Top developments
Fed officials turn hawkish again as CPI becomes the key input for September
Federal Reserve officials delivered another round of hawkish remarks, leaving the U.S. July CPI report as the main near-term catalyst for September rate pricing. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said rapid price increases remain the biggest problem for the economy, while describing the labor market as stable but not particularly strong. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said it may take multiple rate hikes to bring inflation back to the Fed’s 2% goal.
Markets are focused on the July CPI release due Wednesday evening Beijing time. Consensus expectations cited in the report put headline CPI at 3.4% year over year and core CPI at 2.5%. CME data showed expectations for a September hold and a rate hike were roughly balanced. With hawkish comments landing just ahead of a major inflation print, short-end rate-sensitive assets faced pressure and overall risk appetite stayed cautious. The CPI result is expected to feed directly into September policy pricing.
Hormuz deadlock persists as U.S.-Iran tensions escalate at sea
Maritime tensions between the U.S. and Iran intensified, with the standoff around the Strait of Hormuz still unresolved. Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the strait would not reopen unless the U.S. accepts ceasefire terms that include unfreezing assets and ending related fighting in the region.
Separately, the U.S. military fired missiles in the Gulf of Oman at a Panama-flagged cargo ship heading toward an Iranian port. Houthi forces also attacked Saudi and Egyptian ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, causing crew deaths. The report said the geopolitical risk premium continued to support oil prices, while fears of supply disruption remained in place. That has left inflation concerns and haven demand moving at the same time, adding to short-term volatility in commodities.
Bearish sentiment lingers even as historical data points to rebound potential
Market sentiment remained soft despite repeated record highs in the S&P 500. Over the past 25 weeks, bears outnumbered bulls in 20 of them, and institutional positioning has lagged fundamentals.
22V Research said historically excessive pessimism has often preceded positive returns over the following one to six months. Wells Fargo’s sentiment indicator, on the other hand, is nearing a sell zone associated with prior episodes of extreme bullishness. The gap between sentiment and fundamentals may leave room for a later recovery, but the near-term setup is still constrained by CPI and geopolitical risk.
Market recap
Commodities and FX
Spot gold traded around $4,390 an ounce, up 0.52%. Spot silver was near $65.0 an ounce, up 0.5%. WTI crude traded near $83.9 a barrel, listed at 0.96%. Brent crude was around $85 a barrel, up 0.67%. The U.S. Dollar Index stood at 99.86%, up 0.05%.
The report attributed support in oil to the Hormuz deadlock and Houthi attacks, saying the geopolitical premium remained intact. Gold moved between pre-CPI caution and haven demand, while silver showed relatively more independence because of its industrial characteristics. Hawkish Fed comments limited upside in precious metals. Institutional views in the report said commodities are still being driven jointly by geopolitics and the pending CPI release. Elevated oil prices may reinforce concern about sticky inflation, producing a chain in which geopolitical stress supports oil, oil lifts inflation expectations, and rates are repriced.
Crypto market performance
BTC traded near $63,765, down 0.43%, while ETH changed hands around $1,884, up 0.45%. Total crypto market capitalization was roughly $2.27 trillion, down 0.1%. Total liquidations over the past 24 hours reached about $171 million, including $125 million in long liquidations.
Bitget’s BTC/USDT liquidation map showed BTC spot near $63,711. Long liquidations were concentrated around $63,000 to $63,500, and a break below $63,000 could accelerate long unwinds. On the upside, short liquidations were clustered in the $64,000 to $65,000 range. A move above $64,000 could trigger a sequence of short liquidations and push price higher.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $145 million yesterday, followed by dynamic net outflows of $42.4 million today. The report said fading risk appetite in U.S. equities and higher oil prices, which fed inflation concerns, were weighing on crypto from the macro side. BTC failed to hold the $64,000 level, while ETH held up relatively better. Liquidations skewed toward longs, pointing to stop-loss pressure after upside momentum stalled. The institutional consensus cited in the report leaned toward a weak range-bound market, with attention on how CPI feeds through to risk assets and whether ETF flows improve.
U.S. equity indexes
The Dow closed at 53,791.85, down 0.34% and marking a second straight daily decline. The S&P 500 finished at 7,728.20, down 0.32%. The Nasdaq closed at 26,445.45, down 0.60%, with clearer pressure on technology shares.
Big Tech split performance
Moves among the largest technology names were mixed. Nvidia traded near $217.50, down 0.02%. Apple was around $304.91, down 1.09%. Microsoft stood near $503.81, down 0.44%. Alphabet traded near $343.80, down 3.84%. Amazon was about $272.27, down 2.09%. Meta rose 0.71% to around $599.12, while Tesla added 0.58% to about $332.81.
Alphabet and Amazon led the declines, with Apple and Microsoft also lower. Meta and Tesla finished in positive territory. Nvidia trimmed losses after Jensen Huang clarified the company’s financing role. The broader tone remained pressured by the U.S.-Iran standoff and hawkish Fed rhetoric, while investors reassessed AI enthusiasm against capital spending efficiency and macro risk.
Sector moves
Semiconductor and memory shares held up relatively well and in some cases rebounded. SK Hynix gained about 4.7%, Micron rose around 0.87%, and KLA added roughly 4.0%. The report linked those moves to persistent demand logic around AI compute, with funds rotating back into selected hardware names during the broader pullback.
Optical communications stocks also strengthened. CRDO gained about 3.23%, Marvell rose about 1.8%, and AAOI added around 1.14%. The move was tied to expectations for AI-driven optical interconnect demand and a visible sector rotation.
Cloud service providers moved higher as well, with NEBIUS up about 4.95% and CoreWeave up around 2.42%. The report said capital flowed back into compute rental and AI infrastructure themes.
Single-stock focus
Nvidia: Jensen Huang clarifies financing plan
The market had previously misunderstood Nvidia’s potential $500 billion compute financing plan. On X, Jensen Huang said Nvidia’s support would be capped at no more than 25% of any single project opportunity and would take the form of limited residual-value-based support. He said the arrangement was designed to complement, not replace, independent underwriters. The clarification removed part of the uncertainty, and Nvidia’s five-year credit default swaps tightened.
The report also said Nvidia is developing an open-source model called Nemotron 4 with one trillion parameters, aimed at expanding the open ecosystem and supporting GPU demand. CME is planning to launch GPU compute futures as well. Institutional interpretation in the report was that the clarification materially reduced credit risk concerns and shifted market understanding away from the earlier reading of unlimited exposure. Analysts are now watching how the financing platform operates in practice and whether the open-source model can broaden the ecosystem. Near term, the change supports a sentiment repair, while medium-term attention remains on AI capex returns and supply-chain execution.
Alphabet: capex efficiency under scrutiny
Alphabet fell about 3.84%, making it one of the weakest among the so-called Magnificent Seven. Investors are still digesting earlier increases in capital spending and the pace at which AI investments translate into returns. In the report, institutions stayed cautious on high-capex technology stocks under a hawkish macro backdrop and geopolitical uncertainty, with particular focus on whether cloud growth matches spending efficiency. Future earnings updates and any change in capex guidance remain central.
Apple: lower with the broader tech trade
Apple fell about 1.09% as technology shares retreated. The market remains focused on Apple’s position in the AI cycle and the hardware cycle. The report described the stock as relatively defensive but still affected by broader sector sentiment, with attention on the iPhone cycle, services resilience, new products, and the rollout pace of AI features.
Meta: one of the stronger names on the day
Meta rose about 0.71%, outperforming most of the other large-cap technology names. The report said institutions may be relatively constructive on the company’s advertising business and gains in AI efficiency, helping short-term flows return. Key watch points remain changes in the ad business and whether AI spending continues to show incremental improvement.
Tesla: modest gains in a pressured tape
Tesla added about 0.58% and showed relative resilience while the broader market softened. The report said the market remains divided over deliveries and over the company’s AI and robotics narrative, with near-term price action driven more by stock-specific flows. Robotaxi progress and developments in the energy business are the main items to follow.
Market and project updates
- The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its short-term energy outlook, raised its 2026 WTI forecast to $80.88 a barrel from $76.26 and its 2027 WTI forecast to $65.39 from $60.76. It also raised its 2026 Brent forecast to $86.81 a barrel from $81.91 and its 2027 Brent forecast to $69.39 from $64.76.
- South Korea’s Kiwoom Securities cut target prices for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix at the same time. It reduced Samsung’s target from KRW 390,000 to KRW 350,000 and SK Hynix from KRW 2.2 million to KRW 2.1 million, while keeping a buy rating on both. The report said concerns have grown that the upcycle in general-purpose memory chips may already have peaked, prompting more securities firms to lower targets on the two companies.
- According to Fox Business, Strategy CEO Phong Le said the company would resume buying more Bitcoin during the rest of this year.
- Pokemon cards have outperformed both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin so far this year. At the same time, a group of emerging blockchain platforms is betting on tokenization to reshape a collectibles market estimated at about $13 billion to $15 billion, with the goal of improving trading liquidity, ownership records, and settlement efficiency for physical collectibles.
- Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said that when Bitcoin is converted in kind into spot Bitcoin ETF shares, investors do not recognize capital gains at that moment, but the original cost basis and holding period carry over. In his view, the mechanism defers tax rather than avoiding it, and it can also work in reverse by converting ETF shares back into Bitcoin.
Today’s calendar
Scheduled data
The U.S. July CPI report, both headline and core, is due later in the day.
Wednesday, Aug. 12
The market expects headline CPI at about 3.4% year over year versus 3.5% previously, core CPI at about 2.5% versus 2.6% previously, monthly headline CPI at about 0.1%, and monthly core CPI at about 0.2%. After last week’s nonfarm payrolls report, this has become the most important macro release of the week and is directly tied to September Fed hike pricing, with the implied probability listed at roughly 44%.
Tencent Holdings is also due to report earnings, with attention on gaming, advertising, fintech, AI capital spending, and progress related to Hunyuan. Coherent, Cisco, and Nebius are scheduled for results after the close, with some reports possibly coming before the open. API and EIA oil inventory figures and monthly reports from the IEA and OPEC are also due.
Thursday, Aug. 13
The U.S. will release July PPI and weekly jobless claims. SanDisk’s investor day is scheduled for the evening Beijing time, with the market watching NAND supply and demand, capital spending, the high-bandwidth flash roadmap, and long-term margin targets.
Google’s Made by Google event is also on the calendar, focused on the Pixel 11 lineup, wearables, and deeper Gemini integration. Fed officials Hammack and Barkin are set to speak. Applied Materials will release earnings after the close, with attention on wafer fabrication, DRAM, advanced packaging, and semiconductor equipment spending guidance. JD.com, SMIC, and Hua Hong are among the Chinese and semiconductor names also reporting.
Friday, Aug. 14
The U.S. will publish July retail sales, the preliminary August University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, and one-year inflation expectations, testing the resilience of consumption after cooling in the labor market. The deadline for U.S. institutions to disclose Q2 13F holdings also falls that day, giving the market a look at how large funds are positioned in sectors including technology and energy.
Institutional view in the report
Investment bank analysts cited in the report said hawkish Fed remarks and the upcoming CPI release are the core short-term variables, with the U.S.-Iran maritime standoff adding another layer of caution. Oil supported by geopolitical tension may reinforce concern about sticky inflation. Nvidia’s financing clarification eased some credit concerns, but the broader technology sector is still being repriced around capex efficiency and macro conditions. Crypto remains under pressure alongside other risk assets. The strategy take in the report was to stay flexible ahead of the data, focus on how inflation outcomes feed into rates and risk assets, and remain cautious on high-valuation growth shares.