Market Pulse — Wednesday, 15 July 2026

Global Cross-Asset Daily

The inflation scare that gripped Monday reversed in a single session, but the relief was narrower than the headline suggests. June consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year earlier — below the 3.8% expected and down from 4.2% — and fell 0.4% on the month, with core easing to 2.6%. Markets took a July rate hike off the table: the two-year Treasury yield fell 8 basis points and the whole curve moved lower. Chips and growth stocks led the bounce, lifting the Nasdaq 0.90% and the S&P 500 0.39%. Yet a collapse of about a quarter in IBM, its worst day on record, held the Dow flat, and gold slipped despite lower yields — signs that conviction was thin beneath a rising index. Big banks opened earnings season with strong profits; oil rose again, Brent up 1.27%, on the Iran standoff.

§ 01 — Equities · United States

A soft inflation reading lifted the whole market, but the moves underneath were unusually split. The Nasdaq rose 0.90% and the S&P 500 0.39% as chip and growth names recovered, while the Dow was held flat by IBM, which shed roughly a quarter of its value after a weak profit outlook — its worst single day on record, and one that dragged software lower. Small caps added 0.39%. The point is the dispersion: the same technology names that led Monday’s fall led Tuesday’s rebound, even as one mega-cap had its worst day ever. Over the past week the S&P is up 0.70% and the Nasdaq 0.73%, roughly back to where they began. We read the session as a positioning unwind, not the start of a new trend.

§ 02 — S&P 500 Sector Map

Tuesday 14 Jul · sorted best to worst (1D)

Technology reclaimed the top spot as risk appetite returned. Five of the eleven sectors rose and six fell. Technology led at +1.29% on the chip rebound, with energy (+0.37%) and financials (+0.20%) higher, while the defensives that held up on Monday gave it back — health care was the worst at -1.93%, then staples at -1.38%. In the year-to-date column technology (+27.54%) edged back ahead of energy (+27.38%) for the top spot, reclaiming a lead it had ceded the day before. Communications (-5.33%) and consumer discretionary (-2.94%) are the only sectors still negative for the year, communications by far the deepest.

Full table · sorted by YTD

§ 03 — Equities · Global

All figures reference Tuesday 14 July closes, computed directly from the FMP end-of-day close series. One-day moves compare with Monday 13 July; one-week moves with the Tuesday 7 July close; year-to-date uses each market’s last 2025 close (30 December for markets without a 31 December print). Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the Straits Times are all taken from the FMP end-of-day series and verified this run.

The chip rebound was not shared evenly across Asia. Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.73% on Tuesday, a pause after Monday’s near-9% crash, though it is still down more than 10% on the week and up 62.71% on the year; Japan added 0.74%. Taiwan was the exception, the TAIEX down 1.42% as its chip names caught up with the weakness that had hit Korea a day earlier rather than joining the US recovery. China was firmer: Shanghai rose 1.36% after June exports jumped 27% from a year earlier, led by technology and semiconductor shipments — the same demand lifting chips elsewhere — and Hong Kong is up 3.59% on the week. Europe was quiet and slightly higher, the STOXX 600 up 0.17%.

§ 04 — US Treasuries

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

Yields fell across the board after the soft inflation reading, and the front end moved most. The two-year dropped 8 basis points to 4.18% and the five-year 6 to 4.31%, while the ten-year fell 4 to 4.58% and the thirty-year just 2 to 5.08%. Short rates falling faster than long is what happens when the market puts rate cuts back on the table and takes hikes off it. Over the week the front end is now roughly flat while longer maturities are a few basis points higher. The year-to-date shape is unchanged: the two-year is up 71 basis points in 2026 against 24 at the thirty-year, so almost all of this year’s move still sits at the short end, where the Fed’s next step is decided. We expect Wednesday’s producer prices to set the near-term direction.

§ 05 — Credit Spreads

Credit now covers Monday’s sell-off — and it barely registered. Investment grade sits at 78 basis points and BBB at 96, each within a basis point or two of where the week began; broad high yield is unchanged at 269 and tighter on the week. The data now runs through Monday’s close, so it captures the day equities and chips dropped hardest — and spreads did almost nothing, which says that sell-off was about valuations and positioning, not solvency. The one exception is unchanged: CCC and lower, the weakest tier of junk, widened 2 basis points to 972 and is 87 wider on the year, still the only rating band under real pressure in 2026. We would watch for CCC to keep climbing alongside any consumer-credit strain in bank earnings; so far it is isolated.

Credit spreads are FRED ICE BofA option-adjusted spreads (IG BAMLC0A0CM, BBB BAMLC0A4CBBB, HY BAMLH0A0HYM2, CCC & Lower BAMLH0A3HYC) as of the Monday 13 July close — FRED publishes with a one-business-day lag, so Tuesday’s rebound is not yet in these figures, but Monday’s sell-off now is. Widening (positive basis points) reads as stress.

§ 06 — Digital Assets

Crypto steadied on the day and is higher on the week, led by Ether. Bitcoin was little changed over the past day near $64,900 but is up 4.19% on the week, and Ether has gained 8.24% to about $1,886, as the risk-on mood that lifted equities pulled money back into the coins. There was no crypto-specific catalyst; the same easing in yields and return of appetite that helped chips helped here. The bull case is that softer inflation and lower yields relieve pressure on the most speculative assets. The bear case is that Bitcoin is still down about 26% on the year, so this is a bounce inside a deep drawdown rather than a turn. Crypto remains the clearest read on how much risk investors want to hold, and this week they wanted a little more.

Bitcoin’s equity correlation reflects the historical daily-return pattern — closest to the Nasdaq at about 0.5, loosest to the Dow at about 0.4. Spot levels are FMP quote fields at the run-time snapshot on Wednesday morning Singapore time; daily, weekly and year-to-date moves are the FMP price-change series. Crypto trades continuously, so the past day’s move runs later than Tuesday’s equity close.

§ 07 — Metals & Energy

Oil rose again, and it is now the main upside risk to the inflation story. Brent gained 1.27% to $85.85 and WTI 1.06% as Iran attacked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the US struck back and a naval blockade restarted; prices held even after President Trump dropped a proposed fee on Hormuz cargo a day after floating it. Brent is up 8.10% on the week and 41.02% on the year. That matters because energy feeds straight into inflation — the same inflation that just cooled in June. Gold, by contrast, slipped 0.19% and is still 6.43% lower on the year: a risk-on day pulls money out of havens, and cooler inflation itself dims gold’s appeal as a hedge, together outweighing the help from lower yields. Copper told the risk-on story best, up 4.14% on the week to $6.37 on firmer Chinese trade data.

§ 08 — Economic Calendar

US release times Eastern; overseas releases shown in local-market timing. Consensus and priors are FMP-sourced. Wednesday's US PPI, China's Q2 GDP and the ongoing second-quarter bank earnings are the week's main events.

With June inflation out of the way, the read-through data now carries the week. Producer prices on Wednesday will show whether the pipeline agrees with Tuesday’s soft consumer number; consensus looks for a flat monthly reading after a hot 1.1% in May. China’s second-quarter GDP, also Wednesday, is seen slowing to 4.5% from 5.0%, though Tuesday’s export surge hints at some upside. The Bank of Canada is expected to hold at 2.25%. US retail sales on Thursday and the Michigan sentiment survey on Friday — where a rebound to 51 is expected — test whether the consumer keeps spending as prices cool. We expect the tone to stay constructive unless PPI or energy costs reopen the inflation question.

§ 09 — Macro Themes

1 · One cool inflation report undid a week of hike fear. On Monday a Fed official floated a rate increase and futures moved to price a real chance of one this month. By Tuesday afternoon a June CPI of 3.5% — under the 3.8% expected, with prices down 0.4% on the month — had taken that off the table, and the two-year yield fell 8 basis points. It is a reminder how fast the rate narrative can swing on one number, and how much of this year’s story still runs through inflation rather than growth.

2 · A higher index hid an unusually split day. The Nasdaq gained 0.90% while the Dow finished flat, a gap explained almost entirely by IBM, which shed about a quarter of its value on a weak outlook — its worst day on record — and dragged software with it, even as chip names rallied. In Asia the same divergence showed up: Korea steadied while Taiwan fell 1.42%. A calm index level is not the same as broad calm, and the makeup of the market can shift even when the headline does not.

3 · The relief is backward-looking; the oil risk is not. Tuesday’s report measured June, before the latest Iran escalation. Oil has risen for over a week, up more than 8% in that time, and energy costs feed straight back into inflation. So the market welcomed cooling prices on the same day the one force most likely to reverse them kept climbing — the tension into next month’s numbers.

4 · Credit’s silence through Monday validated the rebound. The credit data now includes Monday’s equity and chip rout, and spreads barely moved — investment grade and high yield essentially flat. That marks Monday as a positioning shake-out, not the start of stress, which Tuesday’s recovery confirmed. Only the weakest junk tier, CCC, is still widening, and it remains isolated.

§ 10 — Analysis & Nuances

Three separate markets said the same thing on Tuesday: Monday was a scare, not a signal. Yields fell hardest at the front end, chip stocks led the rebound, and credit spreads — now updated through Monday — showed no stress at all. Any one of those could be noise; together they point to a positioning unwind rather than a change in the economy. The soft CPI was the trigger, because it removed the rate-hike risk that had made expensive growth stocks vulnerable in the first place. Lower short-term yields and a recovering Nasdaq are two sides of the same move, which is why we read the bounce as mechanical rather than a fresh vote of confidence.

The tension worth holding onto is that the inflation relief is already dated. June’s prices cooled just as oil, up more than 8% in a week on the Iran standoff, threatens to push them back up. That makes Wednesday’s producer prices and next month’s CPI the real tests: a soft reading would extend the relief and let the two-year drift toward c. 4.10%, while any sign that energy is feeding through would revive the hike talk that only just faded. The second thing to watch is dispersion: IBM shedding roughly a quarter of its value against a chip rally shows how much single names now move under a calm surface, and with earnings rolling in, the index can look steady while its composition keeps changing.

FAIRCURVE · MARKET PULSE · 15 JUL 2026 · Data via Financial Modeling Prep MCP (quote / price-change, end-of-day index and commodity charts, treasury-rates, economics calendar, news) and FRED (ICE BofA OAS credit spreads via the keyed FRED API). Daily returns reference the Tuesday 14 July 2026 session. One-week moves compare with the Tuesday 7 July close; year-to-date uses each market’s last 2025 close, verified against FMP end-of-day data. Global index moves (Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore) are computed directly from FMP end-of-day closes. UST yields are the FMP treasury-rates series as of Tuesday 14 July. Credit spreads are FRED ICE BofA OAS as of the Monday 13 July close (one-business-day publication lag). Commodity figures are Tuesday 14 July settlements; crypto levels reflect the run-time snapshot on Wednesday morning Singapore time. The soft June CPI (headline 3.5%, core 2.6%), the equity rebound, strong bank earnings led by JPMorgan, IBM’s record one-day fall and President Trump’s Strait of Hormuz measures via WSJ, CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters and Barron’s; the oil reaction via WSJ and Bloomberg. The Bitcoin–Nasdaq correlation is the historical daily-return pattern (tightest to the Nasdaq at about 0.5, loosest to the Dow at about 0.4). US calendar times Eastern; overseas releases in local timing. Not investment advice; for informational use only.