On Thursday, June 19, the main line in U.S. equities moved away from geopolitical risk and back to AI chips. The U.S.-Iran interim agreement was formally signed in Geneva, and three Saudi supertankers crossed the Strait of Hormuz on the same day. That development helped offset the previous session’s hawkish FOMC shock. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 all advanced, the Dow posted its third record close of the week, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped more than 6% to another all-time high. Energy stocks, by contrast, fell with crude oil prices and became the clear laggard of the session.
Indexes Recovered as the Hormuz Premium Faded
The S&P 500 rose 1.08% to 7,500.58, the Nasdaq gained 1.91% to 26,517.93, the Dow added 0.14% to 51,564.70, and the Russell 2000 led with a 2.12% rise to 2,979.77. The performance pattern moved from stronger gains in small caps to weaker gains in large caps, while the Dow was nearly flat. That showed the rebound was driven mainly by high-beta names that had suffered the most during the prior two sessions, rather than by defensive or blue-chip leadership. The U.S.-Iran news had largely been priced before the open, and the major indexes moved steadily higher through the day, recovering most of the losses caused by the previous FOMC reaction by the close.
Intel’s Apple Link Lifted the Broader Chip Chain
In an early morning post on Truth Social, Trump confirmed that Apple and Intel had reached a design and foundry cooperation arrangement. Under the initial plan, Intel will take on mature-node chips for iPads and older iPhone models, while Apple’s flagship products will continue to be supplied by TSMC. The talks had lasted for more than a year. For Intel, the deal gives its foundry business a major outside customer; for Apple, it reduces reliance on TSMC. Neither company had issued a formal response, so the market was pricing the directional importance of the cooperation.
The same Trump post also said that Nvidia had agreed to produce its first chips at Intel and that Musk had promised to co-build TerraFab, described in the source as the largest wafer fab in history. The Apple cooperation became the third piece of Intel’s foundry map. Intel closed up about 10.5% at $133.82. Apple’s planned price increases, linked to rising memory and storage chip costs, also lifted the storage supply chain: SanDisk rose more than 11%, Micron gained nearly 9%, and Nvidia climbed nearly 3%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index advanced more than 6% to a record high, with equipment, memory and computing-power names all rising. The day’s trading showed that the long-term AI capital-expenditure narrative was still being priced even after the hawkish dot plot had landed.
SpaceX Fell Again While Energy Lost Its Geopolitical Bid
SpaceX closed down 3.56% at $185.00, marking a second consecutive losing session and a two-day decline of about 8.3%. Bloomberg reported that the company was preparing to issue at least $20 billion of investment-grade dollar bonds to repay bridge loans maturing in 2027. The financing pressure and dilution concerns linked to that potential bond deal, together with the hawkish FOMC reaction, created the double pressure behind the two-day slide. Even so, SpaceX was still up nearly 15% for the week and 37% above its IPO price from the first trading day, although the short-term pressure had not yet disappeared.
Energy was the weakest of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors. WTI crude fell about 2% on the day to $74.29 per barrel, a nearly three-month low. Exxon Mobil and Chevron both declined, and the Dow Transports fell more than 4%. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz released the geopolitical premium that had supported the sector, and energy stocks began to give back part of their year-to-date gains of 20% to 40%. The sector shifted from this week’s biggest winner to the biggest loser. Technology, consumer discretionary and industrials led the market instead, as capital moved out of defensive and energy names and back toward the computing-power chain. Funds that had left technology stocks during the FOMC shock partly returned after the geopolitical news improved risk appetite.
Volatility Dropped as PCE, Flash PMI and Micron Earnings Approached
Across macro assets, the VIX fell 11.06% to 16.40, showing that the fear triggered by the FOMC had largely faded within one day. The 10-year Treasury yield edged down to around 4.445%, while the 2-year yield stayed above 4.18%. The market had not withdrawn its pricing of a September rate hike; the improvement in risk appetite simply suppressed volatility for the moment. Gold fell to $4,210 per ounce, silver moved lower as well, and the U.S. dollar index slipped slightly while remaining elevated. Crypto assets showed little reaction to the geopolitical relief. According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin closed near $64,026 and Ether near $1,734, with hawkish rate expectations still weighing on the market.
Next week’s calendar includes PCE data, Flash PMI and Micron earnings. The source describes Micron’s guidance as the most direct signpost for AI computing demand, noting that a below-expectation guidance update in the previous quarter once dragged the entire semiconductor sector sharply lower in a single session. Russell Reconstitution will take effect at next Friday’s close, and mechanical rebalancing flows will sharply increase volume, with small-cap volatility set to rise at that point. Thursday’s rebound had two drivers: the U.S.-Iran signing released the geopolitical premium, and chip stocks used actual gains to confirm that the AI theme remained active. The geopolitical component was a one-off repricing after the agreement, while the chip story rests on the breadth of the supply chain, AI capital spending and the coming macro and earnings data.