In recent quarters, a roster of money managers including David Tepper‘s Appaloosa Management, Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group, Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, and Sanders Capital have been enlarging their stakes in the $2.5 trillion tech-and-retail giant. In Klarman and Tepper’s cases, the stock has become their single largest holding. Bill Ackman-led Pershing Square began amassing an Amazon stake from scratch about a year ago, and Pershing Square now counts Amazon as its second-largest position at about $2.4 billion. Global investment manager Sanders Capital, founded by former AllianceBernstein CEO Lewis Sanders, doubled its Amazon stake in the first quarter of 2026 to 29.8 million shares worth about $6.2 billion, making the stock its third-largest holding behind Taiwan Semiconductor and Alphabet, Fortune’s Amanda Gerut reports.
The reason? They smell value. While stock in nearly every other company with a claim on the AI boom has soared during the past 12 months—with Nvidia up 35%, Intel up 496%, and Micron Technology up 719%—Amazon’s stock gains have been relatively meager and haven’t yet caught up to the business results. Year-to-date, Amazon’s stock is up 3.4% and 10.1% for the past 12 months.
U.S. stock futures were strongly up before the opening bell in New York after computer memory chip maker Micron reported earnings that blew past analysts’ expectations. The company’s revenue was $50 billion, well above estimates of $43.2 billion. Notably, Micron raised its capex guidance again to above $25 billion. Jefferies analysts Masahiro Nakanomyo and Hisako Furusumi noted that it was the third capex guidance increase in a row: “Capex outlook was raised from $18.0bn (+30%) at the beginning of the fiscal year to $20.bn at 1Q, and then to $25.0bn at 2Q (+81% YoY).”
Micron stock rose 16% in overnight trading, leading a rally in tech stocks generally. Nasdaq futures were up 2.35% this morning and S&P 500 futures were up 0.82%.
That set the stage for a global rally in equities today: Markets in Europe and Asia were up across the board this morning.
Chipmaker SK Hynix announced it would raise $29 billion in the U.S. markets via American Depositary Receipts (certificates that allow traders to buy stock registered in South Korea). That would be the largest ever ADR offering and the equivalent of the second-largest IPO ever, ahead of Aramco and Alibaba, and behind only SpaceX.
The price of Brent crude oil fell to $72 per barrel this morning, from a high of $75 the day before, the level it was at before the war started. That gave investors some hope that the Fed won’t have to raise rates to deal with a stagflation scenario, according to Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid.
Oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is slowly increasing but remains nowhere near pre-war levels. Before the war, 15 million barrels per day exited the strait, CNBC reported. Since the U.S. and Iran ceased hostilities, 4.8 million barrels per day are moving through. At least 20 tankers have made it out since the “memorandum of understanding” was signed.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened any ship trying to pass through the Strait without its permission, warning that would be “unacceptable and dangerous.”
The S&P 500 will grow another 6% to 7,800 this year, according to a new forecast from Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and Bhupinder Singh at J.P. Morgan. “It’s important to keep in mind that the path upwards will be non-linear, as the market will need to clear various hurdles,” they wrote in their latest mid-year outlook paper. They believe there is too much momentum in low-quality, speculative tech companies. For instance, “2nd and 3rd order AI plays … [are] at risk of a reversal and continue to face high probability of a flash-crash.”
Claim: AI hyperscaler capex to hit $5.5 trillion, profitably. A big chunk of the growth will happen because the AI hyperscalers will keep the pedal to the metal when it comes to capex. “Hyperscaler capex has increased to $650 billion for 2026 and is likely headed above $1.1 trillion in 2027,” JPM’s Tarek Hamid and Nathaniel Rosenbaum said in the paper. “We expect total AI capex spending of $5.5 trillion through 2030, up from [their previous estimate of] $5.1 trillion in November.”
Significantly, they say this investment is profitable: “Hyperscalers remain remarkably profitable, with early returns on investment positive.” That’s important if you are worried that AI is a bubble.
Here’s a great chart from Ben Carlson at Ritholtz Wealth Management: unlike last year, when traders worried that gains in the S&P 500 were too heavily concentrated in the Magnificent 7 tech stocks, this year it’s the other way around. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 4.43% over the last month.
“The S&P 493 is outperforming the S&P 500 and the Mag 7 by a wide margin,” he writes. “Ironically, the hyperscalers spending so much money on AI could be benefiting the rest of the market to their own detriment. In fact, the S&P 500 is up around 10% this year despite the fact that companies like Microsoft, Meta, Oracle and more tech stocks are in relatively large corrections at the moment.”
Ikea’s billionaire founder was so frugal that he bought clothes from flea markets and took free salt and pepper from restaurants - Orianna Rosa Royle
Fortune 500 bosses demanding staff return to the office share one trait: narcissism, research finds - Claire Zillman
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts last year - Sydney Lake
Walmart’s $1.4 billion Vibe.co deal is a direct shot at Amazon’s booming ad business - Phil Wahba
Gen Z graduates are blaming AI for their unemployment woes when they should be looking somewhere else - Sasha Rogelberg
Maybank Singapore CEO Alvin Lee looks to tap the silver economy and cross-border flows to grow his business - Angelica Ang
What’s wrong, Denver? No appetite?
According to a Bank of America survey of card spending in 21 major U.S. metro areas, Denver was the only city where consumers reduced their spending on restaurants. Everywhere else, they increased their restaurant budgets. Portland, Ore., led the way with 6.9% growth. “However, some consumers have become more intentional about how often they dine out. In Bank of America card data, around 1% of households may have stopped transacting at restaurants, coffee shops and bars altogether, the bank’s Liz Everett Krisberg and David Tinsley said in an email.
The share of search traffic that will go to AI by 2030, according to an estimate from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest. AI-related search advertising will increase about 50% annually, the group forecasts in its most recent “Big Ideas” slide deck: “AI ads are likely to take share from traditional search advertising, with monetization likely to follow with a two-year lag.”
Trump pledges rapid U.S. response for Venezuela after historic earthquakes kill dozens - CNBC
The Lurid Lawsuit, Salami Scandal and Trash-Can Thief Vexing JPMorgan’s PR Department - WSJ
Cathie Wood’s bet on football group turned crypto hoarder backfires - FT
Trump asks Congress for $87.6B, mostly for Iran war - Axios
NATO’s Rutte Makes Hard Sell to Trump to Ease Iran Strains - Bloomberg
Visitors Look at the Reflecting Pool and Disagree on What They See - NYT
LinkedIn cofounder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman has a dim view of Elon Musk’s AI strategy (in which SpaceX acquired xAI). It’s “buying your way into relevance” and “a complete train wreck,” he said in a conversation with Rana el Kaliouby on her Pioneers of AI podcast.
“SpaceX isn’t an AI company,” Hoffman said. “XAI is, as Elon himself has described, it’s a complete train wreck for its kind of building of foundational models and other kinds of things.” He also noted that all of its founders have left and it’s on its “third restart.”
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