Rekt Mkts: Memory stocks rally, but US futures pause

Memory finally had a proper session yday, with MU and SNDK both catching a bid. S&P and Nasdaq futures are pretty much flat again, while oil has had another choppy morning.

WTI futures are just below $90 and Brent is around $99, after both bounced off their overnight lows before slipping again. Trump described Tuesday's three-hour meeting with Iran's delegation as very good, which gave the market another reason to price in some relief on supply. Altho the threats haven't gone away: he also raised the possibility of further military escalation. Talks are progressing I suppose...honestly it's quite tiring to keep up with all this. The US 10Y is around 4.97%, essentially unchanged on the day, while gold futures are around $4,350. So the cheaper oil isn't coming with another meaningful leg lower in borrowing costs. September's US business activity figures are due today, alongside remarks from Fed governor Michael Barr. After last week's rate hike, the inflation signals in that data matter for whether the Fed feels it needs to keep going...but I don't view any of these as big vol events and it's just something to keep an eye out for.

S&P and Nasdaq futures are little changed. Memory did more of the running yday, with MU up 5% and SNDK nearly 7%. That's a much better session for the names that hadn't really joined in with Monday's AI rally...I guess it's generally on the back of META/Muse...but worth noting that SK Hynix closed only 1.2% higher overnight so that bid is not really meaningfully following through into Korean stocks quite yet. We're at an interesting point on stocks as we sit at the top of that range again for NASDAQ, where it has paid to sell strength/take profits for the last few months...the big question is do we have enough momentum this time to break through? I think it would have to come with some positive fundamental developments for the overall market.

BTC and ETH are slightly lower over 24H, while SOL is modestly higher. The majors have slowed down, but the ETF buying hasn't disappeared: US spot BTC ETFs took in $714.7m yday and ETH ETFs brought in $162.2m. Both were below Monday's inflows, altho that still puts this week's buying at roughly $1.71bn for BTC and $432.2m for ETH. ZEC and LIT are doing more of the running, up roughly 7% and 9% over 24H respectively. LIT has picked up again after being softer yday, while ZEC's bounce has carried on after consolidating for a couple of days. VVV is giving a little more back after its earlier rally, so even the recent leaders aren't all moving together. For the degens out there, I've been attempting a "beta/meme" play on the privacy names with reflection tokens, in particular watching ZCAT (yields ZEC), NEARKAT (yields NEAR) and VCAT (yields VVV)...the gap between ZEC and ZCAT is particularly noticeable: ZCAT is down about 17% over 24H despite ZEC's rally, while VCAT is also down roughly 23%. In past cycles it would be easy to identify the "gogo meme" of each coin and you'd generally do well buying them, but the meme landscape has become much more competitive and it's certainly been a tougher trade. Nonetheless, I think there are a few things like these that are still worth taking punts on. Good luck today.