Oil jumps after Iran orders Hormuz closure
Iran on Friday formally ordered a full halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. According to the report, commercial shipping monitors showed that only 11 vessels crossed the strait over the past 24 hours, pushing traffic to a record low. Brent crude rose 5.39% for the week, ending a four-week losing streak and marking its first weekly gain in five months.
Market pricing shifted later in the session. After Donald Trump said on Friday that he was willing to keep negotiating with Iran, fears tied to the regional conflict eased. Still, U.S. equity futures traded slightly lower in Asia on Monday as investors waited for this week’s earnings releases and economic data.
Indexes rise, with chip names and AI-linked stocks in focus
The S&P 500 gained 0.42% to 7,575.39 and advanced 1.23% for the week, its highest level in more than a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.29% to 52,637.01, but fell 0.50% on a weekly basis, its first weekly decline in five weeks. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.29% to 26,281.607, up 1.74% for the week, extending its advance to two weeks and posting a third straight positive close.
Among individual names, SK Hynix surged more than 10% in its U.S. market debut and hit a post-IPO high. Meta rose 6% to its highest level since May 29 and was up nearly 15% for the week after launching a paid large language model. Nvidia gained 4%, leading major chip stocks, while stablecoin issuer Circle climbed 5%.
Crude rises, gold slips, Bitcoin tops $64,000 intraday
WTI crude for August delivery rose 3.96% on the week to $71.41 a barrel. Brent for September delivery climbed 5.39% to $76.01 a barrel and was up more than 3% intraday after news of the Hormuz shutdown. Spot gold slipped 0.21% for the week to $4,104.1 an ounce.
Bitcoin briefly moved above $64,000, its highest level in more than two weeks. Offshore yuan traded stronger than 6.78 during the session for the first time in over two weeks, and the U.S. dollar index briefly turned lower on Friday.
In rates, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose about 8 basis points over the week to 4.56%, while the 2-year yield added about 7 basis points to 4.21%.
Market starts to price a contained conflict
The report said Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz until the United States stops intervening, and that traffic by oil tankers and cargo ships dropped sharply. U.S. Central Command later said the strait remained open to lawful passage, but commercial shipping figures pointed to traffic that was close to stalled in practice.
The article also said Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba announced retaliation against the U.S. and Israel, while Trump responded by saying 1,000 missiles were aimed at Iran. Those developments helped lift oil to its first weekly gain in five weeks.
By Friday’s close, though, the market appeared less convinced that the confrontation would keep escalating. After Trump’s comments about continued talks, the 10-year Treasury yield pulled back from its intraday high. Oil also gave back part of its jump, suggesting traders were beginning to absorb the event rather than price in full-scale war.
Earnings week puts banks and AI supply chain under pressure to deliver
Earnings season now moves to the center of the market. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup are all scheduled to report on Tuesday. ASML is due to release second-quarter results on Tuesday, and TSMC will publish its full earnings report on Wednesday. The report said those results will directly test how strong global AI chip demand really is.
Analysts cited in the article expect S&P 500 second-quarter earnings per share to rise 24% from a year earlier, with technology companies accounting for most of the increase. The market’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is currently around 20. Whether companies can meet that growth expectation is likely to be the key question over the next two weeks.
The report also pointed to heavy demand in SK Hynix’s U.S. listing as a sign of strong expectations for memory-chip demand. It said long-term agreements are gradually locking in global HBM supply, and that by 2027 about half of global DRAM capacity may no longer be available to smaller buyers.
Waller testimony and CPI, PPI data could reset rate expectations
Macro events are packed into the same week. Federal Reserve Chair Waller is set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday on the FOMC monetary policy report. U.S. June CPI and PPI data are also due.
The report said markets currently assign only a 24% implied chance of a July rate hike. If inflation comes in stronger than expected and Waller delivers a hawkish message, Treasury yields could face renewed upward pressure, with knock-on effects for equity valuations.
Direction now hinges on earnings and data
Chaoxiang Research said the slight dip in U.S. stock futures during Asian hours on Monday reflected a market still waiting between a geopolitical shock and the start of earnings season. In its view, the core driver for the coming week is not the headline shock itself but whether earnings from major banks, TSMC, and ASML, along with inflation data and Fed signals, support current growth expectations.