📊 Week in Numbers
S&P 500 ▲ +0.8%: recovered from Wednesday's sharp sell-off
Nasdaq ▲ +1.1%: AI and chips carried the index through the turbulence
Dow Jones ▼ -0.5%: Wednesday's 577-point drop proved too much to claw back
Brent Crude ▲ +5.4% mid-week peak: geopolitical premium is back in the oil price
Gold ▲ ~+1.5%: sitting near $4,132 as a geopolitical hedge, still elevated
Bitcoin ■ ~flat: tumbled Wednesday, crept back above $63K by Friday
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Jonathan Borba
Trump Declares Iran Ceasefire 'Over' at NATO Summit
President Trump told the NATO summit in Ankara that the US-Iran ceasefire was finished, triggering a wave of selling across equities, bonds, and currencies mid-week. Brent crude surged 5.43% to $78.19 on Wednesday alone, the Dow fell 576 points, and European bourses dropped more than 2% before Qatar stepped in as a mediator and markets partially steadied.
Brent crude hit $78.19/barrel on Wednesday, WTI reached $73.52, both partially retreating by Friday
Dow futures fell more than 700 points overnight before recovering ground Thursday and Friday
Strait of Hormuz shipping slowed considerably, raising concerns about supply disruption and renewed inflation pressure
💬 US airlines had already seen fuel costs jump 85% year-on-year through May. Another oil spike at this point isn't a risk on a spreadsheet somewhere. It's in the price of your next flight booking.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Adriano Ponte Abreu
SK Hynix Raises $26.5B in Largest-Ever US Foreign IPO
South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix priced its American depositary receipts at $149, opened at $170 on the Nasdaq on Friday, and closed the day up roughly 12.8%. It's the biggest US listing by a foreign company in history, and it landed in the middle of a week when the rest of the market was genuinely trying to hold itself together.
$26.5 billion raised at IPO pricing, with ADRs opening 14% above offering price
The debut lifted Micron 4.5% Thursday in anticipation, and Nvidia gained nearly 4% on Friday
South Korea's Kospi rebounded 2.5% Friday, reversing most of Tuesday's 5.35% circuit-breaker collapse
💬 The biggest foreign IPO in US history landed the same week Trump blew up a ceasefire. Twelve-point-eight percent on day one anyway. That tells you something about where investor conviction is sitting right now.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Jakub Zerdzicki
Meta Surges 14%-Plus on the Week as AI Chip Plans Emerge
Meta had its best week since February 2024, rising more than 14% over five sessions and closing Friday up almost 6% on the day. The catalyst was a Reuters report revealing Meta is building custom silicon as part of a plan to add 14 gigawatts of total compute capacity in 2026 and 2027, which analysts read as a signal the company could roughly halve its cost-per-gigawatt of AI compute.
Meta's cost-per-gigawatt of AI compute could fall from ~$45B to ~$22B with custom silicon, per analyst estimates
The stock has gained 22% in just 10 trading days, adding more than $150 billion in market value
Broader tech sentiment lifted with it, helping the Nasdaq outperform throughout a turbulent week
💬 The fear all year has been that AI capital expenditure spirals out of control and eats into margins. Meta's chip announcement basically said: we found a cheaper way to do this. Investors rewarded that immediately.
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Mike van Schoonderwalt
June Payrolls Miss Badly at 57K; Rate-Hike Bets Cool
The June non-farm payrolls number, released just before the Independence Day holiday, came in at 57,000 against a consensus forecast of 113,000. Prior months were revised down by a combined 74,000. The unemployment rate ticked to 4.2%, but largely because over 700,000 people left the labour force entirely, pushing the participation rate down to 61.5%.
57,000 jobs added in June, less than half the 113,000 consensus forecast
Labour force participation fell to 61.5% as more than 700,000 workers stopped looking for work
Treasury yields eased on the data, and CME FedWatch now prices a 25bp hike by September as the base case rather than a certainty
💬 Inflation is running at 4.2% annually. The labour market added fewer jobs than a mid-sized city employs bus drivers. Real wages are being squeezed from both ends at once.
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Filip Filipovic
FOMC Minutes Reveal Fed Split; Hawkish Wing Eyes Hike
Minutes from the Fed's June 16-17 meeting, released Wednesday, confirmed the committee unanimously held rates at 3.50-3.75% but showed several officials actively pushing for a hike, citing oil prices, tariff pass-through, and resilient consumer spending as upside inflation risks. The 10-year Treasury yield briefly hit 4.53% on the release before settling around 4.55%.
Several FOMC members flagged a desire to raise rates; the June hold was unanimous but the debate is intensifying
Chair Warsh has removed forward guidance entirely, meaning every upcoming data release carries amplified market-moving weight
Markets are now pricing roughly a 25bp hike by September, though the weak June jobs report gives the dovish wing fresh ammunition
💬 The Fed told us they're arguing internally about whether to raise rates again. Then the jobs report arrived and looked awful. Now nobody knows what September looks like, and that uncertainty is its own kind of market risk.
🧵 Iran Ceasefire Collapse Repriced Risk Across Every Asset Class
Wednesday was a genuine test of market resilience. Oil surged, equities sold off, European bourses dropped more than 2%, and Spanish bonds got hit with a separate shock when Trump threatened to cut off all trade with Spain. The partial stabilisation Thursday, driven by Qatar's mediation overtures, calmed things somewhat. But the ceasefire's fragility is now fully visible, and oil and shipping markets are likely to stay jittery until something more durable emerges.
🧵 AI and Chips Kept Equities Afloat When Everything Else Was Sliding
Meta's chip announcement, SK Hynix's historic IPO, and continued strength in Nvidia and Micron gave the Nasdaq a reason to recover when geopolitics was pulling in the other direction. BlackRock noted S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 23% year-on-year in Q2, a seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. That kind of earnings momentum is doing real work right now, absorbing shocks that would have done more damage a year ago.
🧵 The Fed Has No Comfortable Options
Weak jobs data and hawkish minutes arrived in the same week. Oil is spiking on geopolitical risk. Inflation is still at 4.2%. Chair Warsh's decision to strip out forward guidance means the September meeting is genuinely open, and markets will parse every CPI and jobs print between now and then with unusual intensity. The data dependency the Fed wanted is now fully operational, and it's making for a noisy trading environment.
👀 What to Watch Next Week
June CPI (Tuesday, July 14): With annual inflation at 4.2% and the Fed actively debating a hike, a hot number here could cement a September move and push borrowing costs higher for millions of households.
Fed Chair Warsh Congressional Testimony (Tuesday, July 14): His first formal testimony on monetary policy. Every word about the rate path will be parsed carefully, especially after the divided FOMC minutes this week.
Big Bank Earnings: JPMorgan, BofA, Goldman, Wells Fargo, Citi (Tuesday, July 14 onward): These set the tone for Q2 reporting season and will tell us whether the 22%-plus consensus earnings growth forecast is holding or starting to crack.
June PPI (Wednesday, July 15): Wholesale inflation at 6.5% year-on-year feeds directly into consumer prices and corporate margins. A key input for September's rate decision.
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Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.