8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Wednesday: HP Ups the Ante for Apple

Apple CEO Tim Cook

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of the trading day. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a positive market open later on Wednesday morning.

1. Israel and Iran exchanged airstrikes on Wednesday, as Iran's military rejected President Donald Trump's assertion the U.S. was in negotiations to end the war which has roiled energy and financial markets, saying the U.S. is negotiating with itself. The rejection of negotiations by the unified command of the Iranian Armed Forces, which is dominated by the hardline elite Revolutionary Guards, comes amid reports the U.S. has sent a 15-point plan for discussion ‌to Tehran. (Reuters)

Despite the continued strikes, oil prices are falling on reports that Iran has signaled safe passage for non-hostile ships through the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, we are also reading that the Pentagon is sending 2,000 airborne troops to the Middle East, but other reports indicate that President Trump is endorsing Pakistan’s offer to broker negotiations. To us, this sounds like a combination of negotiating tactics and gamesmanship, but as we discussed on Tuesday, the follow-through on potential peace talks and where energy prices settle out will remain our focus, as will the likely implications.

2. Barron’s attended HP’s Imagine event on Tuesday in New York City. It was there that executives from the tech hardware company announced an array of new releases to their product line. But more notably than the unveiling of new computers, HP introduced its own on-device AI tool… HP IQ — which is scheduled to start releasing in the spring — will appear as a text bar at the top of the user’s screen. Users can then ask it questions about personal files, like PDFs or Power Points. HP IQ will respond with in depth answers to those questions, and can also offer the user suggestions on what they should do next. Executives also highlighted that this AI will be run on-device, meaning the data shared with the tool won’t be sent to the cloud. That could be attractive for people or businesses worried about data security. (Barron’s)

This is another step helping drive larger AI adoption and usage in the enterprise, and potentially with consumers, is our thinking. HP’s (HPQ) plans to roll out HP IQ on its enterprise AI PCs, making it a challenger for Microsoft’s (MSFT) Copilot as well as similar efforts by OpenAI, Anthropic and others. HP IQ is powered by a local, 20B-parameter model (referenced as gpt-oss-20b) that enables on-device AI capabilities without relying solely on the cloud.

HP’s move ups the ante for Apple (AAPL) , which on Monday announced its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will begin on June 8, and “spotlight incredible updates for Apple platforms, including AI advancements.” Rumblings are already being had with reports that Apple is testing a standalone app for its Siri voice assistant alongside a new “Ask Siri” feature that will work across the company’s software.

3. U.S.-listed shares of Arm Holdings jumped nearly 12% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the chip firm projected billions of dollars in annual revenue from its own new artificial intelligence ‌data-center chip... Arm expects the data-center chip to generate roughly $15 billion in annual revenue in about five years, CEO Rene Haas said in an interview with Reuters. Overall, the company expects to generate revenue of $25 billion in that period, and annual earnings of $9 per share, he said. (Reuters)

That is a hefty target from Arm (ARM) , especially when measured against the $4 billion in revenue generated across the entire company in 2025. Reported customers include Meta (META) , OpenAI, Cloudflare (NET) and SAP (SAP) . Given the magnitude of AI and data center spending expected over the ensuing years, no one should be surprised by Arm’s move as it joins the likes of Nvidia (NVDA) , Broadcom (AVGO) , AMD (AMD) , Marvell (MRVL) , Qualcomm (QCOM) and others in targeting that spending.

Near-term we see a rising tide lifting multiple boats, but in the coming several years when we see AI and data center spending normalize, customer relationships and program wins will become even more important for us to track. As that happens, we would not be surprised to see M&A activity in the space heat up.

4. Meta Platforms has unveiled ambitious executive pay incentives, targeting a $9 trillion market capitalization by 2031 as it looks to get ahead in the intensifying AI talent race. Under the stock options program, which includes six leaders but not CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the full value of the options would only be realized if Meta stock jumps more than 500% to $3,727, according to filings late Tuesday. (Barron’s)

We tend to expect ambitious targets from Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, but that incentive package calls for a simply massive move in META shares over the next five years. That’s half the amount of time Elon Musk has to take Tesla’s (TSLA) market cap from around $1.2 billion to $8.5 trillion to unlock his pay package that could be worth as much as $1 trillion over 10 years. Like we said, ambitious, but it likely means Zuck has plans, and that means we and the market will be paying close attention to what is revealed at upcoming events like Meta Connect 2026.

5. Starbucks Coffee Company will hold its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (Annual Meeting) on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. (Yahoo! Finance)

We will join the market in learning more about plans from Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Brian Niccol to not only turn around the company but also the shares. While SBUX shares have bounced around since Niccol was named CEO in September 2024, the shares are near where they were with that announcement. During Niccol’s comments, we’ll also be interested in what might be said about the current quarter, input costs and related items as we gear up for Q1 2026 earnings season.

6. SpaceX aims to file a prospectus for an initial public offering as soon as this week, the Information reported, kicking off one of the year’s most-anticipated market debuts. Elon Musk’s company could try to raise more than $75 billion… (Bloomberg)

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix plans a confidential filing to list shares in the U.S. in the second half of 2026, the company said on Tuesday, which a source said could raise as ‌much as $14 billion. (Reuters)

Thailand’s Amity, which builds and integrates generative AI technology for businesses, raised $100 million as it gears up for a stock-market debut and accelerates its product rollout. The company is planning an initial public offering next year, founder and Executive Chairman Korawad Chearavanont said in an interview… (Bloomberg)

The latest re-opening of the IPO market appears to be on the horizon, and it has the potential to usher in a big wave of expected offerings, including ones from Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Plaid, Stripe and Canva. That pick-up in activity would be a big tailwind for our shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) and Bank of America (BAC) , but if/when OpenAI, Plaid and Canva go public, it would cue up eventual monetization events for SuRo Capital's (SSSS) investment portfolio.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: MBA Mortgage Application Index (Weekly), Import/Export Prices (February), EIA Crude Oil Inventories (Weekly)

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM – Chewy (CHWY) , Cintas (CTAS) , Kingsoft Cloud (KC), Paychex (PAYX) . PM – HB Fuller (FUL) , Jefferies (JEF) .

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL, AVGO, BAC, MRVL, MS, MSFT, NVDA and SSSS.