Chips weigh on market trading and Bitcoin is near $80,000

Trading review: current reports, trends, indices, stock prices, bonds, foreign exchange, commodities, and analyst recommendations.

7:00. Traders in global markets and on Wall Street began the trading week on a negative note, with the chip sector leading the declines. Weakness in chip stocks pressured the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices as investors show great caution and prepare anxiously for the publication of Nvidia's reports on Wednesday — a major event expected to set the tone for AI stock trading in the remainder of the second half of 2026.

Asia

Asian stock exchanges are trading this morning in a mixed trend with a downward bias. The KOSPI index in South Korea leads the negative trend with a 2% drop, alongside slight declines in the Chinese Shanghai index (-0.4%) and the Hong Kong Hang Seng (-0.2%), while the Japanese Nikkei (+0.1%) is trading with slight gains.

Wall Street

Following yesterday's declines in the technology sector, US futures are trading this morning with slight gains, led by Nasdaq index futures rising by about 0.2%, alongside moderate gains in S&P 500 futures (+0.1%) and the Dow Jones (+0.05%).

Yesterday, the trading day on Wall Street closed with a mixed trend, with the split between core indices worsening. The Dow Jones index led the positive trend and recorded a slight increase of 0.2%. Conversely, the continued pressure in the technology sector and chip stocks pulled other leading indices into red territory: the S&P 500 index retreated by 0.25%, while the Nasdaq index recorded the most notable decline among the indices, losing 0.5%.

The negative trend in broad indices was led by the technology sector, which weakened by 1.6%. Chip manufacturers and memory stocks concentrated heavy pressure: Nvidia shares fell on their way to a seventh consecutive negative day, its longest streak since September 2022, ahead of its report publication and against the backdrop of reports about the price increase of its AI server. At the same time, memory stocks suffered sharp realizations, including Sandisk, Seagate, Micron Technology, and Western Digital.

On the other hand, investors showed a clear defensive tendency and are fortifying themselves in discount and basic consumption chains (such as Dollar Tree, Target, Healthcare REIT, Costco Wholesale, and Walmart), which boosted the basic consumption sector by about 1%. In the Dow Jones, Visa shares stood out with a 3% increase to a 52-week high.

Commodities and currency market

Oil prices open the morning with moderate gains, as Brent crude climbs by about 0.3% to $92.46 per barrel and WTI adds 0.45% to $85.41. In the local foreign exchange market, interbank trading in the dollar is expected to open around the 3.0015 shekel threshold.

The show is stolen this morning by Bitcoin, which continues a sharp rally with a 3.1% jump to the level of $79,739 — a touch away from the $80,000 threshold. The rally relies on massive inflows of $1.92 billion into Spot ETFs in the past week, alongside a short squeeze of about $4 billion. At the research firm Fundstrat, they estimate that this is not just a temporary correction, but a run that is "more durable than just a tactical correction," while at BTIG they warn that a similar sharp movement from January 2023 faded at first before the currency found support at the 200-day moving average.

Dual-listed stocks in Tel Aviv

The local trading day will open on a negative note. The weighted arbitrage gap from Wall Street is expected to subtract about 1.1% from the TA-35 index at the first ticker. The support coming from positive gaps in Camtek (2.1%) and Nova (1.1%) will not be enough to offset the pressure from Tower (0.8%), Enlight (0.5%), and Elbit Systems (0.2%), which will pull the market downward.

---

Market Outlook: Morgan Stanley

At the investment bank Morgan Stanley, they warn that financial markets have entered a new-old era, completely changing the dynamics accustomed to in the last seven decades. The bank's team of strategists, led by Mike Wilson, estimates that the prolonged disinflation era of 1982-2020 has come to an end, and that the market is moving to a model reminiscent of the period after World War II — a pattern characterized by high volatility, persistent inflation above 2%, and bond yields that will continue to climb in the long term (as reflected in the jump in 30-year bond yields to a 19-year high at the level of 5.23%).

Wilson and his team explained in a review to clients:

"We are now in a period where economic cycles are driven by higher nominal GDP growth and persistent inflation, which entails higher volatility in a reactive monetary policy environment."

Regarding the bond market, they added that "the yield trend will remain upward in the long term, with a cyclical bull market occasionally — similar to what the market experienced between 1945 and 1982." Against the backdrop of this profound change, Morgan Stanley recommends focusing on quality stocks with large market capitalization, companies adopting artificial intelligence technologies, and the S&P 500 index, while giving overweight to the finance, industry, and cyclical consumption sectors.