US Stocks at Open: SpaceX Extends Gains to 13%, Storage Sector Continues to Strengthen
Claire Weston
US indices diverged at Tuesday's open — the S&P 500 rose 1.65% while the Nasdaq 100 slipped; SpaceX jumped 13% and memory stocks rallied, as markets turned to Warsh's first FOMC meeting later this week.
The big three split — where is the money going?
The S&P 500 gained 1.65%, the Dow 0.61%, the Nasdaq Composite 0.29% — but the Nasdaq 100 dipped 0.021%.
This means → the broad market is up, yet the drag comes from the heaviest tech names — the very stocks that matter most in the index.
Microsoft fell 1.49%, Nvidia 1.34%, Tesla 0.82%; Meta bucked the trend at +2.05%, Amazon +0.60%.
SpaceX up 13% in a day — what happened?
SpaceX extended its early gains to 13%, trading at $216.84 with a market cap of $2.76 trillion.
In plain terms = one session added more than $300 billion in value, putting it among the world's largest companies.
The source material names no specific catalyst, but the move itself is the day's most conspicuous signal.
Why is the chip sector split down the middle?
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose just 0.036% — nearly flat — while individual names diverged sharply.
Memory led the way: Western Digital surged 10.54%, SanDisk gained 1.30%, Micron 1.26%. This means → the market is betting on a memory-cycle upturn, funnelling capital into that single lane.
On the other side, Broadcom fell 1.46%, AMD 1.04%, TSMC 0.48%; Qualcomm bucked the trend at +4.02%. Put simply = semiconductors are not moving as a bloc — money is rotating within the sector.
Why are Chinese ADRs under broad pressure?
The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index dropped more than 2%, with losses across the board.
KingsoftCloud fell 5.20%, XPeng 4.10%, NIO 3.46%, Bilibili 3.11%, Baidu 2.48%.
Pinduoduo lost 2.26%, Alibaba 1.95%, JD.com 1.50%. This reflects capital pulling back from higher-risk offshore-China assets ahead of the FOMC decision.
Warsh's debut — what is the market waiting for?
This week's FOMC meeting is the first chaired by Kevin Warsh as Fed chair. Markets widely expect rates to hold steady on Wednesday.
The focus is not the rate decision itself but the post-meeting press conference — how Warsh frames the inflation outlook and the path to future cuts.
Panmure Liberum analyst Joachim Klement noted that the key question is how Warsh balances still-elevated inflation against falling energy prices.
Oil, bonds, global central banks — what else matters?
WTI crude fell more than 3% to $78 a barrel, its lowest since early March; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both cut their oil-price forecasts. This means → energy-driven inflation pressure is easing, giving the Fed more room to wait.
Bonds rallied on the oil drop — the 10-year Treasury yield fell 1–3 basis points to 4.44%; the dollar edged lower, gold and silver each rose 0.7%.
Global central banks moved in tandem: the Bank of Japan hiked 25 bp to 1% — the highest since 1995; the Reserve Bank of Australia held at 4.35% but kept the door open to further tightening.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.