⏱️ ~4 min read
📊 Today's Numbers
Brent Crude ▲ $82.36/bbl: up 20%+ since peace talks collapsed
10-yr Treasury ▲ 4.73%: pre-positioning for a hotter print
30-yr Treasury ▲ 5.28%: geopolitical risk keeping long end elevated
Gold ▲ $4,456.10/oz: safe-haven buying at near-historic highs
Bitcoin ▼ $64,272: diverging from gold as institutions choose metal
Nifty 50 ▼ 24,390: oil-driven pressure on India's import-heavy economy
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Daniel Dan
July CPI Lands — and Oil Wrote the Cheque
The July inflation print drops this morning as the first reading to fully absorb the oil shock from collapsed US-Iran peace talks. Bond markets have already pre-positioned for a hotter number. The Fed, sitting on three internal dissenting votes for a rate hike, doesn't have much room to shrug this one off.
June CPI fell -0.40% MoM — the largest single-month drop since April 2020 — as a brief ceasefire cut energy prices; July's forecast of +0.20% MoM reverses that almost entirely
Brent at $82.36/bbl ahead of the release, up more than 20% since talks broke down, lifting petrol, airfare, and utility components directly
10-year yield climbed 3 basis points to 4.73% on August 11 as bond markets priced in the risk of a hotter print — that's the rate that sets your mortgage
💬 The July inflation report is essentially a bill for the Iran war. Every dollar oil adds at the refinery shows up on your grocery receipt and at the pump within weeks.
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Markus Winkler
A 50% Canadian Tariff Hits August 19 — Right as the Fed Weighs a Hike
The Trump administration's 50% tariff on roughly $16 billion of Canadian imports takes effect in one week. Dairy, butter, beer, furniture. The things people buy every week. It arrives at the worst possible moment: just as the Fed is deciding whether inflation is hot enough to warrant another rate increase.
50% tariff on ~$16 billion of Canadian goods takes effect August 19, hitting dairy, agriculture, furniture, and alcoholic beverages
Trump's full 2026 tariff package adds $900 per US household this year, per Tax Foundation estimates, across $949 billion of imports covered
25% on ~$24 billion of Brazilian imports and 10–12.5% on 60+ other nations are already in place, layering cumulative goods inflation on top of energy costs
💬 The Fed is trying to read an inflation picture that's being redrawn by geopolitics and trade policy simultaneously. That's not an environment where the hawks back down easily.
📰 Also Today
Oil holds above $82 as Iran talks collapse again: Brent at $82.36/bbl after Trump publicly suggested Iran should pay the US reparations rather than the reverse, erasing roughly $2–3/bbl of earlier tentative optimism and keeping energy costs elevated globally with no G7 emergency stockpile release agreed.
Treasury yields rise broadly; mortgage rates squeezed: The 10-year hit 4.73% and the 30-year reached 5.28% on August 11 — Charles Schwab flagged elevated yields as a "possible headwind" for equities already trading near record highs, with thin summer volumes amplifying the moves.
Indian markets open lower as oil and rupee pressure bites: The Nifty 50 dropped 81 points (0.33%) to 24,390 at the open, with the RBI intervening to defend the rupee against oil-driven dollar demand — India imports roughly 85% of its crude, making it one of the most exposed major economies to sustained prices above $80.
Gold climbs to $4,456 while Bitcoin slips to $64,272: Gold rose 0.82% on the session as institutional safe-haven flows held firm ahead of CPI; Bitcoin fell 0.84% in the same window, with the divergence suggesting crypto is not currently the institutional hedge of choice under this kind of macro pressure.
🎧 Listen to today's episode — The Open Bell with Alex Monroe
The $900-per-household tariff figure from today's issue is the kind of number worth sending to someone who thinks trade wars don't touch them personally.
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Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.