Market Snapshot August 3rd 2026

Citi recorded to short 8.6 billions on USDJPY, Trump opened to stop striking on Hormuz

Data:

Main Theme: “A Historic Short Squeeze in Asia, an Ugly Month in the Books — Then the Oil Trade Breaks Over the Weekend” — The KOSPI posts the largest single-day gain in its history (+17.91%), Amazon carries Wall Street to a positive July close, and long-end Treasury yields finish at 19-year highs. Then on Sunday, Trump calls off a planned strike on Iran and crude gaps down more than 7%.

Friday closed one of the most violent months in recent memory. The week’s sequence was extraordinary: a Fed hold that triggered a 1,153-point Dow collapse, a 17% three-day evisceration of the Korean market, coordinated Japanese and Korean currency intervention, and then a squeeze so severe that the KOSPI recorded its biggest day ever. Underneath the noise, two things were consistent all week and both are bearish: the long end of the US curve kept selling off, and oil kept rising on the Iran war. The weekend then upended the second one — Trump announced he had called off a massive attack on Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia and other regional allies, with talks to begin Monday, and crude gapped sharply lower before Asia opened.

🟩 U.S. Equities | Amazon Carries the Tape, Apple and Small Caps Sink

Index Closing Level Net Points Change % Session Stance
Nasdaq Composite 25,373.85 🟩 +251.68 +1.00% Rallied 1.3% early, gave it all back, then recovered into the close
S&P 500 7,489.72 🟩 +52.09 +0.70% Choppy — alternated between gains and losses all session
Dow Jones Industrials 52,485.03 🟩 +276.97 +0.53% Fourth consecutive winning month
Russell 2000 2,931.34 🟥 −14.76 −0.50% Small caps diverged — the day’s warning sign
VIX 15.99 🟩 −1.10 −6.44% Volatility crushed back to pre-selloff levels

Breadth was much worse than the headline indices. The rally was almost entirely a two-stock event. Amazon jumped roughly 15% — its Q2 profit more than tripled on AWS strength — adding about 208 points to the Dow on its own. Apple fell 7.4% and subtracted roughly 188 points, nearly cancelling it out; management attributed weak forward guidance to a component supply crunch caused by the AI hardware boom. Only 3 of 11 S&P sector ETFs closed green: Consumer Discretionary +2.88%, Communications +0.87%, Industrials +0.47%, against Technology −0.76%, Health Care −1.18% and Materials −2.21%.

Semiconductors reversed hard. After Thursday’s 7–8% index-level squeeze, the group could not hold. Micron went from +6.4% early to −6.5%, closing down 5.9% — a textbook failed follow-through that says Thursday was positioning, not conviction.

Weekly and monthly context: the S&P notched its first winning week in three (+1.0%), the Nasdaq gained 1.6% on the week, and the Russell finished flat (+0.05%). The Dow rose 0.7% for July. Year-to-date: S&P +9.4%, Dow +9.2%, Nasdaq +9.2%, Russell +18.1%.

🟨 Asian Bourses | The Largest Single-Day Gain in KOSPI History

This was the story of the session globally. Asia opened to Microsoft’s 15.5% surge and an 8% jump in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, landing on a Korean market that had just fallen roughly 30% from its June peak with retail leverage forcibly unwinding.

South Korea (KOSPI): +17.91% to 6,595.45 — the largest single-day gain in the index’s history. SK Hynix hit its 30% daily limit up (+29.95%) and Samsung Electronics rose 26.81%. The scale of the reversal should not be mistaken for repair: the KOSPI still fell 22.19% over July, its worst month since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and remains close to 30% below its June high. On the month, Samsung was down 21% and SK Hynix down 35%.

Japan (Nikkei 225): +4.03% (+2,494.59 points) to 64,362.02, briefly breaching 65,000 intraday. TOPIX +1.29% to 4,003.30, reclaiming the 4,000 handle. Prime Market volume reached roughly 3.21 billion shares. Advantest rose another 15.7%, with SoftBank and Tokyo Electron also leading.

Taiwan rallied more than 7%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained around 4.7%.

China / Hong Kong: Shanghai Composite +0.72% to 3,832.26; Hang Seng +0.10% to 25,884.43. The mainland again sat out the semiconductor squeeze.

Europe was subdued by comparison: FTSE 100 −0.27% to 10,868.05, DAX +0.07% to 25,629.24, CAC 40 +0.28% to 8,509.64.

🟪 Central Banks & FX | BOJ Holds at 1.00%, Yen Gives Back the Intervention Gains

The Bank of Japan held its policy rate at 1.00% in an 8-1 vote, with board member Hajime Takata dissenting in favour of a 25bp hike to 1.25%. The statement was hawkish in substance: the BOJ warned that core inflation is likely to accelerate to a level “clearly above” 2% from the second half of fiscal 2026, citing wage pass-through, higher crude prices and yen depreciation.

The currency story was the more important one. Thursday saw unprecedented coordinated intervention by Japanese and Korean authorities — routine for Tokyo this year, but a rare move by Seoul. USD/JPY hit a low of 157.96, its weakest since May 14. The relief did not survive the BOJ: the yen fell back to 160.69 once the hold was confirmed. On the week the dollar still lost 3.3% against the yen, its largest weekly decline since July 2024. The Dollar Index fell 0.76% to around 100.12.

The read-through: intervention plus a hold buys days, not weeks. The rate differential that drives the carry trade is intact, and Tokyo is now visibly spending reserves to manage a problem monetary policy is not addressing.

🟧 Rates & Commodities | The Long End Keeps Breaking

US Treasuries — the week’s most important signal. The 30-year yield finished around 5.25%, up about 4bp on the day and at its highest level since 2007. The 10-year topped 4.7%, reaching 4.73% intraday — its highest since January 2025. Coverage attributed the move to eroding confidence in Chair Warsh’s commitment to bringing inflation down. Short-end yields eased while the long end sold, steepening the curve — the classic shape of an inflation-credibility problem rather than a growth problem.

Crude oil — a monster month, then a weekend reversal. WTI settled +1.29% at $84.67/bbl and Brent +1.22% at $90.12/bbl on Friday, after Iran claimed it attacked two tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz under US military escort (unconfirmed by Western maritime authorities). Brent gained roughly 24% in July, its strongest month since March.

Gold consolidated. December futures settled down $53.60 (−1.29%) at $4,107/oz, pressured by the dollar rebound and rising yields. Gold still posted its first monthly gain in five, though only about $16 on the month — a near-perfect monthly doji, which is consolidation rather than a breakout.

📰 Macro “Red News” — Friday’s Data

Employment Cost Index (Q2): +0.9% QoQ versus +0.8% expected, matching Q1. Wages and salaries +0.9%, benefits +1.0%, with total compensation up 3.4% year-over-year. Private-sector benefit costs are running at 3.8% YoY. Notably, inflation-adjusted wages and salaries fell 0.4% over the year — the first negative real reading since Q4 2022. For a Fed with three hawkish dissenters, a wage measure stuck at 3.4% is not consistent with a 2% target.

Chicago PMI (July): 57.6 versus 56 expected, up from 56.7.

UMich Consumer Sentiment (July final): 55.2 versus 54.0 consensus, up from 54.4 preliminary and 49.5 in June. Expectations 55.4, current conditions 54.8. A meaningful improvement, but from a deeply depressed base.

🌍 Weekend Developments | August 1st–2nd — The Iran Trade Unwinds

The single most market-relevant event of the period happened with equity markets closed.

Trump announced on Sunday that he had called off a massive planned attack on Iran, saying Middle East allies including Saudi Arabia had asked him to pursue a deal instead, with new talks to begin Monday. Context: the Strait of Hormuz has been impassable since fighting resumed between the US and Iran on July 8. Roughly 20 million barrels per day transited the strait before the war; around 200 million barrels were released during an earlier pause.

Crude gapped violently lower. Brent for October fell as much as 7.3% to $81.55/bbl, with WTI near $80 — immediately erasing a large portion of July’s 24% advance. Separately, Trump had announced a framework for the full disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza, with the territory to be placed under a new Palestinian administration.

Why this matters for Monday. July’s inflation problem was substantially an energy problem, and the energy problem was a Hormuz problem. If crude holds near $80, the strongest argument for a Fed hike weakens materially — which should relieve pressure on the 30-year. Two cautions: Iranian media has previously rebuffed Trump’s claims of agreement within hours, and Iran’s Foreign Ministry had not signalled any change in position on the waterway as of Sunday. The oil move is priced on a best-case outcome that has not been delivered.

📌 Reading the Week

Three durable takeaways from July 31st:

  1. The Korean squeeze was not a bottom signal. A 17.9% single day inside a −22% month is what forced deleveraging looks like on the way out, not what accumulation looks like. Micron’s intraday reversal on Wall Street the same day makes the same point.
  2. The bond market never joined the rally. The 30-year finished the week at a 19-year high with the ECI confirming 3.4% compensation growth. Equity strength was concentrated in two stocks; rates weakness was systemic.
  3. The macro regime may have changed over the weekend. If the Iran de-escalation holds, the July narrative — oil-driven inflation, hawkish Fed, steepening curve — reverses. If it collapses, as previous announcements have, the crude gap fills quickly.

 

 

Companies

Theme: “The Supply Chain Bites Back” — Amazon surges 15% on booming cloud growth while Apple suffers its worst day in 16 months, not on weak demand but because the AI buildout has vacuumed up the memory and components it needs. The same constraint that made Micron a winner all year is now a tax on everyone else.

Friday completed the Magnificent Seven’s reporting cycle and delivered a third consecutive session of violent intra-sector dispersion. But the dividing line shifted. Wednesday and Thursday split companies by who could justify their AI capex. Friday split them by who can actually get parts. Apple beat on the quarter and still lost roughly $360–400 billion of market value because it cannot secure enough advanced chips and memory to meet demand it says it already has. That is a new failure mode for this cycle, and it makes the memory shortage a macro variable rather than a sector story.

📦 1. Amazon: The Quarter That Justified the Bill

Amazon (AMZN): +14.9% to +15.3% — by far the strongest single force lifting the market, adding roughly 208 points to the Dow on its own.

The market’s verdict was that a $496 billion backlog and 37% AWS growth are worth a $220 billion spending bill. That is the same test Microsoft passed on Thursday and Meta failed.

🍎 2. Apple: A Beat That Cost $400 Billion

Apple (AAPL): closed down roughly 7.4%, trading as much as 9–10% lower intraday — its worst single-day performance in 16 months and its steepest since the March 2020 pandemic selloff. The decline erased somewhere between $360 billion and $400 billion in market capitalisation and handed the world’s-most-valuable-company crown back to Nvidia, days after Apple had reclaimed it.

The quarter itself was strong. Fiscal Q3 revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16%, beat the $108.65 billion estimate. EPS of $2.02 crushed the $1.89 consensus. iPhone revenue rose 22%, and Mac materially exceeded forecasts. Apple’s iPhone captured a record second-quarter global smartphone revenue share of 49%.

The guidance is what broke it. Q4 revenue growth of 9–11% — roughly $113 billion at the midpoint — landed below the $114.9 billion consensus and the 12%-plus growth analysts expected, in what should be the debut quarter for the next iPhone. CFO Kevan Parekh said component constraints will affect iPhone, Mac and iPad in the September quarter, with currency an additional drag. Tim Cook was explicit that this is a supply problem, not a demand problem: he described an unexpectedly strong product cycle running into an advanced chipmaking supply chain that has fundamentally less flexibility to meet demand at these levels.

Secondary misses compounded it: Services at $30.7 billion missed $31.4 billion, Greater China at $18.8 billion fell short of $19.6 billion, and iPad at $6.19 billion missed $6.89 billion. R&D rose 32% to $11.7 billion. This was Cook’s final full earnings release before John Ternus becomes CEO on September 1.

Analysts split, but mostly on timing rather than thesis. TD Cowen raised its target to $400 from $350. JPMorgan trimmed to $340 from $345, arguing supply issues defer rather than destroy demand. Morgan Stanley edged down to $360 from $364, staying Overweight. Barclays maintained Underweight and cut to $245 from $253 on the Services and China shortfalls.

Why this matters beyond Apple. For most of 2026 Apple outperformed because it spent little on AI capex — up roughly 22–24% year-to-date versus Nvidia’s 7%, with capital expenditure falling for three straight quarters. Friday revealed the flaw in that trade: you can decline to build data centres, but you cannot decline to buy memory in a market where hyperscalers are absorbing supply. The asset-light AI strategy has a hidden input-cost exposure.

🔬 3. Semiconductors: Thursday’s Squeeze Fails Its First Test

The chip complex could not hold Thursday’s 7–8% index-level surge, and the reversals were brutal.

Micron (MU) went from +6.4% early to −6.5%, closing down 5.9% — a full round trip in one session after gaining 18% the day before. That pattern is the signature of a positioning-driven move rather than a re-rating. The Technology sector ETF finished down 0.76% even as the Nasdaq closed higher, meaning Friday’s index gain came from Consumer Discretionary (+2.88%, i.e. Amazon) rather than from chips.

Asia told the opposite story, six hours earlier. SK Hynix hit its 30% daily limit up (+29.95%) and Samsung Electronics rose 26.81%, driving the KOSPI’s record 17.91% session. Both were reacting to Microsoft’s Thursday print, not to Friday’s US tape. Perspective is essential here: across July, Samsung still fell 21% and SK Hynix fell 35%.

The structural point buried in Apple’s call: if memory scarcity is severe enough to cut Apple’s guidance, memory pricing power is real and durable. That is bullish for Micron, SanDisk, SK Hynix and Samsung on fundamentals — and bearish for every device maker, auto OEM and server integrator that buys from them. The trade has become a margin transfer from downstream to upstream, not a rising tide.

💰 4. The Capex Scoreboard Is Now Complete

With all four hyperscalers reported, the 2026 aggregate is on the table: Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet are collectively guiding to $720–745 billion of capital spending this year.

Company 2026 capex signal Contracted backlog Market verdict
Microsoft $41bn in the quarter, calendar plans unchanged $678bn RPO, +84% +15.5% — largest one-day value gain on record
Amazon Raised to ~$220bn $496bn AWS backlog +15%
Alphabet Raised outlook Not comparably disclosed Roughly flat
Meta $130–145bn, low end raised None disclosed −8%

The pattern is consistent across three sessions: the market now prices disclosed backlog, not announced spending. Companies that can show contracted future revenue against their capex get rewarded; those that cannot get sold regardless of headline growth.

📋 5. Other Notable Movers (Friday)

🌍 6. Weekend Developments (August 1st–2nd)

The Iran de-escalation is a direct corporate risk event, not just a macro one. Trump announced Sunday that he had called off a planned strike on Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia and other regional allies, with talks beginning Monday. Brent for October fell as much as 7.3% to $81.55, with WTI near $80.

The immediate corporate read-through cuts against Friday’s biggest winners. Refining margins are the most exposed position in the market right now — the entire group is priced on crack spreads inflated by a closed Strait of Hormuz. If the waterway reopens on any timeline, that premium compresses fast. Anyone holding PBF at +170% year-to-date into Monday’s open is carrying a policy-headline risk, not an earnings risk.

Berkshire Hathaway shares reached an eight-month high, supported by strength in major holdings — Coca-Cola up roughly 25% year-to-date having beaten and raised, and Bank of America up 12.6%. UBS lifted its price targets, and a Barron’s report suggested Berkshire may have repurchased as much as $11 billion of stock in Q2. Confirmation comes with second-quarter results, expected Saturday, August 8 — not this past weekend.

📌 Analyst Take

The week produced a coherent hierarchy that traders can actually use. Tier one — companies converting AI spend into contracted revenue (Microsoft, Amazon) were rewarded with historic single-day moves. Tier two — companies spending without visibility (Meta) were punished. Tier three — companies that avoided the spending entirely (Apple) discovered they are exposed anyway, through input costs, and lost $400 billion in a day for it.

The strategic implication is that there is no longer a defensive position within technology. Not building data centres was Apple’s edge for six months; on Friday it became irrelevant, because the bottleneck moved from capital to physical supply. The only genuinely advantaged position in this configuration is upstream — the memory and equipment makers who set the price of the scarce input.

Two things to watch this week: AMD and SK Hynix report, which will test whether memory pricing power is as durable as Apple’s guidance implied, and July nonfarm payrolls land Friday (forecast +91,000, unemployment expected to tick up to 4.3%), which will settle the rate debate that has been running underneath all of this. And if the Iran talks progress, the energy complex — this month’s quiet best performer — becomes the most crowded exit in the market.

 

 

 

General

July closed with US equity indices higher and almost nothing else intact. The S&P 500 finished the month up modestly and the Dow logged a fourth consecutive winning month — a headline that conceals a 22% collapse in the Korean market, a 24% surge in Brent crude, the 30-year Treasury yield at a 19-year high, coordinated currency intervention by two G20 central banks, and the largest single-day gain in the KOSPI’s history. The index level was calm; nothing underneath it was.

Then, with markets closed, the single largest driver of July’s inflation problem was potentially removed. Trump announced Sunday that he had called off a planned strike on Iran and that talks would begin Monday. Crude gapped down more than 7%. Whether that holds determines almost everything about the coming week.

  1. The Bond Market Never Ratified the Equity Rally

This is the through-line of the entire period and the most important thing to communicate to clients.

Across three sessions in which the Nasdaq gained 2.78% and then 1.00%, the long end of the US curve kept selling. The 30-year finished Friday around 5.25%, its highest since 2007. The 10-year topped 4.70%, reaching 4.73% — the highest since January 2025. Short-end yields eased while the long end rose, steepening the curve.

The reporting is unusually direct about the cause: investors losing confidence in Chair Warsh’s commitment to curbing inflation. Three FOMC members dissented in favour of a hike at the July meeting, and markets price roughly a 54% chance of an increase. This is not a curve waiting for cuts. It is a curve pricing an inflation-credibility problem.

Friday’s data reinforced it. The Q2 Employment Cost Index came in at +0.9% against +0.8% expected, matching Q1, with total compensation running at 3.4% year-over-year and private benefit costs at 3.8%. Notably, real wages fell 0.4% over the year — the first negative reading since Q4 2022. For a central bank targeting 2%, a wage measure stuck at 3.4% while real wages decline is the worst of both configurations: cost pressure for firms, no purchasing power for households.

The practical implication: equity strength in this period was concentrated in two stocks — Microsoft and Amazon added roughly $450 billion and 208 Dow points respectively — while the rates deterioration was systemic. When breadth is that narrow and the discount rate is rising, the index level is a poor measure of market health.

  1. The Korean Squeeze: What Forced Deleveraging Looks Like

The KOSPI’s +17.91% session on July 31st — its largest single-day gain ever, closing at 6,595.45 — will be misread by many as a bottom signal. The full context says otherwise.

A market that cannot rally on record earnings, then rallies 18% in a day on someone else’s earnings, is not repricing fundamentals. It is unwinding leverage in both directions. The confirming evidence came six hours later on Wall Street: Micron went from +6.4% to −6.5% intraday, closing down 5.9%, and the Technology sector ETF finished the session down 0.76% even as the Nasdaq closed higher. Thursday’s 7–8% semiconductor squeeze failed its first test within twenty-four hours.

  1. Currency Intervention as a Systemic Signal

The most underappreciated development of the week was unprecedented coordinated intervention by Japanese and Korean authorities on Thursday to support their currencies against the dollar. For Tokyo this was routine — Japan spent roughly ¥11.7 trillion (about $72 billion) in April–May with little lasting effect. For Seoul it was rare, and that is the signal.

The result: USD/JPY hit 157.96, its lowest since May 14, and the dollar lost 3.3% against the yen on the week, its largest weekly decline since July 2024. Then the BOJ held at 1.00% in an 8-1 vote — with Hajime Takata dissenting for a hike to 1.25% — and the yen immediately gave it back, falling to 160.69.

That round trip is the story. The BOJ’s own outlook warns core inflation will run “clearly above” 2% from the second half of fiscal 2026, citing wage pass-through, crude prices and yen weakness. Yet policy stayed put. Intervention without rate action buys days, not weeks, and the carry differential that funds leveraged positions globally remains intact. The comparison traders are making is to July–August 2024, when a yen appreciation triggered a violent global deleveraging. Nothing in this week’s outcome removes that risk; it defers it.

  1. The Oil Regime May Have Just Flipped

July’s inflation problem was substantially an energy problem, and the energy problem was a Strait of Hormuz problem. Brent gained roughly 24% in July, its strongest month since March, settling Friday at $90.12 after Iran claimed attacks on two tankers transiting under US escort. WTI settled at $84.67.

Over the weekend, Trump said he called off a massive planned attack on Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia and other regional allies, with talks starting Monday. Brent for October fell as much as 7.3% to $81.55, with WTI near $80.

Why this matters more than a typical commodity move:

  1. The New Fault Line: Supply, Not Capital

The most durable analytical development of the week came from Apple. The company beat on revenue and EPS and still fell roughly 7.4% — its worst day in 16 months — losing $360–400 billion in market value, because it cannot secure enough advanced chips and memory to meet demand it says it already has. Tim Cook was explicit that the advanced chipmaking supply chain lacks the flexibility to serve demand at these levels.

For six months, Apple outperformed because it avoided AI capex, rising 22–24% year-to-date against Nvidia’s 7%, with capital spending falling three quarters running. Friday demolished that logic. You can decline to build data centres; you cannot decline to buy memory in a market where four hyperscalers are guiding to $720–745 billion of 2026 capex and absorbing supply.

This reframes the AI trade for the second half. The market has now established a hierarchy across three sessions:

Position in the stack Example Verdict
Converts capex into contracted revenue Microsoft (+15.5%, $678bn backlog); Amazon (+15%, $496bn AWS backlog) Rewarded
Spends without disclosed visibility Meta (−8%, FCF −91%) Punished
Avoids capex but buys the scarce input Apple (−7.4%) Punished anyway
Sells the scarce input Memory, equipment makers Structurally advantaged

There is no longer a defensive position inside technology. The only genuinely advantaged seat is upstream, with whoever prices the bottleneck.

📊 Global Macro Sentiment Summary — July 31st to August 2nd, 2026

Narrative Channel Core Fundamental Trigger Net Portfolio Posture
Index Structure Nasdaq +1.00% to 25,373.85; S&P +0.70%; Dow +0.53%; Russell 2000 −0.50% 🟨 Narrow — two stocks carried it
Monetary Path 30Y at 5.25% (19-yr high); 10Y at 4.73% (highest since Jan 2025); curve steepening 🟥 Inflation credibility in question
Labour & Wages ECI +0.9% vs +0.8% exp; comp +3.4% YoY; real wages −0.4%, first negative since 2022 🟥 Sticky cost pressure
Sentiment Data UMich final 55.2 vs 54.0 exp; Chicago PMI 57.6 vs 56 exp 🟩 Improving from a depressed base
Tech / AI Amazon +15%, Apple −7.4%; hyperscaler 2026 capex now $720–745bn 🟨 Dispersion, not direction
Semiconductors KOSPI +17.91% (record); Micron round-trips to −5.9%; Tech ETF −0.76% ⚠️ Leverage unwinding both ways
Asian Equities KOSPI −22.19% in July, worst since 1997; Nikkei +4.03% Friday to 64,362 🟥 Positioning damage unrepaired
Currency Coordinated JP+KR intervention; USD/JPY 157.96 → 160.69 post-BOJ; DXY ~100.12 ⚠️ Carry unwind risk live
Energy Brent +24% in July, settled $90.12 — then −7.3% on weekend de-escalation 🔄 Regime potentially inverting

 

 

Upcoming News

Theme: “Hormuz Diplomacy Meets the ISM” — Oil gaps down more than 6% into the Asian open as US–Iran negotiations begin Monday afternoon, while ISM Manufacturing delivers the first hard data of a week that ends with payrolls. The July inflation regime is on the table.

Monday opens a week where the macro question and the geopolitical question are the same question. July’s inflation problem was an energy problem, and the energy problem was a Strait of Hormuz problem. Over the weekend Trump called off what he described as the largest planned attack since World War II, and negotiations begin Monday afternoon. Crude has already repriced hard. If the talks progress, the case for a Fed hike weakens and pressure comes off a 30-year yield sitting at a 19-year high. If they collapse — as three prior de-escalation announcements have since February — the gap fills fast and the market is left holding a soft ISM print with a $90 Brent.

🔴 High-Impact “Red News” Calendar — Monday, August 3rd, 2026

Times in ICT (Hanoi). ET is ICT minus 11 hours.

Time (ICT) Currency Event / Indicator Consensus Previous Impact
~08:45 CNY Caixin China Manufacturing PMI (July) — — 🟠 Med
Morning JPY / KRW / VND S&P Global Manufacturing PMIs — Japan, Korea, ASEAN (July final) — — 🟠 Med
15:00–16:00 EUR Eurozone Manufacturing PMI (July final) — — 🟠 Med
15:30 GBP UK Manufacturing PMI (July final) — — 🟢 Low
20:45 USD S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI (July final) ~53.8 53.8 🟠 Med
21:00 USD ISM Manufacturing PMI (July) 54.0 53.3 🔴 High
21:00 USD ISM Prices Paid (July) 70.0 73.0 🔴 High
21:00 USD ISM New Orders (July) 57.0 56.0 🟠 Med
21:00 USD ISM Employment (July) — 49.7 🟠 Med
21:00 USD Construction Spending (MoM, June) +0.2% +0.1% 🟢 Low
During US session USD Total Vehicle Sales (July) 16.3M 16.52M 🟢 Low
Afternoon (US) — US–Iran negotiations commence — — 🔴 High

Monday’s Catalyst Flow

 

┌──────────────────────────────┐              ┌──────────────────────────────┐

│ Weekend gap: Brent −6.3% to  │ ────────────>│ Energy complex, refiners,    │

│ $82.41, WTI $79.40           │  Repricing   │ inflation expectations       │

└──────────────────────────────┘              └──────────────────────────────┘

│                                              │

│ Sets Asia/Europe tone                        │ Feeds rate path

┌────────────▼─────────────────┐              ┌─────────────▼────────────────┐

│ ISM Mfg + PRICES PAID        │ ───────────> │ 30Y Treasury (5.25%, 19-yr   │

│ (21:00 ICT)                  │  Inflation   │ high) — the week’s key level │

└──────────────────────────────┘              └──────────────────────────────┘

│                                              │

└──────────────────────┬───────────────────────┘

▼

┌──────────────────────────────────┐

│ US–Iran talks begin, US afternoon│

│ Headline risk into the close     │

└──────────────────────────────────┘

  1. The Weekend Gap: What Actually Happened, and What Didn’t

What Trump said. He cancelled a planned attack on Iranian targets — reportedly including energy infrastructure, with Israel prepared to participate — saying he was asked to hold off by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and by Iran itself. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman raised concerns directly in a phone call. Trump said the proposed deal covers “the immediate, complete and total opening of the Hormuz Strait, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” with talks beginning Monday afternoon. He did not disclose the venue or participants.

What Iran said. This is the part that matters for positioning. Tehran denies it asked Trump to hold off and denies agreeing to a deal to split control of Hormuz. Iran’s defence minister said the country was “neither surprised nor passive” and remains on alert. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Sunday that an “understanding” with Oman over a new shipping route does not mean the Strait of Hormuz will reopen. Iran has warned vessels against using non-designated routes, and IRGC forces have targeted ships attempting transit.

The market has already moved. Brent fell $5.52 (−6.28%) to $82.41 and WTI dropped $5.27 (−6.22%) to $79.40 in Sunday trading, with Brent October futures printing as low as $81.55 (−7.3%) at one point.

How to read it. The market is pricing a best-case outcome that the counterparty has publicly disputed. Context on the underlying disruption: the Strait has been impassable since fighting resumed July 8; roughly 20 million barrels per day transited before the war; fewer than 10 commodity ships were passing daily last week against a normal ~100. That is a very large supply story to unwind on a statement Tehran has contradicted — but equally, a very large premium to hold if a deal lands.

  1. ISM Manufacturing (21:00 ICT) — Watch Prices Paid, Not the Headline

The headline is expected at 54.0 from 53.3, which would be a solid expansionary print. But the tradeable number Monday is Prices Paid, forecast at 70.0 from 73.0.

Why. The entire market structure right now hinges on inflation credibility. Three FOMC members dissented in favour of a hike in July; markets price roughly a 54% chance of an increase; the 30-year finished last week at 5.25%, a 19-year high; and Friday’s ECI showed compensation running at 3.4% year-over-year with real wages negative. A Prices Paid reading at 70 is still deeply inflationary by historical standards — this series rarely sits there outside a genuine cost shock.

The two scenarios:

ISM Employment at 49.7 is also worth watching as the first labour input of a payrolls week — it has been in contraction, consistent with the “low hiring, low firing” characterisation economists have applied to this market.

  1. Asia Opens Into a Very Unstable Setup

The Asian session Monday carries three unresolved threads simultaneously, which is unusual.

  1. Monday’s Earnings

Before the open: Marriott (MAR), Tyson Foods (TSN), CNH Industrial (CNH), Loews (L), MakeMyTrip (MMYT), Krystal Biotech (KRYS).

After the close — the heavier slate: Palantir (PLTR) is the marquee name and the key read on enterprise AI software spending, a segment that has been the beneficiary of rotation out of AI hardware in recent weeks. Also reporting: ON Semiconductor (ON), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Snap (SNAP), Williams Companies (WMB), ONEOK (OKE), Diamondback Energy (FANG), SBA Communications (SBAC), Clorox (CLX), Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ), BWX Technologies (BWXT).

Two to watch closely given the weekend: Diamondback and the midstream names (WMB, OKE) report into a 6% crude gap-down — commentary on realised pricing and hedging will be more market-relevant than the quarter itself.

  1. The Week Ahead — Everything Builds to Friday
Day Key releases
Tue Aug 4 International trade (June), Advance goods trade balance, Factory Orders
Wed Aug 5 ADP private payrolls (July), S&P Global Services/Composite PMI final, ISM Non-Manufacturing, DOE inventories, BOJ June minutes
Thu Aug 6 Initial jobless claims
Fri Aug 7 July Nonfarm Payrolls — consensus +91,000; unemployment expected to tick up to 4.3% from 4.2%

Earnings of note later in the week: AMD and SK Hynix — the direct test of whether the memory pricing power implied by Apple’s guidance cut is as durable as it looked.

The macro sequencing matters. Q2 GDP came in at 1.5% against 2.1% expected, core PCE is stuck at 3.3%, and compensation is at 3.4%. A soft payrolls print alongside sticky wages is the stagflationary combination the long end has been pricing. A strong print with cooling prices is the only clean bullish outcome available this week.

 

 

Snapshot

Theme: “Green Month, Broken Internals” — Amazon carries the S&P to a positive July close while Apple loses $400 billion in a day, Korea posts the largest single-session gain in its history inside its worst month since 1997, and the 30-year Treasury yield finishes at a 19-year high. Then the oil premium that defined the month collapses over the weekend.

July ended with US indices higher and almost nothing else stable. The Dow logged a fourth consecutive winning month; underneath it, the KOSPI fell 22%, Brent gained 24%, two G20 central banks intervened jointly in currency markets, and the long end of the US curve sold in every session. The month’s headline return is the least informative number in this report. Friday itself was carried by two stocks moving in opposite directions — Amazon adding roughly 208 Dow points, Apple subtracting about 188 — with small caps closing red and the technology sector finishing negative despite a higher Nasdaq.

🏛️ The Bottom Line

Friday functioned as a narrow, two-stock tape. The Nasdaq Composite rose +1.00% (+251.68) to 25,373.85, the S&P 500 +0.70% (+52.09) to 7,489.72, and the Dow +0.53% (+276.97) to 52,485.03 — but the Russell 2000 fell 0.50% to 2,931.34, and only 3 of 11 S&P sector ETFs closed green. Consumer Discretionary led at +2.88% (essentially Amazon), while Technology finished down 0.76%, Health Care −1.18% and Materials −2.21%. The VIX dropped 6.44% to 15.99. The Nasdaq had been up 1.3% early and briefly surrendered the entire gain.

The two names that were the session: Amazon rose roughly 15% after Q2 net sales of $200.6 billion (+20%), AWS growth of 37% — the fastest in 18 quarters — and a $496 billion AWS backlog, with profit more than tripling. Apple fell about 7.4% (down as much as 9–10% intraday), its worst day in 16 months, erasing $360–400 billion of market value and handing the world’s-most-valuable-company title back to Nvidia. Apple beat on revenue ($109.4bn, +16%) and EPS ($2.02 vs $1.89) but guided Q4 revenue growth to 9–11% against 12%+ expected, citing an inability to secure enough advanced chips and memory. Micron round-tripped from +6.4% to close down 5.9%, failing Thursday’s semiconductor squeeze within a day.

Asia moved on Thursday’s news, not Friday’s. The KOSPI surged 17.91% to 6,595.45 — the largest single-day gain in its history — with SK Hynix limit-up at +29.95% and Samsung +26.81%. Context matters: the index still fell 22.19% across July, its worst month since 1997, and sits close to 30% below its June peak; Samsung was down 21% and SK Hynix down 35% for the month. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 4.03% (+2,494.59) to 64,362.02, TOPIX +1.29% to 4,003.30. Taiwan gained more than 7%. Shanghai +0.72% to 3,832.26; Hang Seng +0.10% to 25,884.43. Europe was flat: FTSE −0.27%, DAX +0.07%, CAC +0.28%.

The macro backdrop hardened rather than eased. The 30-year Treasury yield closed near 5.25%, its highest since 2007; the 10-year topped 4.70%, reaching 4.73% — highest since January 2025 — with reporting attributing the move to eroding confidence in Chair Warsh’s inflation resolve. The Q2 Employment Cost Index came in at +0.9% versus +0.8% expected, compensation +3.4% YoY, and real wages fell 0.4% — the first negative reading since Q4 2022. Chicago PMI beat at 57.6 (vs 56), and UMich final sentiment beat at 55.2 (vs 54.0). The BOJ held at 1.00% in an 8-1 vote while warning core inflation would run “clearly above” 2% in H2 FY2026; the yen reversed from a post-intervention 157.96 back to 160.69. The DXY fell 0.76% to around 100.12, down 3.3% against the yen on the week — its worst since July 2024 — following unprecedented coordinated Japanese and Korean intervention on Thursday.

Commodities finished the month strong and then broke. WTI settled +1.29% at $84.67 and Brent +1.22% at $90.12 Friday, after Iran claimed attacks on two tankers transiting Hormuz. Brent gained roughly 24% in July, its best month since March. December gold settled −$53.60 (−1.29%) at $4,107, still the first monthly gain in five but only about $16 on the month — a near-perfect doji. Then over the weekend, Trump cancelled a planned strike on Iran and announced talks for Monday: Brent fell $5.52 (−6.28%) to $82.41 and WTI $5.27 (−6.22%) to $79.40, with October Brent printing as low as $81.55.

📉 Reference Levels for the Monday Open (August 3rd)

Derived from recent session closes and range extremes — not vendor-published levels. Verify against your own charts.

Asset Support Resistance Operational Bias
S&P 500 7,437 (Thu close) → 7,400 (Fri low) 7,500 → 7,533 🟨 Constructive but narrow
Nasdaq Composite 25,122 (Thu close) → 24,932 25,508 → 25,881 🟨 Needs breadth to confirm
Dow Jones 52,208 (Thu close) → 51,594 52,747 → 53,056 (record close) 🟩 Strongest of the majors
Russell 2000 2,906 2,946 → 2,977 🟥 Diverged Friday
US 10Y Yield 4.64% 4.73% (Fri high) → 4.80% 🟥 Upward pressure
US 30Y Yield 5.10% 5.25% (19-yr high) 🟥 The binding constraint
WTI Crude $79.40 (Sun) → $76 $84.67 (Fri settle) 🔄 Gap-driven, headline risk
Brent Crude $81.55 → $78 $90.12 (Fri settle) 🔄 Regime in question
Gold (Dec) $4,050 → $4,000 $4,161 → $4,214 🟨 Consolidating
USD/JPY 157.96 (intervention low) 160.69 → 163.99 (40-yr low) ⚠️ Intervention-distorted
KOSPI 5,593 (Thu close) 6,595 → June peak zone ⚠️ Unstable both directions

📊 Market Sentiment & Bias

Equities (US): 🟨 Narrow, not broad. A green Nasdaq alongside a negative Technology sector ETF and a red Russell 2000 is a mechanical outcome of two megacap earnings reactions, not a market-wide bid. The S&P notched its first winning week in three, but breadth favoured decliners for much of the session.

Equities (Asia): ⚠️ Violently unstable. A record 17.9% KOSPI session inside a −22% month describes leverage unwinding in both directions, not a repaired market. Korean regulators had already capped retail allocation in leveraged single-stock ETFs at 20% after repeated circuit breakers.

Fixed Income: 🟥 The consistent bear signal. The long end sold in every session of this period and finished at a 19-year high, with three FOMC members voting to hike and roughly 54% odds of an increase priced. Friday’s ECI at 3.4% compensation growth gave them fresh ammunition.

Foreign Exchange: ⚠️ Officially managed, not resolved. Coordinated intervention moved USD/JPY nearly 480 pips and it was largely retraced within 24 hours of the BOJ hold. The carry differential funding leveraged global positions is intact.

Commodities: 🔄 Regime potentially inverting. July’s best-performing complex now faces a negotiated outcome. Note the asymmetry: refining margins are priced on a closed Strait of Hormuz, and that is the most crowded profitable position in the market.

💡 Top Trade Takeaway: “The Crowded Winner Is Energy, Not Chips”

Focus: Review refining and energy-adjacent exposure ahead of Monday’s open. Keep quality hyperscaler positions where capex is matched by disclosed backlog. Do not add to semiconductors after last week’s 15–30% single-day moves. Reduce gross exposure into Friday’s payrolls.

Logic. Most desks are still positioned around the AI question. The more urgent risk this week is energy. PBF, Delek, Par Pacific and HF Sinclair all closed at record highs on Thursday, with PBF up roughly 170% year-to-date on crack spreads inflated by a closed waterway. Sunday’s announcement puts that entire trade on a policy headline. Crucially, Iran has publicly disputed the premise — Tehran denies asking for the pause, denies agreeing on Hormuz, and says its Oman shipping understanding does not mean the Strait reopens. So the position is exposed in both directions: a deal compresses the premium, no deal leaves a 6% gap to refill.

Where the fundamental case genuinely improved: contracted cloud backlog. Microsoft’s $678 billion RPO and Amazon’s $496 billion AWS backlog are hard, multi-year numbers. That is a different asset from a memory stock that moved 26% on sentiment and round-tripped the next day.

The new risk factor to underwrite: Apple’s guidance cut was about component and memory cost inflation, not energy. That channel does not improve if Hormuz reopens, and it applies to every device maker, auto OEM and server integrator. The only structurally advantaged seat in this configuration is upstream — whoever prices the bottleneck. AMD and SK Hynix report this week and will test how durable that pricing power is.

Calendar discipline for the week: ISM Manufacturing and Prices Paid Monday (consensus 54.0 and 70.0), ADP and ISM Services Wednesday, and July nonfarm payrolls Friday — forecast +91,000 with unemployment expected at 4.3%.

The honest caveat for clients: July closed green on the indices while the 30-year hit a 19-year high, real wages turned negative, GDP undershot at 1.5%, and core PCE stayed at 3.3%. Any positioning built on the premise that earnings have resolved the rate problem is taking directional risk on a thesis the bond market rejected in every session of the month.

P/s: UJ on 156 at the moment :>

 

This report is provided to The Concept Trading from Van Hung Nguyen.

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