Ready for the SpaceX IPO?: 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Thursday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of trading Thursday. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a sharp rebound, but we will want to revisit those equity futures once the May PPI data is published at 8:30 AM ET.

1. US President Donald Trump said he will continue bombing Iran if it refuses to agree to an interim peace deal, following a second night of clashes between the countries’ forces. (Bloomberg) The most widely followed gauge of market fear and uncertainty was sliding on Thursday, suggesting investors were feeling a little calmer even though the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes for a second straight day. (Barron’s) Traders are buying the dip in stocks as a swift conclusion to the latest round of US strikes against Iran raised expectations that talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will get back on track. (Bloomberg)

Giving the market some fresh “hopium” this morning are reports from Iranian sources that peace talks on a preliminary deal have intensified. Per those reports, the U.S. and ‌Iran were exchanging messages on details of a memorandum after reaching a political understanding, but some issues still had to be discussed in detail, including a mechanism for the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds. Where this could get tricky, other reports indicate President Trump threatened more strikes if Tehran does not immediately agree to a peace deal.

We’ve been purportedly close to a U.S.-Iran deal a few times, and while we and the market would like to see one, especially if it re-opens the Strait of Hormuz and gets oil flowing again, we’ve also seen Lucy continually pull the football from Charlie Brown. Details of a deal will be the determining factor, but we also understand getting things back to normal will take time. Let’s see what happens next.

2. The BLS releases the producer price index for May. The consensus calls are for a 6.4% annualized increase in the PPI and a 5.4% rise in the core PPI. This compares with gains of 6% and 5.2%, respectively, in April. (Barron’s)

Yesterday’s May CPI data stepped up as expected, but as we explained in our note to Pro members, the combination of what we saw on pricing in the April and May PMI data from ISM and China’s producer prices has us more focused on the May PPI report out at 8:30 AM ET today. A higher-than-expected May print is likely to take some of the wind out of this morning’s equity futures, but a softer print, even if the figures are above those for April, could add to those equity futures. We’ll have more to say on this once the May data is released.

3. Oracle on Wednesday said it would invest $70bn in the coming year to finance its data centre build-out, as rising debt and flat revenue guidance spooked investors. The database group said capital expenditure would climb 25 per cent, up from $55.7bn in the fiscal year that ended May 31. The planned spending was broadly in line with expectations and came as Oracle said it expected to raise $40bn in debt and equity over the next 12 months. The spending figure came even as the group said that its sales forecast for the next fiscal year would remain flat at about the $90bn it guided in March. (FT)

Flat revenue and higher spending is not a recipe investors are clamoring for, especially when it has the added ingredient of a step down in gross margins as Oracle (ORCL) brings that capacity on stream. Backing the company’s spending are its remaining performance obligations (RPOs), which ended the quarter at $638 billion, up 363% year-over-year, and up $85 billion sequentially from the end of the fiscal third quarter, and ahead of the $592.5 billion market forecast.

While the $40 billion capital raise is the latest in a growing series of multi-billion dollar deals, Oracle’s RPOs point to rising AI adoption and usage. That keeps us bullish on the Portfolio’s AI chip and digital infrastructure plays.

4. OpenAI is considering drastically lowering the prices it charges users as it seeks to win customers from its rival Anthropic. The company is weighing significant cuts to what it charges for tokens, the unit of measurement artificial-intelligence firms use to bill for their products, according to people familiar with the matter. The move would be in anticipation of similar cuts the company expects at Anthropic, the people said. (WSJ)

We will want to see whether these OpenAI price cuts come to pass and whether others, like Anthropic, Google’s (GOOGL) Gemini, and Perplexity, respond in kind. With OpenAI and Anthropic filing confidentially for IPOs, investors will be focused on key metrics, including revenue, profits, and subscribers. Over the years, we’ve seen that a business strategy dictated primarily by price tends not to be a winning, long-term one. While it may grant market share, stock prices respond far more to margin expansion and EPS growth.

5. As SpaceX prepares for its record-breaking $75 billion market debut with great fanfare, Wall Street traders, brokers and exchanges are working nonstop to make sure their trading systems can handle the blockbuster IPO and avoid the chaos that marred other highly anticipated launches… Adding to uncertainty, SpaceX has set aside an unusually large number of shares for retail investors — ironically coinciding with a sharp selloff in Big Tech shares on worries that the AI-fueled rally has become overextended. “No one’s ever tried an IPO of this size, and no one has tried to place as much with retail,” (Reuters)

The SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is likely to take up much of the market oxygen today as the offering process closes tonight, with the shares expected to make their public trading debut tomorrow. When the shares start trading, or even if they begin trading tomorrow, is to be determined. Helping for a final push as the order books close, Elon Musk is expected to appear virtually at an event by ASML (ASML) to discuss Terafab, a chipmaking plant to supply Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX.

6. We are in a hardware component crisis. When I joined as CEO in February, the price we paid for console storage components was over 2x as high as we paid last fall. These costs have since doubled again. And as we plan for the 2027 holiday season, we expect another significant increase, taking us over 5x the prices we paid only two years earlier. Memory costs have followed a broadly similar trajectory… We are currently unable to make as many consoles as players want to buy, and we need a new business model and partnerships for hardware as we remain committed to Helix. (Xbox)

This is part of a larger post on the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox blog, and it speaks to the current capacity-constrained chip market. As we move into H2 2026, these constraints are poised to limit Xbox shipments as well as those for other connected devices as chip companies continue to serve higher prices for AI and data center demand. For example, IDC now forecasts global PC shipments will decline 11.3% for the full year, with conditions worsening progressively through Q4, when shipments are expected to fall 20% year-over-year.

Those constraints and even Nvidia (NVDA) and Google flirting with Intel (INTC) for chip capacity suggest a high probability that we will see higher capital spending levels from Taiwan Semi (TSM) and others. We continue to see that as a positive for the Portfolio’s position in Applied Materials (AMAT).

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: Producer Price Index (May), Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims (Weekly), EIA Natural Gas Stocks (Weekly) .

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – Lovesac (LOVE). PM – Adobe (ADBE), Lennar (LEN), RH (RH).

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AMAT, GOOGL, and MSFT.