Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets right now.
Equities pushed higher on Tuesday with chipmakers leading the charge. The S&P five hundred closed up nearly eight tenths of a percent, while the Nasdaq one hundred outperformed, gaining one point six eight percent on the session. Semiconductor strength drove the bulk of that move, giving tech its clearest footing in weeks.
Staying with the broader investment picture, ETF inflows hit a record pace in the first half of two thousand twenty six, with investors showing no signs of cooling on the artificial intelligence theme. The numbers confirm what traders on the floor have been watching — retail and institutional money alike continue rotating aggressively into AI-adjacent names, sustaining valuations that skeptics have questioned for months.
Shifting to commodities, coffee prices surged on Tuesday, with September arabica futures closing up more than six and a half percent to post four and a half month highs. Heavy rains across Brazil have delayed the harvest and tightened an already strained global supply picture. Somar Meteorologia flagged the crop concerns, and the market responded swiftly — this is a supply shock story, not a demand story, and traders are pricing it accordingly.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
