Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your closing bell rundown for the session.
Palantir is the story of the day in tech, with shares surging after the company posted a staggering ninety-three percent year-over-year revenue gain in the second quarter. CEO Alex Karp, characteristically combative on the earnings call, framed the growth around what he calls AI sovereignty, arguing that enterprises are waking up to the risk of handing sensitive data to frontier AI labs that, in his words, believe they deserve to colonize your enterprise. The market clearly liked the message.
Shifting to industrials, Linde reported its second quarter results, with the industrial gases giant continuing to benefit from steady demand across semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy infrastructure, and healthcare. Linde has been a quiet compounder in this environment, and the earnings call reinforced that its long-cycle project backlog remains a durable earnings floor even as broader macro conditions stay uncertain.
In agriculture, corn futures reversed sharply off overnight lows, closing six to eight and a half cents higher across most active contracts, with the national cash price climbing nearly ten cents to four dollars and twenty cents a bushel. The catalyst was the weekly crop progress report from NASS, which showed deteriorating ratings, reminding traders that weather risk is still very much alive in this growing season.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
