The smoke and mirrors stock market

Balance sheets, earnings calls, and market analysis are no match for one guy dropping the T-word: Today, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang praised Marvell Technology as the “next trillion-dollar company.” That was enough to send shares of the semiconductor firm soaring 32.52%.

Huang elaborated that Marvell’s chips are crucial for datacenters, which, to be fair, is pretty bullish. Then again, Huang’s faith in the company was already a known quantity: Nvidia already agreed to invest $2 billion in Marvell in March.

The hype is real

Huang’s blessing was enough for retail investors, who have been far more focused on vibes than fundamentals lately—reminiscent of the YOLO meme stock days, when traders were looking for any excuse to pump a stock.

Just take IBM, which surged 7.60% yesterday to a record high after an old clip of Trump calling IBM CEO Arvind Krishna a “legend” at a White House business roundtable went viral. Never mind that the clip was from December 2025, and markets barely registered the comment at the time.

Shares of Virgin Galactic also surged 21.70% yesterday, on the heels of Reddit posters confusing its ticker (SPCE) with SpaceX’s new post-IPO ticker (SPCX). The rally was able to gain steam because space stocks have genuinely been surging ahead of the debut of Elon’s favorite child. But the seesaw swung the other way today, and shares of Virgin Galactic plummeted 38.86% after the company announced it plans to take advantage of its sudden surge by issuing stock to pay back debt.

One Reddit user on r/WallStreetBets summarized things nicely: “This market has become a joke.”

Is the YOLO approach sustainable?

There has, of course, always been an element of hype when it comes to the stock market—after all, investors buy stocks based on what they think a company’s future value may be, which takes no small amount of optimism. But in today’s bull market fueled by rabid day traders and AI hype, it feels like the debauchery has become especially disconnected from what’s actually going on.

Reality check: Not to be a killjoy, but our economy is facing some pretty big fundamental risks. One elephant in the room remains the Strait of Hormuz.

JPMorgan warned back in mid-May that if the Strait remains closed through June, oil could hit $150 a barrel. That could trigger soaring gas prices, push inflation higher, and spark a potential global recession.

But June has arrived, the Strait is still blockaded, and investors are too busy investing in SpaceX typos to care.—LB