S&P 500 Posts Record-Breaking Rally Amid Indefinite Iran War. SK Hynix Surpasses $1 Trillion Market Cap On AI Demand. Meta Open-Sources Flagship Model Targeting OpenAI And Anthropic On Price
According to CNBC’s Daily Open, the US-Iran war has settled into what traders now treat as background noise; a daily weather check rather than a market-moving shock as the S&P 500 posted a record-breaking rally despite the conflict remaining without a defined end date or timeline for Hormuz resolution.
In South Korea, SK Hynix, whose market cap has jumped more than fivefold in the past year to surpass $1 trillion, announced a $720 billion investment to build the world’s largest network of memory chip factories, betting that AI demand for high-bandwidth memory will remain extreme and durable. The investment dwarfs the GDP of most countries and cements South Korea’s position as the centre of global AI memory production.
On the AI front, Mark Zuckerberg open-sourced Meta’s most powerful model, arguing that concentrating AI in a few hands is “inherently problematic”; a direct challenge to OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta’s AI chief Alexandr Wang said Meta would compete on price rather than capability. Meanwhile Tim Cook cut the ribbon at a new AI server factory in Houston, the first to ship product.
The Iran war, CNBC noted, has become “quite like weather: traders check the forecast every morning and assess if they need to brace for inclement conditions or can march ahead without an umbrella.”
The war is indefinite. The rally is record-breaking. Both things are simultaneously true. Check out our previous coverage on The Trusted Times.
