Earnings season takes centre stage this week. GOOGL and IBM report Tuesday. INTC and TMUS follow Wednesday. Markets are bracing for signals on AI spending, foundry progress, and subscriber trends. Options data shows puts running hot ahead of these reports — bearish hedging is elevated going in.
Wall Street analysts turned notably bullish on financials. Morgan Stanley was upgraded to Buy. State Street saw its average analyst target price jump by $12 to $196.89. Regional banks Regions Financial also attracted fresh target price upgrades. The shift suggests analysts are growing more comfortable with credit quality and the rate environment. MS reports earnings this week, adding real-time pressure to those calls.
HTZ short interest hit 70.1% of free float — up nearly 10 points in seven days. Available borrow is at zero. That squeeze risk is live. Meanwhile, SPCX saw a 24-point surge in short interest to 27.6% of free float. Bears are also circling FOXA, which carries 21.1% SI% FF after at least one analyst downgrade to Sell this week.
The FT flags a surge in energy IPOs as investors seek AI-boom exposure. Oil traders warn the market is near critical levels after the Strait of Hormuz closure. European stocks faced pressure from geopolitical volatility, though defence names rallied after Ukraine ratified a $105 billion EU loan deal. Chinese chipmaker CXMT is seeking $10 billion in what would be China's largest IPO since 2010.
ASTS CEO Abel Avellan filed a $146.7M share sale. Early backer Bessemer Venture Partners disclosed over $111M in TTAN sales since late June — classic post-lockup exit pressure.
ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
