Wall Street Fell on Mideast Risk, But Chipmakers Split Hard

A day with two different stories

Renewed conflict risk in the Middle East pushed oil higher and dragged Wall Street lower on Tuesday.

But inside the chip sector, the picture was split. Intel, AMD, Lumentum and Bloom Energy all rallied between 5% and 11%, while Nvidia and Micron fell. A single index number cannot explain a day like this.

The numbers behind the close

The Dow fell 1.18%, the S&P 500 fell 0.58% and the Nasdaq fell 0.32%. The VIX rose 2.75% to 15.72, and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.81% as WTI crude jumped 3.16% to $94.37 a barrel.

What we flagged last session, checked today

Our previous US brief (Sept. 4) flagged two things to watch: whether the memory rally would carry into Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and whether the NHTSA’s Cybercab probe into Tesla would widen.

The first checked out. On Monday in Seoul, Samsung Electronics rose 5.68% and SK Hynix rose 8.26%, moving in the same direction as the US memory rally.

The second remains unconfirmed. NHTSA’s audit query, opened Sept. 4, has not been reported to have expanded in scope as of today.

Oil spiked on new Middle East attacks

Houthi forces struck Saudi energy facilities, and the US hit tankers linked to Iran. Brent crude touched near $99 a barrel intraday, CNBC reported, on worries that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz could be disrupted.

Canada struck back with new tariffs

Canada imposed tariffs of 15% to 50% on roughly 700 US goods on Tuesday, doubling steel and aluminum duties to 50% to match existing US tariffs. Bloomberg reported the move follows last week’s collapsed trade talks — a second risk layered on top of oil.

Why the Dow and Nasdaq split

The Dow’s 1.18% drop was more than three times the Nasdaq’s 0.32% decline. The Dow carries heavier exposure to industrials and consumer names more directly hit by tariffs and oil, while gains in Intel and AMD helped cushion the Nasdaq.

Intel jumped on an upgrade and pricing news

Intel rose 9.05% after Northland Capital Markets analyst Gus Richard upgraded the stock to Outperform from Market Perform with a $120 price target, citing tight server CPU supply and Intel’s Terafab foundry collaboration with Tesla. A separate report said Intel plans to raise PC processor prices by about 10% starting in October.

Photo: Laura Ockel / Unsplash

AMD and the rest of the chip rotation

AMD gained 5.90% after telling Citi’s 2026 Global TMT Conference that the AI market could reach $2 trillion by 2030, with data-center revenue nearing $70 billion in 2027 — roughly double this year’s level. Raymond James raised its price target to $641 from $565 and upgraded the stock to Strong Buy.

Among the stocks we follow, the five biggest movers today were Lumentum, Bloom Energy, Intel, AMD and Moderna — mostly chip and AI-infrastructure names.

Lumentum's earnings and guidance landed together

Lumentum rose 11.04%, the biggest move among the stocks we follow today. Its fiscal Q4 revenue of $1.01 billion was up 109% year over year, with EPS of $3.23 beating estimates. Guidance for fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $1.225-$1.275 billion implies growth above 130%, driven by AI data-center optical demand.

Bloom Energy rose on its S&P 500 entry

Bloom Energy climbed 9.63% after S&P Dow Jones Indices said it will replace The Trade Desk in the S&P 500 effective Sept. 21. UBS raised its price target to $325, citing the step-up in passive ownership that index inclusion typically brings, alongside Bloom’s first-ever billion-dollar quarter and AI data-center power demand.

Micron and Nvidia moved the other way

Micron fell 1.61% and Nvidia fell 2.01%, moving opposite to today’s other chip names. Micron trades at a forward P/E of 6.5x, well below the 24.7x median across the 15 chip and megacap names we track, and 51.3% below its average price target. Even at that valuation, the stock fell today, likely on lingering caution about the memory cycle ahead of Micron’s Sept. 30 earnings.

Photo: STMicroelectronics (original work) Una tantum (screenshot) / Wikimedia Commons (BY 3.0)

Tesla's unexpected link to Intel

Tesla rose 3.98%. Its NHTSA Cybercab probe is still open, but today’s more notable link was different: one reason behind Intel’s upgrade was Tesla’s ongoing Terafab foundry collaboration with Intel.

Photo: Simon Kadula / Unsplash

Bond yields followed oil higher

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.81% and the 30-year to 5.26% as oil-driven inflation concerns fed into rates. August CPI arrives Sept. 11, close on the heels of a much stronger-than-expected jobs report.

The bridge into Korea's next session

The memory link was already confirmed above — Samsung and SK Hynix moved with the US memory rally. The new link today is AI data-center infrastructure: Lumentum’s optics and Bloom Energy’s power gear both point to the same demand source that Korean semiconductor-equipment and power-equipment names will be watched against.

What to watch next session

August CPI lands Sept. 11. Coming right after a jobs report that beat estimates threefold, a hot inflation print could push back rate-cut expectations further.

Second, watch whether today’s chip rotation holds for more than a day — Intel, AMD, Lumentum and Bloom Energy extending gains, and Nvidia and Micron staying under pressure.

Third, watch oil. Whether Brent keeps drifting toward $100 and whether more Strait of Hormuz-related news emerges will matter for the next session.

This carries straight into Korea: watch whether local semiconductor-equipment and power-equipment names move in the same direction as today’s US session.

What research told us today

13F filings post 45 days after the reference date, so they show last quarter’s positioning, not today’s. Still, the direction is telling.

Coatue Management raised its Micron stake to 2,976,338 shares as of June 30, up 1,794%. The same fund opened a new 18,561,780-share position in SpaceX and grew its Amazon stake 49%.

Photo: Ryan / Unsplash

Intel’s rally today wasn’t just about the upgrade itself. Northland’s $120 price target cited Intel’s Terafab foundry project with Tesla as one reason for the Outperform call.

For Tesla, it means its own chip designs get built at an Intel fab. For Intel, it means a marquee customer for a foundry business that badly needs outside customers — which may explain why Intel (+9.05%) and Tesla (+3.98%) rose together today.

Photo: Kevin Ache / Unsplash

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced last week that Bloom Energy will replace The Trade Desk in the S&P 500, effective Sept. 21. Index inclusion alone doesn’t make a company better, but it does force passive funds tracking the S&P 500 to buy the stock — the reasoning UBS gave for raising its price target to $325. Bloom’s own results back it up too: revenue topped $1 billion for the first time last quarter, powered by AI data-center demand for its fuel cells.

Over the past 20 years, the S&P 500’s average September return is -0.63%, the weakest of any month, with a median of +0.15% and stocks rising in only half of those years.

That’s a sharp contrast with August (average +0.18%, up 60% of the time) or July (average +2.41%, up 75% of the time) — a backdrop that may help explain why chip stocks are splitting so hard on individual names this month.

Sources

• CNBC Brent crude oil hits $98 after Iran's Houthi allies attack multiple Saudi energy facilities
• Yahoo Finance Stock Market Today (Sept. 8, 2026): S&P 500 edges lower as oil prices climb, Mideast tensions rise
• Bloomberg Canada Imposes Tariffs Up to 50% on US, Risking Wider Trade War
• The Motley Fool Why Intel Stock Rallied Tuesday Morning
• Yahoo Finance Why AMD Stock Popped Today?
• TIKR Lumentum Stock Has More Than Doubled in 2026. The AI Optics Trade Explains Why.
• 24/7 Wall St. Bloom Energy Surges 8% as S&P 500 Swaps It In for Trade Desk; TTD Stock Slips 2%
• NHTSA NHTSA Opens Investigation into Tesla Cybercab Self-Certification Following Austin Deployment