U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the economy at Rockland Community College Fieldhouse in Suffern, New York, May 22, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
US President Donald Trump is currently delivering a prime-time address Thursday focused on election security.
In the U.S., while earnings had been solid so far, Netflix and Alphabet fell overnight, and semiconductor stocks were sold off.
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What you need to know today
US President Donald Trump is currently using a new teleprompter operator to deliver prime-time speeches focused on election security after his previous operator was suspended following an investigation by federal regulators.
The investigation is related to bets the individual allegedly made on prediction market platform Karshi regarding President Trump’s statements. The operator allegedly made more than $90,000 in profits from the trades, but most of that money was frozen by Kalsi after the bets were flagged as suspicious.
Abroad, Iran is threatening to destroy President Trump’s playbook in the Middle East. A spokesperson for Iran’s military high command said that if President Trump targets Iranian infrastructure, Iran will “crush” key targets in the Middle East.
The spokesperson added: “We will not allow the United States, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz under any circumstances or in any form.”
But in the market, investors have their own scenarios to fix. Netflix stock fell more than 8% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company’s earnings expectations disappointed investors.
The company also said it will provide fewer updates on engagement metrics, the “What We Watched” report that provides a complete picture of engagement. Netflix said it will now publish reports annually instead of semi-annually, adding that this is to keep the focus on financial metrics such as revenue and operating profit.
Alphabet shares also fell 4% following reports that the latest Gemini 3.5 Pro model is several months behind schedule. This delay was reportedly due to, among other things, the model’s coding capabilities falling short of internal expectations.
Despite strong earnings reports from other sectors, all three major indexes posted losses and the US market ended the day in negative territory. Of the 40 S&P 500 companies that have already reported, more than 87% beat Wall Street expectations. Asian markets also fell on Friday, with Japanese tech stocks selling off.
— Lim Huijie
And finally…
Short sellers pile in against SpaceX as stock falls below IPO price
Short sellers have been rapidly ramping up their bets on SpaceX, pushing their bearish positions to nearly a third of the company’s publicly traded shares as the struggling company’s shares fall below its IPO offering price.
According to S3 Partners, about 185 million SpaceX shares are currently sold short, representing about 29% of the company’s publicly traded shares, and bearish bets amounting to about $25 billion. The position has ballooned from an estimated 40 million shares (about 5-7% of float) just three weeks ago.
The surge in short interest comes as SpaceX stock has struggled after a strong debut. Shares fell about 20% in July, and at one point on Wednesday fell below the company’s offering price of $135 for the first time. The stock was trading around $131 per share on Thursday.
— Yun Lee
