>>> TradeGate Pre-Market Indications

DAX:
  • Adidas (ADS TH) +1.1%
  • Deutsche Bank (DBK TH) -0.7%
    • Deutsche Bank Cut to Neutral at Mediobanca SpA; PT 27 euros
MDAX:
  • RENK Group (R3NK TH) +0.9%
  • AUTO1 (AG1 TH) -1%
SDAX:
  • Friedrich Vorwerk Group SE (VH2 TH) +1.9%
  • Grenke (GLJ TH) +1.4%
  • SFC Energy (F3C TH) +1.4%
  • Ceconomy (CEC TH) -0.7%
  • Deutsche Euroshop (DEQ TH) -0.7%

>>> US After Hours Summary: PRGS -3.7% lower on earnings; TPC +1.6% awarded $1.8

After Hours Summary: PRGS -3.7% lower on earnings; TPC +1.6% awarded $1.871 bln NYC contract; AVAV -6.5% lower on offerings; BA +0.2% names new CFO

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: None

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: TOI +2.9% (will be exclusive Medicaid oncology provider for SilverSummit in Nevada), IMAB +2.1% (Givastomig data published), CRCL +1.6% (formally submits application to establish a national trust bank), TPC +1.6% (awarded $1.871 bln NYC contract), NEXA +1.2% (operations at smelter have fully resumed), FMC +0.6% (regulatory approval for Tremisia fungicide in Ukraine), LUMN +0.6% (advances financial strategy to support AI-Era infrastructure growth), SMCI +0.3% (INTC certifies immersion cooling solution), BA +0.2% (names new CFO), OLN +0.1% (expands partnership with K2)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PRGS -3.7% (also acquires Nuclia)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: DYN -9.7% ($200 mln stock offering), AVAV -6.5% (announces $750 mln stock offering and $600 mln convertible notes offering; also files mixed securities shelf offering), AHCO -1.5% (closes on sale of infusion assets, revises guidance to reflect this), NKTR -1.3% (commences stock offering), SKYT -0.9% (completes acquisition of 200 mm semiconductor fab), CPF -0.3% (files for $300 mln mixed securities shelf offering), SOBO -0.3% (receives presidential permit), FVR -0.1% (names new CFO)

>>> US Close Dow +0.63% S&P +0/52% Nasdaq +0.47% Russell +0.12%

Closing Stock Market Summary
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite set record highs on Friday, and there was no stopping them from extending their reach into record territory today. For a moment, it looked like there might be some interference in that effort, yet a rush of buying interest in Apple (AAPL 205.17, +4.09, +2.03%) occurred in the afternoon session following a Bloomberg report that the company is considering using outside AI help to drive its new version of Siri.

Apple was trading just shy of $200 per share when that news hit but traded as high as $207.39 in its wake. That was a hefty load of market cap weight that ultimately fueled a move above 6,200 for the S&P 500 on the last trading day of a remarkable second quarter that saw the S&P 500 increase 10.6% and the Nasdaq Composite gain 17.8%. Those gains, though, don't even tell half the story. From their lows on April 7, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are up 28% and 38%, respectively.

Prior to the Apple news, today's session was filled with political news that was generally interpreted in a positive light.

The Senate passed a procedural vote over the weekend that paved the way for a full Senate vote late tonight or early tomorrow on its version of the "One Big, Beautiful Bill." That bill, among other things, will extend the 2017 tax cuts for all income levels and make those cuts permanent; it starts Medicaid work requirements beginning in December 2026, phases out solar and wind tax credits beginning in December 2026, raises the SALT deduction cap to $40,000 for people making $500,000 or less for a 5-year period, after which it reverts to $10,000, and increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

If the Senate passes the bill, which the CBO estimates will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, it will head to the House for review and set up the possibility of it being on the president's desk for signing by July 4. The comforting point for the stock market in all this was that the Treasury market didn't revolt over the CBO estimate. In fact, the Treasury market staged a minor rally that saw gains across the curve led by longer-dated maturities.

The 2-yr note yield dipped two basis points to 3.72%, and the 10-yr note yield dropped six basis points to 4.23%. Running alongside the developments pertaining to the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" were reports highlighting Canada's efforts to renew negotiations with the U.S. by dropping its digital services tax and speculation that other trade deals, including the possibility of one with the EU, could be announced soon.

Separately, it was welcome news for the capital markets to hear that the largest banks all passed the Federal Reserve's stress test. That news was released after Friday's close, and it paves the way for banks to announce capital return plans.

The investment banks, led by Dow component Goldman Sachs (GS 707.75, +16.94, +2.45%) reaching a record high of its own, paced the gains in the financials sector (+0.9%). The only other sector performing better than the financials sector today was information technology (+1.0%), which rallied around Apple and the AI trade tied to encouraging commentary out of Oracle (ORCL 218.63, +8.39, +3.99%) for its cloud business. For the quarter, the information technology sector gained 23.5%.

Most sectors ended higher today. The only two laggards were the consumer discretionary (-0.9%) and energy (-0.7%) sectors.
  • S&P 500: +5.5% YTD
  • Nasdaq: +5.5% YTD
  • DJIA: +3.6% YTD
  • S&P 400: -0.6% YTD
  • Russell 2000: -2.5% YTD

Reviewing today's data:
  • June Chicago PMI (Actual 40.4; Briefing.com consensus 43.4; prior 40.5)

FT : Google agrees deal to buy power from planned nuclear fusion plant

Google agrees deal to buy power from planned nuclear fusion plant
Tech giant to purchase from US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems in only second such deal in nascent sector

Google has agreed to purchase power from a planned fusion power plant in the 2030s in only the second electricity offtake deal to be signed in the nascent fusion energy sector.

The technology giant has committed to buy 200 megawatts of electricity from Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ planned power station in Virgina under a multiyear power purchase agreement, the companies said in a statement on Monday.

US-headquartered CFS, which raised a record $1.8bn from investors including Google in 2021, hopes the proposed 400MW facility will be the first fusion power station to be connected to the grid.

Scientists have sought to produce clean energy by combining atoms since the 1950s but in decades of experiments no group has been able to produce more energy from a fusion reaction than the system itself consumes.

CFS is arguably the most advanced of a few dozen privately held fusion companies racing to perfect the technology and develop a commercially viable machine.

It is currently building a demonstration plant in Massachusetts which it aims to turn on in 2027. It hopes the plant that would supply Google will be ready by the early 2030s.

”[This is] not just a plant with some date made up or some thin document,” CFS chief executive and co-founder Bob Mumgaard told the Financial Times, referring to the power purchase agreement. “This is a full PPA,” he said, adding: “We make power, and they’re obligated to buy it.”

The deal comes as technology companies including Google, owned by Alphabet, compete to lock in access to electricity to supply the massive roll out of data centres required to power AI systems.

Microsoft signed a power purchase agreement in 2023 with Sam Altman’s fusion company Helion, agreeing to offtake electricity from a proposed 50MW facility that the companies said at the time would be online by 2028.

The promise of fusion is particularly tantalising as the reaction produces no long-lived nuclear waster, emits no carbon and a small cup of the hydrogen isotopes used in the reaction has the potential to power a house for hundreds of years. Yet sceptics continue to argue that commercial fusion power remains decades away.

Mumgaard said the support from Google was a signal to the investment community and the supply chain that commercial fusion power was increasingly likely, adding that the deal would help the company to raise financing.

Google has agreed to increase its investment in CFS in the next funding round and also signed an option to offtake from other CFS power plants in the future, the companies said.

“We’re excited to make this longer-term bet on a technology with transformative potential to meet the world’s future energy demand,” Michael Terrell, Google’s head of advanced energy, said in a statement.

TechCrunch : Apple reportedly considers letting Anthropic and OpenAI power Siri

Apple reportedly considers letting Anthropic and OpenAI power Siri
Apple is considering using AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power its updated version of Siri, rather than using technology the company has built in-house, according to a report from Bloomberg on Monday.

The iPhone maker continues to build out a project internally dubbed “LLM Siri” that uses in-house AI models, according to Bloomberg. However, Apple has reportedly asked OpenAI and Anthropic to train versions of their AI models that can run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing.

Apple was forced to delay its AI-enabled Siri, originally slated for 2025, until 2026 or later due to a series of technical challenges the company reportedly ran into. This failure may have been a long time coming; Apple has been falling behind Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic in the AI race for the last several years.

While Siri can already call on ChatGPT for difficult questions, Apple now seems to be exploring a much deeper integration with technology from third-party AI providers.

WSJ : Apple to Delay Some Feature Rollouts in EU, Citing Regulatory Hurdles

Apple to Delay Some Feature Rollouts in EU, Citing Regulatory Hurdles
A service which tracks and records where users have been won’t be rolled out in the EU

Apple AAPL -0.06%decrease; red down pointing triangle said it will delay offering some planned new features to users in the European Union this year because regulations are making it harder to bring them to market in the region.

The company’s lawyers said on Monday that tools such as a “visited places” service that tracks and records where users have been won’t be rolled out in the EU when it releases its iOS 26 software update later this year.

The iPhone maker has to comply with the Digital Markets Act, a EU law designed to curb the market power of the world’s largest technology companies and make it easier for smaller developers to do business online.

Apple has routinely criticized that law, saying it degrades the quality of its products, opens users up to privacy and security risks and makes rolling out new software features in Europe more complicated.

The European Commission told Apple earlier this year what it thinks the company should do to comply with the DMA’s rules around interoperability. That included obliging Apple to make it easier for smartwatch and headphone manufacturers to pair their products with Apple devices, improve user experience using that tech alongside an iPhone and give developers more access to Apple’s software.

“We’ve already had to make the decision to delay the release of products and features, we announced this month for our EU customers,” Kyle Andeer, Vice President, Apple Legal, told a workshop with EU officials and developers in Brussels. Users’ security could be compromised if the company is obliged to open up its ecosystem to competitors, Andeer said.

Apple said it is still analyzing features that may not be available in the EU and working to find solutions to deliver features as quickly as possible.

Andeer also criticized the DMA more broadly, saying that changes the company has had to make to bring its products in line with the rules since last year “create real privacy, security, safety risks to our users.”

An EU official at the meeting said the regulator and Apple are divided on the scope of the DMA and on potential security risks.