Wells Fargo raises SanDisk (SNDK) price target from $1,250 to $1,620.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States remains willing to negotiate an end to the Iran crisis, but Tehran is not taking the talks seriously. Rubio noted that Washington is "always committed to diplomacy" but questioned whether Tehran views the negotiations with equal seriousness. "The problem we face now is that they are not serious about the talks. If they are, we will be too; if not, we will take necessary measures to protect our interests and those of our allies," Rubio said. He stressed that Iran must not control the Strait of Hormuz, as that would set a dangerous global precedent. Rubio added: "If we set a precedent in the Middle East where a nation-state can control an international waterway, charge tolls, and blow up ships that fail to pay, we will have created a very dangerous model that will be repeated in other parts of the world." (Jin10)

According to Bloomberg, Alphabet will release its second-quarter financial results after U.S. stock market close on Wednesday. Investors will focus on whether Google Cloud’s growth can prove its large-scale AI investments are yielding returns. Market forecasts show Alphabet’s revenue and net profit will both grow around 25% year-over-year, while Google Cloud’s revenue is expected to jump nearly 65% to $22.4 billion, compared to a 63% increase in the first quarter. Alphabet previously projected its capital expenditures would reach up to $190 billion in 2026, and noted that spending would “increase significantly” in 2027. Analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg show its 2027 capital expenditures could rise to $262 billion, nearly three times the 2025 level. Investors are therefore hoping the cloud business will continue accelerating to confirm that its expanding AI infrastructure investments are delivering returns. Alphabet’s stock has risen around 11% since the start of 2026, but is down 14% from its all-time high hit in May. Jonathan Cofsky, an investment manager at Janus Henderson, said that if the cloud business accelerates its growth and search operations remain strong, it will help ease market concerns about the scale of spending and overall investment returns. Alphabet’s current 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio is around 23x, higher than its 10-year average of 21x and on par with the Nasdaq 100 index. Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Evercore ISI, believes that given the sustained strong demand for AI infrastructure, Google Cloud’s revenue forecast still has significant upside potential.

Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio once warned Elon Musk against plowing most of his proceeds from selling PayPal into Mars exploration, a move Musk pushed back on at the time, saying "I don't need to do that". Dalio recently recalled the exchange during a podcast, noting he first met Musk in 2002 while researching entrepreneur personality types, classifying the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as a "shaper"—a term for individuals with grand visions who are passionate about turning ideas into reality. According to Dalio, after selling PayPal, Musk received roughly $180 million, most of which he poured into startup ventures: around $100 million to SpaceX, $70 million to Tesla, and $10 million to solar firm SolarCity. Dalio advised Musk to hold back some cash as a safety buffer, telling him "If things go south, you’ll at least have some funds left." Musk’s response: "No, I don’t need that." Dalio added that Musk is not primarily driven by wealth accumulation, but rather focused on achieving long-term goals. One of SpaceX’s core missions is building the technology framework to make humanity a "multiplanetary species." Following SpaceX’s historic IPO on Nasdaq this summer, investors gained their first in-depth look at the company’s strategy, with its prospectus stating its mission is "to build the systems and technologies required for life to become multiplanetary." Dalio also highlighted that "shapers" like Musk combine a far-reaching, big-picture strategic vision with extreme attention to detail. He recalled Musk once showing him specific details of Tesla vehicles and discussing concrete ideas such as sending plant watering systems to Mars. For now, Mars exploration remains a central part of SpaceX’s long-term strategy, and Musk continues to place big bets on areas including rockets, satellites, and artificial intelligence.

According to data from GMGN and DeFiLlama, Robinhood Chain has surpassed $9 billion in cumulative DEX trading volume since its mainnet launch on July 1. Roughly $4.04 billion of that volume came in just the past seven days, placing the chain among the top five globally for trading volume and briefly outperforming ecosystems including Polygon, Hyperliquid L1, and Arbitrum. Trading on Robinhood Chain has grown rapidly since launch: its first week DEX volume was less than $100 million, but it surged sharply starting July 8, with daily trading repeatedly topping $500 million, driven by massive speculative inflows from the chain’s meme asset CASHCAT. Current trading remains highly concentrated in the Uniswap ecosystem: Uniswap V2/V3/V4 accounted for 96% of the chain’s trading volume over the past seven days. Positioned as an Ethereum L2 built on the Arbitrum tech stack, Robinhood Chain targets financial services and real-world assets (RWAs); stock tokens can be traded via Robinhood Wallet and protocols like Uniswap. Per DeFiLlama data, the chain’s current DeFi total value locked (TVL) is approximately $305 million, its stablecoin market cap is ~$439 million, and its active RWA market cap is ~$64.22 million. Meme coins like CASHCAT still dominate top trading pairs, while stock tokens have not yet become a major trading source.

One of Bitcoin’s largest mining pools, Foundry USA, is inviting its miner clients to vote on whether the pool will support Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 110. BIP-110 is a hotly debated soft fork proposal aimed at reducing the volume of storable data in Bitcoin transactions, to limit non-monetary transaction types such as Ordinals from occupying Bitcoin network space. Foundry stated it has provided relevant proposal materials to its miner clients, with the voting window set to close at Bitcoin block height 961,632, expected in early August. Miners can participate in the vote via a link sent to their emails. BIP-110 is currently one of the most divisive proposals in the Bitcoin community. Supporters argue the proposal helps ease pressure on block space from non-financial transactions, while opponents worry it could harm the openness of the Bitcoin network. Blockstream CEO Adam Back has publicly opposed BIP-110, claiming it could be used to freeze user funds. Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor also criticized the proposal, saying it might disrupt some normal transactions. According to Hashrate Index, Foundry USA currently holds approximately 23.8% of Bitcoin’s total network hash rate, making it one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pools. Its stance on BIP-110 could impact future community discussions and deployment of the proposal.