Markets today were a mixed bag—stocks, forex, crypto, metals, you name it. I pulled this straight off Yahoo Finance and what’s floating around out there. Tesla (TSLA), Alibaba (BABA), Baidu (BIDU), and the whole AI buzz got extra eyeballs, but Bitcoin and gold deserve more airtime too.
S&P 500 (^GSPC) tacked on 0.41%, hitting 6,114.63—tech’s doing the heavy lifting. Nasdaq (^IXIC) popped 0.81% to 20,026.77, while the Dow (^DJI) gave back 0.37%, landing at 44,546.08. Asia’s up, thanks to calmer U.S.-China trade vibes. Europe’s all over the place with tariff talk still hanging around.
Tesla (TSLA) jumped 3.2% to $424.77—everyone’s hyped about their AI self-driving stuff moving forward. Alibaba (BABA) grabbed 1.8%, closing at $98.45, since trade war panic’s cooling off. Baidu (BIDU) did even better, up 4.1% to $94.32, riding its Ernie AI thing and less mess from Beijing’s rules. AI’s still the big story—though SoundHound (SOUN) tanked 28.1% to $10.97 after a crazy run, and BigBear.ai (BBAI) sat tight at $3.90.
Forex had the dollar nudging up—USD/CAD went 0.07% to 1.4189. Crypto took a hit. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) slid 1.1% to $95,866.61—it’s been flirting with $100K this month but couldn’t hold on. Word is, folks are cashing out, and D.C.’s muttering about rules again. Futures got hammered too—$2.1 billion wiped out, says Coinglass. XRP (XRP-USD) ate it worse, down 3.6% to $2.66.
Gold (GC=F) crept up 0.24% to $2,907.70 an ounce—damn near its peak. People are piling in because the world’s a mess—Middle East, U.S. debt ceiling fights, you know the drill. ETFs sucked up 1.3 tons more, per Bloomberg. Silver (SI=F) tagged along, up 0.5% to $31.12, getting a boost from factories and scared money. Oil (CL=F) rose 0.62% to $71.18 a barrel.
Elsewhere, WeRide (WRD) went nuts, up 83.46% to $31.50—self-driving hype again. Super Micro (SMCI) got smoked, down 8.9% to $44.89, with everyone still digging into their mess. Amazon (AMZN) climbed 4.2% to $197.50 on cloud cash, but Apple (AAPL) slipped 0.8% to $231.40—China’s not buying enough iPhones.
Bitcoin’s stepping back, gold’s hanging tough—two different stories. TSLA, BABA, and BIDU are keeping AI front and center. Forex and crypto are shaky; metals are steady. It’s a picker’s market out there—gotta know what you’re grabbing.
Shayne Heffernan, CEO, Knightsbridge
