $GIS General Mills, Inc.. ☀️

After-Market Earnings: $VCIG VCI Global Ltd, $FIZZ National Beverage Corp.. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

Want to see some change? Email Kevin Travers feedback. Follow him on Stocktwits. Refer a friend for this quarter’s edition of The RIP Forecast:

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