US Pre-Market, July 9: Nasdaq Futures Up 0.86% on a Memory Rally as a Starbucks Software Plan Hits IBM

Sentiment: mixed S&P 500 futures: +0.24%

Nasdaq 100 futures trade at 29,722.50, up 0.86%, against Dow futures at 52,613.00, down 0.02%, as a memory and storage rally runs into an enterprise software selloff. Ionis IONS.US leads the downside at -19.11% pre-market after its Phase 3 heart trial with AstraZeneca missed its primary endpoint, and AZN.US fell 7.66% on the same result. Brent holds US$78.44, up 0.54%, after a second day of US strikes on Iran, and initial jobless claims print at 8:30am ET against a 218,000 consensus.

Overnight drivers

• Memory and storage: Seagate STX.US +6.97%, Western Digital WDC.US +6.89%, Micron MU.US +6.54% and SanDisk SNDK.US +6.24% pre-market. SK Hynix's Nasdaq ADR book closed more than 7 times oversubscribed, pricing lands this afternoon ET, and the receipts trade from July 10 under SKHYV.
• Semiconductor equipment: Applied Materials AMAT.US +7.04%, Lam Research LRCX.US +6.38%, KLA KLAC.US +6.02%. Marvell MRVL.US +5.97% and Astera Labs ALAB.US +5.87% rose alongside them in AI networking silicon.
• Enterprise software: IBM.US -4.78%, ServiceNow NOW.US -4.56%, Salesforce CRM.US -4.54%, Accenture ACN.US -3.78%, Adobe ADBE.US -3.47%. Bloomberg reported Starbucks SBUX.US is building in-house AI tools to replace a Microsoft inventory system and an IBM maintenance product, plus its own point-of-sale system to displace Oracle Simphony. KeyBanc separately cut CRM.US to Sector Weight, citing customer checks that found little evidence of Agentforce traction.
• Oil and Iran: Brent US$78.44 (+0.54%), WTI US$73.71 (+0.26%). The US struck Iran for a second day and Iran retaliated against Kuwait and Bahrain. Energy majors trade lower even so: Exxon XOM.US -0.66%, Chevron CVX.US -0.35%.
• Rates and dollar: US 10-year at 4.57%, dollar index 100.94 (-0.06%), gold US$4,116.20/oz (+0.83%). Minutes from the June FOMC meeting showed policymakers split on the path for rates.

Overnight Asia and Europe

• Nikkei 225: 67,743.85 (+1.38%)
• Shanghai Composite: 4,036.59 (+1.65%)
• KOSPI: 7,291.91 (+0.62%)
• Hang Seng: 24,030.18 (-0.70%)
• Euro STOXX 50: 6,254.70 (+0.80%)
• DAX: 24,965.92 (+0.28%)
• FTSE 100: 10,426.37 (-0.60%)

Kioxia rose more than 10%, SK Hynix more than 8% and Samsung Electronics more than 4% in early Asia trade, and the Nikkei added 924.80 points to close at 67,743.85. The KOSPI closed up 0.62%, two sessions after it fell close to 5% on 7 July when chipmakers slumped on doubts about AI demand. The FTSE 100 was the outlier at -0.60%, with AstraZeneca, one of its largest members, down 7.66% in its US line.

Pre-market movers

US economic calendar today (ET)

• 08:30 Initial jobless claims, consensus 218,000 against a 215,000 prior, with continuing claims
• 10:00 Existing home sales for June
• 10:30 EIA natural gas storage
• 13:00 Treasury sells US$22 billion of 30-year bonds
• 13:30 Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan speaks
• Afternoon: SK Hynix finalises ADR pricing, with SKHYV trading from July 10

What to watch

• 88 basis points separate Nasdaq futures (+0.86%) from Dow futures (-0.02%) before the open. IBM.US -4.78% and Microsoft MSFT.US -1.89% are both Dow members, and NVIDIA NVDA.US +1.06% offsets part of that drag.
• PepsiCo PEP.US -2.45% pre-market after topping Q2 estimates and holding its full-year outlook. Levi Strauss LEVI.US -4.12% after a Q2 beat and a raised dividend.
• VIX at 16.77 (-0.77%) ahead of the open, with US strikes on Iran now in a second day.
• Meta META.US -3.22% and Palantir PLTR.US -2.88% also trade lower pre-market. Intel INTC.US +5.22% and Arm ARM.US +4.84% trade higher with the semiconductor names.

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