Weekly Market Pulse: July 6

Week in Review

It was the most eventful week since the Iran conflict began. Markets opened on a high note Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above 53,000 for the first time — but the geopolitical rug was pulled out from under that momentum by Wednesday, as the fragile US-Iran ceasefire unraveled in dramatic fashion. By Friday, tech stocks had recovered enough to push the S&P 500 to 7,575.39, a 0.42% gain on the session and the second consecutive winning week for the benchmark [Yahoo Finance, S&P Global].

The star of the week was SK Hynix, whose $26.5 billion Nasdaq debut on Friday was the largest foreign IPO in US history. The South Korean memory chipmaker’s ADRs popped 13% to close at $168.01, adding fuel to a broader tech rally that brought the S&P 500 to within 0.6% of an all-time high [WSJ, CNBC].

But between Monday’s record and Friday’s rally lay a volatile middle: Wednesday’s Dow plunge of 577 points on oil’s 5% surge after Iran struck US military sites in the Gulf, and the Fed minutes release that showed officials still deeply split on the path for interest rates. For the week, the S&P 500 gained ~1.01% (MTD), the Nasdaq Composite eked out a small weekly gain, and the Dow ended essentially flat after its midweek drawdown.

Geopolitics: The Hormuz Crisis Intensifies

US-Iran Ceasefire Collapses

The ceasefire signed on June 17 between the US and Iran effectively ended this week. What began with Iran resuming tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz on July 7 escalated rapidly. On July 8, President Trump declared the truce “over” after what he described as Iranian violations, and the US launched retaliatory airstrikes. Iran responded by striking 85 US military sites in allied Middle East countries [NYT, Fortune].

Brent crude jumped 5.2% to $78.02/barrel on Wednesday as markets priced in the escalation. By Thursday, oil had partially retraced as traders digested the bumpy reality of Middle East peace-building, but the risk premium remains elevated — the Strait of Hormuz carries ~20% of global oil supply, and freedom of navigation there is now uncertain [WSJ, BBC].

Bottom line: The ceasefire was always fragile, and the market’s initial optimism in June was premature. Oil volatility will remain a headwind until either a new diplomatic framework emerges or the conflict reaches a military resolution. For equity markets, the key transmission channel is energy input costs — sectors with high direct energy exposure (airlines, chemicals, industrials) are most vulnerable.

Macroeconomics

Fed Minutes (June 16-17 Meeting)

The FOMC minutes released July 8 confirmed what the hawkish dot plot had signaled: the committee is genuinely split on the next move. Officials held the federal funds rate steady at 3.50–3.75% (fourth consecutive meeting), but the minutes revealed a “family fight” over whether the next move is a hike or a cut [CNBC, Fed.gov].

Key takeaways:

“Higher for longer” is the base case — several participants noted that inflation risks remain tilted to the upside
9 of 18 officials saw rate hikes before end of 2026 in their dot plot projections
Chair Warsh did not tip his hand, consistent with his “wait and see” communication approach
The Fed’s assessment of the labor market remained positive, with unemployment still near historical lows

The market’s reaction was muted — the S&P was already down 2%+ on the day from the Iran headlines when the minutes dropped at 2 PM ET, and the additional hawkish signal didn’t materially move the needle.

10-Year Treasury Yield

The 10-year yield ended the week at ~4.56% , up modestly from the prior week as the hawkish Fed narrative and oil-driven inflation expectations competed with a safe-haven bid from geopolitical uncertainty [Investing.com].

CPI Preview (Due Tuesday July 14)

The June Consumer Price Index is the biggest macro event next week. The May print came in at +0.5% MoM, above consensus. If June CPI surprises to the upside, it will reinforce the hawkish Fed stance and could trigger a broader equity drawdown — especially in rate-sensitive tech/growth names. The consensus expects a modest deceleration, but oil’s surge adds near-term upside risk [BLS].

AI Semiconductors

NVIDIA (NVDA) — $210.96

Shares were relatively stable for the week, closing near $211 after Monday’s rally faded midweek
No major corporate news, but the Vera CPU narrative continues to build. Reports suggest Nvidia is positioning Vera as a credible x86 alternative for inference workloads in hyperscaler deployments — a longer-term competitive moat beyond just GPU compute
The $25B bond offering priced June 15 ($85B in orders, upsized from $20B) provides the war chest for continued infrastructure investment
NVDA remains the dominant AI compute play, but near-term catalysts are sparse — all eyes on next earnings cycle

Broadcom (AVGO) — $399.97

Recovered ground after two weeks of post-Q2 earnings weakness — shares closed near $400
The $2.5B debt tender completed June 18 is behind the company, and the FY2027 $100B AI chip revenue target remains the long-term anchor
Google TPU and Meta IPU demand provide multi-year visibility through the networking/ASIC pipeline. The 1.6T optical interconnect cycle is still in early innings
Technical setup: AVGO is forming a base around the $380-400 range after the post-guidance selloff

Marvell (MRVL) — $235.81

Quiet week for MRVL with no ticker-specific catalysts
The 800G/1.6T DSP ramp is the structural narrative — AI cluster scale-out drives optical interconnect bandwidth demand, and Marvell is the leading merchant silicon supplier for this transition
New CFO Dan Durn (ex-Adobe) is now in seat — investor focus is on capital allocation strategy at the next earnings call

AMD (AMD) — $557.89

Caught in the volatile crosscurrents — fell on Wednesday’s geopolitical selloff, recovered on Thursday’s tech rally
The MI400 GPU (320B transistors, 432GB HBM4) launch in 2H 2026 is the dominant catalyst
ROCm ecosystem adoption continues to grow, but CUDA’s developer moat remains the structural challenge. AMD’s best path is price/performance competitiveness on pure compute, which the MI400 specifications suggest it may achieve

Qualcomm (QCOM) — $189.16

No follow-through on the Tenstorrent acquisition rumors from the prior week — the deal has not been formalized
The June 24 Investor Day pivot toward “Dragonfly” AI inference was well-received, but skepticism remains about QCOM’s ability to translate mobile AI expertise into data center credibility
Shares ended the week near $189, essentially flat

ARM Holdings (ARM) — $323.39

No company-specific news; moved with the broader semiconductor tape
The architecture licensing super-cycle thesis (mobile → PC → data center) is intact but valuation remains elevated at these levels. Mizuho’s $500 price target implies significant upside if the data center share gain narrative materializes

Memory & Storage

SK Hynix (SKHYV/ADR) — Debut Friday

The week’s defining event: SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in its US market debut, the largest foreign IPO in American history [TechCrunch, CNN]
ADRs opened at $170 and closed at $168.01, a 13% gain on the debut day
SK Hynix is now a trillion-dollar market cap company — Nvidia’s key HBM3e memory supplier, with its entire 2026 HBM allocation already sold out
The IPO proceeds ($26.5B before greenshoe) will fund capacity expansion, likely new fab construction in both Korea and potentially the US
Implication for the sector: SK Hynix’s valuation and IPO success validate the AI memory supercycle thesis. The company’s HBM dominance is a structural tailwind, but it also increases memory industry supply — the key question for Micron and Samsung is whether aggregate supply discipline holds as everyone races to meet AI demand

Micron (MU) — $979.30

Shares recovered from Wednesday’s selloff to close near $979
No major news this week, but the SK Hynix IPO creates an interesting competitive dynamic: MU is currently the only US-domiciled memory maker, which could be a differentiator if trade tensions escalate further
HBM3e pricing remains strong — the entire 2026 allocation is sold out across the industry. Next earnings (estimated late September) is the key catalyst
Watch: SK Hynix’s capacity expansion plans could pressure industry pricing in 2027 if demand growth decelerates

Western Digital (WDC) — $582.59

Continued the structural re-rating story. WDC has crossed 50% gross margins with 45% YoY revenue growth
The HDD shortage driven by AI data center near-line storage demand is a genuine structural shift — AI training clusters generate petabytes of checkpoint data that must be stored cost-effectively
Morgan Stanley’s $650 price target (raised from $488) and JPMorgan’s concurrent upgrade highlight the breadth of institutional conviction

Foundry & Equipment

TSMC (TSM) — $434.11

No ticker-specific news this week, but the broader narrative remains intact: CoWoS capacity sold out through 2027, and the 15% 3nm wafer price hike under consideration for 2027 underscores TSMC’s structural pricing power
The sole high-volume advanced node manufacturer, with pricing power that is only growing as demand outstrips supply

Super Micro (SMCI) — $28.31

Continued to underperform, closing near $28 — a far cry from the glory days of 2024
The $39B disclosed AI server orders remain the anchor narrative, but dilution from the $7B equity financing continues to weigh on the stock
The SMCI puzzle: Strong demand, weak price action. The market is effectively pricing in margin compression and execution risk even as the top-line backlog grows

Intel (INTC) — $109.84

Follow-through from the prior week’s Apple foundry deal — shares consolidated around $110 after the 11% surge on June 18
The 18A-P node entering risk production (announced at VLSI Symposium) and Apple’s manufacturing commitment provide the first credible proof points for Intel’s foundry turnaround thesis
Long-term, this is a multi-year narrative. The order book needs to demonstrate sustained scale before the market re-rates Intel as a legitimate TSMC competitor

ASML (ASML) — $1,797.32

Shares near $1,800, supported by structural demand for high-NA EUV lithography tools required for sub-2nm nodes
No fresh export-control news this week — the previous China EUV concern has faded from near-term focus
The €36-40B 2026 revenue guidance remains intact. The EUV installed base continues to generate high-margin recurring service revenue

Equipment Trio: AMAT ($602.50), LRCX ($350.33), KLAC ($231.52)

Equipment names tracked the broader market — down midweek, recovered by Friday
WFE spending forecast of $145B+ in CY2026 is the structural support. All three remain positioned for secular demand driven by the AI-induced node transition, even if mid-cycle corrections hit individual names
Citi’s raised price targets (from prior weeks) reflect confidence that NAND equipment spend will add an incremental demand layer on top of logic/node transition spend

Cloud & Hyperscaler

Google (GOOG) — $355.03

No major ticker-specific news. The $80B stock sale (announced June 1) and SpaceX compute agreements continue to frame the AI capex growth narrative
The $5.3T+ combined hyperscaler AI capex forecast is staggering — and increasingly becoming a double-edged sword as free cash flow concerns mount

Microsoft (MSFT) — $385.10

Stable week around $385. The $190B AI capex guidance for CY2026 is now fully priced in
Copilot enterprise adoption is the incremental revenue story — the question is whether it can generate the returns to justify the capex spend

Amazon (AMZN) — $245.34

AWS continues to anchor the cloud revenue narrative, but no major catalysts this week
The broader “AI capex sustainability” debate applies to AMZN as much as any hyperscaler — AWS AI workload migration provides the growth offset

Oracle (ORCL) — $140.64

No fresh news this week. The $638B RPO backlog and $67B in Q4 AI contracts provide multi-year visibility
Dilution concerns from the ~$40B FY2027 capital raise remain manageable for now — the revenue visibility is unmatched

Meta (META) — $669.21

The Muse Spark AI model API delay continues to dampen sentiment — safety evaluation pipelines remain unresolved
Ad revenue remains the compensating strength, providing a profit engine that some hyperscaler peers lack while they burn cash on AI capex
Shares held up well for the week, closing near $669

Apple (AAPL) — $315.32

Post-Intel-foundry-deal consolidation. The Apple–Intel chip manufacturing partnership and iOS 27 third-party AI chatbot integration (from prior weeks) are now baked into the narrative
The stock was relatively stable, moving with the broader tech tape rather than on company-specific catalysts

The Week Ahead

Date	Event
July 13 (Mon)	Fed’s Warsh speaks at NABE conference — could provide rate path signals
July 14 (Tue)	June CPI data — the most important macro release of the month
July 14 (Tue)	JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Q2 earnings — unofficial start of earnings season
July 15 (Wed)	Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS) Q2 earnings
July 16 (Thu)	Morgan Stanley (MS), UnitedHealth (UNH) Q2 earnings
July 17 (Fri)	Michigan consumer sentiment (July preliminary)

Key Themes to Watch

1. CPI on Tuesday (July 14) — This is the week’s biggest risk event. With oil up 5% on the week and the Fed already hawkish, an upside CPI surprise could trigger a meaningful equity drawdown. Consensus is looking for a modest deceleration from May’s +0.5% MoM — anything above +0.4% MoM would likely spook markets.

2. Earnings season kicks off — The major banks (JPM, GS, WFC, MS) report next week. Their commentary on the consumer, loan demand, and net interest margins will set the tone for the broader earnings season. Market expectations are modest, which creates room for upside surprises.

3. Geopolitical risk (ongoing) — The Iran situation is fluid. Any further escalation — whether a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz, direct US-Iran military engagement, or a diplomatic breakthrough — will dominate market direction. Oil prices will be the real-time barometer.

4. SK Hynix after the debut — The stock’s trading in its first full week on the Nasdaq will set the tone for the memory sector. A sustained rally would validate the AI memory supercycle; profit-taking would be normal after a 13% first-day pop but could weigh on MU and Samsung-related names.

Sources: CNBC, WSJ, Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, TheStreet, Fortune, TechCrunch, CNN, Investopedia, Fed.gov, BLS, S&P Global, NYT, BBC. This is not financial advice — do your own research.

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Weekly Market Pulse: July 6–10