All the market moving news from premarket summarised in one short report 18/06

MAJOR NEWS:

* President Pezeshkian and his US counterpart Trump signed the **MoU** between Tehran and Washington digitally and remotely yesterday.

MAG7 NEWS:

* Microsoft is reportedly selling AI models to major Chinese tech firms through Azure, even as OpenAI and Anthropic avoid selling directly into China.
* Trump says Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build chips in America. He also said Nvidia & Elon are working with Intel, and that the U.S. took a 10% stake in Intel when it was worth around $100B. Intel is now worth over $600B, making America stake worth over $60B
* AAPL is reportedly preparing to RAISE PRICES as the AI-driven memory crunch starts hitting consumer hardware. DRAM and NAND costs are moving higher as AI servers absorb more supply, and Tim Cook says the pressure is becoming unsustainable.

OTHER COMPANY NEWS:

* INTC moving as Trump says Nvidia & Elon are working with Intel, and that the U.S. took a 10% stake in Intel when it was worth around $100B. Intel is now worth over $600B, making America stake worth over $60B
* OpenAI says demand has surged since GPT-5.5, especially from enterprises. At VivaTech, the company also said ChatGPT is approaching 1 billion weekly active users.
* UUUU - Energy Fuels Receives Conditional $725M, 20-Year Funding Commitment From U.S. Department Of War's Office Of Strategic Capital For Rare Earths And Critical Materials.
* ANF - Hollister is partnering with Target to enter home and dorm decor for the first time. The collection launches June 28 online, in most Target stores, and select Hollister locations, with nearly 60 items across apparel and bedding. This gives both brands exposure to the back-to-college market, which reached $88.8B last year, including $12.8B spent on dorm and apartment furnishings.
* LEU - OKLO and LEU and Centrus signed an LOI for HALEU fuel supply covering up to five Aurora powerhouses.LEU would source the fuel from its American Centrifuge Plant in Pike County, Ohio, with deliveries expected to start in 2029.Oklo’s planned southern Ohio campus targets 1.2 GW of power capacity. Centrus is also working off a previously announced $900M DOE HALEU task order.
* ACN - is making a $4.175B cybersecurity push.The company will buy a majority stake in Dragos and 100% of runZero and NetRise, adding OT security, asset intelligence, exposure assessment, device security, and software supply chain capabilities.
* VIAV - Xgig platform for PCIe 6.0 testing received PCI-SIG Gold Suite acceptance. The approval allows Xgig to be used for PCIe 6.0 compliance testing at PCI-SIG workshops worldwide, supporting validation of interoperable, standards-compliant PCIe devices.
* ENPH - Barclays upgrades ENPH to Equalweight from Underweight, raises PT to 51 from 30. Analyst comments: "We upgrade Enphase to Equalweight given the SST opportunity, with a total annual run-rate U.S. TAM of approximately $2B by the late 2020s, per our estimates. ENPH’s solid-state transformer initiative represents a credible entry point into the evolving data center power stack. As hyperscalers migrate toward 800V DC architectures to support higher rack densities, SSTs are expected to become a core component, replacing or displacing traditional transformers, UPS systems, and PDUs. Unlike legacy hardware, SSTs resemble inverters in functionality, leveraging active power conversion and control, which plays directly to ENPH’s technical strengths. This architectural shift could disrupt incumbent dominance, including Vertiv, Schneider, and Eaton at approximately 45% share, particularly as newer entrants appear further along in development. If ENPH and SEDG maintain their design lead, they could capture early share as 800V data centers begin scaling meaningfully into 2028–2029, creating a foothold in a large, adjacent market. Opportunities beyond the data center may open as well, such as utility-scale solar, if SST prices fall in the years to come."
* BSY - BNP Paribas Exane analyst Andrew DeGasperi initiates coverage on Bentley Systems with an outperform rating.
* NICE - DA Davidson upgrades NICE to Buy from Neutral PT 110. "We are upgrading shares of NICE from Neutral to Buy, maintaining our $110 PT at 9x 2027 EPS, after conversations with customers at the company’s annual user event last week suggested investors’ perception of AI disruption is much more cynical than the reality occurring within contact centers. Following an analysis of the value-unlock potential from the sale of Actimize, monetization of AI feature usage, and discounted valuation on a relative and historical basis at less than 7x CY27 EPS, we believe the risk/reward skews positive at current levels."
* Starlink subscribers have grown more than 4x since 2023, from 2.3M to 10.3M in Q1 2026.
* TLN - Goldman initiates at Buy, PT 499. Cites 17-year AWS PPA de-risking cash flows, 99% PJM exposure as power supply tightens, Upside from more potential PPA signings tied to data center demand
* BESI raised its long-term targets ahead of investor day New targets: Revenue: €1.7B to €2.2B, up from €1.5B - €1.9B, Operating margin: 45% to 55%, up from 40% - 55%
* IREN - Jefferies initiates IREn at Buy, PT 79. "IREN has positioned itself in a unique place among AI infrastructure providers with an extraordinarily large long-term powered land bank of approximately 6 GW and a vertically integrated GPU cloud approach. Anchored by IG tenant credit, the MSFT and NVDA contracts position IREN to deliver $3.1B of ARR. Owning the land and data centers provides IREN with unique optionality to service customers from powered shells to full GPU cloud builds. Initiate at Buy and $79 PT.
* SK hynix has shipped 12-layer HBM4E samples to major customers.
* JPMorgan has stopped Hong Kong staff from accessing Anthropic’s Claude models, per FT. Employees can no longer select Claude from the bank’s internal list of approved LLMs, with the decision reportedly tied to Anthropic’s licensing terms.
* Starbucks is planning to open 50 to 100 new stores per year in India, as competition in coffee gets more crowded. Tata Starbucks has already doubled its store count to 500+ locations over the past 4 to 5 years and holds roughly 30% market share.
* BWXT - has agreed to license its mPower small modular reactor design after pressure from activist investor Ananym Capital.

OTHER NEWS:

* China defended its critical minerals export controls after the G7 moved to reduce reliance on Beijing for rare earths and permanent magnets. G7 wants dependence on any single outside supplier below 60% by 2030, with a longer-term goal of 50%.