US stock futures edged higher on Monday morning as investors moved into artificial intelligence-related stocks at the start of what is expected to be a quieter week for markets.

Premarket trading featured a broad rally in chipmakers, a pullback in software names, and sharp company-specific moves in shipping, e-commerce, and digital infrastructure, with Micron, HIVE Digital, and Alibaba among the standout movers.

Chipmakers Rally on Memory and AI Demand

Micron climbed 3.4% in premarket trading after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration does not want Apple buying memory chips from China.

Micron is the largest American-headquartered memory chipmaker and one of the world's big three DRAM producers alongside South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix. US policy has already leaned in this direction: in 2025, the Commerce Department issued guidance urging American companies to stop using memory chips from certain Chinese makers, citing national-security risks.

The comments gave a boost to the broader memory chip sector. Sandisk rose nearly 5%, while Seagate and Western Digital added around 2.6% and 3.7% respectively.

Other chipmakers also moved higher, with Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Marvell, Corning, Coherent, and Lumentum all up in early trading on AI-related demand.

Software Stocks Fall as Chips Rise

Software names moved in the opposite direction, as they often do when chip stocks are in favor. Oracle dropped 1.3%, ServiceNow fell 1.4%, Trade Desk dipped 2.3%, and Workday slid 2.8%.

Alibaba rose around 1% after the Chinese e-commerce giant agreed to sell its videogame business for at least $1.5 billion. The company is redirecting the capital toward its artificial intelligence push, a priority that includes a plan announced in early 2025 to invest more than 380 billion yuan (about $53 billion) in cloud computing and AI infrastructure over three years. The videogame divestment continues a broader pruning of non-core assets, including the Intime department-store chain and the Sun Art hypermarket business, that followed Alibaba's 2023 restructuring into six business units.

Shipping Stocks in Focus

Diana Shipping jumped as much as 10% after withdrawing its offer to acquire the remaining shares of Genco Shipping and Trading. The two sides were unable to agree on deal terms after nearly a year of negotiations. Both companies operate fleets of dry bulk carriers that haul commodities such as iron ore, coal, and grain, and consolidation has been a recurring theme in the fragmented sector as owners pursue scale, including Star Bulk's takeover of Eagle Bulk in 2024.

Diana's bid included $24.80 in cash plus one Diana share for each Genco share. Genco's board had been seeking $27.50 in cash, more than $2 in dividends, and three Diana shares, implying around $36.91 per Genco share.

Diana's CEO said the company remains committed to the strategic case for combining with Genco and will continue watching the company as its largest shareholder. Genco had asked Diana to respond by August 24. Genco shares fell 3.6% on the news.

HIVE Digital Signs $350 Million GPU Cloud Contract

HIVE Digital Technologies surged 8% after its subsidiary BUZZ HPC signed a five-year GPU cloud services deal worth approximately $350 million. The contract covers 2,016 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra GPUs, an enhanced version of Nvidia's Blackwell data-center line, and is expected to go live in Q4 2026 at HIVE's Bell AI Fabric facility in British Columbia.

The agreement adds around $70 million in annualized revenue and brings BUZZ HPC's total annualized revenue to roughly $180 million. HIVE expects daily HPC and AI revenue to reach around $500,000 once the deployment is fully operational. HIVE began as a bitcoin miner and renamed itself HIVE Digital Technologies in 2023 as it shifted toward AI and high-performance computing, part of a wider trend of cryptocurrency miners converting power-secured sites into GPU data centers.

Analyst Coverage and a Leadership Change

Etsy gained around 2% after Goldman Sachs started coverage of the stock with a Neutral rating and an $89 price target. Goldman cited improving buyer trends in the first half of 2026 following Etsy's sale of Depop, the secondhand fashion marketplace it acquired for about $1.6 billion in 2021.

L3Harris fell 2% after the company immediately replaced its chairman and CEO Christopher Kubasik with Sam Mehta, who previously led the company's Integrated Mission Systems division. Kubasik had run L3Harris since 2022. The board said the removal was due to conduct inconsistent with the company's Code of Conduct and was unrelated to financials or operations. L3Harris reaffirmed its full-year 2026 outlook.