US EQUITY OPEN: Indices gain despite new Trump escalation and ORCL plunging post-results

OPEN: US indices opened in the green, despite another clear Middle East escalation from Trump and Oracle plunging post-results after it lifted its capex view and is to raise more equity. On the former, he said they will be hitting Iran very hard tonight, and the US "will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points " in the not-too-distant future. Following this, the crude complex saw immediate upside, as did the Dollar, while US equity futures fell. WTI and Brent are marginally lower, but participants await any action from the US, a response from Iran, or any further rhetoric from either side. Sectors are mostly in the green, as only Communications and Consumer Discretionary reside in the red, with Materials and Industrials the outperformers. The Dollar is broadly gaining vs. G10 FX peers, with CHF and JPY flat, relative outperformers, while high-beta FX lags given aforementioned news. EUR is flat post-ECB, after a broadly as expected statement, and Lagarde remains non-committal to the future path, and highlighted no sign of second round effects at this point, sparking modest dovish reaction. Treasuries are slightly firmer ahead of the 30yr auction, with precious metals more-or-less flat. On the data-footing, US PPI was mixed, as the headline topped expectations, while core Y/Y was cooler and M/M in line. Jobless claims surpassed Wall St. expectations and rose to 229k from 225k (exp. 219k). 

STOCK SPECIFICS:

• Oracle (ORCL): Higher-than-exp. FY27 capex plans & is to raise more money to finance AI buildout outweighed strong Q metrics
• Beijing’s market regulator summoned Alibaba (BABA), JD (JD), PDD (PDD), ByteDance & Xiaohongshu over alleged misleading “618” sales promotions.
• Caterpillar (CAT) raised Q div. 8% to USD 1.63/shr.
• Intel (INTC) was double upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Underperform’ at BofA
• Dana Incorporated (DAN) to combine with Eaton's (ETN) Mobility business headlines.