Dell AI servers surge 88% YoY, lifting chipmakers as capex re-accelerates

Asia and European sessions overnight offered mixed signals as growth outweighed geopolitical relief. The Nikkei and ASX digested mixed earnings flow, while European equity bourses opened firmer on the back of Dell's bombshell AI server print that arrived stateside late Friday. Overnight, energy repriced lower on ceasefire optimism; WTI retreated to $87.60 from above $92 as Trump signaled willingness to negotiate a longer-term US-Iran peace arrangement. Ten-year yields compressed to 4.44% on the back of that risk-off and Fed messaging uncertainty, with TLT posting its best week since the war began. That compression set the stage for this morning's open.

US index futures are poised to extend Friday's momentumThe empirical fact that winners keep winning over the medium term.. SPY reached all-time highs on a nine-week winning streak, though the Russell 2000 continues to lag and breadth deteriorates beneath the surface; BlackRock is trimming equities across its $220 billion model portfolio in response. VIXThe 30-day implied volatility of S&P 500 options. The 'fear gauge.' settled at 15.8 on Friday, indicating complacency rather than fear. The real bid overnight came from semiconductor and server hardware names: SMCI and SOXX outperformed SPY on Dell's 88% print, with AMAT, LRCX, KLAC, and AVGO all caught in the flow-on bid. PLTR surged separately on its own 100% US commercial revenue growth, now 60% of total sales, which has upended the software-destruction thesis that dominated May selling and reshaped sector multiples across SNOW, DDOG, CRM, and NOW.

No major US macro calendar items fire today; the week's focus remains on inflationThe rate at which prices rise across an economy. data and labor reports slated for later. However, the fork between a durable ceasefire abroad and domestic inflation dynamics (Iranian oil supply returning could cool energy, but wage pressures persist) is now constraining Fed cut odds. Goldman Sachs shifted its first-cut call from June to December 2026 following Bowman's remarks on Iran inflation risk, steepening the yield curvePlot of bond yields across maturities. debate. That uncertainty keeps TLT and IEF under pressure despite Friday's bounce.

Earnings flow remains light into this week's open. Dell's earnings and guidanceCompany-issued forecasts of future financial performance. already in the market have reset capex expectations across the AI supply chain; the critical read-across is whether enterprise hardware demand is sustainable or front-loaded into H1 2026. SpaceX's IPOInitial Public Offering - a company's first public sale of stock. valuation trim to at least $1.8 trillion (from above $2 trillion) and Blue Origin's New Glenn pad failure on Friday have pressured defense names LMT, NOC, RTX, and GD by 2-4% each, signaling institutional focus on execution risk rather than topline. That weakness is isolated to defense; the AI capex thesis remains bid.

Cross-asset positioning: the dollar index remains firm despite ceasefire chatter; rates compression has helped durationBond price sensitivity to interest rate changes.-sensitive sectors but left the carry tradeBorrowing in a low-yielding currency to invest in a higher-yielding one, pocketing the rate differential. intact. Bitcoin has held above $73K through nine straight sessions of spot ETFExchange-Traded Fund - a basket of securities trading like a single stock. outflows totaling $2.8 billion, a sign that institutional capital is rotating into derivatives and stablecoins rather than exiting crypto. StablecoinA cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged to the US dollar. reserve scrutiny from Senate continues to overhang the space. Oil's drop to $87.60 on Iran peace signals is real, but equities' re-acceleration in AI demand means energy weakness has not cascaded into broad risk-off.

The desk enters with a cautiously elevated bias. Dell's print is the linchpin: it validates that enterprise AI capex is reaccelerating, not peaking, and breadths the AI trade beyond mega-cap concentrated names into the semiconductor and hardware supply chain. VIXThe 30-day implied volatility of S&P 500 options. The 'fear gauge.' at 15.8 and SPY at all-time highs suggest complacency, but BlackRock's equity trim and the Russell 2000's underperformance warrant caution. Watch for any deterioration in sentiment around the Fed's December-first-cut call; if inflationThe rate at which prices rise across an economy. data surprise higher next week, the curve steepens further and growth names come under pressure despite Dell's strength.