Global Stock Markets

Apple shares fell as much as 8% in after-hours trading after management warned that severe memory chip constraints will drag on future sales of iPhones, Macs, and iPads. The company projects total revenue growth between 9% and 10% in the current quarter, missing analyst estimates of 12%. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook described the surging cost of DRAM memory chips as a hundred year flood driven by intense competition from AI data center builders. Crucially, Apple is bucking peers by avoiding massive infrastructure spending; its quarterly capital expenditures totaled $2.46 billion, well below estimates of $3.44 billion and vastly lower than the over $100 billion annual commitments of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Apple plans to rely instead on on-device processing as a competitive edge while monetizing cloud-heavy tasks through iCloud upgrades. Dissenting analyst views were not reported. This thesis would be challenged if current-quarter total revenue growth exceeds 10%.

Sainsbury's shares rose over 3% after agreeing to sell the Argos retail chain to Swift Partners for £120m. A decade after purchasing Argos for over £1bn, the supermarket is offloading the non-food operation to shed a financially suboptimal business and concentrate investment purely on its primary grocery trade. The divestment allows Sainsbury's to free up capital while retaining long-term commercial store-in-store arrangements with Argos.

Abu Dhabi's national oil company ADNOC paid about $590 million to buy five very large crude carriers from Frontline Plc. The purchase comes as vessel supply tightens amid ongoing Middle East geopolitical conflict that has disrupted Strait of Hormuz traffic. By securing direct ownership of tankers capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude each, ADNOC ensures reliable export capacity as the UAE expands production beyond OPEC limits.