Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the tape this hour.
Rheinmetall shares cratered seventeen percent today after the German defense giant slashed its two thousand twenty six outlook for the second time in just three months. The culprit is a familiar one in European defense circles — delays to German military procurement and stalled artillery ammunition deliveries. When a company this central to NATO rearmament starts missing its own targets twice in a quarter, markets don't forgive quietly.
Shifting east, Beijing has blocked SoftBank's five point four billion dollar robotics deal, and the message from Chinese regulators couldn't be clearer. China is drawing a hard line around AI data and technical expertise developed on its soil, treating homegrown intelligence as a strategic asset rather than a tradeable commodity. This is geopolitics expressed through a deal veto, and it won't be the last one.
Meanwhile, Jim Cramer is pushing back against the sentiment storm battering Apple and Palantir, calling the negativity around both names, quote, pretty thick. Whether you follow Cramer or fade him, the broader context is sobering — chip and memory stocks have shed roughly three point seven trillion dollars in value, and the tech selloff is grinding into a new week with no obvious catalyst for a floor.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
