Nvidia's RTX Spark Superchip Sends Indexes to Fresh Records — But the Rally Frays by Week's End

The week opened with all three major indexes setting new intraday and closing records on Monday as CEO Jensen Huang unveiled Nvidia's RTX Spark superchip at Computex Taipei, sending NVDA shares up more than 6% and triggering double-digit gains in partners including Dell (+11%), HP (+8.5%), and Arm Holdings (+16%). By Friday, however, the euphoria had reversed: the Nasdaq dropped 1.9% and the S&P 500 fell 1.1% as AI-tied chip stocks sold off for a second straight session and a blowout jobs report reset rate expectations higher.

May Jobs Report Stuns at +172,000 — Rate-Hike Odds Double Overnight

U.S. employers added 172,000 jobs in May — more than double the 80,000 consensus forecast — while unemployment held at 4.3%, according to Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics release. The 10-year Treasury yield surged to near 4.55% from 4.47% immediately before the print, and the CME FedWatch tool showed the probability of a Fed rate hike at the late-October meeting jumping from roughly 34% to 51% in a single session. Fifth Third Commercial Bank's Chief Economist Bill Adams cautioned that the Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz closure are already depressing real average hourly earnings, and the longer the standoff persists, the greater its drag on consumer purchasing power.

Strait of Hormuz Threat Spikes Oil to $95 Brent — Then Trump's Call With Netanyahu Pulls It Back

Iranian state media announced Monday that Tehran was suspending nuclear talks with Washington and threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz unless Israel withdrew from Lebanon, causing Brent crude to settle up 4.2% at $94.98 a barrel and WTI to surge 5.7% to $92.30. Oil pared those sharp gains after President Trump posted on Truth Social that he had a "very productive call" with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, clarifying no U.S. troops were heading into Beirut, and that Iran talks were continuing "at a rapid pace" — a reminder of how quickly geopolitical headlines can swing energy prices 5% or more within a single session.

Alphabet Seeks Fresh Capital as Four-Week Losing Streak Tests Investors

Alphabet is seeking fresh capital amid a four-week losing streak in its stock, signaling that even Magnificent Seven names outside Nvidia are facing mounting valuation pressure as AI spending cycles evolve and rate expectations reset. The fundraising move arrives as Friday's chip sell-off broadened to include Broadcom and other AI-adjacent names, underscoring that the market is growing increasingly selective about which players in the AI stack will capture durable earnings rather than just near-term revenue momentum.

Anthropic Confidentially Files IPO Prospectus With the SEC

Anthropic, the AI safety company backed by Amazon and Google and valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, confirmed on Monday that it has confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing adds to a growing pipeline of high-profile AI listings — alongside Robinhood's Ventures Fund I, which attracted more than 150,000 retail investors to gain exposure to pre-IPO companies including OpenAI, Stripe, and Databricks — accelerating the democratization of access to frontier-company valuations that were once exclusive to institutional and venture capital investors.

Market Insight

The Week That Cracked the S&P 500's Ten-Week Streak

The most consequential dynamic of this week was not any single stock move — it was the collision of three independent macro forces converging simultaneously. First, Nvidia's Computex announcement proved that AI hardware spending remains robust at the hyperscaler level, but the market's violent rotation — rewarding Nvidia, Dell, HP, and Arm while punishing Qualcomm (-9%), Intel (-4.5%), and AMD (-1%) — signals that investors are no longer buying the sector wholesale; they are now underwriting specific AI supply chain winners and discarding legacy chipmakers caught flat-footed. Second, the Iran-Hormuz threat introduced a genuine energy-supply shock premium: WTI spiking to $92 and Brent to nearly $95 in a single session is not a rounding error — it is an inflation input that feeds directly into CPI and, critically, suppresses real wage growth, which Fifth Third's Bill Adams explicitly flagged as an already-visible headwind in the May payroll data. Third — and the most structurally important — May's 172,000 non-farm payroll print, more than double expectations, has reset the rate trajectory: with 51% of Fed watchers now pricing a late-October rate hike versus 34% the prior day, the multiple-expansion story that powered the S&P 500's nine-week winning streak faces a genuine challenge. Taken together, this week's cross-current of AI exuberance, energy shock risk, and a stronger-than-expected labor market argues that the next leg of the market will be driven not by broad index momentum but by earnings quality and free-cash-flow durability — a discriminating environment where stock-picking, sector rotation, and active hedging matter far more than passive index exposure alone.