SK Hynix Posts an 80% Margin, and the AI Buyers Report Tonight

Chips are lifting futures again after SK Hynix posted an 80% margin. Its third-quarter operating profit came in more than seven times a year ago on AI memory demand, and Vertiv followed before the bell with orders more than doubling and its full-year guidance raised. Vertiv is up about 16% premarket and Micron about 4%. SPX closed 7,722.60 Tuesday, up 0.60%. Premarket 7,737.

Every dollar of that revenue is capex for a buyer, and two of the biggest buyers report tonight. Meta fell 1.9% Monday and another 1.6% Tuesday while AMD rose 5.5%, so the split that has run all season held again. The companies selling AI get paid and the one buying it gets sold. Microsoft and Alphabet are on Meta's side of that trade, and they report after a Fed decision with about a 90% chance of a hold and close to 80% odds of a December hike priced. Microsoft is slightly lower premarket and Alphabet is up about 1.5%, so the market hasn't decided which of them gets sold like Meta. Trade balance at 8:30, the Fed at 2 and the press conference at 2:30.

The profile turned over in one session, from about 2.8 to 1 negative Tuesday to about 2.3 to 1 positive, and premarket opens on Tuesday's 7,736 high inside the positive half. Every strike from 7,730 up to the 7,770 call wall is positive and the wall is nearly twice the next node, so dealers damp moves and the morning should lean toward the wall into the decision. The 7,775 and 7,780 nodes carry it a little further. Nothing past 7,800 is a sixth of the wall's size, which makes a break a grind toward the record close instead of a run. Under the block, 7,710 to 7,725 is chop around the flip, and below that the negatives are thin and spread out with the 7,650 put wall only a fifth of the call wall, so a break there travels.

The lean is long from a pullback to 7,725, where prior demand sits just over Tuesday's 7,723 close and under the 20-day. Targets are 7,746 and 7,755, with the 7,770 call wall the pull into 2 p.m. Buying 7,737 at the open pays up for the middle of the block on a Fed day. A break of 7,708 ends it.