The Midday Tape
Stocks are grinding higher into the final session of the quarter, with growth stocks running away from defensives even as oil's surge and a still-warm inflation print keep the rally from feeling clean.
The macro backdrop is constructive, not clean.
This morning's data dump gave the bulls enough to work with: Core PCE landed at 0.2% month over month and 3.0% year over year, in line with expectations, while GDP for the quarter came in at 2.2% and personal spending jumped 0.9%, a sign the consumer is still spending even as ADP showed a soft 90,000 private payrolls print. The combination reads as "not hot enough to force the Fed's hand, not weak enough to spook growth," and the market is trading exactly that way, with growth sectors leading and defensives lagging on the day. Treasurys aren't cheering as loudly, though: long bonds (TLT) are down 0.6% and the dollar (UUP) is flat to soft, while oil (USO) is up 2.5%, a move that whipsawed bitcoin and XRP as traders tried to reconcile the friendly PCE print against rising energy costs.
Mega-cap AI is doing the heavy lifting.
Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) is the standout, up better than 3%, after Google DeepMind unveiled SynthID Bio to watermark AI-designed proteins and open-sourced the underlying code and model weights, a move the Street is reading as another proof point for Google's AI depth. Microsoft (MSFT) is up 2% on its own momentum, and Nvidia (NVDA) is higher by nearly 2%, though the tape is also debating a more cautious thread: if AI capex spending cracks, strategists argue Nvidia could feel it before Meta does, even as one desk call frames Meta as the AI trade's potential come-from-behind winner. Super Micro (SMCI) is also active alongside AMD and Nvidia as the AI hardware complex churns through the same capex questions.
Elsewhere, the moves are more idiosyncratic.
Conagra Brands (CAG), which reported before the bell, saw its CEO call the consumer "definitely pressured" and its CFO flag freight costs rising significantly, even as animal protein cost pressure has eased, a mixed setup for the packaged-food space. Cannabis names including Tilray, Sundial, Aurora and the sector ETFs are broadly lower after a report that a DEA judge is pausing proceedings in the marijuana rescheduling hearing, pulling the rug out from under a trade that's been sensitive to every headline out of that docket all year.
Still ahead this afternoon:
Micron (MU) reports after the close tonight, a key read-through for the memory and AI hardware complex, with Progress Software (PRGS) also due after the bell. Layer on top of that the flows tied to today being the last trading day of both the month and the quarter, and expect rebalancing-related volatility into the close.
Bottom line: this is a mega-cap, AI-led risk-on tape riding a Goldilocks inflation print, but rising oil, soft breadth outside growth, and tonight's Micron print are the real tests before the quarter officially closes the books.