Palantir’s AI Warning, SpaceX’s Post-Lockup Rally: What to Watch Before the Open

1. SpaceX rallies after lockup expiration even as tradable shares more than double

SpaceX’s large lockup expired on Aug. 6, allowing about 911.5 million additional shares to trade. That equals about 140% of the company’s previous free float. The restriction was lifted after the stock reached its second trading day following the company’s first earnings report since its Nasdaq listing.

The move increases the tradable share count to about 1.55 billion from 638.9 million. The portion of total outstanding shares available for trading also rose to 11.9% from 4.9%. Additional lockup expirations for employees and early investors are scheduled in stages, and by December about 40% of total outstanding shares will be eligible for trading. The remaining 60%, including Elon Musk’s stake, is expected to remain locked up until mid-2027.

Investors had feared a wave of selling. Instead, SpaceX shares rose more than 6% on the day the lockup expired and extended gains in premarket trading. The move suggests much of the overhang had already been priced in, while investors increasingly believe early backers will not dump their holdings all at once. That helped ease uncertainty. Recent weakness in the stock also drew bargain hunters, lifting sentiment.

Sentiment was also helped by the TerraFab investment plan announced on Aug. 6. Investors took the plan as a push to build an AI semiconductor supply chain in-house and strengthen long-term competitiveness. With lockup concerns fading and a large-scale AI infrastructure investment vision on the table, the market treated the news as a sign of longer-term growth drivers.

2. Alphabet reshuffles AI leadership as top talent departs

Alphabet, Google’s parent, is undertaking a major reorganization as key AI talent continues to leave. Jeff Dean, one of the company’s best-known AI researchers, is leaving to start a company. Demis Hassabis, chief executive officer of Google DeepMind, is stepping back from day-to-day management to become chairman. The changes have sharpened market focus on a shift in Alphabet’s AI leadership.

Industry participants tie the changes to Alphabet’s effort to balance research and monetization. Google still controls core AI technologies including the transformer architecture, TPUs and Gemini. More recently, however, it has placed greater emphasis on expanding profit in enterprise AI services and cloud computing than on pure research and development. Google Cloud posted 82% growth in the latest quarter.

Top AI researchers often place more value on developing new models and driving technical breakthroughs than on building highly profitable services. That helps explain why talent continues to move to research-focused companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. There are also internal conflicts over whether limited computing resources, including TPUs, should be devoted to research or allocated to cloud customers to generate revenue.

Talent matters more in AI than in most other industries. Industry participants estimate that only a few hundred researchers worldwide have actually designed and trained frontier-scale AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Their role goes far beyond model building. They design new AI architectures, curate massive datasets, connect and optimize hundreds of thousands of GPUs for training, and lead repeated cycles of failure and refinement. That experience is viewed as a scarce competitive advantage that cannot be gained from papers or theory alone.

3. Renaissance Macro says rebound may not mark a turn in momentum trades

Renaissance Macro Research said the recent rebound in momentum trades centered on AI and semiconductor stocks is not enough to call a trend reversal. The firm said the strategy has bounced sharply after its worst month since the 2000 dot-com bust, but historical episodes often brought additional declines over the following months.

Renaissance Macro reviewed 41 past momentum-crash episodes and found a common pattern: a steep drop from the peak followed by a short-term rebound. Weakness then resumed, and the final bottom typically formed about six months after the high on average. The firm said current moves in AI and chip stocks are tracking that historical pattern closely.

The takeaway for investors is that a sharp bounce alone does not mean the market has fully recovered. History shows rebounds after steep selloffs are often followed by further adjustments. Whether this rally marks the start of a new bull market will depend in the coming months on earnings, investor sentiment and the durability of AI-related demand.

4. Palantir says companies are ditching AI subscriptions for in-house systems

Palantir is pointing to a structural shift in the enterprise AI market. Until now, companies have largely relied on AI services from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and OpenAI, paying based on usage through subscription-style models. Big Tech has counted on continued growth in that demand, building data centers aggressively and locking in AI chip supply.

Companies are now taking a different route. Palantir is helping customers replace ongoing subscriptions to outside AI services with open-source AI models running on their own on-premise servers, while allowing them to switch among models as needed. The appeal is lower AI costs and stronger security because data stays inside the company.

Palantir’s growth suggests that shift is already showing up in the market. The company recently posted 149% year-over-year growth in U.S. commercial revenue. Executives said companies are moving toward building their own AI infrastructure instead of continuing to pay high AI subscription fees.

Palantir also recently reported a 93% jump in revenue from a year earlier and a 149% surge in U.S. commercial revenue.

Ryan Taylor, Palantir’s chief revenue officer, said paying expensive monthly subscription fees, or token costs, drains corporate budgets without producing results and risks exposing company secrets.

Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp said every company will choose a self-controlled setup that allows it to swap models freely rather than rely on risky and expensive outside AI services.

The shift could ripple across the broader AI industry. If more companies build their own systems, growth in Big Tech’s cloud AI revenue could slow, and data-center investment and AI chip demand could also change. That would not mean AI demand itself is shrinking. It would mean the way companies deploy AI is changing.

5. Midterm elections may help stocks if uncertainty fades

Ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November, investors are focusing less on which party wins power and more on whether political uncertainty eases. The House is currently split 220 seats for Republicans and 215 for Democrats, leaving the balance of power highly sensitive to the election result.

The biggest variable in the race is the cost of living and inflation. Historically, high consumer prices and rising gasoline prices have hurt the governing party at the ballot box. In midterm elections held during periods of rising gasoline prices, the ruling party lost an average of 32 House seats. When prices were falling, the average loss was just six seats.

For equities, midterm elections have often been followed by gains as political uncertainty clears. Since 1930, the S&P 500 has typically seen a brief pullback right after the election before rising about a month later, with an average 12-month return of roughly 13% after the vote. A divided government, with the presidency and Congress controlled by different parties, has often been viewed positively by markets because it limits major policy changes.

Defense, technology and financials are viewed as relative beneficiaries. Defense budgets tend to hold up regardless of which party is in power, while a divided Congress could make it harder to pass aggressive regulation aimed at AI and Big Tech. Energy, health care and private equity, by contrast, could face greater policy uncertainty and regulatory risk.

6. Dimon says leverage is too high as Wall Street signals tighter lending

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said leverage has become excessive across financial markets. He cited hidden leverage in forms including margin debt, prime brokerage loans, hedge fund borrowing, ETFs and Treasury basis trades.

Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan also described the recent Situational Awareness episode as a warning sign for financial markets and said lending standards should be tightened further. That would not simply mean cutting loan volumes. It would also involve stronger risk controls, including higher collateral requirements for hedge funds, lower leverage caps and tighter limits on concentrated positions in individual securities.

The remarks from the two CEOs were less a call on an imminent financial-system crisis than a broader warning about excessive leverage. If Wall Street becomes more cautious about extending leverage, money flowing into high-growth stocks such as AI and semiconductor shares could slow. If markets fall sharply, margin calls could also accelerate, adding to volatility.

Shin-young Park, New York correspondent, Hankyung.com nyusos@hankyung.com