Just before the US stock market opened on April 23, 2026, global investors turned their attention to the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. President Donald Trump, at 3 PM local time on the 23rd, ordered the immediate sinking of all vessels attempting to lay mines near the strait via a digital platform called TruthSocial, and instructed the US Navy to triple the scale of its operation to remove them. This move is interpreted as an attempt to calm market anxiety that had resurfaced immediately after The Washington Post reported that the US Department of Defense estimated it would take at least six months to completely remove the mines. Experts, however, remain skeptical that such military intervention will end the situation immediately, forecasting that the market is likely to remain stagnant until the summer.
The day's top topic was the quarterly results and capital investment plans of Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer. Despite announcing quarterly results far exceeding market expectations, the stock price started the day in decline. This was attributed to the company's announcement of a major upward revision in its capital expenditure for the next year, from $20 billion to over $25 billion, and a return to negative free cash flow. Furthermore, investor disappointment grew as news emerged that Tesla would not support unsupervised autonomous driving features for existing hardware-equipped vehicles and would postpone the launch schedule for the Optimus 3rd generation model. In the process, Tesla revealed in its 10-Q report that it had agreed to acquire an anonymous artificial intelligence hardware firm, a company valued at up to $20 billion, sparking strong curiosity in the industry.
The polarization between the software sector and the hardware sector emerged as a major theme running through the entire session. Shares of ServiceNow, a company representing the services sector, plummeted by nearly 15% after announcing disappointing quarterly earnings and profitability metrics, triggering a sharp decline across the broader software sector. Fears resurfaced that the defensive power of margins for existing software would weaken in the age of artificial intelligence. Conversely, as demand for infrastructure such as data centers and low-orbit satellites surged, analog semiconductor leaders Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics continued their strong performance with significant revenue growth. By positioning themselves as beneficiaries of AI infrastructure, they demonstrated that the market is restructuring around hardware.
Within the AI investment ecosystem, changes in funding methods are attracting attention. SoftBank's move to consider a loan of approximately $10 billion using OpenAI equity as collateral exemplifies this trend. While some interpret using unlisted equity as collateral as a reflection of market confidence in AI, there is also a concurrent concern that it is fueling an AI-related debt bubble. At present, there are no clear signs that the AI investment cycle has reached its peak. Google announced the start of construction on data centers in Switzerland and Austria, while Applied Digital secured a contract worth $7.5 billion from its third hyperscaler customer, proving the industry's growth momentum.
Finally, a noteworthy issue is the change in control at Lululemon, the apparel brand. Shares fell immediately after the announcement of the appointment of Heidi O'Neil, a former Nike executive, as CEO. O'Neil is known for having previously oversaw consumer strategy, products, and the brand as a whole at Nike; her history of pushing a direct sales strategy that contributed to Nike's struggles is analyzed as a factor that made the market reaction lukewarm. Meanwhile, in the nuclear sector, Oklo agreed to collaborate with NVIDIA and the Los Alamos National Laboratory on nuclear fuel research, with HSBC raising its investment rating to "buy" in response, showing a positive reaction.