0810 | Stocks Hit Record on Soft Payrolls; Cyber Stocks Rally; Oil Up; TSMC Surges

Mia: You're listening to After Market, Bri's daily look at what moved and what it means. I'm Mia.

Milo: And I'm Milo. Today we're tracking a sharp slowdown in the jobs market that sent stocks to a fresh record, record highs for cybersecurity names, oil back above eighty-two dollars, and a big sales surge from the world's top chipmaker. Plus SpaceX, gold's best week in months, and more.

Mia: Let's start with the big picture. US stock futures rallied after the latest jobs report showed a sharp slowdown in the labor market, and that helped push stocks to a fresh record high just as we head into a key inflation week. The soft jobs reading has raised fresh questions about whether the Federal Reserve will actually raise rates in September.

Milo: So with employment cooling, all eyes are now on Wednesday's consumer price index report. Prediction markets are expecting tamer inflation, and that would likely keep the Fed comfortable. But Jim Caron, who runs portfolio solutions at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, warns that a hot CPI reading could cause real problems for the Fed. And Thierry Wizman over at Macquarie is also watching the inflation data closely.

Mia: The message from the tape is that higher nominal growth is what's driving equity prices higher right now. Investors have also been abandoning their downside hedges to chase stocks at these record levels. And of course, oil is back in the picture too, since Iran's deal with Oman over the Hormuz shipping route still hasn't come together.

Milo: So the near-term setup comes down to two things: Wednesday's inflation print, and the final stretch of corporate earnings, especially from the chipmakers, which should give investors something concrete to weigh against all this valuation debate.

Mia: Shifting to cybersecurity, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks both hit record levels after the industry's annual Black Hat security conference. The hook this year is a renewed push for AI-powered security tools, driven by a growing sense that AI itself is becoming a rising threat.

Milo: And that theme is getting some real-world backing. OpenAI is expanding its Daybreak cybersecurity initiative as AI agent threats evolve. Daybreak launched back in May — it's the program that lets OpenAI's partners use the company's most advanced models to keep up with a rapidly shifting threat landscape. Now, we don't have exact numbers on those record moves or how much of the rally is conference-driven versus something deeper. But the bigger story is that AI is increasingly both the tool and the threat, and security vendors are betting on being the answer.

Mia: Turning to energy, US oil climbed back above eighty-two dollars a barrel as doubt grew that Washington and Tehran will reach a deal over the Strait of Hormuz. That standoff has choked the waterway for more than five months now. The oil advance actually left stocks wavering and pushed Treasury bond yields higher, with traders getting anxious just days before those key inflation reports.

Milo: Backing up the move in crude, Iran's oil terminals have appeared largely idle this month as the US keeps up a naval blockade aimed at pressuring Tehran into a peace deal — though visibility into what's actually happening at those terminals is patchy. President Trump has signaled a shift toward economic pressure even as Iran hardens its stance. Separately, Saudi Arabia delayed the restart of its Jazan plant to late August, according to the industry monitor. So oil strength is feeding straight into the stock and bond tape, and those inflation prints are the near-term catalyst everyone's positioning around. The open question is whether US crude holds above eighty-two, and whether we get any real confirmation of what's actually moving through Iran's ports.

Mia: Now to the chipmakers. TSMC — described as the world's biggest chipmaker — just reported a forty-five percent surge in monthly sales, driven by buoyant demand for AI hardware. The company builds chips for big tech names like Nvidia and Google, which is exactly why so many people track its numbers as the clearest gauge of AI semiconductor demand.

Milo: That jump is a strong signal that the AI supply chain is still firing. The reporting doesn't break down the gain by product or customer, and there's no forward guidance in what we've seen. But the takeaway for investors is fairly direct: if the company that makes chips for the biggest names in AI is growing that fast month over month, that's a meaningful read-through for AI demand broadly — and for the large technology firms that lean on TSMC for their manufacturing.

Mia: Next up, SpaceX. The company reported better-than-expected revenue in its second-quarter earnings last week, and its stock rebounded to close above the hundred-thirty-five dollar IPO price for the first time in weeks.

Milo: But here's where the picture gets murkier. AlphaCheck says retail investors have ended their SpaceX buying spree now that the stock has reclaimed that IPO price. At the same time, another headline says SpaceX has already imploded forty-eight percent at some point, and a Wall Street veteran — not named in the reports — has warned against bottom-fishing. So we've got the stock back above its IPO level on a strong earnings beat, sitting right next to a warning about a deep drawdown and retail money heading for the exits.

Mia: And there's something else to watch. Rivals Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile are about to report earnings of their own. So the real question is whether that reclaim of the hundred-thirty-five dollar mark can hold, or whether the reported drawdown and the abrupt end to the retail buying spree signal a tougher road ahead.

Mia: Finally, let's talk gold. The metal just logged its best weekly gain in seven months, and the move carried right into Monday — gold opened at its highest price since early June, and silver kept climbing through the morning session.

Milo: Now, there's no single catalyst behind this one. It looks like a mix of forces rather than one clean driver — and the reporting doesn't pin down whether this is safe-haven demand, positioning, or macro flows. But here's an interesting tell: options strategist Mike Khouw is buying more gold. That's a concrete signal from someone who watches the precious metals space. The real test comes in whether gold can hold near these levels through the US close, and whether silver keeps its momentum. If it does, we may see follow-through in the miners and the precious metals funds — though none of that has shown up in the tape yet.

Mia: That's the wrap for today. We watched a softer jobs report send stocks to a record ahead of Wednesday's CPI print, cybersecurity names shine after Black Hat, oil pushing higher on the Hormuz uncertainty, a big sales number out of TSMC, SpaceX back above its IPO price, and gold putting in its best week in months.

Milo: The near-term word for all of it: Wednesday's inflation number is the one to watch, with chipmaker earnings right behind it. Thanks for listening to After Market — we'll catch you next time.