Midday Mashup
Published
The Hormuz shipping crisis that dominated the morning has not stopped the S&P 500 from pushing further into the green, with Energy Secretary Wright telling markets crude and diesel prices have likely peaked even as he acknowledged Hormuz remains a conflict zone. That split, officials framing the energy shock as past its worst while fighting continues on the ground, is shaping up as the session's defining tension.
Power demand and AI infrastructure are where the market is putting its conviction. Constellation Energy jumps 15.1% after signing an 890 MW nuclear supply deal with Google, pulling Talen Energy up 13.2% and Vistra up 11.1% in sympathy as utilities lead all sectors. Corteva adds 12.0% and Ciena Corporation rises 11.3%. Marvell Technology's CEO projecting $70 to $90 billion in fiscal 2031 revenue is lifting chip and AI-adjacent names broadly, with Nvidia touching an all-time high.
Memory and storage names are the clearest casualties of the same AI capex story cutting the other way: Seagate falls 9.0%, Western Digital drops 6.9%, and SK hynix slides 4.3%, with AMD's chief executive reiterating that memory supply stays tight even as capacity expands.
Healthcare has its own deal-driven mover, with Repligen down 6.3% after completing its BioLife Solutions acquisition, a cash-and-stock deal the company says expands its position in cell and gene therapy consumables; it will detail the earnings impact on its upcoming call. Moderna also falls 6.3%.
Media changed hands overnight: Skydance has completed its roughly $78 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, with shareholders getting just over $31 a share in cash, Warner Bros. Discovery delisted from Nasdaq, and chief executive David Zaslav departing the company.
Gold continues to climb on the uncertainty, near $4,179 an ounce, with the London Bullion Market Association's delegate survey now projecting $5,013 within a year. The Energy Information Administration nudged up its US oil output forecasts for 2026 and 2027 while holding demand steady, a modest offset to Vitol's warning on regional supply tightness. Diplomatically, Iran says Hormuz will not reopen under pressure even as its foreign minister calls talks with Qatar's emir constructive, and Putin is set to meet Iran's president on October 9, keeping the geopolitical track as unresolved as the energy one.