Market Pulse — Friday, 7 August 2026

Global Cross-Asset Daily

Four markets repriced on Thursday, each on its own cause. Brent rose 3.83% to US$82.49 after Iran circulated a restrictive draft plan for strait transit. The Dow fell 0.85%, ending three straight record closes. Seoul’s KOSPI fell 4.58% after soft margin guidance from memory-chip makers, with SK Hynix down 10.37% and Samsung 6.30%. Two-year Treasury yields rose 7 basis points on firm labour data. Through all of it the S&P 500 slipped just 0.16% and the VIX fell 4.17% to 15.15. July payrolls, due Friday at 80,000 consensus, will test every one of these prices at once.

§ 01 — Equities · United States

A 464-point Dow fall beside a 0.06% Nasdaq move means the selling skipped technology almost entirely. The Dow’s 0.85% fall was its first in six sessions. Goldman Sachs, down 2.62%, took the most dollars off the price-weighted index, with Caterpillar, UnitedHealth and Boeing next. Microsoft, up 2.54%, added the most, and the other large technology names barely moved: Nvidia slipped 0.10%, Apple rose 0.45%. The S&P 500 eased 0.16% and the Russell 2000 0.58%.

§ 02 — S&P 500 Sector Map

Thursday 06 Aug · sorted best to worst (1D)

Three of eleven sectors rose, and the day’s best was the week’s laggard. Energy gained 1.48% as oil rebounded. Wednesday the pattern was the opposite: energy shares fell 2.07% while Brent barely moved. Thursday the shares moved with the oil price. Communications added 0.28% and health care 0.18%. Materials was the day’s worst, down 0.89%. Technology slipped 0.31% but its 4.43% weekly gain still leads the eleven sectors. Utilities fell 0.64% and are 2.76% lower on the week, the weakest weekly sector.

Full table · sorted by YTD

§ 03 — Equities · Global

All figures reference Thursday 6 August closes computed from FMP end-of-day data. One-day moves compare with the Wednesday 5 August close, one-week moves with the Thursday 30 July close, and year-to-date with each market’s last 2025 close. Friday’s live Asian levels are excluded from all tables.

Asia reversed hardest where the memory exposure is. Seoul fell 4.58% to 6,296.38: Samsung Electronics lost 6.30% and SK Hynix 10.37% after an American storage maker beat estimates but guided margins only slightly higher. Taipei, a logic-chip market, slipped 0.48%. Tokyo eased 0.93% after Wednesday’s 3.66% rise, and Hong Kong fell 1.49%. Singapore rose 1.03% and Shanghai 0.57%. Europe was nearly still; the STOXX 600 added 0.16%. Seoul closed 0.62% above Monday’s 6,257.45 close, the week’s lowest.

§ 04 — US Treasuries

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

Yields rose at every maturity, most at the short and middle of the curve. The two-year and five-year rose 7 basis points each, to 4.25% and 4.40%, the ten-year 6 to 4.69%, and the thirty-year 5 to 5.22%. The push came from the labour data: jobless claims held at 199,000 and July layoff announcements were the fewest in two years. The one soft reading was second-quarter unit labour costs, up 1.3% against 2.1% expected. The slope from three months (3.90%) up to two years (4.25%) still points to higher rates, not cuts. The two-year closed 3 basis points below 4.28%, its 31 July level and the line this letter marked on Wednesday, with the deciding data still ahead. Two-year and thirty-year yields sit 97 basis points apart.

§ 05 — Credit Spreads

The narrowing in the weakest credit stopped. CCC and lower spreads closed Wednesday at 1,023 basis points, 4 wider, after 15 basis points of narrowing across Monday and Tuesday. The series publishes a session late, so Wednesday’s reading is the latest. High yield widened 2 to 275. The better tiers held: investment grade was unchanged at 78 and BBB narrowed 1 to 96. One session does not reverse the week, and high yield remains 12 basis points tighter over five sessions. The weakest tier stopped narrowing on Wednesday, the same session the S&P 500 first stalled.

Credit spreads are FRED ICE BofA option-adjusted spreads (IG BAMLC0A0CM, BBB BAMLC0A4CBBB, HY BAMLH0A0HYM2, CCC & Lower BAMLH0A3HYC) as of the Wednesday 5 August close, the latest observation FRED has published, so this table runs one session behind the rest of this letter. One-day changes reference the Tuesday 4 August close, one-week changes the Wednesday 29 July close, and year-to-date the last 2025 observation. Widening (positive basis points) reads as stress; narrowing reads as relief.

§ 06 — Digital Assets

Crypto followed the rates story, not the equity story. Bitcoin eased 0.69% to US$64,159.56 after the claims data firmed the case for rates staying high. Ether fell 0.50% to US$1,897.81 and Solana 2.24% to US$72.31. The sector’s own news was a security failure: a firmware flaw in Coldcard hardware wallets let thieves drain about 1,755 bitcoin, more than US$100m, from users’ devices. Losses of that kind push holders toward funds. Bitcoin is 26.67% lower for the year.

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. Crypto trades continuously; levels shown are FMP end-of-day closes for Thursday 6 August. Daily moves compare with the Wednesday 5 August close, weekly moves with the Thursday 30 July close, and year-to-date with the 31 December 2025 close.

§ 07 — Metals & Energy

Oil was the day’s cleanest cause and effect. Iran circulated a restrictive draft plan for strait transit, and an attack on Saudi-backed forces in Yemen added to the doubt; Brent rose 3.83% to US$82.49 and WTI 2.75% to US$77.29. The move revived this letter’s open test, which needs Brent above US$83.77 at Friday’s close: Thursday cut the required rise from 5.44% to 1.55%. Gold held at US$4,299.60, off 0.13%, keeping nearly all of its two-day rise; it is 0.96% lower for the year. Silver eased 1.09%, copper 0.28%, and natural gas fell 1.79%.

§ 08 — Economic Calendar

US release times Eastern; overseas releases shown in local-market timing. Consensus and priors are FMP-sourced. Friday carries July payrolls and China’s July trade figures. Monday 10 August has no major release in the economies this letter covers. Wednesday 12 August brings the July consumer price report and a ten-year auction; July producer prices and a thirty-year auction follow on Thursday.

Payrolls arrive Friday with the week’s labour signals split. Consensus is 80,000 after June’s 57,000. Wednesday’s 44,000 private-payroll reading argues the risk is low; Thursday’s 199,000 claims and the fewest July layoffs in two years argue it is steady. Unemployment is expected at 4.2% and hourly earnings at 0.3% on the month. China reports July trade Friday, with export growth expected to slow to 22.2%. July consumer prices follow next Wednesday, expected at 3.4% for the year, with producer prices Thursday.

§ 09 — Macro Themes

1 · The deal is being priced headline by headline. Iran’s draft transit plan reads more restrictive than the language markets rallied on, and new attacks in Yemen added doubt. Oil rose and the equities that had priced the deal fell. Two sessions ago these markets priced the agreement as nearly done.

2 · The same margin news drew two different verdicts. The American storage maker behind it fell 13.03% by the close, yet Micron ended only slightly lower: American investors marked down one company. Korean investors sold the sector, SK Hynix hardest: the market holding the most memory exposure fell the most.

3 · Washington widened the trade fight to solar inputs. A new order sets a 15% tariff on imported solar panels and a minimum price for polysilicon, and exports of tungsten scrap were blocked. None of it moved Thursday’s indices; all of it lands in the input costs behind next year’s inflation readings.

4 · The VIX fell while stocks fell. The index dropped 4.17% to 15.15 while the Dow lost 464 points, the reverse of Tuesday, when it rose on a record day. That reads as investors trimming positions, not starting to exit.

§ 10 — Analysis & Nuances

Thursday looks like one event in the summary and four in the detail, and the difference is the finding. Oil rose on Iran’s draft transit plan. The Dow’s banks and industrials fell on deal doubt. Korea’s memory names fell on a margin forecast. Yields rose on firm labour data. Each price moved on its own cause, and neither price of broad protection rose: the VIX fell and gold moved 0.13%. The contrast with Tuesday is the evidence. Tuesday the VIX rose while the Dow set a record; Thursday it fell while the Dow dropped. Friday’s payrolls is the opposite kind of event, one number that touches every price at once. The next session is therefore the cleanest test of whether Thursday was several local corrections, as option prices say, or the first day of a general one.

Scorecard. The Brent test resolves at Friday’s close: US$82.49 against the US$83.77 line. Wednesday’s two-year marker reads nothing until payrolls and next Wednesday’s inflation report are in, but the yield closed at 4.25%, 3 basis points under the 4.28% trigger, before either release. One new marker, independent of payrolls. If Thursday in Seoul was a one-session clearing of the memory position, the KOSPI holds above Monday’s 6,257.45 close next week. A finish below that level would say the doubt is about demand, not margins. Monday’s letter scores all three.

FAIRCURVE · MARKET PULSE · 07 AUG 2026 · Data: Financial Modeling Prep and FRED (ICE BofA credit spreads). All figures reference the Thursday 6 August 2026 session unless stated. Not investment advice; for informational use only.