Yiwen Lu8/23/24

Stocks soar after the Fed green-lights an easing cycle

Major indexes rose on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said that it was time for a rate cut. Both S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gained 1.2%. Small caps took the lead in the market boom, with the Russell 2000 up 3.2%.

The US Dollar index was down 0.8% to 100.7, hitting the lowest point since July 2023.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell 6.5 basis points to 3.8%, slightly up from earlier in the day at 3.79%, which was close to the bond yield's 2024 low. The policy-sensitive two-year Treasury yield was down 10 basis points to 3.91%.

All S&P 500 sector ETFs rallied. Real estate was the best-performing sector, up 2%, followed by consumer discretionary, buoyed by Carnival’s 7.5% advance and Norwegian Cruise Line 7.8% gain.

Big tech stocks also climbed after Thursday's sell-off. In particular, Tesla jumped 4.6% and Nvidia surged 4.5%.

Intuit was the worst S&P 500 performer. Shares closed with a 6.8% loss, as the owner of Turbo Tax reported earnings that beat estimates but issued poor guidance.

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Matt Phillips3/13/26

Oil settles Friday at highest level since start of war

US oil prices moved higher in afternoon trading Friday, sapping strength from the stock market as they posted their highest close since the start of the Iran war.

After another day where the Strait of Hormuz was essentially closed to global tanker traffic, US futures for West Texas Intermediate settled up 3.1% at $98.71 a barrel for an 8.6% weekly gain, per Dow Jones data.

American officials have discussed using the US Navy to escort tankers through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, but have said plans for such convoys are not ready yet. However, it is unclear if military convoys would bring an end to the war-related dislocations in the oil market.

“It could help,” Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at energy consulting firm Rystad, told Sherwood News in a recent interview. “It could also go in a lot of different directions if a Navy ship is hit or if a tanker is hit.”

Oil Posts Weekly Gains As Middle East Conflict Drags On

Oil Posts Weekly Gains As Middle East Conflict Drags On

American officials have discussed using the US Navy to escort tankers through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, but have said plans for such convoys are not ready yet. However, it is unclear if military convoys would bring an end to the war-related dislocations in the oil market.

“It could help,” Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at energy consulting firm Rystad, told Sherwood News in a recent interview. “It could also go in a lot of different directions if a Navy ship is hit or if a tanker is hit.”

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks post third straight week of losses as Brent crude surges above $100

Stocks wiped out early gains to close lower amid the ongoing war in Iran.

Roaring bear

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Matt Phillips3/13/26

Memory stocks rebound off last weeks losses

Memory stocks Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings rose again Friday, putting these crucial providers of chips for AI inference work on track for big weekly gains after last week’s steep losses following the outbreak of war with Iran.

There’s no obvious trigger for the move higher for these shares this week, other than a bit of a recovery in the AI trade more broadly — AI beneficiaries like IT cable and connections maker Amphenol and custom chip and networking company Marvell Technology clawed back some gains this week — perhaps due Oracle’s earnings earlier, and some mean reversion to boot.

Micron is due to report earnings after the close of trading on Wednesday, with the company catching a couple price target hikes this week, including one from Wedbush on Friday.

Sandisk is something of a different story, as its enormous gains over the last 12 months — roughly 1,200% — have made it a momentum play beloved by the retail crowd.

It was up about 20% this week at around 11 a.m. ET. And its nearly 170% gain this year keeps the stock on top of the S&P 500, in terms of price performance.

The S&P 500’s internals are awful... while it’s still less than 5% from its record closing high

The breadth of negative momentum within the index’s constituents is even worse than at the tariff-induced market bottom in April 2025.

Illustration - Endometriosis

These two charts show how the Iran war is causing markets to price in a longer oil supply crunch

The rise of third-month Brent futures relative to front-month this week is unprecedented since at least 1989.

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