Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving money.
Memory chips are back at the center of the trade. Ericsson took its worst earnings-day stock hit in nearly three years after revealing that surging component costs, almost certainly the spike in memory-chip prices, are compressing margins. It's a sharp reminder that the AI hardware boom cuts both ways — suppliers win, assemblers bleed.
That same supply-chain dynamic is driving retail traders toward SK Hynix, which has emerged as the next bottleneck play after Micron. These investors are hunting for options exposure to the Korean chipmaker, betting that tight memory supply feeding AI infrastructure demand makes it the next high-conviction squeeze trade in the semiconductor stack.
Meanwhile, the global shipping industry is pushing back hard on the White House's reported idea of levying tolls on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Hapag-Lloyd called it fundamentally wrong to charge fees on international waters, and the concern is practical as much as principled — any such move risks retaliatory disruptions to energy flows and freight lanes that underpin global trade at the worst possible moment for supply chains already under pressure.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
