Good evening, this is Markets Desk with your top stories.
The Pentagon has put a price tag on the Iran war, and it is staggering. The Defense Department disclosed costs of thirty-three point four billion dollars as of late June, with weapon shortfalls, hundreds of damaged structures, and aircraft losses all factored into that figure. The scale of material attrition is drawing sharp attention from defense analysts and appropriations hawks alike.
Turning to markets, chip stocks took a broad hit today as warnings from artificial intelligence researchers grew louder about the sustainability of current compute demand trajectories. Micron, Intel, and AMD all sold off, with investors reassessing whether the AI buildout can absorb the inventory and capital expenditure commitments already baked into these names. The sector rotation was swift and decisive.
Meanwhile, Ken Griffin's Citadel made a striking move in the second quarter of two thousand twenty six, expanding its AbbVie position by more than five hundred percent. The pharmaceutical giant carries Dividend King status, meaning decades of consecutive payout growth, and Wall Street analysts maintain that meaningful upside remains even after the hedge fund's aggressive accumulation. Griffin rarely telegraphs a thesis loudly, but this one speaks for itself.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
