Bulls vs. Bears

Memory chip stocks delivered some of the most violent moves we've ever seen this week — Micron down 9% then up 18%, SK Hynix down 15% then up 29%. The index barely moved. Welcome to Chiplash.

We break down the chip carnage, Microsoft's best day since 2007, Amazon's AI cloud hitting a US$26B run rate, Meta getting sold off, the chip-to-software rotation, Australia's CPI surprise and what it means for rates, oil market spin from the US energy secretary, Korea's margin call crisis, and a viewer-suggested SaaS stock that actually passed the sniff test.

Plus: JT wins the Bull/Bear comp from overseas. Kai almost picked Boeing. Phil gets most improved.

New episodes weekly. mpcmarkets.com.au

We welcome Phil Deloughery to the team and dive straight into the hyperscaler CapEx blowout — Google's first-ever negative free cash flow quarter, Oracle's spend ballooning 26x in five years, and all the major cloud players expected to go negative free cash flow next year.

Plus: Iran escalation and Houthi disruption shutting down the Bab el-Mandeb strait, US oil reserves at 45-year lows, Brent at $100, Tesla down 14% on zero robotaxi/Optimus updates, Aussie employment blowing past expectations (+76K) making another rate hike near-certain, the ASX SaaS stocks getting crushed, and Trump slapping tariffs on Australia under a forced labour technicality.

Next week is massive — RBA, FOMC, Aussie CPI, US GDP, core PCE, plus Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon earnings. Stay sharp.

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Chip stocks are getting hammered. TSMC beat earnings by 10%+ and still dropped. Netflix lost 9% after pulling more transparency. IBM got flogged 37%. Is this the dip to buy — or the start of something worse?

Mark, Finn and Kai break down the wreckage, the CapEx risk heading into Alphabet and Tesla earnings, and where the real opportunities are sitting. Oil gets a deep dive — US reserves at 40-year lows, Hormuz back in crisis mode, and refining margins 20% above previous records. Buy-the-dip picks include Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Coinbase, and Arista Networks. Kai explains why Arista's open-source networking switches are the essential plumbing of every AI data center. All three hosts are bearish.

New team member Phil Deloughery debuts next week.

The optimists are away — JT's sailing to Japan and Finn's in Tonga with the whales — so the ex-bond traders are running the show. Mark walks through 12 risk factors that have been quietly building: record margin lending, rock-bottom cash allocations, almost zero downside protection, and corporate bond demand starting to dry up. Meanwhile, the semiconductor sector is splitting in two — memory chip makers are printing money while the hyperscalers writing the cheques are starting to feel it.

Plus: Meta making its own chips, Apple's luxury AR glasses play, the India-Australia uranium deal, copper's relentless grind higher, and why next week's US bank earnings (JPMorgan, Goldman, Citi, BofA, Wells Fargo) could set the tone for the quarter. And yes — Mark has finally overtaken Kai on the leaderboard after 191 days.

Not financial advice. General advice warning applies. Do your own research.

The best first half in the Dow in fifty years is in the books. Mark, Kai and guest Finn unpack a monster six months — the record SOX rally, why chips just cracked (Micron down 20% in two sessions), and where the money's rotating next. Plus: the ASX halftime card, why healthcare could finally be turning, Kai's Pro Medicus trade of the half year, and a deep dive into the AI stack — infrastructure, cloud, application — and why the cloud distribution layer is the opportunity most investors are sleeping on. MPC Markets also turns three. Happy birthday to us.

Micron beat earnings by $6 billion and hit record highs. Memory chip stocks — MU, SK Hynix, SanDisk, Lam Research — are all running. The catch? It's coming out of the Mag-7's margins. Hyperscalers are paying through the nose for HBM RAM and it shows in their charts. This is the clearest divergence in the AI trade right now.

We also cover SpaceX raising $85.5B in equity plus a $25B corporate bond and reportedly building its own gas pipeline for data centers. Sam Altman has pushed the OpenAI API IPO to next year. CATL dropped a sodium energy storage system — bad timing for lithium stocks. On the ASX: WiseTech hitting new lows, Telix eyeing FDA approval for EchoIQ by September. Plus commodities swinging wildly, Apple hiking prices across the board, and Fear and Greed sitting at Extreme Fear while Micron breaks records.

Episode 125 of Bulls vs Bears from MPC Markets.

Bulls vs Bears EP124: The Next Mega IPOs — SpaceX, OpenAI vs Anthropic & What Actually Matters

SpaceX just listed. OpenAI is burning $14B this year. Anthropic just hit a $965B post-money valuation. So which one is actually investable — and which ones are traps?

In this week’s episode, Mark Gardner, Kai and JT cut through the noise on the biggest IPO and AI stories moving markets right now.

We break down:

• The full SpaceX share lock-up release schedule and the five dates that could make or break the stock (QQQ inclusion, Starship Flight 13, Q2/Q3 earnings unlocks, and Musk’s 366-day lockup)
• Why Anthropic is eating OpenAI’s lunch in enterprise (40% LLM market share vs OpenAI’s 27%, 80% of revenue from business customers, and 15.7x valuation growth in 14 months)
• OpenAI’s staggering scale (900M weekly active users, 2.5B prompts/day) versus its $14B losses and cash-flow-positive target of 2029
• Technical setups across ASX200, Nikkei (fresh record highs), Nasdaq and global indices
• Commodity moves in gold, silver, crude and the surprising HPA (High Purity Alumina) trade that’s flying under the radar
• What the new Fed chair, US-Iran deal and memory chip shortage actually mean for positioning

Blunt practitioner takes. No guru dogma. Just what the data and flow are really saying.

Listen now & subscribe: https://mpcinvest.co/podcasts

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Intro, track record & weekly market colour
• 05:30 – SpaceX IPO deep dive + cumulative unlock timeline
• 18:00 – Five dates that could make or break SpaceX
• 25:00 – OpenAI vs Anthropic: The real AI arms race
• 38:00 – Why Anthropic is winning enterprise (and what it means for valuations)
• 45:00 – Technicals, global markets & commodity wrap (gold, silver, crude, uranium, HPA)
• 52:00 – Next week’s data & closing thoughts

#SpaceXIPO #OpenAI #Anthropic #AIStocks #MegaIPO #InvestmentPodcast #BullsVsBears #MPC Markets

🚀 SpaceX, OpenAI & Anthropic: Are the 3 MEGA IPOs Signalling a Market Bubble? | Bulls vs Bears

In this week's Bulls vs Bears, Mark Gardner and the team dive deep into the biggest financial story of 2026 — the wave of mega IPOs that could reshape global markets. With SpaceX reportedly listing at $1.77 trillion, alongside OpenAI and Anthropic, we're witnessing what could be the three largest IPOs in history. Is this the peak of market euphoria or the start of a new era in space, AI, and technology investing?

We break down:

• The explosive valuations and retail frenzy around SpaceX IPO — Elon Musk's latest rocket ride
• What these listings mean for the broader market, tech stocks, semiconductors (NVIDIA, Broadcom, Apple), and the S&P 500
• Fresh economic data: Strong payrolls, sticky CPI & PPI inflation, and what to expect from the upcoming Fed meeting
• Geopolitical drama with Trump, Iran, and oil market impacts
• Crypto update: Bitcoin weakness, Hyperliquid strength, and MicroStrategy's strategy shift
• Why long-term investors should stay grounded amid the hype

Perfect for Australian investors aged 55+ looking for clear, no-nonsense analysis on wealth preservation, structured income solutions, and navigating record-high markets. Whether you're protecting your retirement portfolio or seeking high-growth opportunities, this episode delivers practical insights you can act on.

Timestamps & Chapters available in the full video.

If you're serious about smarter investing in volatile times, subscribe to Bulls vs Bears for weekly market updates, strategy sessions, and expert commentary you won't get from the mainstream media.

👉 Explore MPC Markets structured investment solutions at mosaic.mpcmarkets.com.au

Bulls vs Bears Ep 122 | 10-Week Win Streak Starts to Wobble — Dow Rallies, NASDAQ Dips & Software Stocks Update

The S&P 500's historic 10-week winning streak is under pressure. In this episode of Bulls vs Bears from MPC Markets, Mark Gardner, JT, and Kai break down a week where old-school indices fought back — the Dow and Russell 2000 both surged ~1.5% while the NASDAQ slipped 0.5%.

What we cover in this episode:

00:00 — The 10-week streak wobbles: Dow & Russell rally, tech pulls backMicron joins the trillion-dollar club after an extraordinary run from ~$419 to $1,080. Samsung memory workers threaten strike action over pay disparity. We discuss what the memory chip shortage means for investors.

Megaport (ASX: MP1) delivered a 3x return off its lows, hitting $21 after languishing at $7. The company's pivot to GPUs-as-a-service raises questions about enterprise AI hosting and whether companies should run their own language models.

Software Survivors update — our picks from the original webinar are tracked with full performance data. CrowdStrike and Palo Alto up ~90% since recommendation. We revisit which SaaS names face genuine AI disruption risk vs those with durable moats (Xero, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Atlassian).

Jonathan explains the stock repair options strategy — a way to reduce your average entry price without deploying additional capital. We discuss why MPC is considering an "Options for Dummies" education series.

Coal prices remain resilient near $160 while crude oil has been volatile. Strategic petroleum reserves are reportedly at critical levels. Bitcoin has broken to new lows for the year after Michael Saylor flagged potential BTC sales to fund dividends.

All three hosts pick bearish for next week — a consensus that has historically been a contrarian signal. Key risks: US employment data (NFP), CPI, and Oracle/Adobe earnings.

Register for the Software Survivors Sequel webinar (link in comments).

This is general information only and not personal financial advice. MPC Markets is an Australian financial services firm — AFSL applies.

#ASXStocks #BullsVsBears #MPCMarkets #SoftwareStocks #Micron #Megaport #OptionsTrading

🎙️ Bulls vs Bears Podcast EP121: Fresh Record Highs for Stocks on AI Frenzywith Jonathan Tacadena & Mark Gardner from MPC Markets

In this episode of Bulls vs Bears, Jonathan Tacadena (JT) and Mark Gardner (MG) break down the explosive market action as global stocks hit fresh record highs, fuelled by the unrelenting AI frenzy.

From Nvidia and the Magnificent 7 dominating the US market heatmap to strong moves in Apple, Broadcom, and other tech giants — the bulls are charging. We also dissect the ASX heatmap, where miners and select stocks are holding their own amid the global rally.

What we cover in EP121:

• US & Australian market heatmaps – who’s winning and who’s lagging in the AI-driven rally
• Inflation update: US PCE jumps to 3.8% headline / 3.3% core in April — what does it mean for the Fed?
• Global indices snapshot – ASX200, Nikkei, Hang Seng, Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq & Russell 2000 performance (daily & 5-day)
• Commodities check: Gold, Silver, Crude oil plunge, Iron ore, Bitcoin, and more
• Explosive growth in Australian ETFs – record FUM and cumulative YTD net flows hitting $20.7b
• US equity flows – what the big money is doing behind the scenes
• Volatility & market sentiment – Fear & Greed Index at 60 (Greed) + scorecard update
• Global economic calendar – key events & earnings for 1–6 June 2026 (Non-Farm Payrolls, GDP, tech earnings & more)

Plus the usual no-holds-barred debate between the Bulls and Bears — who came out on top this week?

📺 Watch now and decide: Are we in a sustainable AI supercycle or is this the top of the frenzy?

🎧 Listen on your favourite platform:→ Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify→ Follow @mpcmarkets