U.S. storage stocks strengthen! Micron hits a new high

On Tuesday in the U.S. Eastern Time zone, U.S. stocks opened higher and closed higher, with all three major indexes extending their winning streak to two days. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 46993.26 points; the S&P 500 rose 0.25% to 6716.09 points; and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.47% to 22479.53 points.

Storage-related stocks mostly moved higher, with Micron Technology up 4.5% to $461.69, setting a new all-time high and gaining 61.33% year-to-date.

Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued to heat up, and oil prices rebounded. During Tuesday’s trading session, WTI crude oil futures rose 2.9% to close at $96.21 per barrel; Brent crude oil futures rose 3.2% to $103.42 per barrel.

On the international front, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency, Iranian President Pezeshkian issued a statement in the early hours of the 18th to offer condolences over the assassination of Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and former Speaker of the Islamic Parliament of Iran, and vowed revenge.

White House economic committee chair calms markets

Ahead of the current tense situation, the chair of the White House Council on Economic (Harsh? ) Affairs, Hashit, stepped in to calm markets before the U.S. stock market opened. Speaking on CNBC (U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel), he said that if necessary, the administration would expand the scale of global coordination to release strategic petroleum reserves and emphasized that supply-chain contingency plans were already in place. Hashit expressed optimism about the conflict outlook, saying, “The situation is under control, and we are ahead of schedule,” and expected the conflict to end within 4 to 6 weeks.

Rick Gardner of RGA Investments said that stock markets often react first even before major events such as wars end. Equity valuations remain attractive, offering investors looking to deploy new capital a potential entry opportunity.

Famed investor Louis Navellier said that despite high international oil prices, the stock market is still rising, reflecting strong market demand for stocks and expectations for steady earnings and economic growth.

Large technology stocks were mixed: Nvidia fell 0.69%, Google C rose 1.64%, Apple rose 0.56%, Microsoft fell 0.14%, Amazon rose 1.63%, Meta fell 0.76%, Broadcom fell 1.11%, and Tesla rose 0.94%.

Storage-related stocks mostly moved higher as well. Western Digital rose 9.64%, Seagate Technology rose 5.59%, and SanDisk rose 2.35%. Micron Technology rose 4.5% to $461.69, setting a new all-time high and gaining 61.33% year-to-date.

Popular China-concept stocks were mixed: the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.73%. Atour rose 5.98%, Bilibili rose 4.45%, and New Oriental Education rose 2.42%; Tencent Music fell 24.65% and XPeng Motors fell 4.63%.

The market is waiting for the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision to be announced on Wednesday local time, to see whether the inflation pressures triggered by the rise in oil prices will prompt a hawkish pivot.

Huang Renxun says he is confident in Nvidia’s trillion-dollar revenue

Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun is making a bold bet on an “all-trillion-dollar era” for AI. He recently said the company’s outlook for generating more than $1 trillion in revenue from advanced chips is likely to be achieved, and he hinted that as the company moves into new markets, its overall revenue will surpass that level.

On Tuesday in the U.S. Eastern Time zone, during Nvidia’s annual developer conference GTC, Huang Renxun said that the revenue outlook of more than $1 trillion that he announced on Monday has strong “visibility.” Such an outlook includes revenue from only the two core architecture product lines—Blackwell and Rubin—and does not include revenue from upcoming new products, nor from newly added regions and markets. This means Nvidia’s potential overall AI business scale could further exceed the current estimates.

The day before, Huang Renxun mentioned in his keynote speech that by the end of 2027, Nvidia’s next-generation AI accelerator chips will generate at least $1 trillion in revenue. Huang Renxun said that the $1 trillion target will continue to expand. Quarterly guidance could exceed market expectations. Customers want to ensure they can secure enough supply.

Huang Renxun said, “What I can be certain of is this: demand is accelerating growth at a very large scale, and we will be able to support that demand with supply.”

At the GTC conference at the end of last October, Huang Renxun said that Nvidia has “visibility” into generating $500 billion in cumulative data center business revenue during 2025 to 2026, and the outlook covers revenue from the Blackwell and Rubin architecture products.

On Tuesday, Nvidia’s stock opened higher and then fell; it had been up nearly 1.2% early in the session, turned negative in the morning, and closed down about 0.7%. Some analysts believe that Nvidia had already risen significantly before, and that the market had priced in the high growth expectations fairly well.

Most institutions believe this forecast reinforces a core logic: AI infrastructure buildout is still at an early stage. Demand has not peaked; instead, it is accelerating as it moves from training toward broader deployment and application. The AI compute race is far from over—it is just entering a more large-scale commercialization phase.

Iran’s president vows revenge for Larijani

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, Iranian President Pezeshkian issued a statement in the early hours of the 18th to offer condolences over the assassination of Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and former Speaker of the Islamic Parliament of Iran, and vowed revenge.

Pezeshkian spoke highly of Larijani’s contributions during his tenure. He said that as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Larijani worked tirelessly to promote regional peace and security and to foster friendly relations among Islamic countries. His death is an enormous loss that cannot be made up, and the perpetrator will be punished severely.

Pezeshkian emphasized that Iran will continue to follow a resistance route that combines “reason and foresight.”

The Israel Defense Forces said on the 17th that the Israel Air Force carried out an airstrike the night before near Tehran, the capital of Iran, to assassinate Larijani. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a statement in the early hours of the 18th confirming that Larijani was killed.

Larijani has long been regarded as one of the most senior members of Iran’s leadership. He was a close associate of the late Supreme Leader Khamenei. According to Israel’s account, after Khamenei was killed in an airstrike by the United States and Israel on February 28, Larijani led military operations against Israel and the United States, serving as Iran’s “de facto leader.”