SK Hynix Inc. 12-layer HBM3E memory chips, front, and a LPDDR5X CAMM2 memory module arranged at the company’s office in Seongnam, South Korea, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.<\/p>\n
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to today’s edition of the Daily Open newsletter.<\/p>\n
The $1 trillion club just got bigger, as the AI-fueled rally propelled more companies into the mega-market-cap space. <\/p>\n
The race to scale continues at breakneck speed, and is keeping tech-heavy indices across the world at record levels. <\/p>\n
It’s one of the first days when developments in Iran have not dominated international markets, but it is not far from investors’ minds as the fragile truce continues to be tested. <\/p>\n
What you need to know today<\/p>\n Shares in SK Hynix<\/a> jumped on Wednesday, taking the South Korean chipmaker’s market capitalization above $1 trillion<\/a> for the first time. The move follows a blistering rally for the stock, which has skyrocketed around 250% since the start of the year. The gains have been fueled by surging demand for AI chips, which has driven South Korea’s KOPSI to record highs. <\/p>\n And it’s not the only one to join the $1 trillion club over the last 24 hours. U.S. tech group Micron<\/a> is also riding the AI wave. On Tuesday, UBS tripled its price target for the stock, sending shares 19% higher<\/a> on the day. You can get Jim Cramer’s take on the top nine U.S.-based trillion-dollar companies here<\/a>. <\/p>\n Staying with technology, industrial profits in China have surged by 24.7% in April,<\/a> marking the fastest growth since November 2023. Computing and electronics equipment manufacturing saw earnings almost double from a year ago. <\/p>\n European companies are committed to their supply chains in China<\/a>, according to a survey released by the European Union Chamber of Commerce, which said one-third of respondents are onshoring further in the country. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, top ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau has told CNBC that the central bank “will do what is necessary”<\/a> to keep inflation on target. <\/p>\n “If I speak on behalf of the ECB, this means do what is necessary to bring inflation back to 2% in the medium term. Markets can be assured of that,” he told CNBC.<\/p>\n In corporate news, shares in Italian luxury car giant Ferrari closed deep<\/a> in the red after investors took a cynical view of the group’s highly anticipated electric vehicle launch. The Luce was met with widespread disappointment over its appearance and skepticism over the $640,000 price tag. <\/p>\n BP also ended Tuesday in the red after the board removed chairman Albert Manifold<\/a> over “serious” conduct concerns. He told the Financial Times<\/a> he “will not allow a false narrative to go unchallenged.”<\/p>\n Across broader equity markets, Japan and South Korea have hit fresh record highs<\/a> as markets weigh the progress of U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks against fresh tensions in the region. U.S. stock futures are little changed after the S&P 500 closed at another record on Tuesday<\/a>. In Europe, stocks are heading for a mixed open. <\/p>\n \u2014 Leonie Kidd<\/p>\n And finally…Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SK Hynix Inc. 12-layer HBM3E memory chips, front, and a LPDDR5X CAMM2 memory module arranged at the company’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[241665,282676,276186,247540,221163,247625,269601,38080,1540,11623,550,44599,28,122,144,3486,218789,1072,12,5473,11,45787,57429,1922,33611,216736,15492,36696,124435,214220,801,214219,47536,3471,6009,7672,7174,112,5239,7173,3487,19431,1206,201260,7047,49024,27351,1866,221016,32735,3998,10058,24304,11636,21,6508,6990,124084,6132],"class_list":["post-667678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-cl26k","tag-cl26n","tag-hg26n","tag-lco26m","tag-lco26n","tag-lco26u","tag-lco26v","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-amazon-com-inc","tag-apple-inc","tag-beijing","tag-bp-plc","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-china","tag-cisco-systems-inc","tag-delivery-hero-se","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-doug-burgum","tag-elon-musk","tag-estee-lauder-companies-inc","tag-ferrari-nv","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gbp-usd","tag-global-x-robotics-artificial-intelligence-etf","tag-government-debt","tag-hsbc-holdings-plc","tag-ice-brent-crude-oct25","tag-invesco-qqq-trust","tag-iran","tag-ishares-semiconductor-etf","tag-j-d-vance","tag-japan","tag-jd-vance","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kospi-index","tag-markets","tag-micron-technology-inc","tag-nikkei-225-index","tag-nvidia-corp","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-russia","tag-ryanair-holdings-plc","tag-sam-altman","tag-satya-nadella","tag-sk-hynix-inc","tag-south-korea","tag-spdr-sp-semiconductors","tag-standard-chartered-plc","tag-taiwan","tag-tesla-inc","tag-uber-technologies-inc","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-world-markets","tag-wti-crude-sep25","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}