Overnight, while the US slept

Records on Wall Street, and the inflation scare quietly died. The S&P 500 closed at a record 7,781.59, up 0.43%, after touching 7,816.70 intraday. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.58% to 26,741.66 on a semiconductor surge — Sandisk +16%, Micron +6.7%, Meta +2.8%, Netflix +3.7% after Pershing Square disclosed a stake. The Dow was the odd one out, down 0.18% to 53,674.13, and that was almost entirely Cisco, which fell ~9% and dragged roughly 64 points off a price-weighted index. Breadth was genuinely good: advancers beat decliners about 1.8-to-1, and the Russell 2000 pushed above 3,060 to its own record. This was not four stocks carrying a market.

Rates & DXY: July producer prices came in unchanged on the month against a +0.2% consensus, with final-demand goods −0.7% and gasoline −5.7%. Coming one day after a cool CPI, that was the second shot in the same direction. Treasury yields eased on the print — the 10-year sits around 4.68% with the 2-year near 4.20%, leaving the 2s10s curve (the gap between two-year and ten-year yields) at roughly 48 basis points. Note the shape: the curve is holding a modest positive slope rather than steepening aggressively, which tells you the market is pricing patience, not panic. Futures now put roughly a 63% probability on the Fed simply holding in September. The dollar index (DXY — the greenback against a basket of major currencies) is parked near 100 and, tellingly, did not weaken on any of it.

The real story — oil finally cracked. Brent snapped a six-session, 12% advance and fell more than 2% to settle around $87.07, with WTI near $81.25, as talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz advanced. Pakistan's defence minister said Washington and Tehran are "close to some sort of arrangement," and Iran–Oman talks are reported to be at an advanced stage. This matters more than the PPI number. Gold's whole run was built on a supply-side shock — an inflation impulse caused by something breaking on the supply side, in this case a closed shipping lane — that the Fed could not answer with rate hikes without crushing growth. Inflation with no offsetting rise in real rates (interest rates after subtracting inflation) is the single most bullish combination gold ever gets. But that chain runs backwards just as fast. Take the oil away and the inflation expectation goes with it, nominal yields fall by less than breakevens do, real rates drift up, and gold has nothing left to hold onto. That is exactly what happened last night.

Gold: trading 4351.11/4351.31. Day range 4343.71–4449.84; prior-day high/low 4441.38 / 4362.59. Read that sequence carefully — gold made a new high above the prior day's high and then closed below the prior day's low. That is a bearish outside-day reversal, and it is the single most useful piece of information on this page. Gold was up nearly 10% month-on-month going into the print, so there was a lot of profit sitting there waiting for an excuse. RSI (a 0–100 momentum gauge; under 30 is oversold, over 70 overbought) is 39.9 on the 15-minute — weak, but with room left to fall.

Crypto: Bitcoin 63,392 (RSI M15 52.5, ATR $99.59); day 63,286.55–63,404.05, prior-day high/low 63,932.85 / 62,746.75. The indifference is the story. Two dovish inflation prints, an S&P record and a Russell record, and bitcoin is flat — plus US spot bitcoin ETFs bled $144.6m on Thursday after $61.16m on Wednesday. Ether 1,886.80 (RSI M15 55.8, ATR $3.86); day 1,882.78–1,885.93, prior-day high/low 1,896.88 / 1,859.83. Ether ETFs took a small $7.38m inflow, all of it into BlackRock's ETHA. Ether spiked to 1,919.88 on the CPI and gave it all back — same tell, different coin.

Key FX:

• EURUSD 1.15297 — RSI 49.4 (neutral), ATR 2.3 pips. Day H/L 1.15298 / 1.15253, prior-day H/L 1.15454 / 1.15118. Rejected three times at 1.1544–1.1545. Handed two soft US prints and couldn't take a point out of the dollar.
• GBPUSD 1.34890 — RSI 51.1, ATR 3.8 pips. Prior-day H/L 1.35131 / 1.34744. Mid-range and directionless; nothing to trade.
• USDJPY 159.482 — RSI 51.8 (neutral), ATR 3.6 pips. Prior-day H/L 159.567 / 159.024. Grinding back to the highs, but 160 remains the line where Japan's Ministry of Finance has historically stepped in to defend the yen, and falling oil takes some of the pressure off Japan's import bill.
• AUDUSD 0.70583 — RSI 49.8, ATR 2.6 pips. Prior-day H/L 0.70674 / 0.70439. A 23.5-pip daily range is not a market, it's a holding pattern.
• NZDUSD 0.58503 — RSI 51.9, ATR 2.2 pips. Prior-day H/L 0.58635 / 0.58215. Sitting mid-range with a 17-point spread.
• USDCHF 0.81390 — RSI 52.8, ATR 4.0 pips. Prior-day H/L 0.81471 / 0.81125. The franc is quietly firm despite the risk-on session, which I find mildly interesting and not yet tradeable.

Cross-asset snapshot:

Asset	Now	vs Prior Close	Vector
S&P 500	7,781.59	+0.43% (record close)	Risk-on
US 10Y	~4.68%	Falling on PPI	Dovish
DXY	~100	Firm, refused to fall	USD strength
Gold	4,351.11	−$11.48 vs prior-day low 4362.59	Bearish — supply shock deflating
Bitcoin	63,392	−$540 vs prior-day high 63,932.85	Weak — flat into an equity record
Brent	~$87.07	−2%+, six-day run snapped	Hormuz deal hopes

Normal Friday session ahead — no holiday, but expect the usual pre-weekend position-squaring into the US close, and remember the Middle East headline risk runs all weekend with markets shut.

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