Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Investor sentiment is staging a clear comeback on Wall Street, with a stellar earnings season and cooling inflation driving fresh money back into US equities. The rebound follows July's bruising selloff in chip stocks, and the mood on the floor has shifted meaningfully as bulls reassert control heading into the back half of the year.
Riding that wave of renewed confidence, Reddit is set to join the S&P five hundred next week, replacing a real estate investment trust on the index. That inclusion matters because index funds tracking the S&P will be required to buy shares automatically, creating mechanical demand that has historically given newly added names a meaningful near-term lift.
And on the AI front, Elon Musk has publicly acknowledged that Anthropic is the current leader in artificial intelligence — a striking admission given his long history of dismissing rivals. For Amazon investors, that carries real weight, since Amazon has committed billions to Anthropic through its AWS cloud division, positioning that bet as a potential crown jewel in the broader AI arms race.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
