Morning Briefing: Tech Stocks Slip, Oil Jumps, Central Banks in Spotlight
U.S. stocks retreated from record highs as technology shares weighed on the market. Nvidia closed nearly 3% lower, while optical communication company Coherent plunged over 10%. Chinese ADRs bucked the trend, with Alibaba rising 3%. Oil prices surged more than 5% intraday, and European natural gas rallied over 10%. The yen fell 1% at one point, and offshore yuan moved away from its three-year high.
Trump demanded compensation from Iran and insisted Tehran be included in all future negotiations, claiming U.S. forces have "100% control" of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran reshuffled its military leadership, with the Supreme Leader appointing six senior commanders.
U.S. strategic petroleum reserves fell below 300 million barrels for the first time since 1983.
Trump denied frequent calls with Kevin Warsh, saying they have spoken only once since Warsh took office.
Reports indicate that the Bank of Japan signaled a possible September rate hike, prompting the U.S. to join currency market intervention.
South Korea announced a new 5 trillion won fund focusing on semiconductor materials, components, and equipment.
China's central bank pledged to keep the yuan basically stable at a reasonable equilibrium level and to build a high-quality "tech board" for the bond market.
Unitree Robotics' STAR Market IPO saw overwhelming demand, with a lottery rate of just 0.018%, implying potential first-day gains of over 200,000 yuan per lot.
Doubao, the AI assistant, will start charging commissions on hotel recommendations from August 10, with a comprehensive fee of 12%.
Longsys reported a 715.29-fold increase in first-half net profit and plans to buy back up to 800 million yuan of shares.
MLCC supply crunch triggers a scramble, with Yageo noting more AI customers signing long-term agreements to secure capacity.
Nvidia is reportedly seeking to team up with Wall Street's top six firms to raise $500 billion for AI infrastructure bets, with CDS posting the biggest two-week gain.
OpenAI released GPT-5.6-Cyber, offering a less restricted model to cybersecurity defenders.
Anthropic will launch Sonnet 5.5, positioned as a cost-performance leader against DeepSeek, and canceled a planned 50% price hike, permanently locking in Sonnet 5's low price.
Meta released a small AI model that can run locally on a single GPU, with Zuckerberg urging the U.S. government to lower barriers to open-source AI.
Microsoft reportedly plans to significantly boost next-gen AI chip production, in talks with TSMC for over 300,000 chips delivered by 2027.
Intel announced a $15 billion common stock offering at elevated prices, sending shares down over 4%.
Worries over iPhone prospects have intensified bearish sentiment on Wall Street, with six institutions issuing sell signals, the most since 2012.
The Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to hold rates steady on Tuesday.