Morning Bid: Marvell, a fitting name for the latest AI darling

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Tom Westbrook

Notwithstanding fresh hostilities in the Middle East, AI shares drove equity markets in Asia to new records on Wednesday. [MKTS/GLOB]

AI kingmaker Jensen Huang – the CEO of Nvidia – offered the latest shove higher by anointing superhero-sounding chipmaker Marvell Technology as the next trillion-dollar company, promptly sending its stock price up more than 30%.

A market cap of $254 billion is a long way from $1 trillion, but that’s a gap that peers have been covering at a clip. A year ago Micron and SK Hynix had market values of barely $100 billion. They now top $1 trillion.

Memory-maker Kioxia also briefly on Wednesday became Japan’s second-most valuable company behind tech investor SoftBank, pushing longtime No. 1 Toyota into third position.

In a surprise move ahead of its investor roadshow, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to fix its IPO price at $135 ‌per share to raise a record-setting $75 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Elsewhere in markets, the yen tiptoed into the intervention red zone on Wednesday, touching the 160-per-dollar level that’s viewed as around authorities’ red line.

Gulf hostilities flared anew, with the U.S. military saying Iranian missile attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and other regional targets were either thwarted or failed, as diplomacy between Washington and Tehran showed little progress.

Oil prices rose by around $1 a barrel. [O/R]

The U.S. services ISM is due later in the day, along with private payrolls and the Federal Reserve’s beige book of economic conditions ahead of U.S. labour data due out on Friday.

Figures on Tuesday showed job openings increased by the most in five years in April.

Key developments that could influence markets on Wednesday:

– Economics: U.S. services ISM, ADP Payrolls, Fed beige book

– Iran war developments

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)