Micron Gives Stocks a $250 Billion AI Boost: Stock Market Today

chipset and candlestick chart for semiconductor rally — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Wednesday's late surge for a mixed close evolved into Thursday's across-the-board rally for the main U.S. equity indexes after a major gauge of global risk appetite recovered from another steep sell-off. Big companies are still making huge commitments to artificial intelligence, and stocks are still trending higher ahead of a summer reporting season that's going to heat up next week.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 2.3% to $71.85 per barrel, even as the U.S. and Iran continue to attack targets around the Strait of Hormuz.

And tech stocks took off again, as the Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 0.6% a day after it slid into bear market territory. The KOSPI was down 20.5% from its record closing high of 9,114 on June 22 through Wednesday's close at 7,246.

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The KOSPI recovered from a steeper 20% drawdown over two trading days in March and got back above its previous all-time high by April. Then, on June 23, it was down 10%, a day they've called "Black Tuesday" in South Korea.

Earnings are the underlying force

Financial stocks added more than 1%, with Bank of America (BAC, +1.6%), Citigroup (C, +1.6%), Goldman Sachs (GS, +2.6%), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +1.5%) and Wells Fargo (WFC, +1.6%) scheduled to report second-quarter earnings before the opening bell next Tuesday.

Consumer staples and energy stocks suffered amid the resumption of the "risk on" AI trade, the sectors shedding 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively, with notable names Procter & Gamble (PG, -1.1%) and Chevron (CVX, -1.1%) among 17 of the 30 Dow Jones stocks in the red.

"Today’s rebound demonstrates that good stocks bounce," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates notes. Navellier is optimistic about the flow of second-quarter earnings next week: "Believe it or not, it's going to be better than the first quarter."

According to a FactSet summary of first-quarter results, 85% of S&P 500 stocks beat earnings-per-share estimates, and companies reported aggregate revenue and earnings growth rates of 11.6% and 28.4%

"We're in the bumpy summer months," Navellier concludes, "but the underlying force underneath this market is earnings and a very strong economic recovery."

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had risen 1.3% to 26,206, the broad-based S&P 500 was up 0.8% at 7,543, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 0.3% to 52,487.

SK Hynix U.S. IPO is 7 times oversubscribed

According to Bloomberg, which cited "people familiar with the matter," demand for U.S.-listed shares of South Korea-based memory chipmaker SK Hynix exceeds supply by more than seven times. As Wall Street would say, this initial public offering (IPO) is "oversubscribed."

Management of the semiconductor stock plans to price its American Depositary Receipt (ADR) at $149 per share. The ADR IPO price is 3.1% above SK Hynix's closing price in South Korea on Thursday.

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SK Hynix is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol SKHYV on Friday and will transition to the symbol SKHY on July 13. One SK Hynix ADR will be equivalent to one-tenth of a South Korea-listed common share.

At $26.5 billion, the SK Hynix IPO would be the biggest first-time share sale of a foreign stock in the U.S., surpassing the $25 billion Alibaba Group (BABA, +2.0%) raised in September 2014. That would put it among the biggest IPOs in U.S. history.

Micron ups US spend above $250 billion

Micron Technology (MU, 4.5%) said it will accelerate and increase its investment plan, committing to spend more than $250 billion through 2035 to support the memory chipmaker's goal to produce more than 40% of its DRAM in the U.S., citing "surging demand for memory in the AI area."

Micron also poured the first concrete at what will be the biggest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the U.S.

In a separate announcement, Micron said it would spend $3 billion to develop the semiconductor supply chain around its U.S. footprint.

BofA Global Research analyst Vivek Arya reiterated his Buy rating and a $1,550 12-month target price for MU stock, citing a 40% to 50% increase in Big Tech capex to $1.5 trillion in 2027. The analyst said memory will consume 35% to 40% of that budget.

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David Dittman is the former managing editor and chief investment strategist of Utility Forecaster, which was named one of "10 investment newsletters to read besides Buffett's" in 2015. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and the Villanova University School of Law, and a former stockbroker, David has been working in financial media for more than 20 years.