The market just had one of its best days of the year, and it wasn't the Fed, it wasn't a tax cut, and it wasn't even a single piece of corporate news. It was hope. Specifically, hope that the war between the US and Iran is finally winding down. (Plus, chip stocks blowing earnings out of the water hasn’t hurt.)

The S&P 500 closed up 1.46% at 7,365. The Nasdaq closed up 2.02% at 25,839. The Dow added 612 points and finished at 49,911. All three landed at fresh all-time highs in the same session, which doesn't happen often. Total US market cap added roughly a trillion dollars in a single day.

Meanwhile, AMD blew the doors off its earnings report and reignited the chip trade. Samsung crossed a trillion dollars in market cap for the first time. And Trump went on Truth Social to do what Trump does when stocks rip: post about it.

Today we're walking through what's actually driving the rally, what the chip earnings are telling us about where AI capex is heading, and the alt-data signals that are flashing on a chip name we think you should pay attention to.

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

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The headline number from Wednesday's session: roughly one trillion dollars added to the total US stock market in a single trading day. Not a typo.

The S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow all closed at new all-time highs at the same time. That's a cleaner tell than any one index hitting a record on its own. The rally is broad. It's not just tech.

Here's what was actually driving it.

The big mover wasn't earnings. It was a report that the US and Iran are nearing a deal to end the war. Oil prices fell, energy stocks relaxed, and risk-on money rotated back into equities. We're not going to lie, we've heard "peace deal incoming" reports more than once this year, and we'd take this one with a grain of salt too. But the market is clearly pricing it in.

The second story was AMD. The chip designer's earnings call was a full-on "AI capex is even bigger than you think" event. Capex guidance from the hyperscalers keeps climbing, and AMD is sitting in the middle of that flow alongside Nvidia. The chip trade is back in a big way.

Then there's the cherry on top. Samsung Electronics crossed a trillion dollars in market cap for the first time, making it only the second Asian company in history to hit the mark. The first one was a name you might have heard of (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing). More on TSMC in a minute.

And as if on cue, Trump posted on Truth Social: "Stock Market hit an ALL-TIME HIGH TODAY. Jobs & 401-K's are BOOMING!!!"

He's not wrong on the surface. With the S&P up double digits year-to-date, the average 401(k) holder is sitting on real numbers right now. We'd just point out what we always point out: those numbers feel great when stocks are going up and a lot less great when they're not. The whole point of building a portfolio you actually understand (instead of defaulting into a target-date fund and forgetting about it) is so that you have some say in the ride. Just something to think about.

Now to the more interesting question: what's the next chip name to watch?

If Samsung just hit a trillion dollars in market cap, where does TSMC go from here?

TSMC is the company that actually makes the most advanced chips in the world. Apple's A-series. Nvidia's H100s and Blackwell. AMD's MI300X. They all roll off TSMC fabs in Taiwan. Samsung's milestone got the headlines yesterday, but TSMC has been sitting at around two trillion dollars in market cap for a while now.

So here's what's actually new, and here's what our partner AltIndex's alternative data is picking up on TSM that you might not be hearing on CNBC:

The sum of those signals: a lot of indicators that traders don’t always pay attention to (insider activity, congressional trades, AI customer exposure, social volume spikes) are all moving in the same direction at the same time. That's worth looking into.

If you want to dig into any of it yourself, TSMC's full AltIndex profile is here →

If Samsung was the trillion-dollar story this week, we think TSMC could be the two-trillion-and-then-some story before the year is out. Anything can happen, of course, and the geopolitics around Taiwan are a real risk. But the alt-data is what it is.

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US stocks surged to fresh records on Wednesday as investors celebrated peace deal optimism and stellar tech earnings, which fueled the AI rally.

Arm Holdings jumped 12% in after-hours trading after forecasting first-quarter revenue of $1.26 billion, topping analyst expectations. CEO Rene Haas said the company is "very bullish about this data center demand," noting a healthy uptick in royalties from AI compute. Arm also announced it has secured $2 billion in customer demand for its new AGI CPU across fiscal 2027 and 2028.

Oil prices tumbled on peace deal hopes, with Brent crude briefly crossing below $100 per barrel. Investors were assessing an Axios report that the US believes it's close to an agreement with Iran on a one-page memo to end the war. Optimism had already received a boost from President Trump's abrupt pause on the US plan to help ships transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The K-shaped economy is showing up at the gas pump. The national average hit $4.53 per gallon, and economists at the New York Fed found that lower-income households have cut consumption the most while higher-income households have barely adjusted. Bank of America warned that further erosion of real spending power "could cause another leg up in delinquencies" for struggling households.

Coinbase reports earnings Thursday after announcing plans to cut 14% of its headcount, citing "current market conditions" and a need to optimize for "the AI era." Analysts expect year-over-year declines across nearly all business units and the company's lowest adjusted earnings in two years. Coinbase stock is down more than 13% since January.

Meta-backed Scale AI won a $500 million Defense Department deal, marking another major AI contract for the sector as the Pentagon ramps up its artificial intelligence investments.

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Cheers,
Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc