Major US indices fell for a fourth consecutive week despite attempts by the Trump administration to de-escalate Middle East tensions.
There were continued signs of market rotation towards smaller companies and economically sensitive names as seen by the Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrials indices eking out gains.
Brent crude oil prices remained elevated at around $110 per barrel, putting pressure on inflation expectations as reflected in 10-year bond yields rising to 4.5%, the highest level since June 2025.
Jack Daniels owner Brown-Forman was one of the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 after confirming the company is in talks with French drinks maker Pernod Ricard.
At the other end of the spectrum, flash memory makers SanDisk and Micron Technology sank after a strong run in recent weeks after Google owner Alphabet released an AI breakthrough in memory compression promising six-times better chip efficiency.
SpaceX plots $75 billion IPO
The market backdrop may be tricky but Elon Musk is becoming more rather than less ambitious with his IPO plans for rocket maker SpaceX.
Already set to be the largest listing in history, Musk has reportedly told investors he hopes to raise as much as $75 billion when it lists. Previously the number given had been $50 billion. This compares with the $29 billion raised by the previous largest IPO – Saudi Aramco in 2019.
A valuation of $1.75 trillion is now being targeted for SpaceX with rumours a draft prospectus for the IPO could be made imminently ahead of a market debut in June – timed to coincide with Musk’s birthday and the alignment of Jupiter and Venus.
Ultimately the amount raised by SpaceX and its market valuation will be determined by investor demand. A tweak to listing rules from Nasdaq which would allow companies fast track access to its Nasdaq 100 index could be helpful to SpaceX.
Meta and Alphabet face legal setback
A ruling in Los Angeles in a landmark legal case on social media’s affect on children may have ramifications beyond the immediate outlay on compensation for Meta and Google and YouTube owner Alphabet.
A jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in total damages relating to the case of a 20-year-old who claimed social media addiction during childhood harmed her mental health.
Snap and TikTok had settled ahead of the court case while Meta and Alphabet signalled plans to appeal the judgement. Legal action from other plaintiffs may follow and the news comes at a time when both companies are spending heavily on AI.
Meta, whose fortunes are more closely tied to social media than Alphabet, saw a more significant share price reaction amid investor concern it might force a rethink of the design practices in its platforms which have helped it achieve huge advertising revenues.
Arm Holdings to start making in-house chips
British computer chip designer Arm Holdings saw its shares jump by around a quarter after unveiling its first ever in-house chip specifically designed for AI data centres.
CEO Rene Haas explained: “With the expansion into delivering production silicon with our Arm AGI CPU, we are giving partners more choices all built on Arm’s foundation of high-performance, power-efficient computing, to support agentic AI infrastructure at global scale.”
This is significant because historically Arm has focused solely on designing chips and collecting royalty revenues from physical sales. Arm’s power efficient designs are used in almost all smartphones and around half of data centres.
Haas guided that its AI chip could generate $15 billion of revenue by 2031, equating to 60% of the then projected $25 billion of total revenue. For context analysts forecast Arm will generate nearly $5 billion of revenue in the year to March 2026.
Citi analysts noted Arm’s forecasts are ‘well above even the highest of speculated estimates.’
Fears Arm could cannibalise existing sales by competing with its customers were mitigated by the announcement of a collaboration with Meta Platforms who will serve as lead partner and co-developer. Other customers include OpenAI, SAP and Cloudflare.
Martin Gamble: Shares and Markets Writer
Martin Gamble is Shares and Markets writer at AJ Bell. He was previously the Education Editor of Shares Magazine. He has been with the business since 2019.
Martin graduated from the University of Kent in...
