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Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

• Stocks edge higher as the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow all close at fresh record highs.

• Oil prices surge after Trump says the U.S.-Iran ceasefire is “on life support.”

• Chip stocks rally again as Intel, Micron, Nvidia, and Qualcomm extend semiconductor gains.

• Earnings season remains strong as most S&P 500 companies continue to beat expectations.

• Circle jumps after USDC circulation and revenue growth come in stronger than expected.

Market News

Wall Street Only Trusts AI Now

Monday should have been messier. Oil was higher, Iran talks remained uncertain, and inflation concerns were still hanging over the market.

And yet the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closed at record highs. Not dramatic breakout highs, but the kind where the market quietly moves higher while trying not to draw too much attention to the risks sitting in the background.

The S&P gained 13.91 points, the Nasdaq added 27.05, and the Dow rose 95.31. Those are not massive moves, but at record highs, even modest gains matter because they show buyers are still willing to stay in control despite the concerns hanging around the market.

The strange part is what the market had to ignore to get there. Brent crude climbed back above $104 after the White House rejected Iran's latest peace proposal, keeping the ceasefire stuck somewhere between "maybe" and "please stop asking." Higher oil is supposed to hit the usual pressure points: inflation expectations, consumer wallets, airline margins, and Fed patience.

But semis had other plans…

• Qualcomm hit a record

• Intel kept running after Friday’s Apple-chip headline

• Nvidia gained again

• Micron was strong

• The semiconductor index rose 2.6%

That’s the market telling you exactly where the money still wants to hide when everything else gets complicated. Macro traders kept getting shoved into lockers.

Here’s the catch: the rally was not broad. Decliners outnumbered advancers on both the NYSE and Nasdaq. That’s the part you miss if you only look at the headlines, but you definitely notice it if your portfolio owns anything outside the AI leaders. The indexes were hitting records, while a large part of the market was still struggling to keep up.

That’s the market right now. Earnings are strong enough to support the bull case, and AI is pushing the major indexes higher. But elevated oil prices are keeping inflation concerns alive and limiting how comfortable the Fed can get, while weak market breadth is making each new record feel less convincing beneath the surface.

HSBC raised its S&P 500 year-end target to 7,650, citing resilient earnings growth and AI strength, but even its strategists flagged shaky sentiment and narrow participation. That’s a very Wall Street way of saying: “We’re bullish, but please don’t make us explain the plumbing.”

Peel Take: Monday wasn’t a clean risk-on day. It was a market with one working leg, hopping to a record because that leg happens to be semiconductors. That can work for longer than bears think. It can also get ugly fast if CPI comes in hot or oil keeps climbing. The key isn’t whether the S&P can make new highs; it already did. The key is whether anything besides AI hardware wants to come along. A rally can survive being narrow. It just can’t survive being narrow AND expensive while crude is trying to ruin the group project.

What's Ripe

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) 15.9%

• Circle jumped 15.91% to close at $131.76 after reporting strong Q1 results. USDC in circulation hit $77.0B, up 28% year over year. On-chain transaction volume reached $21.5T, up 263%. Total revenue and reserve income rose 20% to $694M, while adjusted EBITDA climbed 24% to $151M.

• Circle also announced a $222M ARC token presale at a $3B fully diluted network valuation, with backers including BlackRock, Apollo Funds, ARK Invest, General Catalyst, and Standard Chartered Ventures.

• Peel Take: If cr*pto is the casino, USDC is the cage. Less glamorous, more useful, and probably the part regulators understand first. Monday’s print wasn’t hype in search of numbers… the numbers were there, which in cr*pto almost feels impolite. For anyone studying stablecoin economics for a fintech interview, this is the case in chief: rails matter more than tokens. The bear case is just as simple… rates matter, regulation matters, and stablecoin competition isn't going to show up politely with a gift basket.

Qualcomm (QCOM) 8.4%

• Qualcomm ripped 8.4% to a record high on Monday as investors kept crowding into semiconductor names. The move came as the broader chip index gained 2.6%.

• This one hits because Qualcomm has spent years trading like a company with a sticky note on its forehead that says APPLE MODEM RISK. Every bull case had to walk through the same annoying hallway: handset cycles, Apple exposure, and whether the company could convince investors it was more than a phone-chip name.

• Peel Take: Qualcomm just got a narrative upgrade. That’s powerful, but also dangerous. Once the market stops valuing you like an old problem and starts valuing you like a new AI beneficiary, the homework gets harder. Qualcomm doesn’t need to win the whole AI race; it needs to prove it belongs on the track. Monday’s move bought it the benefit of the doubt. The next few quarters have to earn the outfit.

What's Rotten

IREN (IREN) 9.9%

• IREN dropped 9.89% to $55.15 after announcing plans for a $2B convertible senior notes offering due 2033, with buyers expected to get an option for another $300M.

• This came right after investors got excited about IREN’s Nvidia-linked AI infrastructure plans. Last week, IREN rallied on a partnership tied to building out massive AI compute capacity, including Nvidia’s right to purchase up to 30M IREN shares in a potential investment valued at around $2.1B. Then Monday showed up with the invoice.

• Peel Take: IREN is trying to turn yesterday’s mining warehouses into tomorrow’s AI factories. Huge opportunity, huge capital problem. Monday’s selloff was investors remembering that “AI buildout” is just a cooler way of saying “we need to spend a terrifying amount of money before the payoff shows up.” The stock can still work, but this isn’t a meme-cycle trade anymore; it's a funding-cycle trade. Different game. Sharper teeth.

Dell Technologies (DELL) 5.2%

• Dell fell 5.15% to close at $247.04 after UBS downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy. The funny part: UBS also raised its price target to $243 from $167. That’s not a breakup. That’s someone saying, “You’re great, but the relationship is fully valued.”

• Dell’s AI-server business didn’t just stop mattering; it matters very much. UBS expects strong fiscal 2027 growth and sees AI-server growth around 100%, but argued that the upside is already reflected in the stock after a monster run.

• Peel Take: Dell got hit by the best kind of bad news: expectations. The company still has a real AI-server story, but the stock has already been paid like the story is working. A year ago, Dell could win by proving it belonged in the AI conversation. Now it has to prove the margin, backlog, and EPS math can keep up with the multiple. AI didn’t stop being bullish for Dell. It just stopped being free.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Morgan Stanley

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📚 Lesson from the Library

🎥 Valuation Modeling Course: Build Models That Price Reality

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🌟 WSO Academy Q1 Update

📚 Course Development

We’ve continued expanding the Academy curriculum to give students broader coverage across industries, roles, and technical topics.

Check out the recently released WSO Academy Renewable Energy Project Finance Course. Model, structure, and evaluate real-world renewable energy deals from start to finish.

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🦈 Deal Dispatch

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

• Dream Finders Homes offered $25.75/share for Beazer, a ~40% premium. Deal would create the No. 7 U.S. homebuilder.

• Sony Music Publishing is buying Recognition Music Group's catalog from Blackstone-managed funds, reportedly for around $4B, including 45,000+ songs tied to Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac, and Rihanna.

• OpenAI created the OpenAI Deployment Company, backed by more than $4B in initial investment, and is acquiring AI consulting firm Tomoro

• Alphabet and Amazon tapped overseas debt markets to help fund AI infrastructure, with major tech firms expected to spend more than $700B on AI infrastructure in 2026

📊The Daily Poll

Previous Poll:

People are still spending despite high rates. What does that tell you?

Consumers are resilient: 30.6% // Credit cards are carrying: 28.6% // People stopped caring: 12.2% // Economy still looks solid: 28.6%

🌟 Mentor Spotlight

How He Broke Into JP Morgan Leveraged Finance London | Featured Mentor

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Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

A glass was filled with 10 ounces of water, and 0.01 ounce of the water evaporated each day during a 20-day period. What percent of the original amount of water evaporated during this period?

Answer: 2%

Today

Seed mixture X is 40% ryegrass and 60% bluegrass by weight; seed mixture Y is 25% ryegrass and 75% fescue. If a mixture of X and Y contains 30% ryegrass, what percent of the weight of the mixture of X?

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?

Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, Nick, & Patrick

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