Top 10 Stocks to Watch: Wednesday, July 29

There is a question sitting underneath every name on this list, and it is not a pleasant one: does a blowout quarter still buy you anything?

Overnight, the Kospi fell again after SK Hynix reported a six-fold surge in quarterly profit and still missed expectations. The index has now posted its worst two-day decline on record and sits roughly 40% below its June peak. Samsung and SK Hynix together account for more than half its weighting, which makes the Kospi the cleanest available proxy for global AI hardware sentiment, and the proxy is broken. The fear is no longer that AI demand disappoints. It is that hyperscalers are building more capacity than they need, and that the companies selling them shovels have already been paid for three years of it.

That matters because four of the ten names below reported excellent numbers last night and still trade far below where they were a month ago. Teradyne beat by 17% and remains 30% under its 50-day average. Seagate guided next quarter to $4.1 billion in revenue and sits 11% below its own. Beats are landing into a tape that has stopped paying for them, and today tells you whether that is a buyer's problem or a seller's opportunity.

The macro calendar is loaded on top of it. The FOMC decision lands at 2:00 p.m. ET, only Kevin Warsh's second meeting as chair, with the target range at 3.50% to 3.75%. CME FedWatch put the odds of a hold near 65% coming into the week, which means roughly a third of the market is positioned for a hike, up from about 11% on July 15. September hike odds have climbed above 80%. Nobody is pricing a cut. Advance Q2 GDP prints before the open, and Microsoft, Meta, Qualcomm and Arm all report after the close.

Then there is oil. Iran launched ballistic missiles at US forces on Tuesday, ending a brief pause, and the US and Saudi Arabia struck Iran-backed sites in Iraq. Brent was near $88.55 as of roughly 7:10 a.m. ET, up about 5%, with WTI around $83.20, reversing a 16% three-session collapse that was the steepest since 2020. Futures reflected the split: S&P 500 futures up about 0.2%, Nasdaq 100 roughly flat, Dow futures down about 0.25%, VIX near 18.3.

Ten names worth watching below. Everything here is a scenario, not a call. This is a watchlist, not advice. All prices are Tuesday's close or the pre-market print as of roughly 7:10 a.m. ET, and each is labeled.

1. $TER: Teradyne

Tuesday close: $320.65. Pre-market: ~$340.41 (+6.2%).

Teradyne reported Q2 revenue of $1.329 billion against a $1.235 billion consensus, with non-GAAP EPS of $2.47 versus $2.11 expected. Semiconductor Test contributed $1.122 billion of that. Revenue rose 104% year over year and earnings more than tripled, driven by record Memory revenue on continued DRAM strength and a resurgence in NAND final test. It was the second consecutive quarter of record revenue, and it came in above the high end of guidance. Q3 is guided to $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion.

This is the direct rebuttal to the SK Hynix panic. Hynix missed on its own P&L. Teradyne sells the test equipment memory makers buy when they are expanding output, and its memory business just set a record. Those two facts are hard to hold at the same time, and one of them is going to get repriced.

Watch for: Monday's close of $349.92 as the near-term level that says the gap held, with the 50-day average at roughly $379.72 about 12% above the pre-market print. Failing to hold the opening print on a beat this size would say the sector bid is genuinely absent, which is information worth more than the trade.

2. $STX: Seagate

Tuesday close: $747.30. Pre-market: ~$787.00 (+5.3%).

Seagate reported fiscal Q4 adjusted EPS of $5.71 against expectations in the $5.04 to $5.12 range, on roughly $3.6 billion in revenue. The forward number matters more: management guided fiscal Q1 2027 to approximately $4.1 billion in revenue and $7.30 in adjusted EPS. That is a sequential revenue step up of roughly 14% and an EPS step up of nearly 28%, guided by a company that has to physically build and ship high-capacity drives to deliver it.

Options traders had been braced for an 18% move into the print and got about 5%, which says something about how much fear was already in the price. The stock closed Tuesday down 8.5% before the report and remains roughly 11% below its 50-day average and 31% below its 52-week high of $1,145.

Watch for: whether the gap fills. Tuesday's prior close was $816.99, and reclaiming it erases the pre-earnings selloff entirely. Losing Tuesday's $747.30 close after a guide like that would be the cleanest evidence yet that the AI hardware complex is in a de-rating, not a dip.

3. $VRRM: Verra Mobility

Tuesday close: $4.18. Pre-market: ~$5.10 (+22.0%).

This one has nothing to do with AI, which is part of why it is here. Verra Mobility announced Tuesday that it reached agreement with Avis Budget Group on the key commercial terms of a new seven-year tolling and violations services contract. The Avis relationship is Verra's largest commercial exposure, and uncertainty around its renewal has been the dominant overhang on the equity for months. The stock is down roughly 80% from its 52-week high of $25.57 and closed Tuesday within 23% of its 52-week low of $3.40.

A seven-year renewal on a business line the market had been pricing as impaired is a structural change to the story, not a quarter. And a dated catalyst sits right behind it: Q2 results are scheduled for after the close on August 5, with interim CEO Jon Keyser and CFO Craig Conti hosting at 5:00 p.m. ET. That is the first chance for management to attach numbers to the announcement.

Watch for: the 50-day average at roughly $5.77, the first real overhead level, about 13% above the pre-market print. Holding above $4.18 into the close would confirm the move is repricing rather than a headline pop. August 5 is where this either becomes a re-rating or gives it all back.

The rest of this briefing is for paid members: the enterprise software name that just broke above its 200-day on record bookings, the automaker that raised full-year EBIT guidance by $1.5 billion and is quietly sitting near a 52-week high, the energy major with a dated earnings catalyst two days out while oil is up 5% on Iran, the AI chip name reporting tonight where the whole memory debate gets settled in public, the small cap trading at a fresh 52-week high on a raised guide, and the semi-cap equipment stock now down 13% in two sessions with the one level that decides whether this is capitulation.

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