Preview of US Stock Market | The three major stock index futures are mixed, Brent crude falls below $100, Meta (META.US) 2026 Developer Conference to kick off this week.

Pre-market Market Movements 1. On Tuesday, September 22, in the U.S. pre-market session, the three major U.S. stock index futures were mixed. As of press time, Dow futures rose 0.41%, S&P 500 index futures rose 0.10%, and Nasdaq futures fell 0.02%. 2. As of press time, Germany's DAX index rose 0.44%, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index rose 0.03%, France's CAC 40 index rose 0.43%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 0.35%. 3. As of press time, WTI crude oil fell 2.67% to $89.90 per barrel. Brent crude oil fell 2.16% to $98.17 per barrel. Market News U.S. and Iran send signals of contact, while claims of Hormuz reopening are denied. Iranian officials said the delegation has been authorized to resume contact with the United States in New York through mediators to discuss ending hostilities; if the U.S. eases military pressure and lifts the port blockade, Iran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 7 days, and the proposal was forwarded to the U.S. side on September 16. However, Iran's Fars News Agency denied reports about the reopening of the strait. In addition, U.S. Secretary of State Rubio said he is willing to meet with the Iranian side at the United Nations, but no arrangement has yet been made between Trump and the Iranian president. He said that about 60% to 70% of oil transportation has now resumed. Houthi armed group warns: Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan may become (enemy) targets in the next phase. According to reports, Mohammed al-Farah, a member of the political office of Yemen's Houthi armed group, warned Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan that there is a plan aimed at dragging these countries into war and internal conflict, with Saudi Arabia playing a role in the process. He said the enemy's attacks on Iran will not be limited to Iranian territory, and the next step may target Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan. This is because these three countries hold important positions in the Islamic world, and their strength and influence may become a barrier hindering plans related to the Israeli regime. Saudi Arabia is said to have restarted the east-west oil pipeline and will resume oil exports from Yanbu. According to three people familiar with the matter, Saudi Arabia has restarted operations of the east-west oil pipeline and may resume oil exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu later on Tuesday. Two of the sources said the pipeline is currently operating at a low throughput. Overtaking interest rates and oil prices! Trump becomes the biggest risk in the eyes of U.S. retail investors. In recent weeks, the U.S. market has been deeply troubled by volatility, driven by a series of catalysts: the Federal Reserve raising its key interest rate by 25 basis points, the U.S.-Iran conflict pushing oil prices higher, and surging long-term bond yields. However, retail traders believe the biggest threat to their portfolios comes from Trump's policies. A survey launched by Stocktwits aimed at understanding what retail investors see as the biggest threat to their portfolios showed that 41% of voters listed Trump and political risk as the top option. Interest rate risk came second with 23% of the vote, 21% of respondents voted for oil price volatility, and the remaining 14% believed the biggest risk came from rising long-term U.S. Treasury yields. Strong ASIC and CPU demand! UBS Group AG raises its CoWoS industry capacity forecast, expecting a sharp increase from this year. Demand for cloud AI chips continues to surge. UBS Group AG's latest research raises its forecast for global CoWoS capacity by the end of 2027 to 270,000 wafers per month, a sharp increase of about 69% from the end of 2026; total demand that year will nearly double to 2.63 million wafer equivalents. This round of expansion is not being driven only by NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US); demand for ASICs and CPUs from AMD (AMD.US), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), OpenAI, and others is rising across the board. Muse and Grok Bot are a big hit, and OpenAI also wants to join the "personal Agent battle." SpaceX's (SPCX.US) Grok Bot and Meta's (META.US) Muse have launched one after another, suddenly heating up the personal AI Agent track. According to reports, OpenAI is developing new features to directly compete with these two products and plans to repackage and launch its existing Agent technology, but the launch timing is still unclear. Although ChatGPT's weekly active users have now exceeded 1 billion, growth has clearly slowed. Individual Stock News Meta 2026 Developer Conference to take the stage this week. Meta's most important annual product event, Meta Connect 2026, will be held locally from September 23 to 24 (Beijing time September 24 to 25). According to disclosed information, Zuckerberg will deliver a keynote speech at 7 a.m. Beijing time on September 24, followed by a series of developer-oriented events the next day. This year's market focus includes a new generation of smart glasses, a lightweight mixed reality device codenamed "Phoenix," and how Muse, Meta's recently highlighted personal AI agent, will further integrate into the wearable device ecosystem. Wells Fargo & Company believes that Meta's recent model releases and Muse's early performance give the company "a story to tell" at this year's Connect conference. Qualcomm (QCOM.US) Snapdragon Summit preview: 2nm dual chips debut, and the AI diversification narrative faces key validation. Qualcomm will usher in a time window closely watched by the market this week. The chipmaker is scheduled to hold its annual Snapdragon Summit locally from September 22 to 24 in Maui, Hawaii, and investors are eager to capture the latest signals about next-generation processors and its AI computing strategy. AMD's market value tops $1 trillion for the first time! The Meta agent boom ignites the CPU trade. AMD surged nearly 10% on Monday, with its market value exceeding $1 trillion for the first time, making it the fourth U.S. chip company to join the "trillion-dollar club"; Meta's AI agent Muse went viral, boosting market expectations for growth in server CPU demand and driving collective rallies in chip stocks such as Intel Corporation and Arm. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analyst Jacky He said that as AI agents gain broader consumer adoption, higher AI inference, task orchestration, and infrastructure workloads are expected to drive growth in server CPU demand. Big tech's AI debt binge hits a wall: bond investors begin demanding higher yields. As the bond market reprices debt issuance financing artificial intelligence infrastructure, Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Meta, and NVIDIA Corporation are facing higher borrowing costs. Financial analyst Nicholas Mugalli said Alphabet's credit spread widened by 15 basis points, from 56 basis points to 71 basis points, due to the issuance size expanding from $1.25 billion to $3.5 billion. Meta and NVIDIA Corporation also showed similar pricing trends, with a $4 billion bond issuance widening spreads by 15 to 19 basis points. Two tech giants clash over AI shopping! Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) bans Meta's Muse agent. Amazon.com, Inc. has blocked Meta's newly launched artificial intelligence (AI) agent Muse from accessing its retail website. It is reported that since the evening of last Sunday local time, when users try to shop on Amazon.com, Inc. through Muse, they see a notice saying that unauthorized AI agents continuously accessing Amazon.com, Inc. violate the terms of use. Amazon.com, Inc. said it had previously asked Meta to proactively exclude Amazon.com, Inc.'s e-commerce site from Muse's service scope, but negotiations were unsuccessful. JP Morgan tracks Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) supply situation: iPhone 18 Pro series demand is strong, and delivery lead times are rapidly lengthening. JPMorgan released a research report saying that in the second week of its tracking of Apple Inc.'s product supply situation, delivery lead times further lengthened, with the iPhone 18 Pro series increasing by an average of 4 days. Compared with the first week, the delivery lead time for the iPhone 18 Pro increased by 16 days (last year, the iPhone 17 Pro's delivery lead time increased by 9 days from the first week to the second week), and the delivery lead time for the iPhone 18 Pro Max increased by 11 days (in the same period last year, the iPhone 17 Pro Max's delivery lead time increased by 7 days from the first week to the second week). Alibaba Cloud's data center scale will exceed 20GW by 2032. On September 22, Alibaba Group Holding Limited Sponsored ADR (BABA.US) CEO Wu Yongming said at the Yunqi Conference that current customer AI demand is very strong, and the company will fully invest in AI infrastructure construction, with the goal of operating more than 20GW of global data center scale through Alibaba Cloud by 2032. On the same day, T-Head released its strongest domestic AI chip, Zhenwu V900, with computing power increased to 3 times that of Zhenwu M890. It is reported that T-Head's annual shipments of AI chips will increase significantly. Important Economic Data and Event Preview Beijing time 20:15: U.S. ADP employment weekly change for the week ended September 5. Beijing time 22:05: FOMC permanent voter and New York Fed President Williams speaks at the 2026 U.S. Treasury Market Conference. Beijing time 22:20: Federal Reserve Vice Chair Jefferson speaks at the 2026 U.S. Treasury Market Conference. Beijing time next day 01:00: 2027 FOMC voter and Richmond Fed President Barkin speaks. Beijing time next day 04:30: U.S. API crude oil inventory change for the week ended September 18.