US EQUITY OPEN: Indices in the green underpinned by SPCX & SMCI as Mag-7 earnings await after-hours

OPEN: US indices opened in the green, with Communications the clear underperforming sector and weighed on by Netflix (-3%) post-earnings. Supporting the upside is a stellar SpaceX (+10.5%) report and SuperMicro (+11.1%) lifting guidance, which is seeing Industrials and Tech as the two top performing sectors. Earnings continue after-hours with the highlights being META and TSLA. There is no US data on Wednesday, with the 20yr auction later in the session a risk event. The Dollar Index is more-or-less flat, with the Aussie and the Yen outperforming, with the former helped by hawkish comments from RBA's Hauser, while the EUR lags, albeit marginally, as the French 10yr yield hit 5% earlier in the session. Treasuries are firmer across the curve, precious metals are mixed with spot gold eking out strength, and silver lower. WTI and Brent are now lower, paring earlier strength in the European session, with some downside in benchmarks seen following the FT report; Araghchi said they are ready for diplomacy, but will defend themselves, and that the US has shown no willingness to reach an understanding and little reason to expect progress now.

• Super Micro Computer (SMCI): Sharply raised Q1 outlook on stronger AI platform demand & also lifted GM guidance.
• Netflix (NFLX): Guidance notably underwhelmed following slowest rev. growth in 3yrs
• SpaceX (SPCX): Sharp increase in AI rev. drove a swing to profit & saw stronger-than-exp. rev & Starlink growth
• United Airlines (UAL): EPS missed w/ dismal next Q guidance
• AT&T (T): Post-paid net additions missed
• Capital One (COF): EPS & rev. topped, NIM expanded & credit loss provisions declined
• Moody's (MCO): Headline metrics disappointed
• Philip Morris International (PM): FY bottom line guidance fell short
• Abbott Laboratories (ABT): Plans to separate its Nutrition Business & reduced 2026 sales growth forecast

Sessions of this shape, where index direction is set by a handful of single-name earnings reactions rather than macro, have historically produced wide dispersion beneath a calm headline print, with sector leadership flipping on guidance language rather than the reported quarter. The pattern worth noting is the split between AI-linked names raising outlooks and consumer-facing names disappointing on forward numbers; in past reporting seasons that combination has concentrated flows in a narrow leadership group and left the index vulnerable to the mega-cap prints still to come, since after-hours releases from the largest constituents have tended to set the tone for the following session more than the intraday tape. A long-dated Treasury auction landing mid-session with no data on the calendar is the kind of thin backdrop where a weak tail has historically had outsized effect on the curve and, through it, on duration-sensitive equities. On the FX side, hawkish commentary from an RBA official fits the established pattern of front-loaded tightening rhetoric supporting the currency at the margin, while the French yield move is the sort of fiscal-premium episode that has tended to weigh on the euro only while it remains idiosyncratic rather than spreading across the bloc. The crude reversal on reported Iranian diplomatic framing follows the familiar sequence in which geopolitical risk premium is added on escalation headlines and stripped on any signal of talks, leaving benchmarks headline-driven and mean-reverting intraday. What bears watching is whether the after-hours mega-cap prints confirm or contradict the guidance-raises seen in the AI complex, and whether the auction passes cleanly.