After successfully fixing the World Cup over the long weekend, Trump is finding Iran to be far less willing than FIFA to bend to his every whim and certainly not surrendering by any definition of the word, let alone the “unconditional” kind that the US president claims to require at a minimum. The sixty-day deadline countdown continued inexorably with no sign whatsoever of any progress towards a workable and sustainable resolution to the conflict.

Wall Street was still keeping the faith on Monday, however, and its focus was mostly elsewhere. Astonishingly strong Q1 earnings and mostly solid Q2 economic data continue to resonate and stock indexes marched steadily back towards record high levels with traders starting to pile back into the tech trade.

Wild volatility returned to South Korean markets on Tuesday as Samsung (with a 22% weighting in the local KOSPI index) failed to meet high expectations in an interim earnings report and trading circuit breakers were triggered again as the index fell over 8% at one point.

This negatively impacted other Asian markets and then brought Monday’s tech rally in the US to an abrupt halt and all of the indexes closed the session in the red, not helped by more firefights in the Strait of Hormuz and renewed US bombing of Iran which sent oil prices and interest rates spiraling higher.

SpaceX, already down 30% from its post-IPO high, joined the NASDAQ-100 index on Tuesday morning as well as the widely-followed Russell 1000 index (and is therefore now a component of the popular QQQ ETF and plenty of other index-tracking funds) and the stock price promptly collapsed by another 7% to below its IPO-day opening price, meaning that anyone who bought the stock and didn’t quickly sell it is now losing money.

The stock market’s almost blind confidence in a swift resolution to the Iran war was shaken on Wednesday as Trump appeared to have a hissy fit while rampaging around the NATO summit in Portugal like a bull in a china shop, calling the Iranians “scum” and “liars” , characterizing peace negotiations as “a waste of time” and declaring the ceasefire to be “over”.

He also began rambling about Greenland again, lashed out at any European he could think of (especially anyone from Spain) and nonsensically blamed Starmer’s recent fall from power on the UK prime minister’s reluctance to join in the apparently “very popular” deadly attack on Iran back in February.

Stocks tumbled at the open as the continuing oil price surge put higher inflation and thereby possible interest rate hikes back in play, but then dip buyers seemed to feel that enough was enough for the time being at least, scooping up many of the battered tech names pulling the indexes back to close barely changed.

There appears to be some appetite for raising the Fed Funds Rate among several voting members of the FOMC, according to the minutes released from its last meeting. Nevertheless, US indexes spent the day drifting steadily northwards all day on Thursday with ongoing bargain-hunting among tech and small cap names in particular and closed nicely higher.

Q2 earnings season kicked off on Friday with Delta Airlines getting things started, but things really ramp up this week with most of the the big banks reporting on Tuesday morning. A record-breaking $27 billion blockbuster US IPO from South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix was well oversubscribed and the price jumped on day one. The indexes had a relatively quiet session, but continued on an upward glide-path to close the week pretty much where they opened it.

Some other things I’m thinking about ..

* According to Dimensional Fund Advisors research, i) the average age that a woman is widowed in the US is 59 years old, ii) 72% of women aged 85 or older are widowed, more than double the number of men of the same age at just 35%, iii) US women live 5.6 years longer than US men on average and incur greater healthcare costs over their lifetimes, iv) the average woman in the US earns about 18% less in salary than the average man during their working lives, v) on average, women receive about $5,000 less in annual Social Security retirement benefits than men, vi) two-thirds of women who use a financial/investment professional “feel misunderstood” by their advisor, which is important since only 36% of women are “confident” about their investment knowledge, compared to 59% of men (confidence and competence should not be confused; men and women consistently show equal levels of financial literacy).

* The “quick buck” crowd is having a tough time of it lately with crypto’s complete meltdown, gold and silver’s collapse from recent highs and SpaceX’s crumble (see above). Things got worse as 2026’s most talked-about hipster ETF, Roundhill’s memory and digital storage stock fund (DRAM), just crashed 25% in only eight trading days.

If you are not yet a financial planning or investment management client of Anglia Advisors and would like to explore becoming one, please feel free to reach out to arrange a complimentary no-obligation discovery call with me.

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK ..

The math behind why you need to invest in the broad stock market.

.. AND I QUOTE ..

“Markets weren’t initially taking the re-escalation in US-Iran tensions too seriously, but today, that seems to have changed.”

Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com on Wednesday.

LAST WEEK BY THE NUMBERS:

Last week’s S&P 500 market color courtesy of finviz.com

* SPY, a US Large Cap ETF, tracks the S&P 500 index, made up of 500 stocks from a universe of the largest US companies. It rose 0.5% last week, is higher by 10.8% over the last three months and is up 10.4% so far this year.

* IWM, a US Small Cap ETF, tracks the Russell 2000 index, made up of the bottom two-thirds in terms of company size of a universe of 3,000 of the largest US stocks. It fell 0.7% last week, is higher by 13.3% over the last three months and is up 20.3% so far this year.

* VXUS, an International Non-US ETF, tracks the MSCI ACWI Ex-US index, made up of over 8,500 of the largest names from a universe of stocks issued by companies from around the world excluding the United States, in both developed and emerging markets. It fell 0.3% last week, is higher by 5.0% over the last three months and is up 13.1% so far this year.

Data shown is total return (including dividends)

INTEREST RATES:

* FED FUNDS RATE * 3.625% (unchanged from a week ago)

* PRIME RATE ** 6.75% (unchanged from a week ago)

* 3 MONTH TREASURY 3.85% (3.82% a week ago)

* 2 YEAR TREASURY 4.21% (4.14% a week ago)

* 5 YEAR TREASURY 4.30% (4.23% a week ago)

* 10 YEAR TREASURY *** 4.56% (4.49% a week ago)

* 20 YEAR TREASURY 5.08% (4.99% a week ago)

* 30 YEAR TREASURY 5.06% (4.98% a week ago)

Data courtesy of the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury as of Friday’s market close.

* Decided upon by the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee at periodic meetings 8x a year. Used as a basis for overnight interbank loans and for determining high yield savings interest rates.

** Wall Street Journal Prime Rate as of Friday’s close. Tending to move in lockstep with the Fed Funds Rate, this measure is used as a basis for determining certain consumer loan interest rates such as credit cards, auto loans, personal loans, home equity loans/lines of credit and securities-based lending.

*** Used as a basis for determining mortgage interest rates.

AVERAGE 30-YEAR FIXED MORTGAGE RATE:

* 6.49%

One week ago: 6.43%, one month ago: 6.50%, one year ago: 6.72%

Data courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

INTEREST RATE EXPECTATIONS:

Where will the Fed Funds interest rate be after the next rate-setting meeting on July 29th?

* 0.25% higher than now .. 34% probability (18% a week ago)

* Unchanged from now .. 66% probability (82% a week ago)

* 0.25% lower than now .. 0% probability (0% a week ago)

With four more rate-setting meetings this year, what is the most commonly-expected number of remaining Fed Funds interest rate changes in 2026?

* One increase, 38% probability (a week ago: one increase, 42% probability)

Data courtesy of the CME FedWatch Tool and is derived from futures market pricing as of Friday’s market close based on the current Fed Funds interest rate of 3.625%.

PERCENT OF S&P 500 STOCKS ABOVE THEIR OWN 200-DAY MOVING AVERAGE:

* 66%

One week ago: 66%, one month ago: 56%, one year ago: 42%

Data courtesy of barchart.com as of Friday’s market close.

This widely-used technical measure of market breadth is considered to be a very robust indicator of the overall health of the S&P 500 index.

A high percentage (above 70%) generally suggests broad market strength and a bullish trend, while a low percentage (below 30%) may indicate market weakness and a bearish trend.

FEAR & GREED INDEX:

“Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.” Warren Buffett.

Data courtesy of CNN Business as of Friday’s market close.

The Fear & Greed Index from CNN Business can be used as an attempt to gauge whether or not stocks are fairly priced and to determine the mood of the market. It is a compilation of seven of the most important indicators that measure different aspects of stock market behavior. They are: market momentum, stock price strength, stock price breadth, put and call option ratio, junk bond demand, market volatility and safe haven demand.

Extreme Fear readings can lead to potential opportunities as investors may have driven prices “too low” from a possibly excessive risk-off negative sentiment.

Extreme Greed readings can be associated with possibly too-frothy prices and a sense of “FOMO” with investors chasing rallies in an excessively risk-on environment . This overcrowded positioning leaves the market potentially vulnerable to a sharp downward reversal at some point.

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