Russell 2000 Pops As Wall Street Sells the House and Buys a One-Way Ticket to Penny Stock Island

I’m not saying I can see the future, but today’s market was more predictable than a Liam Neeson movie (if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all). Yesterday’s miraculous CPI print had both smart money and basement dwellers bagholding SPACs waking up with the same “we are so back” energy, and for once, no grey cloud hanging overhead (shoutout to Donald for playing accidental wingman).

That set the tone right out of the gate. The S&P 500 shot to a fresh record high before settling up 0.2%, while the Dow bulldozed its way to a 0.9% gain…  its second monster day in a row. The Nasdaq tagged along with a modest 0.1% bump after flirting with record territory earlier. With the CME FedWatch tool showing a near 100% chance of a September rate cut, the market’s behaving like the decision’s already in the bag. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is lobbying for a 50-basis-point opener to kick off as much as 175 points in total cuts… the monetary policy version of “open bar until someone pukes on the dance floor.”

And when cheap money is basically a lock, you know who starts acting up… small caps. So again, not surprisingly, the Russell 2000 ripped 1.4% as investors shifted from safe to “YOLO” investments.  That “risk-on” juicebox spilled right into the big kids’ table. AMD jumped 5% and Apple climbed 1% after word leaked about its so-called AI “comeback” featuring (checks notes) household robots, and an “animated Siri” (whatever that means).

And while Paramount and UFC technically tied the knot yesterday, they clearly saved the drunk uncle speeches for today. The stock threw hands and spiked as much as 60% after sealing that $7.7 billion deal to be the exclusive U.S. home for UFC events (Dana can finally rest easy and stop worrying about illegal streamers taking money from his backpocket).

Not to be outdone in the “make an entrance” department, crypto exchange Bullish kicked down the NYSE doors with an IPO priced at $37, opened at $90, sprinted past $112, and cooled to around $92… a full “to the moon” speedrun that made Peter Thiel’s Cayman Islands-backed baby one of the loudest debuts of the year.

Elsewhere, Webtoon Entertainment spiked almost 90% after blowout earnings and locking in a Disney deal to bring its comics online. Warner Bros Discovery jumped nearly 7% after an insider scooped up over 300,000 shares… proof that sometimes the best buy signal is your own C-suite panic-buying the dip.

On the losing side, Walmart slipped 2% after Amazon rolled out free same-day grocery delivery, also dragging Kroger, Albertsons, and Instacart into the meat grinder.  Cava got sent to the penalty box (-16%) after cutting its sales growth outlook… a wake-up call that maybe (probably) its “Greek Chipotle” valuation was built more on “hopes and dreams” than numbers. Oh, and CoreWeave cratered 20% after pulling off the rare “sell $1.21B worth of AI hype while losing $1.19B doing it” stunt… officially proving you can quadruple your losses and still have the audacity to call it growth.

So yeah, today was one of those “strap in and don’t spill your drink” kind of market days… the kind where traders start ordering $10K bottles of wine before Jerome even steps up to the mic. If you’re still “waiting for the dip,” that’s on you. You played stupid games, you won stupid prizes. And with the market cruising into the money months and the Fed pumping liquidity like a bodybuilder on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” steroid cycle, this train doesn’t look like it’s slowing anytime soon (knock on wood).

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple, Amazon, and Disney as mentioned in the article.