Micron crushed earnings after the bell on Wednesday and sent shares surging more than 10%, pushing its market cap past $500 billion. Qualcomm jumped on the news that it's breaking into data centers. And just hours before a scheduled signing ceremony, President Trump canceled the housing affordability bill that had passed Congress by wide margins, holding it hostage for voter ID legislation.

So on this Thursday, we're looking at what Micron's beat means for AI infrastructure confidence, how Thursday's PCE inflation print could shape the Fed's next move, and why Europe is pushing back hard on Washington's chip war as the Netherlands lobbies against blocking sales to China.

Today:

📰 Micron beats big and Qualcomm jumps as chip stocks get their confidence back
🏘️ President Trump cancels housing bill signing hours before ceremony
🤖 Anthropic accuses Alibaba of "brazenly" extracting AI capabilities
🇪🇺 Europe pushes back on Washington's chip war
📊 Thursday's PCE inflation reading could shape the Fed's path

Let's get into it.

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

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Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma traveled to Washington this week for a rare diplomatic offensive: lobbying Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of Congress to kill the MATCH Act, a proposed bill that would bar Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment. The stakes are massive for ASML, Europe's most valuable company and the only maker in the world of the advanced lithography machines used to produce cutting-edge AI chips.

China accounts for 19% of ASML's net system sales. The MATCH Act would extend existing curbs beyond ASML's most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools, which are already banned from reaching China, to also block sales of deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion machines, older-generation equipment first shipped roughly a decade ago that China can currently buy.

"It's exceptional that I'm coming here to broadly outline our concerns to Congress," Sjoerdsma told Bloomberg after the meetings. "The stakes for the Netherlands may be very high."

The bill, introduced in April, hasn't yet faced a full House or Senate vote and would likely need to be folded into a larger legislative package to pass. But the mere possibility has forced European officials into defensive mode, signaling a widening rift between Washington's hardline stance on China and Europe's more commercially exposed position.

The issue at hand is clear: Washington wants to choke off China's access to any Western chipmaking tools that could support military or AI advancement. Europe wants to preserve commercial relationships with its second-largest export market without triggering retaliation or losing ground to competitors willing to fill the gap.

The bottom line: you probably own more ASML than you think. It's one of the largest holdings in popular semiconductor ETFs like SMH and SOXX, and a heavyweight in most European and international index/mutual funds, so this fight reaches well beyond the people who bought the stock outright. The way we see it, if the MATCH Act passes and the DUV ban goes through, ASML loses a chunk of the 19% of sales it gets from China, which would pressure the stock and most chip-heavy positions you hold. If it stalls, that cloud lifts. The one thing to watch is whether the bill gets attached to a larger must-pass package, because that, not a standalone vote, is the realistic route to it becoming law.

This is educational, not investment advice. Do your own research before acting.

US stocks drifted on Wednesday as investors weighed fresh AI drama, cooling oil prices, and the next inflation print.

Micron crushed earnings and sent shares surging more than 10% after the bell. The chipmaker posted a sizable beat on Q3 results and offered a rosy outlook, helping restore confidence in AI infrastructure spending. The stock had already climbed 62% year-to-date before the report, pushing Micron's market cap past $500 billion and making it larger than Oracle.

Qualcomm jumped after hours following its announcement that it would break into the data center market and expects surging revenue from its AI business. The chipmaker is looking beyond smartphones to cash in on the AI boom, a move that lifted investor sentiment across the semiconductor sector.

President Trump canceled the housing affordability bill signing just hours before the scheduled ceremony, threatening the future of rare bipartisan legislation. President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the signing is "hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT." The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act had passed Congress by wide margins and aimed to increase housing supply, lower costs, and restrict large corporate investors' role in the market. A set had already been assembled inside Statuary Hall when President Trump's announcement landed.

Anthropic accused Alibaba of "brazenly" attempting to extract its AI capabilities in a letter to US officials. The AI startup claims Alibaba carried out "the largest known distillation attack on Anthropic to date," with operators using roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to conduct 28.8 million exchanges with its models between April 22 and June 5. The letter lands two months after the White House pledged to help AI companies detect and coordinate against industrial-scale distillation campaigns.

Google is losing two more high-profile AI staffers to Anthropic. The tech giant is contending with a series of high-level exits that threaten to undercut its position in the AI race.

The Strait of Hormuz reopening is flooding oil markets with supply. The vital shipping route's restoration is easing the supply crunch that sent crude prices soaring during the Iran conflict.

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Cheers,
Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc