Market Watch: Oil Climb, Tech Shifts, and Key Company Earnings Updates

My top 10 things to watch Wednesday, July 22

1. The endless climb in oil can't be ignored today, as international benchmark Brent crude touched $95 a barrel for the first time in over a month. Now layer in premarket declines in SK Hynix, which has seemingly been in control of this market, and it's going to be hard for stocks to mount an advance. Nasdaq futures are leading the morning declines.

2. Club name GE Vernova is off 4% after reporting a noisy quarter. Earnings per share (EPS) looks like a big miss, but unclear if that's comparable to estimates. My focus is the excellent order growth of 88% in the quarter, the increase to the full-year revenue guide, and measured capacity additions. Can't have this data center boom without GEV's gas turbines and electric-grid equipment.

3. Top and bottom-line beat for Capital One. This Club name has tested our patience as it works to reap the rewards of last year's blockbuster Discover acquisition. Last night's release was a positive step, though not a home run. Longtime CEO Richard Fairbank is investing heavily to make Capital One look more like American Express. We have faith in Fairbank that the investments will pay off, but it's taking longer than we thought. Shares are flat this morning.

4. AT&T is up over 4% thanks to a fantastic quarter. While revenue was a slight miss, earnings topped expectations. So did customer additions for its fiber-optic internet and wireless businesses. On CNBC's "Squawk Box," CEO John Stankey said the results prove "we're doing a lot of things customers like." Stankey also said AT&T is stepping up buybacks to take advantage of the stock's recent declines, mostly driven by concerns about competition from SpaceX's satellite internet service Starlink.

5. Shares of Super Micro are surging more than 14% after the AI server maker issued preliminary fiscal fourth-quarter results. They're expecting much stronger gross margins than before and received over $60 billion in new orders during the June quarter. If Super Micro, which has encountered legal problems, did that well, then rival Dell should be incredible. Dell is up 2% premarket.

6. Nike is cleaning up its digital presence in China, which has been its most problematic market in recent quarters and overshadowed some of CEO Elliott Hill's turnaround progress in North America. Nike's plan is to cut off thousands of online distributors, focusing instead on its own website/app and that of a few high-quality retailers. No more race to the bottom digital sales.

7. Bernstein raised its price target on 3M to $145 from $140 after the industrial conglomerate's strong quarter. They're lagging behind the stock, which closed at nearly $171 yesterday. UBS went to $218 from $190. On "Mad Money" last night, 3M CEO Bill Brown told me how the company behind Scotch tape and Post-it notes is leaning into innovation to benefit from the AI buildout.

8. Danaher saw its price target lowered to $220 from $260 at Stifel. Headline numbers for the second quarter were strong, but analysts said the underperformance in its key bioprocessing business was "the obvious focal point." Guggenheim went to $200 from $235 for similar reasons. Truly disappointing. This is not the Danaher of old. Thankfully, we exited it for the Club back in February.

9. Total U.S. mortgage applications increased 1.9% last week. That's odd given mortgage rates recently hit their highest levels in almost a year. Our play on a rebound in the housing market is Home Depot. That hasn't quite panned out yet, with shares down over 3% year to date. We trimmed some last week as the stock has been trapped by elevated rates.

10. Wells Fargo cut its Arm price target to $350 from $410. Analysts pointed to a tough setup into earnings next week, saying they expect limited change to the chip designer's existing 20% revenue growth forecast for fiscal 2027. Data center is strong, but smartphone and PC markets could offset some of that. We exited Arm this month because of its extreme volatility. Intel, which reports tomorrow night, is our main bet on the central processing unit (CPU) renaissance.