The Fed’s First Tantrum, SpaceX’s Reality Check, and Why AI Stocks Don’t Care
New Fed chair. New dot plot. Same market drama.
Welcome to Staten News, where the Fed got a new boss, SpaceX discovered gravity, and AI stocks treated interest rates like optional reading.
Last week had all the ingredients of a classic Wall Street panic: a hawkish Fed meeting, rising Treasury yields, and enough market hand-wringing to power CNBC for a month.
The funny part? The selloff lasted about as long as a New Year’s gym membership.
📊 The Warsh Wobble
Kevin Warsh officially chaired his first Federal Reserve meeting last week, and investors weren’t exactly sending welcome baskets.
The Fed held rates steady at 3.50%–3.75%, which was fully expected. The real fireworks came from the updated projections, where 9 of 18 officials now expect at least one rate hike before year-end.
Back in March, the market was pricing in cuts.
Now? The Fed’s basically saying, “Not so fast.”
Stocks dipped Wednesday, Treasury yields jumped, and traders briefly acted like higher rates had just been invented.
Then Thursday arrived and everyone moved on.
💥 Winner of the Week: Intel (+10.6%)
Intel absolutely stole the show.
Shares surged after President Trump announced that Intel would manufacture chips for Apple in the United States, giving investors three things they love:
AI exposure
Domestic manufacturing
A good headline
The move lifted the entire semiconductor sector:
Nvidia: +2.8%
Micron: +8.5%
Intel: +10.6%
Translation: the AI infrastructure trade just got a fresh energy drink.
Investors aren’t just buying chips anymore. They’re buying the idea that America wants more chips built at home—and Intel suddenly became the poster child for that story.
😬 Loser of the Week: SpaceX (SPCX)
SpaceX’s IPO debut looked like a Hollywood blockbuster.
The stock priced at $135, opened at $150, and rocketed to $225.64 within days.
For a brief moment, investors were acting like Elon had personally discovered a fourth law of motion.
Then reality checked in.
By week’s end, shares were sitting roughly 13% below their highs, reminding everyone that even rocket companies eventually come back to Earth.
To be clear, the stock is still up roughly 23% from its IPO price.
But when hype outruns fundamentals, gravity tends to win a few rounds.
Every monster IPO follows the same script:
Retail investors pile in.
Valuation becomes a suggestion.
Reality arrives with a baseball bat.
SpaceX is currently in Act Three.
🌍 The Story Behind the Story
The week was really a tale of three trading days.
Wednesday’s Fed meeting knocked markets lower.
Thursday’s tech rally erased most of the damage.
Friday’s Juneteenth market closure meant the entire week’s drama got compressed into a shorter window.
Meanwhile, a quieter but important story emerged overseas.
The U.S. and Iran extended their ceasefire and resumed negotiations, with both sides reporting progress toward a broader agreement. Oil prices eased, helping remove one of the market’s biggest headline risks.
That’s a bigger deal than it sounds.
Every rally this year has had to compete with geopolitical uncertainty, and lower oil prices give investors one less thing to worry about.
🔮 This Week’s Prediction
🚀 Potential Gainer: Micron (MU)
Micron reports earnings Wednesday, and expectations are sky-high.
The company has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the memory chip shortage, and Wall Street wants proof that pricing power remains intact.
If management delivers strong guidance, Micron could become the next leader of the AI infrastructure rally.
Think of it as Intel’s sequel.
⚠️ Potential Loser: SpaceX (SPCX)
The post-IPO honeymoon appears to be ending.
Lockup expirations still loom, valuation questions remain, and investors may need a fresh catalyst before chasing shares higher again.
Until index inclusion or another major demand driver arrives, SpaceX could continue drifting lower from its euphoric highs.
🔭 Looking Ahead
This week isn’t really about the Fed anymore.
It’s about whether AI infrastructure companies can justify the excitement with actual earnings.
If Micron delivers, the AI trade gets another boost.
If not, investors may suddenly remember those higher interest rates everyone was worried about last Wednesday.
Either way, Wall Street is about to find out whether this rally is powered by profits—or just optimism with a better marketing department.
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research.
— The Bandicoots 📉📈