Taiwan Semiconductor reported blowout second-quarter results before the U.S. open this morning: revenue of $40.2 billion came in $900 million above consensus and up 36% year-over-year, while net income surged 77.4% and earnings per ADR hit $4.31 — beating the $3.82 estimate by $0.37. Gross margin landed at a rich 67.7%, and advanced technologies accounted for 77% of total wafer revenue, a direct read on the health of AI silicon demand. TSM ADRs slipped roughly 3% in premarket despite the beat, a classic sell-the-news reaction after shares ran into the print.
ASML topped second-quarter expectations on Tuesday — €9.3 billion in revenue and EPS of €8.69 against a €7.94 forecast — then raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to €43–45 billion and lifted gross margin guidance to 54–56%, both the second increases of 2026. CEO Christophe Fouquet called order intake "extremely strong" through the first half. Counterintuitively, ASML shares fell on the news, signaling the market had already priced in the raise and may have expected even more from bookings.
Microsoft rose roughly 3% Wednesday after Evercore ISI raised its price target to $525 from $510 (Outperform), citing Azure acceleration and Copilot monetization as drivers of expected double-digit FY27 growth. Azure cloud grew 40% last quarter, and Microsoft's AI business is now running at a $37 billion annual revenue rate, up 123% year-over-year. Citi held its Buy but trimmed its target to $570 from $620, reflecting some caution ahead of the July 29 fiscal Q4 print.
Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge, a 4-billion-parameter physical AI world model for robots and vision agents capable of running on edge GPUs and fine-tuned for specific environments in roughly a day. Ten of Japan's largest industrial firms — including FANUC, Sony, SoftBank, Hitachi, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kubota, NEC, and Yaskawa — announced plans to join the Nvidia Cosmos Coalition to build open frontier physical AI models. The move signals Nvidia's deliberate expansion beyond the data center into manufacturing, logistics, and autonomous systems.
Anthropic is conducting pre-IPO investor meetings with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase all participating, CNBC reported Wednesday. The company raised $65 billion in May at a $965 billion valuation — surpassing OpenAI's $852 billion mark for the first time — and is widely expected to list above $1 trillion. Anthropic led global LLM revenue share in Q1 2026 at 31.4% versus OpenAI's 29%, and projects reaching breakeven two years before its rival. Not yet publicly traded; flagged as IPO watch.
China's Cyberspace Administration formally approved Apple Intelligence for launch in China on Wednesday, with Alibaba's Qwen model designated to run it across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Alibaba U.S.-listed shares rose 4–5% on the announcement, which represents a meaningful regulatory win for both companies in the world's largest smartphone market. Qwen already held a 32% share of enterprise AI model invocations in China in the second half of 2025, cementing Alibaba's AI distribution position.
Palantir surged 24% from its June low of $107 to around $133 after announcing a sovereign AI operating system partnership with Nvidia, pairing Palantir's AIP and Foundry platforms with Nvidia Nemotron models for U.S. federal agencies and critical infrastructure operators. DA Davidson upgraded the stock to Buy with a $175 price target, and the stock has continued to hold its gains through mid-July. With government AI spending accelerating, Palantir's defense-focused positioning is drawing fresh institutional attention.
SpaceX shares dropped below their $135 IPO price Wednesday for the first time since the company's record $86 billion debut in June, down sharply from an all-time high of $225.64 hit on June 16 — a roughly 40% drawdown in one month. The decline is being watched closely as a leading indicator for upcoming AI-adjacent mega-IPOs; OpenAI is now reportedly weighing a delay of its own public listing into 2027 in response. Anthropic's bankers are said to be factoring the SpaceX volatility into their own timing decisions.
Micron Technology rose 4.9% Tuesday as another wave of analyst upgrades followed its blowout fiscal Q3 report, with DA Davidson raising its price target to $2,000 per share from $1,500 while maintaining a Buy. Micron's Q3 FY2026 revenue hit $41.5 billion — up 346% year-over-year — with EPS of $25.11 crushing the $20.78 estimate. High-bandwidth memory demand for AI accelerators is expected to keep supply-demand dynamics tight through at least 2027.
OpenAI, which confidentially filed for an IPO in June targeting a valuation near $1 trillion, is now weighing pushing its public listing into 2027, reportedly citing the post-debut volatility in SpaceX shares as a cautionary signal. Anthropic has moved decisively faster — investor meetings are already underway with Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan — and captured a larger LLM revenue share than OpenAI in Q1 2026. Neither company is yet publicly traded; both are flagged as IPO watch items only.
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