📊 Today's Numbers
Brent Crude ▲ $76.14/bbl: +5.70%, supply shock bites
WTI Crude ▲ $72.15/bbl: +5.25%, OPEC+ gains wiped out
KOSPI (Seoul) ▼ 7,656.31: -4.91%, circuit breaker triggered
Nikkei 225 ▼ 68,256.96: -2.12%, semiconductor losses drag
iShares SOXX ▼ $544.00: -6.00%, chips rout crosses Pacific
30-Year Treasury ▲ 5.01%: yield rises on inflation risk
🛢️ COMMODITIES
Photo: Michael Steinberg
US Strikes Iran and Revokes Oil Licence; Brent Surges 5.7%
Oil jumped hard on Tuesday after the US carried out strikes on more than 80 Iranian military sites and simultaneously revoked the Treasury licence that had let Iran sell oil and petrochemicals since June 21. The trigger was Iran attacking three commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, including a Qatari LNG carrier hit by a drone. Companies have until July 17 to wind down existing contracts. No new purchases may begin.
Brent crude rose 5.70% to $76.14/bbl, reversing weeks of OPEC+-driven price declines in a single session
WTI jumped 5.25% to $72.15/bbl, undoing the effect of OPEC+'s fifth consecutive monthly supply increase of 188,000 bpd
The licence revocation removes several hundred thousand barrels per day of Iranian supply from global markets almost immediately
For drivers, crude moves like this typically show up at the forecourt within days, adding to fuel costs just as inflation had been cooling
💬 The US struck 80+ Iranian sites and cut off Iran's oil sales in the same 24 hours. Two very different levers, one very direct consequence for your petrol bill.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Jakub Zerdzicki
Samsung Posts 1,810% Profit Surge. Then the Stock Crashed.
Samsung reported the biggest quarterly operating profit in its history on Tuesday, ₩89.4 trillion ($58.6bn) for Q2 2026, up 1,810% year on year, driven by AI-linked demand for high-bandwidth memory and NAND flash. It beat analyst consensus by 2.4%. The stock fell 10% intraday anyway. That's markets for you.
Samsung shares dropped 7% on close, touching -10% intraday, after a 150% year-to-date run made even a record print feel like old news
South Korea's KOSPI plunged 4.91% to 7,656.31, triggering a 20-minute circuit breaker when the index fell more than 8% intraday
The selloff crossed the Pacific: the iShares SOXX fell 6.00% to $544.00, Applied Materials dropped 10.00%, and Micron closed down 4.70%
💬 If your pension has broad Asia-Pacific or global tech exposure, yesterday handed you paper losses. Not because anything went wrong. Because Samsung's profit wasn't quite spectacular enough.
📉 BONDS
Photo: Jakub Zerdzicki
Amazon Prices $25bn AI Bond Sale. Its Biggest Ever.
Amazon sold $25 billion of debt across eight tranches on Tuesday to fund AI infrastructure, drawing $62 billion in peak demand. Strong, but cooler than March's sale, which attracted roughly double the order book. The company told underwriters this is its last debt raise of 2026. That's a deliberate full stop on a borrowing spree that now exceeds $100 billion over the past 12 months.
The 10-year note priced at 65bps over Treasuries, the 40-year bond at 125bps, with all tranches tightening from initial guidance
Amazon's 2026 issuance now sits at roughly $89bn, pushing total 12-month borrowing past $100bn
Global AI-linked corporate debt has now crossed $335bn year-to-date, as Big Tech collectively targets more than $700bn in AI capital expenditure for 2026
💬 $25 billion borrowed in one afternoon to build data centres. When investment-grade companies this size compete for capital, it nudges up borrowing costs across the board, including on mortgages and car loans.
📰 Also Today
US May Trade Deficit Widens 42% to $77.6bn: Imports rose 3.3% and exports fell 3.2% as businesses front-loaded purchases ahead of tariff deadlines, pushing the deficit well above April's revised $54.6bn and adding complexity to Q2 GDP calculations; the 30-year Treasury yield crossed 5.01% on the same morning.
SpaceX Joins Nasdaq-100, Falls 6% on Day One: SPCX was added to the Nasdaq-100 on July 7 after its record-setting June 12 IPO, but a passive-buying bounce never came; the stock fell more than 6% amid the broader semiconductor selloff, meaning anyone with a Nasdaq index fund now holds SpaceX whether they know it or not.
NATO Confirms Saab GlobalEye Buy; Nikkei Drops 2.12%: At the Ankara summit, NATO announced it will purchase up to 10 Saab GlobalEye surveillance aircraft to replace its ageing Boeing-based fleet; Saab shares jumped on the news, while Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 2.12% to 68,256.96 on semiconductor losses entirely unrelated to the defence procurement.
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Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.