Morning Forecast: Wednesday 3 June
Bitcoin has dropped 45% from its high as the ETF money that lifted it heads for the exits.
This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research. Not financial advice (NFA).
👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
📉 Markets Bet on Fed Hike: Hot jobs data flipped the bet, with December hike odds now near 51%.
🚀 Huang Comment Adds $70 Billion: Marvell rose 32.5% to a record after Nvidia’s chief called it the next trillion-dollar company.
🛍️ Victoria’s Secret Soars to Record: A blowout quarter and short squeeze drove a 47% jump to an all-time high.
🖥️ HPE Jumps on AI Quarter: Revenue rose 40% as AI demand spread beyond chipmakers into hardware and networking.
₿ Bitcoin Slides Below $66,000: ETF outflows hit a record 11-day run as crypto decoupled from soaring stocks.
⚖️ Short-Seller Andrew Left Convicted: A jury found the Citron founder guilty of fraud on 13 of 17 counts.
🪐 Virgin Galactic Crashes on Dilution: Shares fell 38% after a filing revealed plans to issue new stock.
🌏 Blackstone Closes Record Asia Fund: The manager raised $13.1 billion for Asia, beating its target as rivals scale up.
📊 XRP and Enphase Analysis Inside: Both member-requested technical breakdowns are posted in Sensei’s Chat on Discord.
🧠 One Big Thing
The day's biggest stories pull in opposite directions, and that gap is the real signal. Rates traders just flipped to pricing a Fed hike by December, which makes cash above 4% a genuine rival to stocks and pressures anything rate-sensitive. Yet the same session saw Marvell add $70 billion on one comment, Victoria's Secret jump 47% on a squeeze, and Virgin Galactic round-trip a 200% run. Those moves are sentiment and forced buying, not fundamentals, and a hike regime is exactly the backdrop that punishes them. The tension to watch is whether the next jobs report hardens the hike case while the speculative trade keeps running on fumes.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
51%
The federal funds futures market now puts the odds of a Fed rate hike by December at 51%, flipping the year's defining bet from a cut to a hike after a run of hot data.
⚔️ Winners vs Losers
Winners
LASE 0.00%↑: Laser Photonics Corporation soared after its Laser Shield Anti-Drone system was selected by the U.S. Department of War under the MEIA Vulcan Call for Solutions, though the company clarified the pick is a technical evaluation rather than a booked procurement order.
MRVL 0.00%↑: Marvell Technology, Inc. extended its rally after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the chipmaker the next trillion-dollar company at Computex 2026, spotlighting its role in AI data center connectivity.
INTC 0.00%↑: Intel Corporation rose as it rolled out new Xeon 6+ processors and rackscale AI systems with SambaNova and Foxconn at Computex 2026, helping shares rebound alongside a broader AI chip rally.
Losers
NRXP 0.00%↑: NRX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. dropped after announcing an underwritten public offering of common stock, a dilutive raise that pressured the shares.
YEXT 0.00%↑: Yext, Inc. fell after first-quarter revenue of $107.9 million missed estimates and slipped from a year earlier, overshadowing an earnings beat.
GRRR 0.00%↑: Gorilla Technology Group Inc. moved sharply lower in pre-market with no specific catalyst identified, pulling back after a steep multi-month run.
CGNT 0.00%↑: Cognyte Software Ltd. slid after reporting first-quarter results that showed double-digit revenue growth but only a reiterated full-year outlook, prompting a sell-the-news reaction.
BX 0.00%↑: Blackstone Inc. moved sharply lower in pre-market with no specific catalyst identified.
📊 Market Snapshot
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC): $66,985 (▲ 0.47%)
Ethereum (ETH): $1,876 (▲ 0.98%)
XRP: $1.23 (▲ 1.98%)
Equity Indices (Futures):
S&P 500: 7,617 (▼ 0.08%)
NASDAQ 100: 30,771 (▲ 0.19%)
FTSE 100: 10,344 (▼ 0.37%)
Commodities & Bonds:
10-Year US Treasury Yield: 4.48% (▲ 0.63%)
Oil (WTI): $96 (▲ 2.50%)
Gold: $4,462 (▼ 0.56%)
Silver: $74.48 (▼ 0.78%)
Data as of: UK (BST) 12:57 / US (EDT): 07:57 / Asia (Tokyo): 20:57
✅ 5 Things to Know
📉 Traders Now Price a Fed Hike, Not a Cut
The bet that defined 2026, that the Federal Reserve’s next move would be a rate cut, has flipped. After a run of hot data, traders in the federal funds futures market now put the odds of a rate hike by December at about 51%, with a move higher more likely than not by early 2027, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool. The trigger was yesterday’s job-openings report, which showed US openings jumped by 731,000 in April to 7.62 million, the most in two years. That came on top of a manufacturing gauge at a four-year high and eurozone inflation re-accelerating to 3.2%, its fastest since 2023. Behind it all sits the oil shock from the Iran war, with Brent crude still near $96 a barrel. (Yahoo Finance)
This is the single biggest shift in the market backdrop right now, because the rally that carried stocks to records ran on the assumption that cheaper money was coming. A hike regime is the opposite. It pressures rate-sensitive stocks, supports the dollar, and makes cash paying above 4% a real competitor to equities again. The near-term Fed meeting on June 17 is still a near-certain hold; the live debate is about December and into 2027. The next swing factor lands Friday with the May jobs report, where economists expect about 85,000 jobs added and unemployment holding at 4.3%. A hot number hardens the hike case; a soft one buys the rally time. The European Central Bank decides on June 11, and markets see it delivering the first hike of this turn. (CNBC)
Sensei’s Insight: Every record close this year leaned on the idea that rate cuts were on the way. That idea is now in doubt, and the data is pulling the other direction. Friday’s jobs print is the next test: a strong number pulls a December hike closer, a weak one gives stocks room.
🚀 One Sentence From Huang Adds $70 Billion to Marvell
Marvell Technology had its biggest day on record yesterday, climbing 32.5% to about $291, after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang called it “the next trillion-dollar company” during a keynote at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The remark added roughly $70 billion in market value in a single session to a company worth about $192 billion the day before. Huang was praising Marvell’s role in connectivity, the networking and interconnect chips that move data between the thousands of processors packed into an AI data center, an unglamorous layer of the build-out that sits beneath the headline graphics chips. Nvidia took a $2 billion stake in Marvell earlier this year. (CNBC)
For retail investors the lesson is in how the move happened. Tens of billions in value swung on one person’s words, not on new numbers, and CNBC’s Jim Cramer called the rally concerning precisely because it was not based on fundamentals. That is the shape of the AI trade right now: narrow, concentrated in a handful of names, and quick to move on sentiment. The comment also pushed money toward the interconnect and custom-silicon makers, lifting peers like Lam Research and Qualcomm. The next read on whether the spending story still has fundamental support comes after today’s close, when Broadcom reports earnings, with analysts looking for AI chip revenue up around 140% from a year earlier. (CNBC)
Sensei’s Insight: Marvell jumped a third on a compliment, not a contract. Its earnings last month were strong, but yesterday’s move was pure sentiment. When a market can add $70 billion to a company on one sentence, it can take it back just as fast.
🛍️ Victoria’s Secret Soars 47% to a Record
Victoria’s Secret had the best day in its history yesterday, closing up about 47% at a record high after a quarter that beat across the board and a raised full-year forecast. First-quarter net sales rose 15% to $1.56 billion, comparable sales (a measure that strips out store openings and closings to show true underlying demand) grew 13%, and adjusted earnings of $0.60 a share nearly doubled the $0.32 analysts expected. The company lifted its full-year sales outlook to between $7.03 billion and $7.13 billion and its adjusted operating profit target to $550 million to $580 million, well above the prior $430 million to $460 million. It also switched its ticker to VSXY from VSCO. (CNBC)
The turnaround under chief executive Hillary Super looks real: growth came with fewer discounts, more customers paying full price, and gains among 18-to-24-year-olds, with management saying it is still in “early innings.” But the scale of yesterday’s jump owes a lot to mechanics. About 19% of the stock’s tradable shares were sold short going into the report, so when the numbers landed, those bearish bettors had to buy shares back to cap their losses, a short squeeze that piles buying on buying and tends to overshoot. The stock has now nearly tripled in a year. The quarter also showed a split consumer, with spending strongest among shoppers earning under $50,000 and over $200,000, and the middle squeezed.
Sensei’s Insight: The business is turning for real, but a near-50% day is not a 50% improvement in the business. With a fifth of the shares sold short, this was as much a squeeze as a verdict, and moves built on forced buying rarely hold their full size.
🖥️ HPE Jumps 19% on a Blowout AI Quarter
Hewlett Packard Enterprise jumped about 19% yesterday after quarterly results that ran well past expectations and a sharp guidance raise. Revenue rose 40% from a year earlier to roughly $10.7 billion, helped by networking sales that more than doubled after its acquisition of Juniper Networks, and adjusted earnings of $0.79 a share beat the $0.53 analysts expected. New artificial-intelligence systems orders ran at $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion, and the company lifted its full-year earnings forecast to between $3.35 and $3.45 a share, up from $2.30 to $2.50. It also sold its remaining stake in China’s H3C for about $1.36 billion and added the activist investor Elliott Management to its board. (Yahoo Finance)
This matters because it widens the AI trade. For most of the past two years that spending showed up cleanly only in chipmakers like Nvidia. Now it is landing in the companies that build and wire the data centers, with HPE following a similar blowout from Dell a week earlier. For retail investors the read is that enterprise AI demand is turning into real revenue across the hardware chain, from servers to networking gear, not just order backlogs. The risk sits in that same chain: management flagged rising memory-chip costs as a headwind into 2027, the component squeeze that has been pushing up prices across electronics. Elliott’s arrival on the board also points to pressure for tighter spending discipline as the Juniper deal beds in.
Sensei’s Insight: The AI money has spread beyond the chipmakers. HPE and Dell both just posted blowout quarters on data-center demand, so the trade is broadening, not narrowing. Watch memory-chip costs, the one input that could eat into those margins in 2027.
₿ Bitcoin Breaks $68,000 as ETF Money Flees
Bitcoin dropped below $68,000 yesterday and kept sliding overnight to under $66,000, its lowest since April and more than 45% below its October record near $126,000. The fall wiped out more than $1.2 billion in leveraged crypto bets in a day as forced selling fed on itself. Two things drove it. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, the funds that let ordinary investors hold Bitcoin through a normal brokerage account, have now posted 11 straight days of net withdrawals, a record run totaling about $3.4 billion, with BlackRock’s fund alone losing $440 million in a single day. And Strategy, the software company that is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, disclosed its first sale of the asset in over three years, a small amount that carried an outsized signal. (Yahoo Finance)
What makes this notable is the break from stocks. The same week Bitcoin slid, US equity indexes closed at records on the AI trade, snapping the old habit of crypto and tech moving in step. The driver now is fund flows: the ETFs that pushed Bitcoin up by soaking up demand are pulling it down as investors cash out. For retail investors the read is that crypto is trading on its own logic again, and that the corporate treasury holders who bought heavily, led by Strategy, are a pressure point if more of them start selling. Traders are watching the $60,000 area as the next major support level.
Sensei’s Insight: Bitcoin climbed for two years on ETF money flowing in, and that same pipe is now running in reverse, with the price following it down. The thing to watch is the big corporate holders. If Strategy’s small sale turns into a habit, the floor moves lower. I have always said 2026 will be a bear market year.
Stories You Might Have Missed
⚖️ Short-Seller Andrew Left Convicted of Fraud
A Los Angeles federal jury convicted Andrew Left, founder of the activist short-selling firm Citron Research, of securities fraud earlier this week, finding him guilty on 13 of 17 counts after a three-week trial. Prosecutors said Left, 55, made at least $20 million by using his platform and television appearances on networks like CNBC and Fox Business to move stocks, including Nvidia and Tesla, while quietly trading the other way and exiting positions he publicly claimed to still hold. He faces up to 25 years on the lead count, with sentencing set for August 31, and says he will appeal. The case is the most significant criminal test yet of where market commentary ends and manipulation begins, and it lands squarely on the influencer and short-seller calls that retail investors often trade around. (CNBC)
🪐 Virgin Galactic Crashes 38% as Dilution Hits
Virgin Galactic fell about 38% yesterday, its worst day on record, ending a seven-session run that had more than tripled the stock. The space-tourism company had rocketed from around $3 to above $7 on momentum buying, a short squeeze, and excitement spilling over from the coming SpaceX listing. The reversal came from a regulatory filing showing the company plans to redeem up to $30.5 million of debt by issuing new shares, which dilutes existing holders. For a business that burns cash and reported just $227,000 in quarterly revenue against about $125 million on hand, the move was a reminder that a thin, heavily-shorted stock can give back a 200% gain in a single session. It is a cleaner cautionary tale on momentum and dilution than most textbooks manage. (Bloomberg)
🌏 Blackstone Raises a Record $13 Billion for Asia
Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative-asset manager, closed its biggest-ever Asia private-equity fund at $13.1 billion yesterday, beating its $10 billion target and more than doubling its previous Asia fund. The timing stands out, because industry-wide fundraising for the region fell last year to its lowest in more than a decade, squeezed by higher interest rates and slower payouts back to investors. Blackstone cleared its goal anyway and is aiming the money at India, Japan and Australia. It joins a wave of Asia mega-funds, with EQT recently closing $15.6 billion and KKR and Bain Capital each raising toward $10 billion to $15 billion. For retail investors it is a read on Blackstone’s (NYSE: BX) fee-earning growth and a sign that big institutions are rotating money toward Asia’s growth markets even with the Iran war rattling sentiment. (CNBC)
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📈 Chart of the Day:
Today’s chart section is slightly different.
Last night, I posted two technical analysis videos inside Discord covering XRP and Enphase Energy. These were both member-requested breakdowns, and they walk through the key levels, trend structure, support zones, resistance areas, and what I’m watching next.
As a premium newsletter member, you get free access to my sections of the Martyn Lucas Investor Discord. That means you would have been able to see both chart analyses as they were posted yesterday.
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