Shares of Sandisk (SNDK) and SK Hynix (SKHY) rose in early morning trade on Tuesday after the companies unveiled the first industry standard for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a new memory technology that could make it easier for AI systems built around different chipmakers to work together.
SNDK stock rose as much as 2.3% in pre-market trade, while SKHY stock gained just under 2%. Retail sentiment around SNDK remained in ‘extremely bullish’ territory over the past day, while sentiment around SKHY fell to ‘neutral’ from ‘bullish’ territory over the past day. Chatter for both remained at ‘extremely high’ levels.
The HBF specification, released through the Open Compute Project (OCP), is not a commercial product but an open blueprint for the next generation of AI memory. Developed by Sandisk and SK Hynix with contributions from Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Google and AI chip startup Tenstorrent, HBF is designed to bridge the gap between ultra-fast but capacity-constrained High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and slower, high-capacity SSDs by using NAND flash optimized for much higher data transfer speeds.
One of the biggest changes is that HBF adopts the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) standard, allowing the technology to connect with processors from multiple vendors instead of relying on proprietary interconnects.
In practice, that means future AI servers could combine Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs with processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel (INTC), or custom AI accelerators while using the same memory architecture.
An open HBF standard could gradually reduce that dependence by giving hyperscalers and enterprise customers a common memory layer that works across multiple chip architectures.
The shift comes as companies, including Google, Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta (META), invest billions of dollars in developing their own AI accelerators to reduce their reliance on Nvidia. At the same time, newer players and memory manufacturers, including China's CXMT, are racing to catch up in technologies such as HBM and advanced chip packaging.
SK Hynix also received a slew of bullish calls from Wall Street on Tuesday morning. RBC Capital’s Srini Pajjuri initiated coverage with an ‘Outperform’ rating and a $200 price target. He stated that the current memory upcycle could run through 2027 as generative AI drives structurally stronger demand.
Pajjuri added that SK Hynix’s leadership in high bandwidth memory (HBM) and predicted that HBM contract repricing in 2027 would be a key tailwind, helping offset any moderation in DRAM prices and closing the valuation gap with U.S. peers.
Stifel gave SKHY stock a ‘Buy’ rating and $240 price target, calling DRAM “a vital component of AI hardware infrastructure” and stating that SK Hynix’s execution remains undervalued. William Blair also initiated at ‘Outperform’, noting that tight near‑term supply has tripled AI memory prices and pushed SK Hynix to record revenues and margins, with free cash flow projected to more than double by 2028.
Read also: Tom Lee Predicts 2027 Will Be One Of Stock Market's ‘Best Years’ As SpaceX, Fed Risks Fade
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Replimune (REPL) remained on investors’ radar on Tuesday as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision on its melanoma therapy remained pending beyond the Aug. 2 verdict date, with Leerink expressing ‘high conviction’ that the treatment will secure accelerated approval.
REPL stock gained 1.5% in premarket trading, building on three consecutive sessions of gains that have increased its value by more than 120%.
Leerink upgraded Replimune to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ and raised its price target to $17 from $11, according to The Fly. This represents a roughly 40% upside potential from current levels.
The brokerage expects the treatment to see strong demand if approved, citing its relative ease of access and favorable safety profile. However, Replimune’s biggest near-term hurdle will be rebuilding its manufacturing and commercial infrastructure, the firm noted.
Leerink argued that several factors have significantly strengthened RP1’s regulatory case, leaving the FDA “boxed into approval.”
The firm pointed to last week’s 10-3 advisory committee vote supporting the treatment, the panel’s agreement that patients have a significant unmet medical need, and the current and political environment favoring faster access to therapies.
The positive vote marked a sharp turnaround after FDA staff reviewers had questioned whether Replimune had provided sufficient evidence that the therapy was effective. The FDA had twice rejected the therapy, first in July 2025 and again in April 2026, arguing that the single-arm IGNYTE study did not provide sufficient evidence of effectiveness.
Retail sentiment surrounding REPL on Stocktwits turned ‘neutral’ from ‘extremely bullish’ with chatter discussing the potential implications of the delayed FDA response.
One user said the delay could be due to the FDA issuing yet another complete response letter, indicating that the application is rejected.
However, another user said the delay is likely due to REPL negotiating with the FDA over the label.
The stock has gained around 34% so far this year.
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The Senate enters a pivotal week for crypto regulation with the CLARITY Act still mired in an ethics dispute that could delay one of the industry's most anticipated bills until after the August recess. With the measure yet to appear on the Senate floor schedule, lawmakers face a narrowing window to advance legislation that would establish long-awaited rules for digital asset markets.
The White House has not yet replied to a bipartisan compromise proposal that would fix the largest remaining hurdle to the bill, as lawmakers rush to get the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act through Congress before the August recess, according to journalist Eleanor Terrett.
The proposal in question was introduced by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) last Thursday, said Terrett. Terrett also added that said that a deal on the bill’s biggest outstanding issue had yet to materialize heading into the week of a potential vote.
This comes amid a wider trend of crypto-friendly individuals leaving Washington, including the recent departures of former US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Harry Jung, and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo) from the policy arena.
Furthermore, Treasury Department’s top digital assets adviser, Tyler Williams, left the government on Friday to return to the private sector under Secretary Scott Bessent.
Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong also said on Monday that the bill “represents a ton of bipartisan work” and that “70% of Americans” want clear crypto rules.
“It’s about America getting back to winning, and staying strong as a financial and technology hub,” Armstrong added, noting the bill includes new authorities for banks to integrate stablecoins and crypto. “This week we will find out who in the Senate stands for the will of the people,” he wrote.
COIN stock was up by 0.23% during pre-market trading. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around COIN remained in the ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter around it stayed in the ‘high’ levels over the past day.
The standoff traces to late July, when Senate Republicans floated ethics provisions that would prohibit federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital materials, with enforcement left solely to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Senator Gallego, one of only two Democrats to vote the bill out of committee, rejected the language as "not a serious effort," according to Politico. He and Tillis then drafted a counterproposal allowing state attorneys general to challenge DOJ inaction on ethics enforcement, a mechanism modeled on the Laken Riley Act.
On-chain analyst TedPillows pointed out that as of Monday, the bill was still not on the Senate’s floor schedule and that if cloture is filed on Wednesday, the earliest vote would be Friday, which would leave virtually no time before the August 10 recess.
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Hollywood’s long-running battle between theaters and streaming services has taken an unexpected turn in 2026, as movie exhibitors benefit from major releases, premium viewing formats and renewed interest in shared entertainment experiences.
While streaming platforms like Netflix Inc. (NFLX) face slower growth, cinema operators including IMAX Corp. (IMAX), Cinemark Holdings (CNK) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) have gained momentum as audiences return to the big screen.
Movie theater stocks have outperformed several streaming names this year. Year-to-date, IMAX stock is up roughly 38%, Cinemark about 64%, and AMC a whopping 82%. Netflix, once the undisputed king of the post-theater era, is down about 21%. Walt Disney Co. is down 13%, while Paramount Skydance stock has crashed 38%.
The comeback is not because of just one successful weekend. It is being driven by a strong lineup of movies, including Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Sony’s hit “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” along with unexpected Gen Z favorites and theater chains adding more premium viewing options. At the same time, Netflix is dealing with challenges after its failed attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) studio assets.
July delivered IMAX its highest-grossing month in company history: $257 million at the global box office, 47% above its previous record. The Odyssey, shot entirely with IMAX cameras and starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, has already generated $221 million in IMAX ticket sales alone and more than $640–700 million worldwide, with major markets in China, Japan, and South Korea still ahead.
It became the fastest film in IMAX history to surpass $200 million in the format and the only release ever to post multiple $40 million-plus IMAX weekends. The stock reaction was immediate: IMAX stock hit an all-time high of $50.72 on the news, up more than 30% since the film's July 17 U.S. debut, with CEO Rich Gelfond saying the film’s box office trajectory "continues to defy gravity."
This is not a one-movie miracle. The 2026 slate is stacked with event pictures. Sony (SONY) and Marvel's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" just posted the biggest domestic opening weekend in box-office history — $360 million, edging past "Avengers: Endgame's" long-standing $357.1 million record — on its way to a $932 million global weekend, the second-largest worldwide opening ever. Project Hail Mary surprised as a $683 million hit that drew younger crowds, and a string of mid-budget successes found audiences through social-media buzz.
According to a report from Variety, the U.S. box office is set to reach $10 billion this year, marking the first time since before the pandemic. More people are returning to theaters, and they are spending more per visit by choosing premium formats like IMAX and Dolby Cinema, which charge higher ticket prices.
Netflix's stock decline is linked to a major deal that never happened. The company had planned to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming businesses for $82.7 billion, but Paramount Skydance entered the bidding. After a long takeover battle, Netflix decided not to increase its offer, saying the final price was too expensive.
Investors initially cheered the streaming giant’s discipline preference. But Netflix's second-quarter earnings report on July 16 largely met expectations and gave investors no meaningful upward revision to full-year revenue guidance, and the stock sold off sharply.
Netflix shares have fallen nearly 38% in the past year as investors worry about slower growth, deal-making plans and the company’s failed Warner Bros. acquisition attempt. At the same time, theaters, which Netflix was expected to replace, have enjoyed one of their strongest periods in years.
AMC and Cinemark have treated the rebound as validation of a multi-year capital strategy rather than a temporary bounce. AMC’s Q2 results were historic with record revenue of $1.6 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $321 million, up 70%, the first time the company cleared $300 million in a quarter in its 106-year history.
Cinemark delivered its own records in Q2: $1.1 billion in revenue, $294 million adjusted EBITDA, and a 27.1% margin. Premium large formats contributed 13% to 14% of admissions revenue on a much smaller share of screens.
The valuation gap between theaters and streaming has narrowed, but the market still views them differently. IMAX’s stock is trading at a P/E (price-to-earnings) multiple of 26.9, while Cinemark trades at a more moderate multiple of 16.1. AMC remains unprofitable, and Netflix now trades at a lower multiple of 21.2 despite maintaining solid margins and revenue growth. The 2026 shift is less about streaming failing and more about investors rewarding theaters for a strong release cycle while demanding new growth from streaming companies.
U.S. stock futures were higher early Tuesday as Wall Street looks to build on Monday’s rally driven by earnings. Strong results from Palantir and Snap have set the tone, with markets bracing for crucial after-hours earnings reports from AMD, Lucid, and SpaceX’s first public earnings release ahead of its post-IPO share unlock.
As of 4:00 a.m. ET, Nasdaq futures were up 0.7%, Russell 2000 futures gained 0.3%, while S&P 500 and Dow futures rose 0.1%.
Despite the broad market momentum, retail traders remain wary. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500 Index, and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, has remained ‘bearish.’
On the geopolitical front, investors parsed conflicting headlines from Washington and Tehran: Over the weekend, President Donald Trump highlighted a pause in planned military strikes to allow for talks, while Iran clarified on Monday that its discussions were strictly via Oman to secure a temporary commercial shipping agreement through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil stocks such as BATL, TPET, XOM, CVX, EONR and USO will remain in focus today.
Meanwhile, Meta, Anthropic, Google and OpenAI executives are set to meet White House officials on Tuesday to discuss voluntary artificial intelligence (AI) safety testing.
Palantir (PLTR): Shares soared 15% in early premarket trade after the data and AI software company beat earnings expectations and raised its outlook. CEO Alex Karp renewed his criticism of frontier AI companies, saying Palantir "does not get paid for clicks or tokens or chats."
Snap (SNAP): Stock rose 9% in early premarket trading on strong Q2 advertising and subscription growth. CEO Evan Spiegel said there is significant room for further subscription expansion, ahead of its Specs launch event in September.
Amazon.com (AMZN): Shares fell over 1% in early premarket trade after touching a record $3 trillion market cap on AWS strength. Reports indicate that founder Jeff Bezos filed a Form 144 to sell up to 15 million shares (nearly $4 billion) under a prearranged trading plan. Cathie Wood has reportedly bought nearly $21M of Amazon shares on Monday.
Microsoft (MSFT): Shares fell over 1% in early premarket trade after a three-session rally that added $750 billion in market value post-earnings. Fresh reports indicate that Xbox 360 games may soon come to Windows PCs.
SanDisk (SNDK) rose 3% in early premarket following news that SanDisk and SK Hynix released the first Open Compute Project technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) standardization in AI inference systems.
Memory chip peer Micron (MU) was also trading higher. A research report claims that Micron could replace SK Hynix as the world's second-largest DRAM supplier.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): Gained over 3% premarket ahead of its Q2 report, with investors watching for guidance, Helios AI roadmap updates and data center momentum. Meanwhile, Citigroup disclosed a multibillion-dollar AMD stake.
SpaceX (SPCX): Reports its first quarterly earnings as a listed company after-hours today, which comes just two days before its initial post-IPO share unlock begins. Investors will be looking for profitability at Starlink, AI-related capital spending and outlook going ahead.
Lucid Group (LCID): The EV maker also reports after the bell, with Wall Street expecting a $900 million quarterly loss. Investors will focus on liquidity, restructuring plans under new CEO Silvio Napoli, Saudi-backed expansion, and production guidance.
Spotify (SPOT): Shares were subdued ahead of its Q2 earnings release, with Morgan Stanley raising its price target to $640 on upcoming AI and subscription catalysts.
GameStop (GME): Remains on the retail radar as bulls speculate that Monday's sharp selloff, triggered by a $1.4 billion convertible debt exchange deal, is a balance-sheet setup for a larger acquisition or corporate play.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS): Shares hover at a three-week high ahead of Wednesday’s BlueBird satellite launch.
SELLAS Life Sciences (SLS): Gained ground in early premarket trade. Citigroup disclosed an expanded $4.8 million stake ahead of key Phase 3 AML trial milestones.
Other tickers trending on Stocktwits at the time of writing included Xpeng Inc (XPEV), Walmart Inc (WMT), Chevron Corp (CVX), Ondas Inc (ONDS), and Redwire Corp (RDW).
On the economic front, investors will be watching for the release of the trade balance at 8:30 am ET, followed by the job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) at 10:00 am ET.
On the earnings front, Pfizer Inc. (PFE), Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (AUPH), McDonald's Corp (MCD), and Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) are among those reporting before the bell today.
SpaceX heads into its first earnings report as a public company after a $500 billion market-value wipeout, with investors weighing CEO Elon Musk’s promise of massive growth against an analyst’s warning that the sprawling business faces an “identity crisis.”
The company reports after Tuesday’s closing bell, less than two months after its June 12 debut. SpaceX has lost more than $500 billion in market value since its first trade and enters earnings after four consecutive weekly declines. The stock is more than 50% below its intraday peak. Meanwhile, short sellers had amassed $8.3 billion in paper profits since the IPO as of Friday, CNBC reported, citing S3 Partners.
More pressure could follow as rolling lockups begin expiring, allowing early investors to sell. Despite the rout, SpaceX remains valued at about $1.4 trillion.
MoffettNathanson analyst Julie Zhu said SpaceX’s launch, satellite-connectivity and AI operations make the company unusually difficult to value. “SpaceX, in our view, sort of has almost a bit of an identity crisis,” Zhu said, pointing to its many different businesses, as per a Bloomberg interview.
Despite the excitement surrounding Starlink and AI, she considers launch the foundation supporting everything else. “For us, the crown jewel is really the launch piece,” Zhu said. Without SpaceX’s scarce rocket capacity, its connectivity network would be harder to deploy and orbital data centers “wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion.” MoffettNathanson is below consensus on SpaceX’s longer-term AI and connectivity prospects, but Zhu does not expect Tuesday’s report to settle the debate.
“We’re probably not going to hear all that much tomorrow to help us reset those expectations,” she said. The firm expects a near-term beat from terrestrial AI, though spending will likely remain elevated. SpaceX’s compute agreements with Google, Anthropic and Reflection AI carry pricing two to three times typical neocloud rates, which could help the quarter while raising a longer-term “question of sustainability.”
Koyfin consensus estimates call for $6.82 billion in second-quarter revenue and $2.05 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. SpaceX is expected to post an adjusted loss of $0.23 per share. Investors will likely focus on Starship, Starlink profitability, AI spending and the capital needed to support several expensive projects simultaneously.
Over the weekend, Musk replied “Few understand” to an X post claiming SpaceX could add revenue equivalent to Tesla’s entire business within 12 to 24 months. Based on Tesla’s latest financials, that implies $95 billion to $104 billion in additional annualized revenue. Musk also appeared to endorse a post calling SpaceX stock an “insane” investment “opportunity in retrospect.”
SpaceX is leasing excess computing capacity as it develops its own AI services. Its Google agreement reportedly generates $920 million monthly, while Anthropic and Reflection AI have separate arrangements. The company merged with Musk’s xAI in February and plans to acquire AI-coding company Cursor for $60 billion, with closing expected in the third quarter subject to regulatory approval.
Starship remains central to lowering launch costs and deploying next-generation Starlink satellites. SpaceX expects payload deliveries to begin in the second half of 2026. The rocket completed its 13th test flight on July 24, although its Super Heavy booster suffered a hard splashdown after only some engines reignited for landing.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for SPCX slipped to ‘neutral’ from ‘bullish’ levels a day ago amid a 350% surge in 24-hour message volumes.
One user said, “$SPCX it’s actually exciting to hear the doubters and haters. Reminds me of Facebook, Uber, Amazon, and Tesla in their early days. Except these are rockets, ai, and global telecommunications.”
Meanwhile, a bearish user said, “$SPCX Lets see how much money they are burning with xAI. Im not too optimistic”
SPCX stock has declined 29% so far this year.