MARKET AT 7
Good evening. Wall Street just posted another record close while oil and gold both walked back their recent gains – a rare moment where stocks, crude and bullion all seem to agree the worst of the year's shocks might be easing. Whether that holds depends on a shipping lane 11,000 km from Adelaide.
In tonight's newsletter:
S&P 500 hits record high as tech stocks lead
Oil, gold retreat together as Hormuz fears ease
US inflation cools further, dims rate-hike fears
Kospi surges into bull market on chip rally
Iran war threatens New Zealand's recovery, economists warn
1.
S&P 500 hits record high as tech stocks lead
The S&P 500 closed at 7,798.99 on Thursday, a fresh record after touching 7,816.70 intraday, CNBC reports. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.81% to finish at 26,803.03. Meta Platforms rose 2.8% and Micron Technology jumped 4.2%, while Netflix surged 5.4% after investor Bill Ackman revealed a new stake. Source: CNBC, 13 Aug 2026 → · Source: ts2.tech, 13 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
This market has stopped flinching. A few months ago, chaos in the Middle East would have sent tech stocks tumbling — now traders are treating it as background noise and chasing AI winners instead. That's either genuine confidence or a market getting comfortable ignoring risks it shouldn't
2.
Oil and gold retreat together as Hormuz fears ease
Brent crude fell more than 2% to settle at $87.07 a barrel on Thursday, while West Texas Intermediate dropped to $81.25, Bloomberg reports. Gold slid 1.23% to $4,354.22 an ounce the same day. Both moves came as fears eased over the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that's faced months of attacks and driven the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level since 1983.
OUR TAKE:
Don't mistake a one-day dip for the crisis being over. Oil and gold sliding together usually means the market's betting on calm, not confirming it — and this particular calm has broken before, more than once.
3.
US inflation cools further, dims rate-hike fears
US consumer prices rose 3.4% year-on-year in July, down from 3.5% in June, the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported on Wednesday. Producer prices also came in softer than forecast Thursday, easing worries the Federal Reserve might need to raise rates again. Asian stocks extended the rally into Friday, with MSCI's Asia Pacific index up 2.6% for the week — its best performance in two months. Source: BLS, 12 Aug 2026 → · Source: Bloomberg, 13 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
The bar for "good inflation news" has gotten strangely low this year — 3.4% would've been alarming a decade ago, and markets are throwing a party over it now. The number matters less than what it's being compared to
4.
Kospi surges into bull market on chip rally
South Korea's Kospi crossed 7,000 points on Thursday, up roughly 22% from its 30 July low and officially in bull-market territory, Bloomberg reports. Samsung Electronics closed 5% higher, and SK Hynix jumped 6%, on optimism over AI-driven memory chip demand, CNBC reports. Source: Bloomberg, 13 Aug 2026 → · Source: CNBC, 13 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Korea's chipmakers have basically become a leveraged bet on how much AI infrastructure the world keeps building. Great trade, right up until the AI-spending story wobbles — and there's no sign of that yet.
5.
Iran's war threatens New Zealand's recovery, economists warn
Forecaster Infometrics warned this week the Iran conflict could weigh on New Zealand's economy for up to two years, RNZ reports. New Zealand's unemployment rate is now at its highest since 2015, with the country's peak union body pointing to the war's "price shock and uncertainty" as a factor stalling any rebound. Source: RNZ / Infometrics, 12 Aug 2026 → · Source: NZCTU, Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Our take: New Zealand is the reminder that not every economy gets to shrug off a war on the other side of the planet the way Wall Street currently is. Small, trade-exposed economies feel oil shocks first, and they feel them longest
QUICK HITS
RBA holds cash rate at 4.35% for second month. The Reserve Bank of Australia left its cash rate unchanged on 11 August, its second straight hold after three hikes earlier this year, but warned inflation is still "too high" and further tightening remains on the table, Bloomberg reports. Our take: mortgage holders get to exhale for a few more weeks — but the RBA didn't rule out another hike, so don't redraw the budget yet. Source: Bloomberg, 11 Aug 2026 →
Bitcoin holds steady near $63,400 as crypto quiets. Bitcoin closed Thursday essentially flat at $63,402, with Ethereum, Solana and XRP posting modest gains, the Rio Times reports. Our take: a quiet crypto day while stocks and oil make headlines is its own signal — traders have somewhere else to put their risk appetite right now. Source: Rio Times, 14 Aug 2026 →
US retail sales due within hours, forecast to rise 0.3%. July retail sales land at 8:30am US Eastern — later tonight, Adelaide time — with economists expecting a 0.3% monthly rise after June's 0.2% gain. [Need to confirm once released — not yet out at publish time.] Our take: this is the number that tells us whether shoppers are actually feeling the "inflation is cooling" story or just reading about it. Source: FinanceCalendar, 14 Aug 2026 →
Those are your 5 minutes for tonight; see you at the same time tomorrow. - Miko