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Open the economy dashboardThe war premium came out of oil, and everything else re-rated. Brent fell 6.2% to $78.89 as talk of reopening the Strait of Hormuz gained traction, and with the inflation impulse fading the S&P 500 climbed 4.1% to a record 7,736.52. The dollar slid to a seven-week low after Japan and the US confirmed coordinated yen-buying, and semiconductors drove a historic rebound across Asia.
Technology dominated the S&P 500 heatmap at roughly +8.2% on average, well clear of Materials (+3.2%) and Industrials (+3.2%). MSFT +25.3%, ORCL +21.5% and AMZN +20.2% led the board, with LRCX +17.9% and INTC +16.9% confirming the semiconductor bid. Defensives lagged badly as money left them: Healthcare −2.6%, Consumer Staples −2.0% and Utilities −1.7%, with LLY −8.6% and ABBV −7.4% the weakest names. AAPL was the notable tech exception at −9.0%.
View heatmapA clean risk-on rotation once the oil threat receded. The dollar weakened (DXY −0.97% to 99.82) and money moved out of defensives and into cyclicals and semis, with technology the standout destination. Precious metals rallied alongside equities rather than against them — gold +3.9%, silver +6.5% — as a softer dollar and a less hawkish rate path supported both. Crypto sat the move out: bitcoin −1.0% and ether −2.7%, still deeply negative on the year.
S&P 500 +4.14% to a record 7,736.52 and NASDAQ 100 +7.10% to 29,733.16, lifting YTD gains to +12.8% and +18.0%. Europe advanced more modestly — DAX +2.90% to 26,202.35, CAC 40 +2.46%, FTSE 100 essentially flat at +0.08%. Asia was the story: KOSPI +16.93% to 6,622.11 and TAIEX +11.24%, both on semiconductor strength, with Nikkei +7.65% to 66,132.48. NIFTY +1.50% and Shanghai +1.18% lagged. S&P/TSX added 0.66% to 35,801.60.
All indicesThe US 10Y held at 4.70% — up 21bp on the month — with the Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75% after a 9–3 vote and Chair Warsh keeping a September hike on the table. Canada's 10Y sat at 3.65% with the BoC unchanged at 2.25% and CPI at 2.8%. UK Gilts remain the high-yielder at 4.80%, Bunds at 2.97%, JGB 10Y at 2.67% as Japan's normalization grinds on, and India 10Y at 7.02%.
Sovereign yieldsCrude unwound its war premium — Brent −6.2% to $78.89 and WTI −5.2% to $75.15, though both remain up roughly 10% on the month and near 30% YTD. Precious metals ran the other way on the softer dollar: gold +3.9% to $4,192.40 and silver +6.5% to $61.01. Copper firmed 5.1% to $6.65 while aluminum fell 3.9% and iron ore 4.8%. Natural gas edged up 1.2% to $2.69 but is still down 17.0% over the month.
Commodity boardThe dollar index fell 0.97% to 99.82, a seven-week low, after Japan and the US confirmed coordinated yen-buying operations. USD/JPY dropped 3.77% to 157.68, the sharpest move in the majors. EUR/USD firmed 1.34% to 1.15 and GBP/USD 1.26% to 1.35. USD/CAD was little changed at 1.41 despite softer crude, and the rupee strengthened 0.56% to 95.07.
FX boardThe S&P 500 surged 1.79% to close at 7,737, its first record high in two months, while the Dow soared more than 900 points to finish above 54,000 for the first time ever. Strong corporate earnings, a rebound in technology shares and growing hopes for progress on reopening the Strait of Hormuz powered the advance, capping a week in which the index gained 4.1%.
Brent crude fell more than 5% to around $79 a barrel, reversing earlier gains as hopes for renewed US-Iran diplomacy eased supply-disruption fears. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a deal to open the strait could come within days, though Iran denied direct talks were underway while confirming Oman-brokered discussions on increasing shipping were progressing.
The dollar fell about 1% against the yen after President Trump and Japan's finance minister confirmed both sides had intervened in currency markets. Having traded above 163 yen at 40-year highs late last week, the dollar dropped below 160, dragging the dollar index down to 99.8 — a seven-week low — with Bank of Japan data suggesting as much as $59 billion was deployed in a single session.
South Korea's KOSPI recorded its largest single-day gain since the index's inception, led by SK Hynix up 29.95% and Samsung Electronics up 26.81%, as new High Bandwidth Flash standards and advanced QLC 3D NAND technology reignited appetite for semiconductor equities. The rebound followed a brutal July in which the index fell 22%, its worst month since 1997.
Bullion pushed to fresh records as a softer dollar made gold cheaper for international buyers and cooling services inflation trimmed expectations for further Fed tightening. Silver outpaced it on the week, and central-bank demand remains a structural support after purchases topped 1,000 tonnes in 2025, the second-highest annual total on record.
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