SMH ($SMH): The semiconductor ETF riding the AI infrastructure cycle. 👀
SMH tracks a basket of major semiconductor companies, giving exposure to Nvidia, TSMC, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, ASML and other key players across the chip industry. As of September 17, Nvidia alone represented about 22.4% of the ETF.
The AI build-out remains the major theme. Semiconductor industry earnings grew 131% YoY in Q2 2026, while major hyperscalers continue increasing AI infrastructure spending.
But SMH is also highly concentrated in the semiconductor sector, so chip-cycle volatility, AI spending expectations and valuation can have a significant impact.
Broad semiconductor exposure, but still closely tied to the AI investment cycle.
$RDDTB Reddit ($RDDT): Turning communities into a serious ad business. 👀
Reddit reported $805M in Q2 2026 revenue, up 61% YoY, with advertising revenue reaching $762M, up 64%. Daily active uniques rose 18% to 130.3M, while weekly active uniques crossed 500M.
The interesting part is monetization. Reddit’s AI-powered advertising tools, including Reddit Max, are helping advertisers improve campaign performance, while international revenue grew 84% in Q2.
But search traffic remains an important variable. Reddit has said changes and volatility in search referrals have affected user growth, particularly in the U.S.
Fast revenue growth and improving monetization, but search traffic, competition and valuation remain key factors to watch.
Palantir reported Q2 2026 revenue of $1.94B, up 92.8% YoY, with commercial revenue growing nearly 110% and government revenue up 79%. U.S. revenue reached about $1.57B, accounting for more than 80% of total revenue.
The key story is the growing adoption of Palantir’s AI Platform (AIP) across enterprises and government organizations. The company closed 220 deals worth at least $1M during the quarter, showing continued expansion in AI deployments.
Exceptional growth, but high expectations and valuation make future execution an important factor to watch.
Fed rate hike decision: What’s really worth watching may be more than just the outcome 👀
The Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision is about to be released. The market is currently not only focused on whether the Fed will hike rates this time, but more importantly on what signals the Fed will convey regarding the future interest-rate path.
If the policy remains more hawkish, the US dollar and US Treasury yields may receive support, and stocks and the crypto market could face even greater volatility. If the language is more dovish, expectations for liquidity may improve, and risk assets may also receive support.
One interest-rate decision can, in fact, affect the market’s overall sentiment.
CEA Industries has transformed into a BNB-focused digital asset treasury company, holding 515,544 BNB worth about $302.3M as of July 31, 2026. Digital assets now represent roughly 93% of the company’s total assets.
The interesting part is that BNC gives traditional-market investors another way to gain exposure to the BNB ecosystem through a Nasdaq-listed stock. But that also makes the company highly sensitive to BNB price movements.
In its latest quarter, BNC reported $11.4M in net losses, largely because of a $15.3M unrealized loss on digital assets, including $15M related to BNB.
High BNB exposure, but also high sensitivity to crypto volatility.
Astera Labs ($ALAB ): The connectivity layer behind AI infrastructure. 👀
Astera Labs reported record Q2 2026 revenue of $392.4M, up 104% YoY and 27% QoQ. The company provides high-speed connectivity solutions that help AI systems move data efficiently between processors, memory and other components.
The AI infrastructure story is becoming bigger than GPUs alone. Astera is expanding across PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, NVLink Fusion and UALink, positioning itself around the connectivity bottlenecks created by increasingly complex AI systems.
However, expectations are already high. With the stock having gained strongly this year, valuation, customer concentration and execution remain important factors to watch.
AI needs computing power — but it also needs fast connectivity.
$USARB USA Rare Earth ($USAR): Critical minerals are becoming a strategic asset. 👀
USA Rare Earth is building a U.S.-focused “mine-to-magnet” supply chain, covering rare-earth mining, processing, metals, alloys and permanent magnets. The company has also secured access to up to $1.6B in U.S. government-backed CHIPS Act funding, highlighting the strategic importance of domestic rare-earth production.
The bigger catalyst is its Serra Verde acquisition, which could add an operating rare-earth mine in Brazil to the company’s broader supply chain. But USAR is still in a development-heavy phase, with Q2 2026 revenue of only $5.82M and a $0.15 per-share loss.
Strong strategic potential, but execution, funding, dilution and commodity-price risks remain key factors to watch.
AMD continues to expand beyond traditional CPUs, with Data Center revenue reaching $5.8B in Q1 2026, up 57% YoY. The company is scaling its Instinct AI accelerators while expanding partnerships with major cloud and AI companies.
More recently, AMD’s CFO said the company’s addressable market could reach around $2T by 2030, driven by AI demand across CPUs and GPUs. AMD also expects its CPU business to grow more than 80% in the second half of 2026.
Strong AI growth potential, but competition, valuation and the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending remain key factors to watch.
Alibaba ($BABA): AI could become the next growth engine. 👀
Alibaba remains one of China’s largest technology platforms, spanning e-commerce, cloud computing and AI. Its Alibaba Cloud business is becoming increasingly important as demand for AI infrastructure and cloud services grows.
The market is now watching whether Alibaba can turn heavy AI investment into sustainable cloud growth and stronger profitability. At the same time, its ADR has recently traded well below its 52-week high, showing that investor sentiment remains volatile.
Strong AI and cloud potential, but competition, spending and China-related risks remain key factors to watch.
Seagate reported $3.6B in fiscal Q4 2026 revenue, with gross margin reaching 52.3%. The company continues to benefit from strong demand for high-capacity storage from cloud and data-center customers.
The bigger story is AI infrastructure. AI models are generating enormous amounts of data, increasing demand for high-capacity HDDs. Seagate is also advancing its HAMR technology, with its next-generation platform targeting even higher storage densities.
The opportunity is clear, but STX remains exposed to cyclical storage demand, hyperscaler spending and high market expectations.
AI needs computing power — but it also needs somewhere to store all that data.
$WDCB Western Digital ($WDC): AI is creating a storage boom. 👀
Western Digital is increasingly benefiting from the rapid expansion of AI data centers, where massive amounts of data need to be stored. Its fiscal Q3 2026 revenue reached $3.34B, up 46% YoY, while net income jumped sharply year over year.
The company’s HDD business is benefiting from strong hyperscaler and cloud demand, making storage an important part of the AI infrastructure cycle. Recent market action has also shown strong interest in storage-related stocks, including WDC, Seagate and SanDisk.
However, WDC has already experienced a huge run and remains well below its $799.87 52-week high, highlighting how volatile the stock can be.
Strong AI-driven demand, but valuation and the cyclical nature of the storage industry remain key risks to watch.
$QQQB QQQ ($QQQ): The AI and tech heavyweight ETF. 👀
QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, giving investors exposure to 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq. Its major holdings include some of the biggest names in AI, semiconductors, cloud computing and technology.
QQQ has benefited from the continued AI investment cycle. Its NAV gained 27.68% in Q2 2026, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 during the same period.
The key question now is whether strong AI growth can continue to justify elevated expectations. AI spending, interest rates and mega-cap concentration remain the main factors to watch.
Strong exposure to the technology growth story, but expectations are high.
$SPYB SPY ($SPY): The market’s biggest benchmark is still holding strong. 👀
SPY tracks the S&P 500, giving investors exposure to 500 leading U.S. companies. As of September 3, SPY was around $773, with assets under management exceeding $817B.
Technology remains the largest sector at 37.8%, with Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet among the biggest holdings. That gives SPY significant exposure to the ongoing AI and mega-cap technology trend.
The key risk is valuation and market concentration. After a strong 2026 run, September could bring more volatility, especially around inflation, interest rates and upcoming Fed decisions.
Broad diversification remains SPY’s strength, but market expectations are already high.
BNB is showing renewed momentum in September, with the token recently trading around $770 and gaining roughly 11.7% over the past 7 days. Its market cap is now above $100B, making BNB one of the largest crypto assets by market value.
The bigger story is the BNB Chain ecosystem. AI agents, payments, tokenized real-world assets and higher network capacity are becoming major areas of development, while BNB remains the core asset of the ecosystem.
Strong ecosystem growth, but after a sharp move higher, volatility and valuation are still worth watching.
CrowdStrike reported $1.47B in Q2 FY2027 revenue, up 26% YoY, while ARR reached $5.84B, up 25%. Net new ARR also hit a record $333M, showing continued demand for its Falcon cybersecurity platform.
As AI, cloud computing and connected systems expand, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important. CrowdStrike is also raising its FY2027 net new ARR growth outlook to 34%.
Strong growth and AI exposure, but valuation and competition remain key factors to watch.
Tesla delivered a record 480,126 vehicles in Q2 2026, while revenue reached $28.2B, up 26% YoY. But profitability remains under pressure, with operating margin falling to just 1.4% and free cash flow turning negative.
Now the spotlight is shifting from EVs to autonomy and AI. Tesla is unveiling its purpose-built Cybercab robotaxi, making the scale and practicality of autonomous deployment the key things to watch.
Strong growth story, but Tesla’s next chapter depends heavily on turning AI and robotaxis into real business.
Amazon’s Q2 2026 revenue reached $200.6B, up 20% YoY, while AWS grew 37% to $42.2B, its fastest growth in 18 quarters. AWS operating income also jumped 64% to $16.6B.
The bigger story is AI infrastructure. Amazon plans roughly $220B in 2026 capital spending, while trailing-12-month free cash flow turned negative at $7.6B due largely to AI investment. Advertising also remains strong, growing 26% YoY.
Strong AWS growth, but the scale of AI spending and cash-flow pressure are key things to watch.
Goldman Sachs ($GS): A closer look at Wall Street. 👀
Goldman Sachs reported $20.34B in Q2 2026 net revenue and $6.63B in net earnings, with annualized ROE reaching 23.5%.
Its strength remains in investment banking, global markets, and asset & wealth management. The main factors to watch are market activity, deal volumes and the broader economic environment.
Strong financial performance, but market conditions still matter.
Dell is becoming an important player in the AI infrastructure market. Its AI-optimized server revenue reached $16.1B in Q1 FY2027, up 757% year over year, while the company expects around $60B in AI server revenue for the full fiscal year.
The opportunity is huge, but supply constraints, rising component costs and the sustainability of AI spending remain important factors to watch.
AI infrastructure is driving a major transformation at Dell.
IBM is positioning itself around AI, hybrid cloud and enterprise software, rather than competing directly in the AI-chip race.
Q2 2026 revenue reached $17.2B, with Software revenue growing 5% and Red Hat growing 11%. IBM also raised its full-year constant-currency revenue growth outlook to 4%–5%.
At the same time, Infrastructure revenue declined 7%, showing that IBM’s transformation is still a work in progress.
AI opportunity, stable cash flow, but execution remains important.