The Fed held at 3.75%-4.00%, but Governor Cook and Cleveland’s Hammack dissented for a hike and Warsh refused forward guidance; the 2-year still fell 4.1 bps. SK Hynix says DRAM and HBM are sold out through 2029, lifting Micron 5.86% and Lam 5.39%. Oracle jumped 10.73% after capping new AI fundraising at $20 billion. WTI rose 2.05% to $101.95 on Yemen fighting and Iran strike fears. GDPNow ends Q3 at 3.3%, setting up Thursday’s GDP and PCE.
MIB Daily: Two Fed Votes for a Hike and the 2-Year Rallied Anyway, SK Hynix’s Sold-Out 2029 Lifts Chipmakers as Oracle Jumps 10.73%, and With WTI at $101.95 Thursday’s PCE Decides December
MIB Weekly: The War Hit Prices, Not Nerves, as Brent Ran 6.3% to $116 and Gold Fell 4%, AI’s Bill Came Due in Credit Markets, Small Caps Rose 2% and Bonds Rallied Below 5% Into a Fed That Must Choose
Houthi strikes on Saudi airports and Aramco sites pushed Brent up 6.3% to $116.62, its highest settle since April. Thursday’s AI-financing scare, set off by Lam Research’s supply-capped guidance (-11.76%) and Meta’s higher spending floor (-6.98%), handed the Nasdaq 100 its worst day since June. Treasuries took the haven bid, the 10-year closing the week below 5% as price pressure built into Wednesday’s Fed decision. CrowdStrike (+13.3%) and Palo Alto (+11.3%) led the gainers.
MIB Daily: The AI Trade’s Weak Spot Is the Bill, Lam Research -11.76% and GE Vernova -10.64% as Staples and Treasuries Rally, Brent Hits $112.88 and Trump Invokes the DPA for Oil, Six Days Before the FOMC
An AI-hardware rout sank the Nasdaq 100 2.90% and dragged the S&P 500 down 1.21%, yet two of three S&P stocks rose. Lam Research fell 11.76% and GE Vernova lost 10.64%. Treasuries caught a haven bid, cutting the 10-year yield 17.2 bps to 4.951%. Brent jumped 3.73% to $112.88, its highest close since May 4, after Houthi strikes on Saudi targets. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act for domestic oil. Moderna sank 17.57% on leaked Phase 3 melanoma data.
MIB Weekly: Hike Odds Collapsed and Yields Rose Anyway, a 5.34% 10-Year Sank Gold and Banks Despite Hormuz Strikes, as Chip Equipment Led and Anthropic’s $2T IPO Tested Who Funds AI
A global long-bond rout drove the week: the 10-year Treasury yield touched 5.34% Thursday, its highest since 2002, and finished 10.9 bps higher even as soft payrolls and a cooler PCE cut October Fed-hike odds to about 23%. Chip equipment carried the Nasdaq 100 to a record (AMAT +11.35%, LRCX +10.24%, KLAC +10.09%) while the S&P 500 and Dow fell. Gold lost 3.48% despite repeated Hormuz ship strikes.
MIB Daily: AI Safety Became a Capex Line Item, Lam -8.29% Against CrowdStrike +13.85%, and the Fed Meets Wednesday With the 10-Year at 4.999% and a $101.91 Barrel That Is a Refiner’s Margin and a Consumer’s Tax
Amodei’s weekend call to slow AI split the tape — Lam Research -8.29%, Applied Materials -7.07%, while CrowdStrike +13.85% and Palo Alto +13.09% led. Trump dismissed guardrails as a “SICK conspiracy.” Hormuz talks collapsed: WTI +1.86%, VIX +7.95%, diesel to an all-time $6.23. Wednesday’s hike is now near-unanimous, the 10-year closing at 4.999%. BofA guided banking fees down 10%; Altman ruled out a 2026 OpenAI IPO, knocking Goldman -3.96%. GE Vernova -8.62% on a street-low Sell.
MIB Daily: Oil Hit $103 and Markets Sold It as a Rate Hike, With Saudi Output Down 1.9 mb/d and AI Hardware Dumped Ahead of Oracle’s Beat as Friday’s CPI Decides Whether the Fed Hikes Next Week
WTI closed above $100 for the first time since May, up 7.3% to $103.06; Saudi Arabia told OPEC its August output fell 1.9 mb/d. Stocks fell a fourth day as the 2-year jumped 15 bps on near-70% Fed hike odds. The ECB hiked to 2.50%, citing energy. Platinum sank 7%, silver 6.7%, gold 2.3%. Lam, Intel, Dell and Micron fell ~5% into Oracle’s print; ORCL beat and rose ~7% after hours. Apple gained 3.6% on its $1,999 foldable.
MIB Daily: The Index Lied, Warsh’s 12.2bp Two-Year Move Hit Gold -3.34% and Semi Equipment -5% While the S&P Held, and Chicago PMI at 47.1 Asks Whether the Hike Trade Survives Next Week’s ISM
Warsh’s Jackson Hole debut put a September hike back on the table: the two-year jumped 12.2bp to 4.354%, its biggest day since June. Gold -3.34%, silver -4.31% and the Russell -1.39% took the hit while the S&P shrugged at -0.25%. He also retired forward guidance outright. Chicago PMI cratered to 47.1. PayPal -12.71% after Advent and Stripe walked from a $53bn bid it had already rejected. Semis unwound 4-5%; Amazon +3.95%. BioNTech -8.37% on a halted cancer trial.
MIB Daily: Crude’s 5th Gain and EIA’s 8.5% Diesel Hike Mean CPI Won’t Be Reassurance — Payrolls Decelerate a 6th Week as Chip-Equipment (KLA +4.01%) Outruns AI Platforms (GOOGL -3.84%)
Hormuz transits collapse to six vessels against a pre-war 140 — crude posts a fifth straight gain and equities slip into tomorrow’s CPI. The EIA picks the same day to raise its 2026 diesel forecast 8.5% and sees crude stocks below the five-year low all year. Private payrolls decelerate for a sixth week; the front end barely blinked. Alphabet -3.84% as 300 French publishers file over AI Overviews. Intel prices an upsized $20B raise at $95 on $100B of demand.
MIB Daily: Dow’s Record Close Hid an AI Reckoning — NVIDIA +3.43% Outguns Alphabet’s Retreat as Soft ADP Data Puts Friday’s Payrolls on Recession Watch
The Dow closed at a record 54,349 — and almost nothing else did. Private payrolls added just 44,000, ISM services employment fell into contraction, and September hike odds slid to 57% even as Kashkari and Cook publicly pushed for tightening. Alphabet dropped 4.03% after losing its chief scientist and DeepMind CEO in one day. Gold surged 3.71% to $4,306. Tower REITs fell 6% each as SpaceX aimed Starlink at the carriers. AI infrastructure sold off on no news; NVIDIA rose 3.43%.
MIB Daily: Wall Street Sold the Fear, Not the Risk — Chips Reload on AI Capex as Defensives Fund the Trade and GDP’s 6.3% Price Index Keeps the Question Open
Wall Street erased Wednesday’s Fed-day rout: Nasdaq 100 +3.36%, S&P 500 +1.67%, VIX -17.33%. Microsoft surged 15.5% on 43% Azure growth; Meta sank 7.95%. Semis went vertical — Micron +18%, Lam +18%, AMAT +15%, AMD +13%. But Q2 GDP undershot at 1.5% with the price index spiking to 6.3%, and Dow Transports fell 1.74%. June core PCE cooled to 3.3%; jobless claims held at 197K. US strikes hit Iran overnight, yet crude closed lower and the dollar broke below 100.
MIB Daily: The Fed Put Just Got Cheaper — 19-Year Bond Yields and a Trillion-Dollar Chip Wipeout Leave Thursday’s Core PCE to Decide Stagflation, Favoring Macro Hedges Over Tech and Industrials
The Fed held at 3.50%-3.75% but three members dissented for a hike — the first three-way hawkish split since 2016 — and the Dow fell 2.18%, its worst day since April 2025. The 30-year hit a 19-year high at 5.21%. Iran struck a US base in Jordan and rejected Oman’s Hormuz plan; WTI jumped 6.74%. SK Hynix’s miss tipped the Nasdaq 100 into correction, erasing $1 trillion of global chip value. Caterpillar sank 6.91% on data-centre permitting risk.
MIB Daily: China Cracks the Chip Chokepoint, Semis Sink 20% — Equal-Weight S&P Hits a Record as a De-Hedged Market Rotates Into Value Ahead of the Fed
China cracked the last chip chokepoint — domestic lithography in mass production — and the semiconductor index fell a fourth straight day, now 20% off its high. Yet the equal-weight S&P 500 closed at a record: rotation, not retreat. Oil broke below $80 on a Gulf-backed Hormuz plan. Consumer confidence missed a third month; hiring slowed a fifth week. J&J settled talc for $5.5B and closed at a record. Apple touched $5 trillion, then let it go — Fed decides tomorrow.
MIB Daily: WTI +9%, Oracle’s 52-Week Low, and a Hawkish Fed — Tuesday’s CPI Decides Whether to Rotate Into Energy or Stay Defensive
Trump reinstated a Strait of Hormuz blockade on Iran, sending WTI up 9%, S&P 500 down 0.79%, Nasdaq 1.88%, and VIX up 14%. Fed’s Waller reopened rate-hike odds ahead of Tuesday’s CPI, lifting 10Y yields to 4.626%. Oracle (-6.47%) hit a 52-week low on a credit downgrade over OpenAI concentration risk, while SK Hynix cratered 15% in Seoul and SanDisk (-12.63%) led a NAND selloff. Gold fell 2.55% despite the escalation, dollar strength overriding safe-haven demand.
MIB Daily: AI’s Boom Is Now the Fed’s Inflation Fear — S&P +0.81%, Hike Odds to 59%, Iran Priced as Contained, Semis Up as Premium Names Sold Ahead of July 14 CPI
Markets shrugged off a second day of US-Iran strikes as the S&P 500 gained 0.81% and Nasdaq 100 surged 1.62% on an AI-chip rally ahead of SK Hynix’s record $29B Nasdaq debut. NY Fed’s Williams named AI demand his top inflation fear, sending 2026 hike odds to 59% from 48%. Costco (COST) tumbled 4.2% on decelerating comps while oil fell 2.3% despite fresh strikes. State AGs moved to block the $110B Paramount-WBD merger while a 30-year auction drew record demand.
MIB Daily: Chips Crack and Oil Spikes on Hormuz Attacks — A Hawkish-Dovish Fed Split Meets Hot Inflation Data as Capital Rotates Into Energy and Healthcare
Chip stocks cratered despite Samsung’s blowout profit — Intel -9.66%, Nasdaq 100 -1.77% — as Reuters reported DeepSeek is building its own AI chip. NY Fed inflation expectations hit 3.7%, highest since 2023, lifting the 10-year 7bps and exposing a Hammack-hawkish, Williams-dovish Fed split before the July 28-29 FOMC. Oil spiked 5.3% after Iran struck tankers near Hormuz and Washington revoked Tehran’s export license. Healthcare’s rotation rally extended; Rivian sank 18% on a $1.5B raise, SpaceX slid 6.34% in its Nasdaq-100 debut.
MIB Daily: Payrolls Miss (57K vs 115K) Fuels a Record Dow as Gold and Chips Flash a Warning — Can AI Capex Survive the Rotation Into Value?
June payrolls badly missed at 57K vs. 115K est.; unemployment fell to 4.2% only as participation hit a five-year low. Dow rode Fed rate-cut hopes to a record (+1.14%) even as gold’s 1.3% jump read it as a growth warning. Semiconductors extended their rout (SanDisk -14%, KLA -11.5%) as Meta (-4.9%) admitted AI agents “hasn’t accelerated as expected.” Tesla fell 7.5% despite blowout deliveries; O’Reilly bid ~$10B for GPC’s NAPA; oil hit a 4-month low on US-Iran progress.
MIB Daily: GOOG -5.1% as AI Architects Defect to Rivals, MU +6.8% Confirms Hardware Wins; Oil Falls to $74 but Yields Rise, PCE Thursday Decides
Alphabet fell 5.1% — worst day in years — after its transformer co-inventor defected to OpenAI and AlphaFold’s Nobel laureate moved to Anthropic, while Alphabet raised $84.75B for the AI compute those leaders built. WTI hit an eight-month low at $74.09 on US Treasury authorization of Iranian oil exports, yet 10-year yields rose 6 bps — bond markets declining to confirm oil disinflation as a Fed catalyst. Micron surged 6.8% on an Anthropic co-design deal; Russell 2000 crossed 3,000 for the first time.
MIB Weekly: Dow Cracked 50,000 and a $2.1T IPO Debuted in the Same Week — Long Semis, Short AI Cash-Burn; Iran Holds the Key to Warsh’s June 17 FOMC
Iran’s 14-point Hormuz draft MoU sent WTI from $91.78 to $84.24 by Friday, potentially deflating the energy surge that drove May CPI to a three-year high (4.2%) and locked out Fed cuts heading into Warsh’s June 17 inaugural FOMC — now with 47% hike odds. SpaceX debuted as the largest IPO in US history ($75B raised, +19.3%), while Intel’s Google foundry win and JPMorgan’s KLAC upgrade drove the semiconductor equipment complex +20–32% on the week.
MIB Daily: WTI Below $100 and NVDA’s $81.6B Beat — Can Iran Hold Long Enough to Kill December’s Rate Hike?
Dow crossed 50,000 as Trump declared Iran talks ‘in final stages,’ crashing WTI -5.7% to $98 and pulling the 10-year yield -9 bps. NVIDIA Q1 beat ($81.6B, +85% YoY; Q2 guide $89-93B, $80B buyback) lifted AMD +8.1% and INTC +7.4%. Russell 2000 led all indices at +2.51% as rate-sensitive small-caps caught the yield-relief bid. April FOMC minutes put a majority on record for hiking; December probability above 50%. 20-year Treasury auction cleared at 5.12% with below-average demand, post-Moody’s.
MIB: Ceasefire Euphoria — Oil Craters 14%, S&P Surges, Then the Strait Closes Again
S&P +2.51%, Dow +1,325 pts on Trump-Iran two-week ceasefire — but the Strait of Hormuz partially halted again by day’s end as the truce frayed. WTI -14.5%; semiconductors led: INTC +11%, LRCX +10%. Travel surged: UAL +10%, CCL +11%. Energy the only loser: XOM -5%, CVX -5%. UNH +9.4% on $13B Medicare Advantage windfall. FOMC minutes revealed rate hike discussions — Friday’s March CPI is the next test.
