Analytics

USD/JPY 161.35 near 40-year low. AUD/USD 0.6952. Copper $6.30/lb — tariff resolved. Hang Seng 24,259. LTC $43.98 (Extreme Fear). XRP $1.083 into CLARITY Act hearing Friday. Key events: US CPI Tuesday 14 Jul · China Q2 GDP Wednesday 15 Jul · XRP CLARITY Act Friday 17 Jul.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Buy the Hang Seng on confirmed dips toward 23,900, target 25,100. China Q2 GDP Wednesday is the confirmation gate. The index defended 24,000 all week despite Friday’s AI-lockup tech selloff.

Last Week at a Glance · 6–10 July 2026

USD/JPY  161.35 (−0.3% wk)  yen whipsawed near 40-year low — Thursday spike to 162.5 on Iran strikes reversed on FM Katayama pension-fund remarks

AUD/USD  0.6952 (+0.5% wk)  firmed on broad dollar softness and resilient commodities

Copper  $6.30/lb (+2.5% wk)  US confirmed phased tariff: 15% Jan 2027, rising to 30% 2028 — binary overhang resolved

Hang Seng  24,259 (+1.2% wk)  defended 24,000 all week despite Friday AI-lockup tech selloff

Litecoin LTC  $43.98 (−0.3% wk)  range-bound, Extreme Fear persists (sentiment score 23)

XRP  $1.083 (−1.8% wk)  held $1.07–$1.10 zone — traders positioning ahead of CLARITY Act hearing

The week of 6–10 July was dominated by a fresh US-Iran military exchange that sent oil sharply higher mid-week and added a geopolitical premium across FX and commodities before easing on reports both sides would continue negotiations. USD/JPY spent the week oscillating near its weakest level in roughly four decades, with Thursday’s spike toward 162.5 reversing sharply on Friday after FM Katayama signalled fresh pension-fund support for domestic assets. Copper’s binary tariff overhang finally resolved with Washington confirming a phased 15%-then-30% structure. The Hang Seng defended 24,000 despite Friday’s AI-related lockup expiry tech selling. XRP held key support just above $1.07 heading into this week’s pivotal regulatory hearing.

...

S&P 500 ~7,555.90 near record highs. SK Hynix Nasdaq debut: $26.5B, 7x oversubscribed, indicated +21% above $149 price. EIA surprise: +3M barrels crude (first build since April) sent WTI from $74.69 to $71.02. Canada June employment: +18.2K vs +10K expected; unemployment 6.5% from 6.6%. USD/CAD to two-week low 1.4136. BTC +1.5% to $64,004.90 as ETFs snap 10-day outflow streak with $221.7M inflow. XRP broke above $1.10 to $1.1065. FOMC minutes: 12-0 hold; median 2026 dot 3.8%. Next week: CPI July 14.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Sell USD/CAD rallies toward 1.4205, target 1.4110. Canada’s +18.2K jobs beat drove the pair to its first weekly loss in six weeks. Four consecutive down days. Clean fundamental setup.

The Session’s Four Distinct Stories

Friday’s US session has four separate price-action stories running simultaneously, each with a different driver and a different trade implication. The first: equities are roughly flat near record highs as chipmakers pause ahead of SK Hynix’s debut, the largest-ever US listing by a foreign company. The second: oil reversed sharply lower when the EIA reported a surprise 3-million-barrel inventory build, the first weekly stockpile increase since April, against expectations for a drawdown of one to nearly two million barrels. The third: the Canadian dollar firmed on a genuine jobs beat. The fourth: Bitcoin ETFs ended a ten-day outflow streak with $221.7 million in inflows, their largest daily haul in two months.

These four stories are largely independent. The EIA surprise has nothing to do with the SK Hynix debut. Canada’s jobs beat has nothing to do with Bitcoin ETF flows. The week’s unifying thread is the FOMC minutes: a unanimous 12-0 hold, dropped easing-bias language, and the median 2026 dot lifted to 3.8% from 3.4%. That hawkish repricing keeps the 10-year yield elevated near 4.54% even as oil’s reversal takes some pressure...

Stoxx 600 +0.2% near 642.42 — on track to snap a four-week winning streak. EasyJet +13.4% on Apollo £5.7B takeover approach. ASML −2%, Soitec −2.8%, Siltronic −2% on AI-valuation caution. FTSE 100 flat near 10,472–10,489 still nursing AstraZeneca’s Wainua setback. US struck Bushehr province, Iran’s nuclear power plant home. Iran retaliated: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan. Sterling 1.3430 — four-week high. Tether: Revolut delisting + £2.5B burn.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Buy GBP/USD dips toward 1.3375, target 1.3460. BOE tightening bets (Pill dissented for a hike) + fading UK political risk (Burnham succession 20 July) + softer Dollar = three separate tailwinds.

Iran Struck Bushehr. No Sign of Cooling.

Markets had been hoping for de-escalation heading into Friday. Instead: US forces struck targets in Iran’s Bushehr province, home to the country’s nuclear power plant, and in other southern port cities. Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire on US-allied Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan, with sirens sounding across the Gulf. US officials say technical talks continue even as President Trump has said the ceasefire memorandum is over and warned of further strikes. This is not de-escalation. It is an active conflict with an open diplomatic channel running in parallel.

The market’s response is revealing: the Stoxx 600 is up 0.2%, not down. That tells you the equity market still treats this as a negotiating escalation that will eventually resolve, not a genuine war. But the confidence that underpins that view is getting thinner each day the strikes continue. Bushehr specifically changes the texture of the risk: striking near a nuclear power plant is a different category of escalation than striking port infrastructure.

US forces struck near Bushehr’s nuclear power plant. Iran hit four US-allied countries. The equity market is up 0.2%. That gap between what is happening and how markets are pricing...

Nikkei +2%, KOSPI +4%, Hang Seng +1.2-1.9% near 24,300 — best week in over a year. SK Hynix $26.5B US offering priced at $149. US official: Washington committed to negotiated Iran resolution. Yen at 161.52 on Finance Minister Katayama’s pension-fund push. Japan June PPI 7.1% YoY (vs 6.8% expected). Natural gas at six-week low $3.00 on Freeport LNG maintenance and 61 Bcf storage build. Bitcoin above $64,000. Hang Seng on track for best week in over a year.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Buy the Hang Seng on dips toward 24,050, target 24,700. Chip rebound, robust IPO pipeline (Luxshare, Zhipu AI), and Iran-US de-escalation signal = a multi-pronged case, not a single-catalyst trade.

What Turned the Week Around

Three things happened in the space of twenty-four hours that changed the session’s entire character. First: a US official said late Thursday that Washington remains committed to a negotiated resolution with Iran, with technical talks continuing and regional mediators pushing to revive a nuclear deal. This is not a ceasefire. It is a signal that the negotiating channel is still open, and that is enough to take oil off its highs and restore risk appetite. Second: SK Hynix’s $26.5 billion US share offering priced at $149, drawing strong investor demand and sparking an overnight Wall Street tech rally that carried directly into Asian trade. Third: Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama signalled that Tokyo will explore measures to encourage the Government Pension Investment Fund and other public pension funds to substantially increase their domestic asset holdings. That alone moved the yen and JGB yields.

The result is a session where everything is working simultaneously: equities are up, the yen is firming, JGB yields are easing from a three-decade high, copper is breaking above its prior range high, and crypto is recovering. The risk is that all...

S&P 500 up 0.4% near 7,513 on SK Hynix US share offering demand and the AI/chip trade. US struck ~90 Iranian targets over two days. Iran retaliated by hitting ~85 US-linked military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. 10Y Treasury toward 4.60% — 10-month high. 5Y at 4.33%. Fed hike probability for September repriced to ~70%. WTI consolidating near $74 after an 11% two-session surge. Bitcoin stuck at $62,850 with Fear & Greed at 22.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Fade the US 5-year Treasury yield rise toward 4.40%. The hawkish repricing is oil-shock driven, not demand-driven. Oil shocks are historically less persistent for Fed policy than domestic wage and services inflation.

The Divergence That Defines the Session

Equities are up 0.4%. Bond yields are at 10-month highs. Both things are happening simultaneously and the reason they can is that they are responding to different inputs from the same Iran story. The equity market is buying the chip trade — SK Hynix’s US share offering drew strong demand, and that demand signal is rippling through every AI and semiconductor name on the board. The bond market is buying the inflation argument — the same Iran escalation that is producing the Hormuz risk premium is feeding directly into the rate-hike probability.

The US struck roughly 90 Iranian targets over two sessions. Iran retaliated by hitting approximately 85 US-linked military sites across Bahrain and Kuwait. President Trump declared the ceasefire MoU over. These are not conditions that typically produce equity rallies. The reason stocks are higher is that six of eleven S&P sectors closed positive on Wednesday even as the index fell, evidence that the rotation into chips is powerful enough to run against the macro headwind. Wednesday’s FOMC minutes — the first released under Chair Kevin Warsh — showed policymakers genuinely divided on further...

CAC 40 up 0.6%. DAX up 0.7%. ASML +2.6%, Infineon +3.1%, STMicro +3.7%. FTSE 100 in the red: AstraZeneca down over 9%, its worst day since 2017, after Wainua failed a late-stage cardiac trial. Bund 10Y easing to 3.06% from Wednesday’s two-month high of 3.10%. EUR/USD climbing toward 1.1450 — German trade surplus €19.1B (vs €14.5B prior). GBP/USD at a three-week high above 1.3400. Oil retreating nearly 2% to $73.10. Silver bouncing to $59.12 from Wednesday’s $57.22 low. Crypto holding losses: BTC near $62,300, Fear & Greed at 22.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: Fade the EU 5-year Bund yield rise toward 2.90%. The hawkish ECB repricing looks stretched relative to an oil shock that is potentially reversible if Qatar-mediated diplomacy gains traction.

Two Markets Inside One European Session

Thursday’s European session is a cautious rebound built on a fragile premise: that the Iran situation will de-escalate again, just as it did in June. The Stoxx 600 is up around 0.5%, led by semiconductor names — ASML up 2.6%, Infineon up 3.1%, STMicroelectronics up 3.7% — following strong investor demand for SK Hynix’s US share offering. France’s CAC 40 has recovered around 0.6% of Wednesday’s 2.2% slide. Germany’s DAX is up around 0.7%. The broader rally is happening on reports that Qatar is pressing Tehran to honour the existing memorandum of understanding and contain the escalation.

London is the session’s obvious exception. The FTSE 100 is in the red because AstraZeneca, its second-largest constituent, has plunged more than 9% — its steepest one-day fall since 2017 — after its gene-silencing drug Wainua, developed with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, failed a late-stage trial to prevent cardiac complications. One failed drug trial is erasing more index points than three European chipmakers are recovering.

The entire continental rebound rests on the assumption that Qatar’s mediation succeeds. Trump...

Trump declared the ceasefire MoU “over” and the US struck Iran for a second straight day. Brent is above $80 for the first time since June 22. The 10-year JGB yield is at its highest since September 1996. US Treasuries have added 10 basis points this week. The RBNZ hiked 25bp to 2.50% and signalled more. And Asia’s chipmakers are up 3–7% on a single Nvidia headline. Two completely different markets. Same session.

HIGHEST CONVICTION: USD/JPY is failing to track its own yield support near the 40-year peak. The pair eased 0.2% to 162.42 even as US 10-year yields climbed. Intervention risk and matching JGB yield rises are the explanation. This is a fade, not a chase.

The Oil Story That Is Breaking Bonds

President Trump declared the US-Iran ceasefire memorandum of understanding “over.” The US military launched fresh strikes on Iran for a second consecutive day, this time specifically targeting infrastructure that would help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude cleared $80 per barrel for the first time since June 22, up roughly 9% on the week. WTI trades near $74.40. Trump said later he does not expect a return to full-scale war, which capped the initial panic, but the damage to inflation expectations was already done.

Fed funds futures now imply about 38 basis points of policy tightening this year, back to where pricing sat a week ago. Wednesday’s FOMC Minutes showed that a handful of participants already saw a case for raising rates in June before the committee agreed to hold. The oil-driven repricing is pulling Fed expectations back in a hawkish direction at the worst possible time for bond markets.

The 10-year JGB yield just hit its highest level since September 1996. Australia’s 10-year is at its highest since early June. The US 10-year...

Introduction: The Wednesday When the Safe-Haven Asset Stopped Providing Safety

Wednesday, U.S. trading session. New York, COMEX. Traders who are used to seeing gold as a reliable safe haven during periods of uncertainty are now watching their confidence collapse. Gold futures for August delivery are plunging by 1.53% to $4,093.80 per troy ounce. This is not just a correction — it is the sharpest decline in recent weeks.

What happened? The yellow metal, which usually rises on geopolitical risks, is today ignoring the escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran. Instead of rising, gold is falling. Silver, gold’s loyal companion, is falling even harder — down 3.92% to $58.93 per ounce. Copper is losing 1.48% to $6.13 per pound.

The technical picture is also discouraging. Gold found support at $4,032.37 and resistance at $4,215.50. The current price of $4,093.80 is closer to the lower boundary of this range. If gold continues to decline, it may test support at $4,032.37. If it reverses, resistance at $4,215.50 will become the next target.

The U.S. Dollar Index fell by 0.05% to 100.73 points. This is a minor decline, but it is not helping gold. The reason for the fall is not the dollar. It is something else.

Let’s examine why gold has plunged despite the geopolitical crisis and what this means for the precious metals market.

Why Gold Is Falling: Solving the Paradox

Inflation Expectations and Interest Rates

The main reason for gold’s decline is inflation expectations. The geopolitical crisis in the Middle East has led to higher oil prices. Higher oil prices mean higher inflation. Higher inflation means higher interest rates. Higher interest rates mean a stronger dollar. And a stronger dollar weighs on gold.

Gold is traditionally considered a hedge against inflation. But when inflation leads to higher...

Introduction: A Monday That Started in the Green

Monday, Asian trading session. Traders in Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong open their terminals and see a familiar picture. Bitcoin is back in the green. $63,227.5 — that is the current price of the world’s leading cryptocurrency, gaining 0.8% in the morning and continuing the rally that began last week. This is not just a move — it is a return of confidence after several weeks of chaos, during which Bitcoin fell to a 21-month low below $58,000.

What changed? The main driver is the shift in expectations regarding the Federal Reserve’s policy. Weak U.S. labor market data for June and comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh about declining inflation convinced investors that the regulator is unlikely to raise rates this year. This means liquidity will remain high, while risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, will continue to attract demand.

But macroeconomics is not the only factor supporting Bitcoin. The renewed inflow of funds into spot Bitcoin ETFs after several weeks of outflows became another signal that institutional investors are returning to the market. The $221.7 million in inflows recorded last week ended a 10-day streak of outflows and changed market sentiment.

Over the past week, Bitcoin has risen by roughly 5%. This is not an impressive result compared with years when it doubled in a month, but it is important as a change in trend. After a prolonged decline, even a modest recovery is perceived as a victory. But is this growth sustainable? Analysts warn that trading volumes remain relatively low, and further ETF inflows and favorable macroeconomic data will likely be needed to maintain the upward momentum.

Altcoins are also feeling confident. Ethereum rose 0.7% to $1,775.92. XRP gained 0.6% to $1.14. Even meme tokens such as Dogecoin increased by 1.4%. On...

USD/CAD 1.4200 (7-month high range). USD/CHF 0.8032 (off 1-yr high 0.8139). Gold $4,174.71 (+2.3%) off $3,972 8-month low. WTI $68.73 (−3.6%) lowest since Feb. Dow record 52,900. US 10Y 4.48% (+6bps). BTC $62,641.86 (+7%) off June’s worst monthly close in 4 years. XRP $1.131 (+8%). FOMC minutes Wednesday.

LEVEL

HEADING INTO THE WEEK

USD/CAD

1.4200

USD/CHF

0.8032

Gold XAU

$4,174.71

WTI Crude

$68.73

Dow Jones

52,900.00

US 10Y Yield

4.48%

Bitcoin BTC

$62,641.86

XRP

$1.131

The holiday-shortened week of 29 June to 3 July turned on a single pivot: Thursday's 57,000 NFP print against a roughly 115,000 forecast, with 74,000 in downward revisions to prior months, cut September Fed hike odds from roughly 64 to 67% to roughly 50%. That data landed against the backdrop of a genuinely hawkish-leaning Fed hold earlier in June, and Warsh's Sintra remark that inflation expectations have come down gave markets room to price a more balanced outlook. The Dow closed at a fresh record 52,900.00, up 2% as capital rotated into blue-chip industrials while AI-linked semiconductor names -- Micron, Applied Materials, AMD, Sandisk -- sold off sharply on valuation concerns. Gold rebounded from an eight-month low as fading hike bets restored its appeal. WTI fell to its lowest since February as Hormuz flows normalised. Bitcoin rebounded 7% off June's worst monthly close in four years. XRP reclaimed $1.10 on a $281 million short squeeze. Wednesday's FOMC minutes are the week's tie-breaker.

FOMC Minutes Wednesday: The Week’s Single Most Important Release

The US 10-year yield at 4.48%, the Dow's record run, gold's rebound, and the broad-dollar bid behind USD/CAD's seven-month high are all suspended between two competing signals. The Fed's June hold left roughly half of FOMC members projecting at least one more 2026 hike...