S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow End Lower As US-Iran War Fear Remerges — PSKY, META, GOOGL, INTC, NFLX In Focus

• The S&P 500 ended 0.8% lower, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 1.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average eased 0.3%.
• Brent crude prices jumped over $80 per barrel. 
• Meta Platforms plans to spend $40 billion on its data center campus in Louisiana.

U.S. stock indices ended lower on Monday as oil prices and bond yields spiked, following fresh U.S.-Iran tensions over the Strait of Hormuz, fanning inflation worries. 

The S&P 500 ended 0.8% lower, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 1.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average eased 0.3%. The Russell 2000, which tracks stocks with small market capitalizations, fell 0.8%.

Among ETFs tracking benchmark indexes, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) dropped 0.8% and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) ended Monday around 2% lower, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) fell 0.4%. 

Meanwhile, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) lost 4%, while the broader Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) slipped about 2.2%, pushed lower by weakness in Nvidia (NVDA), SpaceX (SPCX), Broadcom (AVGO), Micron Tech (MU), Meta (META) and Tesla (TSLA). 

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits for SPY, QQQ and DIA was between ‘bullish’ and ‘neutral’ zones with ‘normal’ to ‘high’ message volumes.

US Market Drivers

Memory chip stocks led Monday's declines, with SanDisk (SNDK) and Western Digital led declines most as investors grew concerned about the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply chain.

The primary driver for Monday’s weakness was a surge in oil price above the $80 per barrel level that stoked inflation worries, raising bets for a sooner-than-expected interest rate hike. 

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World,” he continued.

The most recent escalation followed a weekend of mutual airstrikes between the U.S. and Iran. Tehran claimed it had shut down the Strait of Hormuz after targeting U.S. facilities in multiple Gulf nations. 

“The energy sector is once again in the limelight as the status of the Strait of Hormuz is driving price action in global markets,” said Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets. “There is a growing sense that the situation is likely to get worse before it de-escalates.” 

Trending Stocks To Watch 

Paramount Skydance Corporation (PSKY): The company on Monday pushed back against a newly filed multi-state lawsuit aiming to block its historic $110-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), warning that delaying the transaction will only harm entertainment workers and benefit dominant Silicon Valley tech platforms. 

Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL): Google is reportedly expanding efforts to sell its custom AI chips to independent cloud providers as a direct challenge to Nvidia's (NVDA) dominance in AI hardware. 

Intel (INTC): The U.S. chipmaker plans to invest $5.7 billion to expand manufacturing capabilities at its Leixlip campus in Ireland, as part of its latest push to address the chip shortage driven by demand for AI infrastructure. 

Netflix (NFLX): Oppenheimer lowered its price target on Netflix to $100 from $120, while KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson reduced his target to $92 from $115 ahead of results due this week. 

Apple (AAPL): The Cupertino, California-based tech giant saw its shipments grow 3% year-over-year in Q2, securing a historic 20% share of the second-quarter global market for the first time, according to Centerpoint. 

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