Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk. Here is where things stand.
Semiconductors took a hard hit Monday, with the sector down nearly five percent on the session. AXT Incorporated shed roughly sixteen percent, and Astera Labs fell close to fifteen, dragging the group lower in what was a notably rough day for chip-related names across the board.
Energy told a very different story. Oil and gas exploration and production shares led the market, gaining more than three percent on the day. PEDEVCO surged nearly eighteen percent, and Venture Global added eight and a half, as the energy complex found clear favor with buyers rotating out of growth and into commodity-linked names.
Away from the tape, Meta announced a major expansion of its Hyperion data center in Louisiana, scaling the campus to five gigawatts of compute capacity at a cost exceeding fifty billion dollars. The project has already generated real community impact, including year-end bonuses of up to fifty thousand dollars for local teachers, underscoring how large-scale AI infrastructure spending is reaching well beyond Silicon Valley.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
