The daily record,
kept in the open.

The strain is in one place: what the US government pays to borrow for 30 years. Wednesday's surprise Treasury support lasted a single session before that rate went back near its highest since 2007, and oil and gold rose with it. Chips…

Long-term US borrowing costs fell yesterday, but only after the Treasury doubled its purchases of its own long-term debt, a day after the 30-year rate hit a 19-year high. Shares rose while chip and data-centre shares kept falling; Asia's…

The AI buildout had a rough night. Chip and data-centre shares fell hard in the US on Tuesday and harder across Asia this morning — Korea lost 5.8%. The trigger was long-term government borrowing costs touching a 19-year high, which makes…

Governments are being charged the most to borrow long-term in years, and it happened everywhere at once — the US, Germany, France, Britain and Japan all hit multi-year or multi-decade highs. Dearer oil, after the US-Iran deal expired, is…

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — the route carrying a fifth of the world's oil and gas — nearly stopped this weekend: five ships Saturday, none Sunday, against 31 a week earlier. The US-Iran understanding holding it together lapsed…

Wholesale inflation — what companies pay before goods reach you — cooled to 4.7% over the year from 5.5%. US shares hit a record and the odds of a rate rise next month fell to about one in three. Two catches. Strip out fuel and the same…

Yesterday's US inflation report was better than feared: prices rose 0.1% in July and the annual rate eased to 3.4%. But wage figures released the same morning showed the average hourly paycheck buys 0.2% less than a year ago — fuel is…

Petrol in America is near four dollars a gallon, and at 8:30 this morning New York time the government reports how much of that reached July's prices. Traders now see roughly a coin-flip chance the Federal Reserve raises rates next month.…

Oil rose for a fifth straight day as US–Iran talks on reopening the Strait of Hormuz went backwards, and America's emergency oil stockpile fell to its lowest since 1983. Memory-chip prices are still climbing, but by less than analysts…

Oil rose for a fourth straight day because Iran now says the Strait of Hormuz stays shut until Washington lifts sanctions and pays war reparations. Share markets ignored it and sat near record highs, and the cost of borrowing for 30 years…

The US economy LOST 23,000 jobs in July — Wall Street expected roughly 83,000 to be added — and the two months before that were revised down by 103,000 between them. The unemployment rate still FELL, to 4.1%, but for the wrong reason:…

America's job market sent two opposite signals yesterday. Private hiring came in at less than half of June's pace, the weakest of the year — gold jumped about 4% and long-term government borrowing costs eased. But announced layoffs hit a…

American shares hit a record yesterday after Washington signalled a deal to reopen the Gulf shipping lane that carries much of the world's oil. Oil fell more than 6%. The odd part: both big AI companies that reported strong results after…

Shares had their best day in weeks after the United States called off a strike on Iran: oil fell about 5%, the Dow Jones average closed at a record, and Amazon became only the fifth company ever to be worth 3 trillion dollars. Chip shares…

The Middle East looked less dangerous over the weekend and oil fell about 5%, which over the coming weeks should ease pressure on petrol and heating bills. Chips went the other way: Korea's market gave back a third of Friday's record…

The chip story changed shape yesterday. For a month it was a story about chipmakers' share prices; last night Apple's outgoing boss called the price of memory chips a "hundred year flood" and said it will make iPhones, Macs and iPads more…

The US central bank left interest rates unchanged yesterday, but three of its officials voted to RAISE them — the widest one-way disagreement inside the Fed in a decade — and shares fell hard, the Dow having its worst day since April…

The chip sell-off got worse before it got better. South Korea's market had to be halted for a second day running — the first time that has ever happened there — after SK hynix posted the biggest profit in its history and still…

A violent sell-off hit chip makers today — but it stayed inside that one industry. South Korea's main stock index fell 10.8%, its worst day since March, with trading frozen for 20 minutes; Samsung and SK Hynix, which are together about…

The mood flipped to relief over the weekend. The United States and Iran both held off from new strikes for a second straight day, and that pause pulled the price of oil down sharply — undoing much of last week's spike. Stocks, government…

The AI-spending worry that had been simmering for weeks finally hit the whole market on Thursday: the biggest technology companies lost roughly 800 billion dollars of value in a single day as investors questioned whether their enormous AI…

The big question hanging over markets — is all the AI spending worth it? — got its first real answers overnight, and investors weren't reassured. Google's parent Alphabet beat expectations and its cloud business boomed, but it said it…

The mood turned cautious this morning, and the reason is a reversal from yesterday: oil jumped back above 92 dollars a barrel (Brent) as the US carried out an 11th straight night of strikes on Iran and hopes for a short truce faded.…

Markets steadied this morning after a jittery Monday: computer-chip stocks bounced back (memory makers up more than 5% before the open) and oil eased to about 81 dollars a barrel as mediators floated a 10-day US-Iran ceasefire that would…

The loudest story this morning is the Middle East: US forces struck Iran for a ninth straight day over the weekend and oil briefly touched about 90 dollars a barrel before easing on Monday as hopes rose for a diplomatic settlement.…

The selloff in computer-chip stocks stretched into a second day and, for the first time, spread beyond chips: Netflix fell about 8-9% after warning its sales growth is slowing, and Google's parent Alphabet dropped again on a report that…

The world's biggest chip manufacturer, TSMC, reported record profit overnight (up 77% from a year ago) and raised how much it plans to invest this year — a strong vote of confidence in the AI boom. Yet computer-chip stocks kept falling…

Inflation cooled more than expected in June — consumer prices actually fell for the month — which lifted stocks and eased worries that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates. Separately, ASML, the company that makes the…

Oil jumped about 4% this morning after the US reinstated a blockade of Iran's ports and proposed a 20% fee on everything shipped through the Strait of Hormuz — the world's busiest oil route. The timing is awkward: a big US inflation…

The US and Iran traded fresh strikes over the weekend and a key oil-shipping route — the Strait of Hormuz — is close to shut, pushing oil up about 4% this morning and nudging US stock futures slightly lower. The jump in oil lands right…

It's a quiet weekend with US markets closed, so there's little new market data — this is a light update on the two slow worries still building in the background. Fighting between the US and Iran has kept the world's most important…

The week ended on a high note for the artificial-intelligence trade. Chip and memory companies powered US stocks to fresh record highs on Friday, and two of the biggest memory-chip makers delivered blockbuster news — Samsung reported its…

The big story today is a giant vote of confidence in the artificial-intelligence boom: SK Hynix — the Korean company that makes the specialized memory chips inside AI systems — raised $26.5 billion in the largest-ever US stock listing by…

After Wednesday's oil scare, markets calmed down today: oil gave back part of its jump, US stock futures edged higher, and attention swung back to artificial intelligence — helped by strong demand for chipmaker SK Hynix's US share debut…

Overnight, President Trump said the Iran ceasefire is "over" after the US struck Iran in response to attacks on three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow sea lane that carries about a fifth of the world's oil. Oil jumped…

Samsung reported a record quarterly profit driven by booming demand for AI memory chips — real-world evidence that the AI buildout is still pulling in orders, not fading. Yet Samsung's own shares and other chip stocks (Micron, Nvidia)…

US markets reopen this morning after the long holiday weekend, and the tone is upbeat: chip and tech stocks are bouncing back after dragging late last week, gold and silver are firm, and oil is easing because OPEC+ agreed to pump more.…

Another quiet holiday-weekend Sunday: US stock and bond markets are closed and reopen Monday, July 6, so there is no fresh US price action to read. The story is unchanged from Friday — last week's soft June jobs report (hiring nearly…

It's a quiet July 4th holiday weekend — US stock and bond markets are closed and reopen Monday, so there's no new price action to read. The story that still matters is Thursday's June jobs report: hiring nearly stalled at just 57,000 new…

US markets are closed today for the July 4th holiday, so there's no fresh price action — but yesterday delivered the week's big signal: the June jobs report was weak. Employers added just 57,000 jobs (about half what was expected), and…

Markets took a breather to start July. Stocks dipped as investors cashed in some of this year's huge chip-stock gains, and the whole market is holding its breath for this morning's big US jobs report (out 8:30am ET). The real danger…

US stocks capped their best quarter since 2020 with another record — the Dow set a second straight all-time high on Monday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped again. Underneath the calm, the big story is still interest rates: with inflation…

US stocks pushed to fresh record highs to start the week — the Dow closed above 52,000 for the first time (with Alphabet, Google's parent, joining the index) and the Nasdaq jumped more than 2%. The mood is confident, and the gauges that…

The mood is a bit calmer this morning. The US and Iran stepped back from a weekend clash near a key oil shipping lane, oil eased off its recent lows, and US markets were pointing higher before the open. That comes after Friday's sharp…

It's the weekend, so markets are closed and there is no new trading data — Friday's AI-and-tech sell-off is still the standing situation heading into Monday. The fresh weekend news is mostly more detail on why investors got nervous:…

Yesterday's chip-stock euphoria flipped back to fear overnight. A global sell-off in AI and technology stocks swept Asia — Japan's and South Korea's markets fell hard, and big AI names like SoftBank dropped double digits — and US stock…

The mood flipped from fear to euphoria overnight. Just two days after a sharp chip-stock crash, memory-chip maker Micron reported blowout results — record sales and profits — and said customers have already locked in roughly $100 billion…

Markets steadied today after yesterday's sharp chip-stock selloff, but the calm is fragile. South Korea's market staged a near-mirror-image bounce — its main index rose about 3% the day after a nearly 10% crash — led by Samsung, which…

Stock markets had a rough day, led by a steep fall in Asia. South Korea's main index dropped almost 10% — its worst day in months — and trading was briefly halted, as investors dumped chip-making giants like Samsung and SK Hynix on…

Markets stayed broadly calm today. The big mover was geopolitics: the US and Iran kept talking after last week's deal to pause their conflict for at least 60 days, but the mood soured when Iran said it had again closed the Strait of…