Market Pulse — Friday, 31 July 2026

Global Cross-Asset Daily

The bounce is as narrow as the fall was. Seoul is 13.30% higher at 11:15 local time and was 17.1% up at its high, triggering a buy-side trading halt three days after a sell-side one. Samsung is up 20.05% and SK Hynix 23.45%. Taipei is 6.68% higher and Tokyo 5.08%, while Hong Kong is 0.56% lower and Singapore 0.92% lower. The two markets that carried the forced position are the two that have jumped. The tables below cover Thursday, when Microsoft rose 15.51% and the S&P 500 1.66% with six of eleven sectors lower.

§ 01 — Equities · United States

The Nasdaq gained 2.78% on the day and 0.06% on the week. Thursday recovered what the four sessions before it had lost, and no more. The S&P 500 rose 1.66% to 7,437.53, the Dow 1.19% and the Russell 2000 1.37%. The VIX fell 3.57 to 17.09, its lowest close in six sessions and below its fifty-day average of 17.43. Smaller companies lead the year at 18.70%, double the S&P 500 at 8.65%. Amazon and Apple reported after the close and both beat estimates.

§ 02 — S&P 500 Sector Map

Thursday 30 Jul · sorted best to worst (1D)

Five of eleven sectors rose, and technology supplied more than the whole index gain. Technology rose 5.50%, over five times the next best, industrials at 0.98%. Consumer discretionary rose 0.70%, financials 0.56% and energy 0.53%. Six fell: communication services 2.68%, staples 2.16%, health care 1.64%, real estate 1.44%, utilities 0.56% and materials 0.19%. Technology and communication services both hold very large technology companies, yet finished 8.18 percentage points apart: Microsoft sits in one, Meta in the other. Energy leads the year at 31.87%, communication services trails at 9.46% lower.

Full table · sorted by YTD

§ 03 — Equities · Global

All figures reference Thursday 30 July closes computed from FMP end-of-day data. One-day moves compare with the Wednesday 29 July close, one-week moves with the Thursday 23 July close, and year-to-date with each market’s last 2025 close (Frankfurt, Tokyo and the STOXX 600: 30 December, their final 2025 session). Asian and European markets closed before Thursday’s US session. Friday figures quoted in the commentary above are LIVE FMP intraday quotes taken at 11:15 Korea time, about four hours before the Seoul close, and will move before these markets settle. Every quoted market is verified this run.

Friday is undoing the week in the two markets that were force-sold. The table shows Thursday’s closes, when Seoul fell 1.23% and Taipei 0.26%. In Friday trading Seoul is 13.30% higher at 6,337.45, Taipei 6.68% and Tokyo 5.08%, with SK Hynix up 23.45%, Samsung 20.05% and TSMC 8.16%. Hong Kong is 0.56% lower, Singapore 0.92% lower and Shanghai up only 1.03%. Korea and Taiwan held the positions being unwound; the other three did not.

§ 04 — US Treasuries

3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0% 6M 2Y 5Y 10Y 20Y 30Y

Most of the week’s fall in short yields came before the Fed and before the inflation reading. The two-year ended at 4.23%, the five-year 4.38%, the ten-year 4.68% and the thirty-year 5.21%, each 1 basis point higher on the day. The two-year is 14 basis points lower on the week, but 11 of those came in the three sessions to Tuesday. The Federal Reserve’s hold added 4 more on Wednesday. On Thursday, when June core inflation printed at 0.1% against 0.2% expected, the two-year rose 1. Long-maturity yields never joined: the thirty-year is 4 basis points higher on the week. The gap between two-year and ten-year yields widened from 34 to 45 basis points, and between two-year and thirty-year from 80 to 98. The twenty-year pays 5.22%, a basis point more than the thirty-year.

§ 05 — Credit Spreads

Credit has not yet been asked about Thursday. These are Wednesday’s figures, published a day late, from a session when equities fell. The CCC and lower tier stood at 1,013 basis points, 8 wider on the day, 32 wider on the week and 128 wider this year. High yield at 287 is 19 wider on the week and 6 wider this year. Investment grade at 81 and BBB at 100 were unchanged on the day and are within 2 basis points of their start-of-year levels. Only the weakest tier is stressed.

Credit spreads are FRED ICE BofA option-adjusted spreads (IG BAMLC0A0CM, BBB BAMLC0A4CBBB, HY BAMLH0A0HYM2, CCC & Lower BAMLH0A3HYC) as of the Wednesday 29 July close. FRED publishes with a one-business-day lag, so Thursday’s session is not yet reflected. One-day changes reference Wednesday’s move, one-week changes the Wednesday 22 July close, and year-to-date the last 2025 observation. Widening (positive basis points) reads as stress.

§ 06 — Digital Assets

Bitcoin held a band of under 3% for the whole week. It gained 1.32% to about US$64,738 on Thursday, with Ether up 0.46% and Solana 1.14%. Its highest close this week was roughly US$65,300, its lowest US$63,700. Over five sessions Bitcoin is 0.48% lower and Solana 1.83% lower, while Ether is 2.15% higher. For the year Bitcoin is 26.01% lower, Ether 35.38% and Solana 40.18%. Bitcoin tracks the Nasdaq loosely, about 0.5 on daily moves, so next week’s US labour data is the most likely thing to move it.

Bitcoin’s equity link reflects the historical daily-return pattern, closest to the Nasdaq at about 0.5 and loosest to the Dow at about 0.4. Levels are FMP Thursday 30 July end-of-day closes; crypto trades continuously, so daily moves compare with the Wednesday close, weekly moves with the Thursday 23 July close, and year-to-date with the 31 December 2025 close.

§ 07 — Metals & Energy

Gold rose 3.08% on a weaker dollar, not on a change in yields. Gold closed at US$4,160.60 while the two-year and five-year yields that govern it each rose 1 basis point. The dollar fell 1.96% against the yen on suspected Japanese intervention, and June core inflation came in soft the same morning. Both push gold up. Silver rose 1.60% and copper 2.58%. Brent fell 4.25% to US$86.88, more than half of Wednesday’s 7.91% gain, and is 13.72% lower on the week. WTI fell 1.03%, so the gap between the two nearly halved.

§ 08 — Economic Calendar

US release times Eastern; overseas releases shown in local-market timing. Consensus and priors are FMP-sourced. The Bank of Japan decision and quarterly outlook land this morning, with euro area July inflation the other high-impact release. Next week returns to the US labour market: job openings on Tuesday, private payrolls on Wednesday and the two ISM surveys on Monday and Wednesday.

The Bank of Japan decision lands as this is written, after the currency already moved. Suspected intervention pushed the dollar down 1.96% against the yen on Thursday. Consensus is a hold at 1.00%, so the question is whether the outlook report and press conference support the yen or leave that to the finance ministry. Euro area July inflation is expected at 2.9% against 2.8%. In the US the second-quarter employment cost index is expected at 0.8% against 0.9% and Michigan one-year inflation expectations at 4.2% against 4.6%. Next week brings job openings, private payrolls, both ISM surveys and the July employment report on Friday.

§ 09 — Macro Themes

1 · The seller is gone, and it shows. Situational Awareness was sold out under margin pressure this week, with Citadel taking its public book in one block before Thursday’s US open. Seoul is 13.30% higher the next session and SK Hynix 23.45%. Removing a seller is not the same as adding a buyer.

2 · The supply question is unanswered, not answered. CXMT raised US$8.6bn on Monday to expand memory output and China began mass-producing its own lithography machines. A 20.05% day in Samsung tells us about who owned the shares, not about what memory will sell for next year.

3 · Revenue was paid for, higher costs were not. Microsoft rose 15.51% on 43% Azure growth and more than US$130bn of new data-centre leases. Meta fell 7.95%, an eleventh straight decline, after profit missed on higher operating costs, though revenue rose 28%.

4 · Currency, not yields, moved the metals. The dollar’s 1.96% fall against the yen lifted gold 3.08% and helped silver and copper, on a day when every quoted US Treasury maturity moved by 1 basis point.

§ 10 — Analysis & Nuances

Read the geography of the bounce, not its size. Korea is up 13.30% and Taiwan 6.68%. Hong Kong is down 0.56%, Singapore down 0.92% and Shanghai up only 1.03%. If Thursday’s US session had changed the outlook for computing demand, all five would be higher, because all five hold companies that sell into it. Only the two that carried the forced position have moved. That is the same signature as the fall. Korea used a sell-side trading halt on Tuesday and a buy-side one on Friday, three days apart, in a market where Samsung and SK Hynix are close to half the index. We read this as positions changing hands. Thursday’s 1.23% decline in Seoul was the last of the selling, not a verdict on Microsoft’s result.

What we would need to see next. A bounce this size takes the argument off the table for a few sessions but does not settle it. Two things would make it something we would hold. Memory contract prices need to stop falling, because CXMT’s new capacity is still coming. And the CCC credit tier, at 1,013 basis points, needs to stop widening; if it keeps going while Seoul rallies, the stress was never only about chips. Until both, we treat Friday as a position unwind and keep energy, up 31.87% this year.

FAIRCURVE · MARKET PULSE · 31 JUL 2026 · Data via Financial Modeling Prep MCP (quote / price-change, end-of-day index, crypto, commodity and currency charts, treasury-rates, economics calendar, news, forex news) and FRED (ICE BofA option-adjusted credit spreads via the keyed FRED API). All tables and daily returns reference the Thursday 30 July 2026 session. Figures for the Friday 31 July Asian session are LIVE FMP intraday quotes taken at 11:15 Korea time, roughly four hours before the Seoul close, and are labelled as such in the text: KOSPI 6,337.45 (+13.30%, intraday high 6,548.64 or +17.07%), Samsung Electronics +20.05%, SK Hynix +23.45%, TAIEX +6.68%, TSMC +8.16%, Nikkei 225 +5.08%, Hang Seng -0.56%, Straits Times -0.92%, Shanghai +1.03%. They will move before those markets close. One-week moves compare with the Thursday 23 July close; year-to-date uses each market’s last 2025 close, verified against FMP end-of-day data. Global equity, crypto and commodity moves are computed from FMP end-of-day closes, because live quotes at the time of writing show Friday trading. UST yields are the FMP treasury-rates series as of Thursday 30 July; the day-by-day two-year path across the week (4.37, 4.33, 4.31, 4.26, 4.22, 4.23) is from the same series. Credit spreads are FRED ICE BofA OAS as of the Wednesday 29 July close (one-business-day publication lag). Single-stock moves are FMP quote fields for the Thursday 30 July close: Microsoft +15.51%, Meta -7.95%, Oracle +8.34%, Broadcom +4.73%, Amazon +3.90%, Nvidia +2.65%, Alphabet -0.91%, Apple -1.41%. The dollar-yen move is the FMP USDJPY end-of-day series (163.391 to 160.184). The VIX fifty-day average of 17.43 is an FMP quote field; the six-session low is checked against FMP end-of-day VIX closes (July’s lowest close was 15.03 on 10 July). Bitcoin’s weekly high and low closes (65,341.07 on 26 July, 63,694.43 on 27 July) are FMP end-of-day data. Market context verified against Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, FT, WSJ, Barron’s and Korea JoongAng Daily via FMP news, FMP forex news and web search: CXMT’s US$8.6bn Shanghai STAR listing on Monday 27 July for DRAM expansion, and China beginning mass production of domestic immersion DUV lithography equipment; SK Hynix -14.7%, Samsung Electronics -13.4% and the KOSPI -10.8% on Tuesday 28 July, the session after the CXMT debut, its largest one-day fall since March, with a market-wide circuit breaker triggered and the two companies together close to half the index; the forced sale of Situational Awareness LP’s public equity book under margin pressure, with Citadel agreeing to take the assets; Microsoft and Meta both reporting after the Wednesday 29 July US close, ahead of Thursday’s Asian session, with Azure growth of 43%, more than US$130bn of new data-centre leases and a record US$450bn one-day market-capitalisation gain; Meta’s profit miss on higher operating costs with revenue up 28% and an eleventh consecutive down day; Amazon and Apple reporting after Thursday’s close, both beating estimates; June core PCE at +0.1% for the month against +0.2% expected and 3.3% year-on-year; the suspected Japanese intervention behind the currency move; and Friday’s Korea Exchange buy-side sidecar, the SK Group chairman’s direct share purchase in SK Hynix, and the Seoul and Taipei rebound tracking Wall Street’s Thursday gains. US calendar times Eastern; overseas releases in local timing. Not investment advice; for informational use only.