Five days. The Dow hit 53,000 on Monday. Samsung's best quarter got sold on Tuesday. The ceasefire collapsed on Wednesday — Trump said "it's over" from Ankara, the U.S. hit 90 targets, Iran struck back at Kuwait and Bahrain. Oil surged 5.4%. On Thursday, Trump said Iran called to make a deal. Oil reversed. Chips bounced. The market clawed it all back. And on Friday, the world's largest AI memory company — SK Hynix — went public on the Nasdaq in the biggest foreign IPO in U.S. history. It raised $26.5 billion. It opened 14% above the offering price. The market cap hit $1.27 trillion. And the S&P 500 gained 0.09% on the day. Nine basis points. After everything. Ayatollah Khamenei was buried in Mashhad this morning. His son — the new Supreme Leader — didn't show up. And the S&P ended the week in the green.
Quiet finish. The S&P gained 0.09%. The Dow rose 0.31%. The Nasdaq was flat — down two hundredths of a percent. The Russell 2000 gained 1.22% as small caps outperformed for the second straight day. On the weekly scoreboard, the Nasdaq gained about 1.4%. The S&P posted a winning week. The Dow was down less than 1%. After the most volatile week since March, every major index is within shouting distance of where it started Monday morning.
| The Numbers I Circled | At the close, July 10 · Day change |
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| SK Hynix IPO | $26.5B raised | opened +14% |
| S&P 500 Week | survived the week | ended green |
| Brent Crude | $76.39 | +0.1% |
| S&P 500 Sectors | Day change |
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| Consumer Staples | | +0.8% |
| Materials | | +0.8% |
| Consumer Disc. | | +0.6% |
| Comm. Services | | +0.4% |
| Info. Technology | | +0.4% |
| Utilities | | +0.4% |
| Financials | | +0.3% |
| Real Estate | | −0.1% |
| Energy | | −0.4% |
| Industrials | | −0.8% |
| Health Care | | −1.4% |
| | Notable Gainers | Day change |
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SK Hynix opened at $170 — 14% above its $149 offering price — in the largest U.S. IPO by a foreign company in history. The Korean memory chipmaker raised $26.5 billion. The deal was oversubscribed seven times over. At $170 the company is worth $1.27 trillion, making it the 11th most valuable stock in America — below Tesla, above Eli Lilly. SK Hynix makes the high-bandwidth memory inside every Nvidia data-center GPU on the planet. Commerce Secretary Lutnick used the moment to call on both SK Hynix and Samsung to expand memory chip production in the U.S.
Delta beat on both lines. Adjusted EPS of $1.56 topped the $1.46 consensus. Revenue came in at $17.67 billion, above the $17.53 billion estimate. The Q3 guide was solid: EPS of $2.00 to $2.50 against the $2.02 Wall Street expected, with mid-teen revenue growth and margins between 11% and 13%. CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC he expects pricing power from the jet fuel surge to last even as oil prices fall. But the stock dropped 3%. Investors saw the fuel cost exposure and sold. Same pattern as Samsung on Tuesday: beat the number, get sold. The sell-the-news trade is running the tape right now.
Khamenei was buried in Mashhad early Friday. His son Mojtaba — the man who took over as Supreme Leader after the February 28 strike — did not appear at the funeral. That's the biggest unanswered question in the Iran story. If the leader of the country can't show his face at his father's funeral, who is running the negotiations? Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel shared new intelligence with the U.S. about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. "They want to take out the US leader, me," Trump said.
What The Market Is Pricing In
The week started with a Dow record and ended with a burial in Mashhad. In between, the ceasefire died, came back to life, and settled into the uncomfortable gray zone where both sides are still shooting but also still talking. Oil went from $69 to $78 to $76. The Nasdaq fell 1.2% on Tuesday, recovered 1.3% on Thursday, and ended the week up 1.4%. And the S&P 500 — the broadest measure of the market — gained for the week.
That tells you everything. When a market absorbs the worst geopolitical escalation of the year — 90 airstrikes, a revoked oil waiver, a Strait at half capacity, an assassination plot, a collapsed ceasefire — and still closes the week higher, the market is telling you it doesn't believe the war is back. It believes the deal survives. The phone call matters more than the bombs. The mediators from Qatar and Pakistan matter more than the rhetoric from Ankara. Oil at $76 instead of $95 tells you the market is pricing a temporary flare-up, not a permanent breakdown.
The S&P 500 ended a week that included a ceasefire collapse, 90 U.S. airstrikes, an Iranian assassination plot, and a $26.5 billion IPO — and the market is telling you that the worst week of the war since March was a speed bump, not a turn, because the economy is still growing, the chips are still being bought, and the deal is still more likely than the alternative. SK Hynix raising $26.5 billion at a $1.27 trillion valuation on the same week the ceasefire broke tells you everything about where the money is going. Institutional investors didn't hesitate. The offering was oversubscribed seven times. The AI memory trade is alive and willing to absorb a war, a chip correction, and a Samsung sell-the-news day — all in the same week.
In October 1998, Long-Term Capital Management collapsed, Russia defaulted on its debt, and the Fed held an emergency meeting. The Dow fell 12% in August. By November it had recovered everything and hit a new high. The market absorbed the worst financial shock in a decade because the economy held and the Fed acted. Today's version is smaller — a ceasefire break, not a financial meltdown. But the lesson is the same: when the market absorbs a crisis and ends the week green, it's telling you the crisis isn't as big as the headlines say.
Three things I'm watching next week:
01 — June CPI Tuesday July 14 at 8:30 AM
The most important number of the month. May was 4.2%. The market is looking for a drop toward 3.8%, driven by the oil collapse from $95 to $68 in May and June. The data covers through June 30 — before the latest ceasefire flare-up — so it should still capture the full benefit of falling energy prices. If headline CPI comes in below 3.8%, the "inflation peaked" story is confirmed and the rate-hike trade takes another hit. If it stays above 4%, the hawks have their case and July becomes live. Same morning, five of the biggest banks on the planet report: JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. And in the afternoon, Fed Chair Warsh testifies before the House Financial Services Committee. One day. CPI, banks, and the Fed chair. Tuesday is the biggest day of Q3.
02 — Mojtaba Khamenei
The new Supreme Leader didn't appear at his father's funeral. If he surfaces in the next few days — giving a speech, meeting with Ghalibaf, appearing on state television — the succession is stable and the deal has a counterparty. If he stays invisible, the regime's internal politics become the biggest risk to the deal — bigger than the bombs, bigger than the Strait. A country can't sign a binding nuclear agreement if the market doesn't know who's in charge. Watch Iranian state media this weekend.
03 — Q2 earnings season begins
Analysts expect S&P 500 earnings to rise 24% from a year earlier, with tech driving most of the growth. The banks on Tuesday set the tone. If JPMorgan and Goldman report strong trading revenue — especially from the oil and rates desks that have been printing money from the volatility — the financial sector extends its run and the broadening trade stays alive. If the banks warn on credit quality or consumer weakness, the PepsiCo "soft North America" story spreads and the rotation stalls. After the banks come the hyperscalers: Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon report in the last week of July. Those four will tell you whether the AI spending that powered Micron and SK Hynix is showing up in revenue — or just in costs.
The ceasefire broke and the market held. SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion. Delta beat and got sold. The new Supreme Leader didn't show up to the funeral. And the S&P ended the week green. Tuesday tells you whether the inflation story is turning — and whether the banks and Warsh agree with the market that the worst is behind. One number. Five banks. One Fed chair. That's the week.
That's it for today. Have a good weekend. I'll be back on Monday after the close.
— Tom Hartley
Today In Perspective · Published daily, Monday–Friday, after the close
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. The author is not a registered investment advisor. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions.
