WS #11721

The US-Iran military escalation continues to dominate, with the Strait of Hormuz nearly at a standstill (only two tankers passed Thursday). However, markets are showing resilience: S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up, led by a strong semiconductor rally driven by SK Hynix's oversubscribed US IPO (priced at $149/ADR) and Meta's confirmation of massive AI capex plans (14GW capacity by 2027, Wolfe raising 2027 capex estimate to $220B vs Street $160B). This is a key counter-signal to the prevailing bearish geopolitical narrative. The existing home sales miss (-2.4% MoM vs +3.7% prior) is a negative for housing but not market-moving. OpenAI's Altman noted rising compute/memory costs as a headwind, but this is offset by Meta's aggressive AI spending. The dominant theme is ESCALATING geopolitical risk but DE-ESCALATING tech selloff, with AI infrastructure stocks (MU, WDC, SNDK, META) rallying on capex visibility. The carry-forward from prior SA includes SK Hynix IPO pricing and Meta's AI model launch, both confirmed and reinforced this window.