Markets opened shaky. Three of the four main indices traded higher, but only by a little, and gains faded through the morning back toward unchanged after a big down day the day before. The VIX, a gauge of market fear, jumped over 12% in that prior session, showing nerves about heavy spending plans from Alphabet and Tesla. Futures had been up all morning before drifting lower.
The dollar rose slightly while bond yields and crude oil both eased. None of the moves came with clearly good news behind them.
Middle East and Oil
About an hour before the open, Iran rejected a US ceasefire proposal that Iraq had passed to it, so no real progress there. The day before, Marco Rubio said Iran was not ready to make a deal. A memorandum of understanding had earlier lifted hopes that the conflict was near an end, but escalation in the Red Sea and the entry of the Houthis added a fresh element to the Middle East war and brought new uncertainty. Rhetoric is rising, not cooling, with President Trump talking about bigger moves.
Crude oil is fundamentally healthy but hit by disruptions everywhere. Saudi Arabia started shipping millions of barrels through other routes to avoid the trouble, but the Houthis are now attacking those routes too. People will find ways to move oil where it needs to go, but the flow is disrupted.
Oil dropped to around $60 after jumping over 5% the day before, and it is still up more than 10% on the week. Short covering had pushed oil up in the prior session; the call that it would fall back proved right. Prices remain far above the sub-$70 level of a couple weeks ago. Brent touched the $100 mark, a psychological level traders watch. These disruptions weigh on stocks, hurt the inflation outlook, and pressure yields even on days when those improve. The setup is shaky at best.
Tariffs
Sixty trading partners are hearing about sweeping new tariffs at roughly 10% to 12.5%. The real story is that these old tariffs expired, the US put new ones on, and only the wording changed. The Supreme Court had deemed the earlier tariffs unconstitutional, and the US simply reworded them. The net effect is almost nothing: 99.4% of imports are still tariffed, and the tariffs are almost exactly the same. Some people celebrated the court ruling, but all it did was push the US to find another path.
Intel
Intel posted its fastest revenue growth in 15 years and the stock rose about 2% to 3%. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at 42 cents against 21 cents expected, a sharp turnaround from negative 10 cents a year earlier. Revenue was $16.1 billion, up 25% year over year, beating estimates. Gross margins hit 41.8%, above expectations. The news was all good, but the stock had already run hard and pulled back from higher overnight levels, so holding the gains through the day is an open question.
AMD
At the Advancing AI conference, Lisa Su laid out AMD's future around frontier models, agents, and physical AI, with AMD positioned to lead. UBS and others raised price targets, pointing to server leadership and a wider AI customer base. The key phrase was total addressable market, the full size of the market a company can sell into. AMD updated its 2030 figures across the board. The CPU total addressable market for 2030 was lifted from $120 billion to $220 billion. The AI accelerator market estimate has climbed over recent quarters from $500 million in 2028 to $1 trillion in 2030 and now to $1.4 trillion in 2030. The picture that looked good now looks even better. AMD did not discuss earnings, saying it was only 10 days away from its report, so the products and market outlook drove the headlines. The tone was very aspirational.
American Express
American Express reported strong numbers but traded lower before the open on expense worries and revenue that only matched, rather than beat, a high bar Wall Street had set. It serves affluent customers, the top half of the K-shaped economy, and that group is doing well. Earnings per share came in at $4.53, beating the $4.40 expected. Revenue was $19.64 billion, in line with expectations. Total billed volume reached $516.8 billion, a 9.5% increase. Pre-tax profit was $4.707 billion, a 20.7% margin. The solid results were not enough to lift the stock, given the rising expense trends and in-line revenue.
