Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your close of business briefing on the stories moving markets today.
IBM's headline numbers looked clean until you pulled the thread. Strip out its eleven billion dollar acquisition of Confluent, and the company's own software sales were flat last quarter. The deal is doing exactly what it was designed to do, but organic growth is essentially standing still, and that is the kind of detail CFO Jim Kavanaugh could not fully paper over on Wednesday's earnings call.
Shifting to Cupertino, Apple is calling demand for its new iPhone duo extraordinary, though that word is doing a lot of heavy lifting. What we actually know is that pre-order windows have already slipped, meaning if you missed the early window, you are waiting. Strong demand signals are constructive for the stock, but extraordinary is a marketing word until shipment data confirms it.
On the critical minerals front, MP Materials is emerging as Washington's preferred national champion in the push to break China's grip on rare earth supply chains. The geopolitical stakes here are significant. Whoever controls these inputs controls the upstream of electric vehicles, defense systems, and advanced semiconductors, and the policy tailwind behind MP is now very deliberate.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
