|
U.S. Stock, Fixed Income & Cross-Asset Closing Daily
Friday, August 7, 2026 — Full Market Close Report | Data as of: ~6:15 PM ET (Fed-probability cards timestamped Aug 07, 2026 05:45 PM EDT)
Prepared for Institutional Investors. Not Personalized Investment Advice; Verify Independently before Acting. · Full sourcing, vendor reconciliations and the Overnight/Asia read-through are in the companion file US_CrossAsset_Daily_2026-08-07_DataNotes.txt
|
1 · Executive Dashboard |
| Index | Close | Chg | %Chg | Note |
|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,757.64 | +47.68 | +0.62% | A record closing high (CNBC, WSJ). Range 7,719.19–7,763.08; closed 0.07% off the high |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,690.62 | +342.27 | +1.30% | Range 26,478.01–26,712.62. Best of the majors |
| Dow Jones Industrials | 54,036.93 | +151.83 | +0.28% | Range 53,807.94–54,094.65. The laggard: Caterpillar −1.72% alone removed $14.74 of index price |
| Nasdaq 100 | 29,722.30 | +348.97 | +1.19% | Range 29,452.71–29,747.15; 3.38% below the 30,762.20 record |
| Russell 2000 | 3,033.18 | +31.63 | +1.05% | Small caps beat the S&P for the first time this week — the cleanest lower-front-end expression |
| VIX | 14.90 | −0.25 | −1.65% | Range 14.77–15.36. A fourth straight decline and the lowest close of the fortnight |
| PHLX Semiconductor (SOX) | 12,356.8 | +308.1 | +2.56% | Range 12,082.6–12,425.7. +9.24% on the week; SOXX +7%+ (CNBC) |
| UST 10Y (official par) | 4.65% | −4 bp | — | WSJ real-time 4.651%; Bloomberg board 4.65%, −3 bp |
| UST 2Y (official par) | 4.19% | −6 bp | — | The front end led, by 4 bp over the 30-year (§6, §8) |
| UST 30Y (official par) | 5.19% | −3 bp | — | 20Y −2 bp to 5.20%; WSJ 30Y 5.203% |
| UST 3M (official par) | 3.87% | −3 bp | — | Still +4 bp on the week against −10 bp in the 10-year (§6, §9) |
| WTI front month (Sep, settle) | $78.18 | +1.15% | — | CNBC settlement. −7%+ on the week |
| Brent front month (Oct, settle) | $83.55 | +1.29% | — | CNBC settlement. −7%+ on the week |
| Gold (spot) | ~$4,343.4 | +2.44% | — | +7.43% on the week — best since January. Comex Dec traded $4,401 |
| Silver (spot) | ~$63.56 | +3.36% | — | +10.31% on the week; Sep futures $63.85, a seven-week high |
| Copper (Sep) | ~$6.571/lb | −1.73% | — | The only major metal to fall on a two-week dollar low |
| DXY | 99.603 | −0.33% | — | TradingEconomics Aug/07 pull; WSJ Dollar Index 95.91 (−0.33%) |
|
| Sources: CNBC market live blog; WSJ Stocks and WSJ Market Data (Bonds & Rates, Currencies); Bloomberg /markets, /markets/rates-bonds and the HYG/LQD quote pages; Investing.com Major Indices, NDX, SOX, Dow-components and U.S.-500-component boards (all stamped 15:59:5x); U.S. Treasury Text View; CME FedWatch (numeric four-column table, data as of 7 Aug 2026 04:57:52 CT) and Investing.com Fed Rate Monitor (Aug 07, 2026 05:45 PM EDT); FRED ICE BofA OAS series, WRESBAL and RRPONTSYD; NY Fed SOFR/EFFR and the August indicator calendar; TradingEconomics commodities and currencies boards; Finviz Groups; Earnings Whispers day pages. |
| The tape in one paragraph: The U.S. economy shed jobs in July and the S&P 500 closed at a record. That is the session, and the bridge between the two halves of the sentence is the September FOMC card. The one “Very high” release of the past twelve hours was the July Employment Situation at 8:30 a.m.: nonfarm payrolls fell 23,000 against a Dow Jones consensus of +83,000, with June revised down to +20,000 from +57,000, the unemployment rate falling to 4.1% against 4.2% expected and the participation rate slipping to 61.4% (BLS via CNBC). There is no “Very high” release in the next twenty-four hours — the U.S. calendar is empty until Tuesday (§7). The market read the print in one direction and only one: CME’s September hold went from 45.0% to 57.0% and the hike from 55.0% to 43.0%; Investing.com’s hold from 44.9% to 56.6% (§8). The whole Treasury curve rallied and the front led it — the 2-year and 3-year −6 bp, the 1-year −5 bp, the 5-year −5 bp, the 10-year −4 bp, the 30-year −3 bp — a textbook bull-steepener, with 2s10s +2 bp to 46 bp and 2s30s +3 bp to 100 bp (§6). Equities took the discount rate and ran: 318 of 495 S&P constituents rose against 174 that fell, with a median move of +0.47% — the mirror image of Thursday’s 209/285 and −0.27%. Leadership was the trade you would draw from a lower front end and a weaker dollar: Basic Materials +2.71% on gold +2.44% and silver +3.36%, Industrials +1.89%, Consumer Cyclical +1.35%, Technology +1.22%, and the Russell 2000 +1.05% ahead of the S&P. Software was the loudest theme — Atlassian +35% and Cloudflare +5% on guidance that “dispelled fears that artificial intelligence would disrupt the industry” (CNBC), with ServiceNow +6.42%, Palantir +10.31%, CrowdStrike +3.37% and Salesforce +3.20% behind them — and Airbnb +17.4% to $178.02 and SpaceX +15.83% to $133.11 supplied the two biggest single-name moves. The SOX rose 2.56% to close the week +9.24%, but the internals matter more: Qualcomm +4.65%, ON Semiconductor +3.61%, NXP +3.42%, Analog Devices +3.34% and Texas Instruments +2.76% led, while Seagate −4.74%, Western Digital −3.81%, AMD −1.20% and Micron −0.44% did not participate at all. A semiconductor index that rallies 2.56% while memory and the merchant GPU challenger close red is not an AI-capex trade; it is a rate trade running through the analog and auto-exposed names. Three things refused to confirm. Energy was the only red sector, −1.09% on the day and −3.66% on the week, even though crude settled higher — Axios reported Iranian approval of a Hormuz reopening deal is expected “soon,” and Chevron −1.42%, Exxon −1.16%, EOG −1.07% and Diamondback −0.85% traded the deal, not the barrel. Copper fell 1.73% on the day the dollar made a two-week low and every other metal rallied. And the VIX fell to 14.90 on the day of the quarter’s largest macro surprise. Against all of it, Goldman’s Jan Hatzius put the underlying run-rate of job growth at “5,000” against “a little over 70,000” a month ago and called the report “weaker” on balance, while CNBC’s own takeaway was that the drop in unemployment “wasn’t nearly as good as it looked” because it came from 1.4 million people leaving the labour force this year. The market bought a record high on a labour market that is disappearing rather than firing — and still prices a 0.0% probability of a 2026 rate cut (§8). |
|
2 · Market Hot Spots (ranked by tradability) |
| 1. The September hike came off the table in a single print, and the strip repriced further out than the front. |
| Payrolls −23k against +83k expected; June revised to +20k from +57k. CME’s September card went 45.0% hold / 55.0% hike → 57.0% / 43.0%, a 12.0-point swing; Investing.com’s went 44.9% → 56.6% (§8). The more important number sits behind it: the June-2027 implied peak fell from 4.12% to 4.06%, the December-2026 contract rallied 4.5 bp to 96.110, and the probability of the funds rate below 3.50% at end-2027 rose from 3.5% to 4.3%. The September contract itself moved only 1.5 bp (96.300 → 96.315). That asymmetry — 1.5 bp producing a 12-point probability swing — is pure day-weighting arithmetic on a meeting that falls on the 16th, and it is why the headline overstates what changed. Forward catalyst: July CPI, Wednesday 8/12 at 8:30 (§7); the contract-level expression sits in §12 idea 2. |
| 2. Precious metals melted up and copper refused to come. |
| Spot gold +2.44% to ~$4,343.4 and +7.43% on the week — the best week since 23 January; spot silver +3.36% to ~$63.56 and +10.31% on the week, the biggest weekly gain since 27 February; September silver futures printed $63.85–$64.96; Comex December gold traded $4,401. Platinum +1.12%, palladium +0.40%. Copper fell 1.73% to ~$6.571/lb. The mechanism is not growth: a 6 bp fall in the 2-year and a dollar at a two-week low directly reprice the carry cost of a non-yielding asset, and gold, silver, platinum and palladium all obey it. Copper does not, because copper is priced off physical availability and Chinese demand. The corroboration is in the equity: Newmont +7.17% against Freeport-McMoRan +2.11%. |
| 3. The AI-disrupts-software trade was unwound in one session. |
| Atlassian +35% on a Q4 beat with above-consensus Q1 guidance; Cloudflare +5%+ on a solid outlook (CNBC). Inside the S&P 500: ServiceNow +6.42% to $124.88, Palantir +10.31% to $172.00, CrowdStrike +3.37%, Salesforce +3.20%, Adobe +1.91%, Synopsys +2.47%, Oracle +2.47%. For three weeks the market marked down application software on the thesis that generative AI compresses seat-based pricing; a single night of guidance that did not confirm it produced a 35% move in the largest offender. The negative tell is worth as much: Akamai −6.76% was the worst S&P 500 performer, with CDW −4.42%, F5 −3.11% and Fiserv −3.20% — infrastructure-and-distribution software did not participate. Forward catalyst: Cisco, 8/12 after the close. |
| 4. The SOX rose 2.56% and the memory complex did not come with it. |
| Leadership: Qualcomm +4.65% to $167.85, ON Semiconductor +3.61%, NXP +3.42%, Analog Devices +3.34%, Texas Instruments +2.76%, KLA +2.50%, NVIDIA +2.27% to $223.96, Applied Materials +2.21%, Lam Research +1.82%. Non-participants: Seagate −4.74%, Western Digital −3.81%, Teradyne −1.45%, AMD −1.20%, Micron −0.44%, Arista −1.92%. Nvidia is +10% on the week on Elon Musk’s statement that SpaceX will build “exclusively on Nvidia.” The diagnostic: analog, auto and equipment names are the most rate-sensitive part of the index and they led; memory is trading its own guidance cycle and has underperformed the SOX on three consecutive sessions. Forward catalyst: Applied Materials, 8/13 after the close. |
| 5. Energy was the only red sector, and it was red on a day crude settled higher. |
| The Finviz Energy group fell 1.09% on the day and 3.66% on the week; WTI settled +1.15% at $78.18 and Brent +1.29% at $83.55, yet the S&P energy sector is down more than 2% on the week with Chevron −5% and EOG −8% over five sessions (CNBC). Friday: Chevron −1.42%, Exxon −1.16%, EOG −1.07%, Diamondback −0.85%, Targa −4.24%. The mechanism is the deal, not the barrel: Axios reported Iranian negotiators awaiting Supreme National Security Council approval of a U.S.–Oman–Iran reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with a mediating diplomat saying “we expect this approval soon.” Equity is discounting a settlement the futures curve has only partly priced, and the gap between them is the trade (§12 idea 3). |
| 6. The two largest single-name moves were both demand-side surprises. |
| Airbnb +17.43% to $178.07, a four-year high, after Q2 EPS of $1.37 on $3.61bn against $1.25 on $3.58bn (LSEG) and raised full-year guidance; CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC AI is “the best thing to have happened to Airbnb,” that 45% of guests interacting with an AI agent never need a human, and that first-time bookers are growing at their fastest pace in four years. SpaceX +15.83% to $133.11 on the expiry of insider lock-ups the market had feared, plus an Argus upgrade to Buy from Hold with a $160 target — 39% upside from Thursday’s close; +19% on the week. A lock-up expiry that produces a 16% rally is a positioning event, not a fundamental one. |
| 7. Korea faded 2.4% intraday and nobody noticed. |
| The Kospi opened +0.89%, printed 6,415.60 — 1.89% above Thursday’s close — and finished at 6,258.77, −0.60%. That is a 2.44% high-to-close fade on the session after a −4.58% day, and it happened before the U.S. payroll. Set it beside the SOX closing +2.56%: for the third consecutive session the U.S. semiconductor complex has declined to follow Korea in either direction. The decoupling is now the base case rather than the anomaly, and it removes Korea as a leading indicator for anyone using it as one. |
| 8. Fed independence came back onto the tape, and the market ignored it. |
| The White House revived its attempt to remove Governor Lisa Cook, giving her until 26 August to respond to mortgage-fraud allegations, about a month after the Supreme Court’s 5–4 June ruling let her stay while she litigates (WSJ, Bloomberg, Axios, Washington Post). Cook’s lawyers: the allegations “are as baseless now as they were a year ago.” On the same day the market priced out a hike, the 30-year fell only 3 bp against the 2-year’s 6 bp, and the dollar fell 0.33%. A genuine institutional-independence shock steepens the long end and weakens the currency more than that. The market is treating this as litigation rather than policy risk — a testable assumption, and 26 August is the date it gets tested (§13). |
3 · Sector Performance — Finviz classification, U.S.-listed (rendered Performance view, post-close) |
| Sector | 1-Day | 1-Week | YTD |
|---|
| Basic Materials | +2.71% | +8.87% | +16.58% |
| Industrials | +1.89% | +5.40% | +16.33% |
| Consumer Cyclical | +1.35% | +2.71% | −0.75% |
| Technology | +1.22% | +6.92% | +24.60% |
| Healthcare | +1.14% | +2.24% | +7.37% |
| Real Estate | +0.55% | −0.26% | +10.99% |
| Utilities | +0.54% | −1.23% | +2.40% |
| Consumer Defensive | +0.10% | +0.02% | +8.34% |
| Financial | −0.16% | +1.17% | +8.44% |
| Communication Services | −0.23% | +1.18% | +0.32% |
| Energy | −1.09% | −3.66% | +28.61% |
|
| Eight green, three red, and a 3.80-point dispersion — nearly double Thursday’s 2.24 points. Basic Materials +2.71% is the largest single-sector move in a fortnight and it is entirely a precious-metals event: Newmont +7.17% to $112.99 was the fourth-best S&P 500 performer, with Freeport-McMoRan +2.11% to $69.62 lagging it by five points on the day copper fell 1.73%. The copper miner underperformed the gold miner by 5.06 points inside the same bucket — the group’s headline is a bullion trade wearing an industrial-metals label. Against that, Dow Inc −3.17% and LyondellBasell −3.01% were among the worst names in the index, so the chemicals half went the other way entirely; +2.71% is a two-sided number and should not be traded as a sector view. Industrials +1.89% and Consumer Cyclical +1.35% are the clean lower-front-end trade, and the Russell 2000’s +1.05% versus the S&P’s +0.62% is the same statement at the index level. |
| Technology +1.22% conceals the widest internal dispersion on the board: ServiceNow +6.42%, Qualcomm +4.65%, Dell +3.68%, ON Semiconductor +3.61%, NXP +3.42%, CrowdStrike +3.37%, Analog Devices +3.34%, Salesforce +3.20% against Akamai −6.76%, Seagate −4.74%, CDW −4.42%, Western Digital −3.81%, Fiserv −3.20%, F5 −3.11%, AMD −1.20% — a 13.2-point spread between the best and worst large-cap technology names on a day the group moved 1.22%. Communication Services −0.23% was red for a third consecutive session and remains the second-worst YTD group at +0.32%, with Alphabet A −0.98% and Alphabet C −0.88% failing to participate in a 1.30% Nasdaq day, News Corp −4.19% and News Corp A −3.98% on post-print marks, and Charter −3.09%. Alphabet declining on the best broad-market day of the week is the most persistent non-participant in this report. Financial −0.16% was the quiet disappointment: a bull-steepening curve is normally the best possible news for bank net interest margin, and the group still finished red, with Allstate −2.95% (post-print) and Visa −2.15% dragging against Goldman Sachs +0.68%. A steeper curve that does not lift financials says the market is pricing lower rates through the loan book, not through the margin. |
| Reconciliation. All eleven groups reconcile against Thursday’s published YTD compounded by Friday’s 1-day move: Basic Materials 1.1351 × 1.0271 = +16.59% vs. 16.58%; Communication Services +0.31% vs. 0.32%; Consumer Cyclical −0.75% vs. −0.75%; Consumer Defensive +8.34% vs. 8.34%; Energy +28.61% vs. 28.61%; Financial +8.52% vs. 8.44%; Healthcare +7.36% vs. 7.37%; Industrials +16.34% vs. 16.33%; Real Estate +10.99% vs. 10.99%; Technology +24.60% vs. 24.60%; Utilities +2.34% vs. 2.40%. Maximum deviation 0.08 pt (Financial); five groups reconcile exactly; median deviation 0.01 pt — the tightest reconciliation in the series to date. Finviz buckets are not official GICS/S&P sector indices; they screen all U.S.-listed names. |
4 · Movers & Single-Name Catalysts |
| Up |
| • Atlassian (TEAM) +35% (not an S&P 500 constituent) — Q4 adjusted EPS and revenue above FactSet consensus and Q1 revenue guidance above expectations, though full-year revenue growth of 13% sits marginally below the 13.4% consensus. The largest single-name move on the U.S. tape and the trigger for the software rerating. |
| • Airbnb (ABNB) +17.4% to $178.02 — Q2 EPS $1.37 on revenue of $3.61bn against $1.25 on $3.58bn (LSEG); full-year revenue and margin guidance raised; a four-year high. |
| • SpaceX (SPCX) +15.83% to $133.11 (not an S&P 500 constituent) — insider lock-up expiry absorbed; Argus upgrade to Buy from Hold, $160 target, 39% upside from Thursday’s close; +19% on the week. |
| • Microchip Technology (MCHP) +13.89% to $84.69 — the second-best S&P 500 performer, reversing Thursday’s −4.41% and more. An analog name that fell on Thursday’s memory purge and rallied 14% on the rate print. |
| • Palantir (PLTR) +10.31% to $172.00 — third-best S&P 500 performer; no company-specific catalyst in the reviewed sources, which makes it a beta-and-duration move. |
| • Moderna (MRNA) +9.86% to $59.17 — reversing Thursday’s −4.28% round trip on the mFlusiva approval. The fade flagged on Thursday was itself faded within 24 hours. |
| • Axon (AXON) +9.29% to $571.01 — recovering roughly two-thirds of Wednesday night’s −14.28% post-earnings break. |
| • Newmont (NEM) +7.17% to $112.99 — gold +2.44%, silver +3.36%; the mechanical expression of the metals trade. |
| • Aptiv +7.02%, HP Inc +6.62%, Uber +6.43% to $75.00, ServiceNow +6.42% to $124.88, Take-Two +6.04% to $246.50 (reported before the open — see §5), Super Micro +5.89%, Skyworks +5.66%, Enphase +5.55%, Corning +5.41%, Ulta Beauty +4.89%, Humana +4.84%, EPAM +4.68% (reversing Thursday’s −15.29%). |
| • Coherent (COHR) +16%, Lumentum (LITE) +6% and Marvell (MRVL) +3% (CNBC midday marks; COHR heading for a 47% weekly advance) — all three on the Reuters report that the administration is drafting a ban on imports of Chinese data-centre components, with Bank of America having named the three as beneficiaries. |
| • Cloudflare (NET) +5%+ (not an S&P 500 constituent) — solid full-year and current-quarter outlook. Twilio (TWLO) +17% pre-market (not an S&P 500 constituent) — adjusted EPS guidance of $1.42–$1.47 on revenue of $1.51–1.52bn against $1.39 and $1.46bn (LSEG), with full-year revenue growth raised to 18–18.5% from 14–15%. |
| • First Solar (FSLR) +2.42% to $250.05 — a 15% U.S. tariff, price floors and minimum import prices on Chinese polysilicon products; the Invesco Solar ETF rose more than 1% and Hanwha Solutions +10% and OCI Holdings +4% in Seoul. |
| • Constellation Energy (CEG) +3.40% to $269.98 — recovering Thursday’s 6.75% high-to-close fade in full. Boeing (BA) +0.96% to $234.42 — on pace for its best week since early April, +7% week to date, on the FAA’s 737 Max 7 approval, cheaper crude and BNP Paribas’s double upgrade to Outperform from Underperform. |
| • Analyst actions elsewhere: Etsy (ETSY) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan, target $100 from $85; Quanta Services (PWR) to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc, target $807; Instacart (CART) to Neutral from Underperform at BNP Paribas, target $56; Roche (RHHBY) to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, target $63 from $46. |
| Down |
| • Akamai (AKAM) −6.76% to $110.54 — the worst S&P 500 performer and a second consecutive decline. A content-delivery and security name falling 6.8% on a +1.30% Nasdaq day is the clearest statement that the software rally was about application software, not infrastructure. |
| • Zoetis (ZTS) −5.99% to $72.64 — giving back Thursday’s +3.87% and more. ResMed (RMD) −5.06% to $211.94 — a second consecutive post-print decline. |
| • Seagate (STX) −4.74% to $812.52 and Western Digital (WDC) −3.81% to $434.30 — the memory and storage complex closed red for a third consecutive session while the SOX rose 2.56%. Western Digital is now down roughly 16% since Wednesday’s close. |
| • CDW −4.42%, Targa Resources −4.24% (post-print), News Corp B −4.19% and News Corp A −3.98%, Monster Beverage −4.06% (post-print), Fiserv −3.20%, Dow Inc −3.17%, F5 −3.11%, Charter −3.09%, LyondellBasell −3.01%, Allstate −2.95% (post-print), TransDigm −2.92%, Teleflex −2.82%, Chipotle −2.73%, Howmet −2.71%. |
| • Visa (V) −2.15% — the second-largest Dow drag at $7.96 of index price. Caterpillar (CAT) −1.72% to $842.23 — the single largest Dow drag at $14.74 of index price, and the reason the Dow’s +0.28% badly understates the session. |
| • Under Armour (UAA) −3%+ (not an S&P 500 constituent) — full-year revenue guidance cut to a mid-single-digit decline from a slight decline, against a FactSet consensus of −0.6% (StreetAccount). Wendy’s (WEN) −2% (not an S&P 500 constituent) — global sales −6%+, U.S. −8.2%, 2026 outlook withdrawn. |
| • HubSpot (HUBS) cut to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital, target trimmed to $215 from $230 — the one negative software call on a day the group rallied. |
| • Chevron −1.42% to $186.55, Exxon −1.16% to $153.04, EOG −1.07% to $134.74, Diamondback −0.85% — see §2 item 5. Vistra (VST) −0.56% to $140.59 — the Texas interconnection name closed red on its own results day while Constellation Energy rose 3.40%. The intra-power-complex pair inverted from Thursday. |
5 · S&P 500 Earnings Calendar — Current & Next Week (S&P 500 components only) |
| Times are ET. Every day page from Monday 8/10 through Friday 8/14 was re-pulled from Earnings Whispers this session (/1 = before open, /2 = after close) and screened against the current S&P 500 constituent list; the 8/3–8/6 rosters are carried from the prior verified pulls with this session’s closing reactions added. Re-verify times and membership against company IR before trading any date. |
| Current week (Aug 3 – Aug 7) |
|
| Mon 8/3 — completed. BMO: Loews (L), Marriott (MAR), Tyson (TSN). AMC: SBA Communications (SBAC), Vertex (VRTX), Diamondback (FANG), Palantir (PLTR), ON Semiconductor (ON), Alexandria Real Estate (ARE), Clorox (CLX), ONEOK (OKE), Williams (WMB). |
| Tue 8/4 — completed. BMO: ADM, Ball (BALL), DuPont (DD), Gartner (IT), Henry Schein (HSIC), Leidos (LDOS), Revvity (RVTY), Waters (WAT), Apollo (APO), Caterpillar (CAT), IDEXX (IDXX), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Merck (MRK), Zebra (ZBRA), Aptiv (APTV), Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Pfizer (PFE), Kimco (KIM), AMETEK (AME), Broadridge (BR), Duke (DUK), McDonald’s (MCD), NRG, Rockwell (ROK), TransDigm (TDG), Cummins (CMI), FIS, PSEG (PEG), Sysco (SYY), W.W. Grainger (GWW), Progressive (PGR), Expeditors (EXPD), Pinnacle West (PNW). AMC: Amgen (AMGN), Booking (BKNG), Gilead (GILD), Wynn (WYNN), Arista (ANET), DaVita (DVA), Devon (DVN), Emerson (EMR), Jacobs (J), Match (MTCH), AMD, Celanese (CE), Healthpeak (DOC), IFF, Mosaic (MOS), Prudential (PRU), Assurant (AIZ). |
| Wed 8/5 — completed. BMO: EOG Resources (EOG), Cencora (COR), CVS Health (CVS), NiSource (NI), Zimmer Biomet (ZBH), Eli Lilly (LLY), Iron Mountain (IRM), Global Payments (GPN), Uber (UBER), CDW, Charles River Labs (CRL), Insulet (PODD), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Phillips 66 (PSX), Honeywell Aerospace (HONA), Walt Disney (DIS). AMC: Western Digital (WDC) — −3.81% Friday, a third consecutive decline, SanDisk (SNDK), AppLovin (APP) — +3.32% Friday, Axon (AXON) — +9.29% Friday, Expedia (EXPE), Block (XYZ), Corpay (CPAY), DoorDash (DASH), eBay (EBAY), Realty Income (O), Solventum (SOLV), McKesson (MCK), Motorola Solutions (MSI), Albemarle (ALB), MetLife (MET), News Corp B (NWS) — −4.19% Friday, Occidental (OXY), Texas Pacific Land (TPL), News Corp A (NWSA) — −3.98% Friday, CF Industries (CF), Host Hotels (HST), Steris (STE), Atmos Energy (ATO), Allstate (ALL) — −2.95% Friday. |
| Thu 8/6 — completed. BMO: Targa Resources (TRGP) 6:00 — −4.24% Friday, Becton Dickinson (BDX) 6:30, Kenvue (KVUE) 6:30, Molson Coors (TAP) 6:30, Viatris (VTRS) 6:55, ConocoPhillips (COP) 7:00, Datadog (DDOG) 7:00, Evergy (EVRG) 7:00, Fiserv (FISV) 7:00 — −3.20% Friday, Howmet (HWM) 7:00 — −2.71% Friday, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) 7:00, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) 7:00, Zoetis (ZTS) 7:00 — −5.99% Friday, Constellation Energy (CEG) 7:05 — +3.40% Friday, Parker-Hannifin (PH) 7:30, Sempra (SRE) 7:55, APA 8:00, Fox Class B (FOX) 8:00, Ralph Lauren (RL) 8:00, Fox Corporation (FOXA) — the reviewed calendar published no clock time; confirm with Fox IR. AMC: Airbnb (ABNB) 4:00 — +17.4% to $178.02 Friday, a four-year high, Akamai (AKAM) 4:00 — −6.76% Friday, the worst S&P 500 performer, The Trade Desk (TTD) 4:00, Aflac (AFL) 4:05, Gen Digital (GEN) 4:05, ResMed (RMD) 4:05 — −5.06% Friday, Monster Beverage (MNST) 4:10 — −4.06% Friday, Republic Services (RSG) 4:10, AIG 4:15, Microchip Technology (MCHP) 4:15 — +13.89% Friday, the second-best S&P 500 performer, Consolidated Edison (ED) 4:30. |
| Fri 8/7 — completed. BMO: Vistra (VST) — listed “Before Open”; the reviewed calendar published no specific time, so confirm with Vistra IR — closed −0.56% at $140.59. Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) 7:00 — +6.04% to $246.50. PPL 7:30 — +2.43% to $35.46. AMC: the reviewed after-close page listed no S&P 500 constituent — unchanged for a seventh consecutive edition. |
| Next week (Aug 10 – Aug 14) — thirteen S&P 500 reporters across four sessions |
|
| Mon 8/10. BMO: Berkshire Hathaway B (BRK.B) 8:00 (new to this pull). AMC: Simon Property Group (SPG) 4:05. |
| Tue 8/11. BMO: Cardinal Health (CAH) 6:45, Amentum (AMTM) 8:00. AMC: Lumentum (LITE) 4:00, Super Micro Computer (SMCI) 4:05. |
| Wed 8/12. BMO: Amcor (AMCR) 6:00, Trimble (TRMB) 6:55. AMC: Cisco (CSCO) 4:05, Coherent (COHR) 4:05. |
| Thu 8/13. BMO: Tapestry (TPR) 6:45. AMC: Applied Materials (AMAT) 4:00. |
| Fri 8/14. Neither page lists an S&P 500 reporter (24 names screened across both). |
| Changes vs. the prior calendar (8/6 report). Addition: Berkshire Hathaway B (BRK.B) 8:00 on 8/10 before open — the only new S&P 500 entry across the five day pages re-pulled, and by market capitalisation much the largest name on the forward calendar; it takes next week’s count from twelve to thirteen. The prior edition’s 8/10 before-open screen found no S&P 500 reporter; Berkshire now appears at the top of that page with a “Company Earnings” confirmation flag, so this is a confirmation upgrade rather than a missed screen. Confirm with Berkshire IR. No removals — every next-week name carried by the prior edition re-appeared with an identical timestamp: SPG, CAH, AMTM, SMCI, LITE, AMCR, TRMB, CSCO, COHR, TPR and AMAT. Membership caveat: the Investing.com U.S.-500 constituent board used as the screening proxy does not carry Lumentum (LITE) or Coherent (COHR); both are retained for continuity and remain the two least certain names — confirm with company IR. Ferguson (FERG), Barrick Mining (B) and H&R Block (HRB) appeared on the reviewed pages and are excluded, consistent with prior editions. No timing bucket is unpublished next week; every name carries a specific clock time. Thirteen S&P 500 reporters over 8/10–8/14 against roughly 130 in the week just ended, and Berkshire Hathaway (8/10 BMO), Cisco (8/12 AMC) and Applied Materials (8/13 AMC) are the three that move an index. |
6 · U.S. Treasury Yields — Official Par Curve (Treasury.gov, 3:30 PM ET) |
| Tenor | 7 Aug | 6 Aug | 1-day chg | 31 Jul | 1-week chg |
|---|
| 1 Mo | 3.79% | 3.80% | −1 bp | 3.78% | +1 bp |
| 1.5 Mo | 3.79% | 3.80% | −1 bp | 3.80% | −1 bp |
| 2 Mo | 3.83% | 3.84% | −1 bp | 3.85% | −2 bp |
| 3 Mo | 3.87% | 3.90% | −3 bp | 3.83% | +4 bp |
| 4 Mo | 3.89% | 3.92% | −3 bp | 3.92% | −3 bp |
| 6 Mo | 3.96% | 3.99% | −3 bp | 3.98% | −2 bp |
| 1 Yr | 4.01% | 4.06% | −5 bp | 4.08% | −7 bp |
| 2 Yr | 4.19% | 4.25% | −6 bp | 4.28% | −9 bp |
| 3 Yr | 4.25% | 4.31% | −6 bp | 4.34% | −9 bp |
| 5 Yr | 4.35% | 4.40% | −5 bp | 4.45% | −10 bp |
| 7 Yr | 4.49% | 4.53% | −4 bp | 4.59% | −10 bp |
| 10 Yr | 4.65% | 4.69% | −4 bp | 4.75% | −10 bp |
| 20 Yr | 5.20% | 5.22% | −2 bp | 5.28% | −8 bp |
| 30 Yr | 5.19% | 5.22% | −3 bp | 5.27% | −8 bp |
|
| Spread | 7 Aug | 6 Aug | 1-day | 31 Jul | 1-week |
|---|
| 2s10s | +46 bp | +44 bp | +2 bp | +47 bp | −1 bp |
| 3M10Y | +78 bp | +79 bp | −1 bp | +92 bp | −14 bp |
| 2s30s | +100 bp | +97 bp | +3 bp | +99 bp | +1 bp |
|
| The shape: a front-led bull-steepener, and the diagnostic is that this was a pure policy-path repricing with the term premium untouched — the exact inverse of Thursday’s bear-flattener, delivered by the same mechanism running the other way. The 2-year and 3-year both fell 6 bp; the 1-year and 5-year 5 bp; the 7-year and 10-year 4 bp; the 30-year 3 bp and the 20-year only 2 bp. Monotonic decay from the front to the long end is what a change in the expected policy path looks like and nothing else does. A term-premium event moves 20s and 30s more than 2s; here the 20-year moved a third as much as the 2-year. A growth scare would have rallied the belly hardest and flattened 2s10s; 2s10s steepened 2 bp and 2s30s steepened 3 bp to a round 100 bp. The market did not decide the economy is breaking. It decided the Federal Reserve will not hike in September, and it decided nothing at all about 2030. |
| Thursday’s move was retraced almost exactly. Thursday: 2Y +7, 3Y +7, 5Y +7, 7Y +6, 10Y +6, 20Y +4, 30Y +5. Friday: 2Y −6, 3Y −6, 5Y −5, 7Y −4, 10Y −4, 20Y −2, 30Y −3. Net over two sessions the entire coupon curve is within ±2 bp of Wednesday’s close. What did not cancel is the week: from the 1-year out the coupon curve is 8–10 bp lower everywhere — 1Y −7, 2Y −9, 3Y −9, 5Y −10, 7Y −10, 10Y −10, 20Y −8, 30Y −8 — while the 3-month bill is +4 bp. |
| That divergence is the most important number in this section and it survived a dovish payroll. 3M10Y has compressed from 92 bp to 78 bp in a week, and every basis point came from the bill end cheapening while the coupon curve rallied. A market pricing genuinely easier policy should rally bills hardest, because bills have the most direct exposure to the next two FOMC meetings. Bills went the other way. The explanation is supply and the absence of a marginal cash buyer — ON RRP take-up at $1.450bn, reserves $150bn off the July peak (§9) — and Bloomberg’s “US Treasury Sparks Debate Over Auction Cutbacks to Temper Yields” is the market’s own acknowledgement that the issuance mix is now a rates variable. The coupon curve is trading the Fed. The bill curve is trading the Treasury’s financing calendar. Watch the second one into the September quarter-end. |
| Real-time versus official par. WSJ’s evening marks: 30-year 5.203% (−2.6 bp), 10-year 4.651% (−3.0 bp), 7-year 4.497%, 5-year 4.356%, 3-year 4.266%, 2-year 4.206% (−5.2 bp), 1-year 4.003%, 6-month 3.921%, 3-month bill 3.801%, 1-month bill 3.686%; Bloomberg’s board shows the U.S. 10-year at 4.65%, −3 bp. Against the official par 10-year of 4.65% that is agreement to a tenth of a basis point, and every tenor agrees on sign and rough magnitude. The one systematic gap is the front bill: WSJ’s 3.801% against the official 3.87% is the discount-basis-versus-coupon-equivalent conversion plus the on-the-run basis, unchanged for four consecutive editions. Global cross-check: Bloomberg has Germany −1 bp, the UK −2 bp, France −2 bp, Italy −2 bp, Spain −2 bp and Switzerland +2 bp against the U.S. 2-year’s −6 bp. Thursday’s selloff was a global bond event; Friday’s rally was not. |
7 · U.S. Macroeconomic Calendar |
| Current week — released |
| Date | Time | Release | Actual | Consensus | Prior | Sensitivity |
|---|
| Mon 8/3 | 10:00 | ISM Manufacturing | 48.9 | 49.2 | 49.0 | Medium |
| Mon 8/3 | 10:00 | Construction Spending | — | — | — | Low |
| Tue 8/4 | 08:30 | Trade Balance (June) | −$73.3bn | — | −$77.7bn | Low |
| Tue 8/4 | 10:00 | JOLTS job openings (June) | 7.36m | 7.6m | 7.54m | High |
| Wed 8/5 | 08:15 | ADP private payrolls (July) | +44,000 | +75,000 | +95,000 | High |
| Wed 8/5 | 10:00 | ISM Services PMI (July) | 54.1 | 54.5 | 54.0 | High |
| Thu 8/6 | 08:30 | Initial jobless claims (w/e 1 Aug) | 199,000 | 204,000 | 198,000 | High |
| Thu 8/6 | 08:30 | Nonfarm productivity (Q2 prelim.) | +1.4% | +0.6% | +0.8% | High |
| Thu 8/6 | 08:30 | Unit labour costs (Q2 prelim.) | +1.3% | +2.1% | — | High |
| Fri 8/7 | 08:30 | Employment Situation (July) — nonfarm payrolls | −23,000 | +83,000 | +20,000 (June, rev. from +57,000) | Very high |
| Fri 8/7 | 08:30 | Unemployment rate (July) | 4.1% | 4.2% | 4.2% | Very high |
| Fri 8/7 | 08:30 | Labour force participation rate (July) | 61.4% | — | 61.5% | Very high |
| Fri 8/7 | 11:00 | NY Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations (July) | 1-yr 3.6%; 3-yr 3.3%; 5-yr 3.0% | — | 1-yr 3.7%; 3-yr 3.3%; 5-yr 3.0% | Medium |
| Fri 8/7 | 12:45 | NY Fed Staff Nowcast | — | — | — | Low |
|
| Take on the payroll — the number is weak, the composition is weaker, and the two facts point in opposite directions for policy. Payrolls fell 23,000 against a +83,000 consensus, and June was revised down 37,000 to +20,000, so the two-month information content is a 143,000 shortfall against expectation. That is the largest downside labour surprise of the year. What is ambiguous is the household survey: the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% because participation fell to 61.4% — nearly 1.4 million people have left the labour force this year. An unemployment rate that falls because the denominator shrinks is not a tight labour market; it is a shrinking one — but it is also, mechanically, not a rate that generates the committee pressure a rising unemployment rate would. Former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher on CNBC: “the labor situation is better than I expected than many people expected. We’re actually holding up fairly well,” adding that “the committee is leaning in a hawkish direction, either for September or the meeting after that,” while saying he is not in favour of raising rates. Hatzius’s read is the opposite and more quantitative: underlying job growth has gone from ~70,000 to ~5,000 in a month. Both can be true, and the reconciliation is that hiring has stopped while firing has not started. The policy consequence is narrower than a 12-point repricing implies: a Fed that was considering a hike because the economy could tolerate one now has less evidence that it can, and no new evidence at all that it should cut. |
| Take on the consumer expectations survey. Thursday’s edition flagged it because St. Louis Fed President Musalem had warned conditions were “fertile” for inflation expectations to unanchor. They did not: the 1-year median fell 0.1 pt to 3.6%, the 3-year held at 3.3% and the 5-year at 3.0%. A small number that removes a large tail, and the reason the front end could rally 6 bp without the long end following. |
| Current week — remaining |
| None. The U.S. data calendar for the week ended with the 12:45 p.m. NY Fed Staff Nowcast. |
| Next week |
| Date | Time | Release | Sensitivity |
|---|
| Mon 8/10 | — | No scheduled U.S. release on the NY Fed indicator calendar | — |
| Tue 8/11 | 10:00 | NAR Existing Home Sales | Low — but live with the 30-year fixed at 6.76% |
| Tue 8/11 | 11:00 | NY Fed Consumer Credit Panel | Medium |
| Wed 8/12 | 08:30 | Consumer Price Index (July) | Very high |
| Thu 8/13 | 08:30 | Initial claims | High |
| Thu 8/13 | 08:30 | Producer Price Index (July) | High |
| Fri 8/14 | 08:30 | Advance Retail Sales (July) | High |
| Fri 8/14 | 10:00 | Business Inventories | Low |
| Fri 8/14 | 10:00 | Michigan Consumer Survey (preliminary) | Medium |
| Fri 8/14 | 10:00 | Survey of Professional Forecasters | Low |
| Fri 8/14 | 12:45 | NY Fed Staff Nowcast | Low |
|
Look-ahead framing — the asymmetry has inverted and it is the most one-sided it has been all quarter. For four sessions this report argued the market was under-positioned for a weak payroll. It got one, and it repriced 12 points of September probability in a morning. The consequence is that the cheap side of the trade is gone and the expensive side is now the interesting one. With the September hold at 57.0% and the hike at 43.0%, a hot July CPI does not have to be dramatic to hurt: reversing Friday’s entire move requires roughly 1.5 bp of contract price, because the day-weighting on a 16 September meeting means each basis point of ZQU6 is worth about eight points of headline probability. Conversely, a soft CPI buys far less than Friday’s payroll did, because the distribution already leans that way and because there is a floor: the probability of a 2026 cut is 0.0% and has been for fifteen consecutive sessions. Weak data can remove a hike. It cannot, on current pricing, buy a cut. That is the asymmetry, and it is why the front end has more room to sell off than to rally from here.
The named macro hooks, in order of when they can move the Fed card. (i) Wednesday 8/12, 8:30 — July CPI, now the only release before 16 September able to move the card by more than 10 points alone, and the direct test of tariff and energy pass-through; Brent is 7% lower on the week, which removes the energy contribution and puts the burden on core goods. (ii) Thursday 8/13, 8:30 — July PPI, which arbitrates the tariff pass-through one layer upstream. (iii) Thursday 8/13, 8:30 — initial claims, elevated because Friday described hiring stopping without firing starting, and claims are the series that would show the second half of that sentence changing. (iv) Friday 8/14, 8:30 — advance retail sales, the read on whether a labour force shrinking by 1.4 million has reached consumption. (v) Friday 8/14, 10:00 — Michigan preliminary, the private-sector cross-check on Friday’s NY Fed expectations survey. Against that stands a committee whose hawkish wing was five voices as of Thursday and a September card at 57.0/43.0 — a hold with a live tail rather than a coin flip. And one non-data hook belongs on the same list: the 26 August deadline in the Cook removal letter (§13). |
|
8 · Fed Funds Futures & Rate Path (CME FedWatch / Investing.com Fed Rate Monitor) |
| Current target range: 3.50–3.75% (held 9–3 on 29 July; Hammack, Kashkari and Logan dissented for +25 bp; IORB 3.65%). Chair: Kevin Warsh. Next FOMC: Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:00 PM ET — 40 days away. CME September card read live: contract ZQU6, expiry 30 Sep 2026, mid price 96.3175, prior volume 45,873, prior open interest 235,297, data as of 7 Aug 2026 04:57:52 CT. Investing.com cards stamped Aug 07, 2026 05:45 PM EDT. |
| CME FedWatch headline — September 16, 2026 meeting |
| Target rate (bps) | NOW | 1 DAY (6 Aug 2026) | 1 WEEK (31 Jul 2026) | 1 MONTH (7 Jul 2026) |
|---|
| Ease (below 350) | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 350–375 — hold (current) | 57.0% | 45.0% | 33.0% | 38.1% |
| 375–400 (+25 bp) | 43.0% | 55.0% | 67.0% | 49.1% |
| 400–425 (+50 bp) | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.8% |
| Cumulative hike (≥375) | 43.0% | 55.0% | 67.0% | 61.9% |
|
| Column sums: 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0 — all four columns sum exactly, the first time in this series that none of them rounds off. |
| Provenance of every column. CME published its complete numeric four-column table again, dated 1 DAY = 6 Aug 2026, 1 WEEK = 31 Jul 2026, 1 MONTH = 7 Jul 2026, so all four columns are read directly off CME; none is carried, estimated or reconstructed. Two disclosures follow, and both are corrections. First: CME’s settled 1-DAY column reads 45.0% hold / 55.0% hike, against the 45.4% / 54.6% this report published as NOW on Thursday evening. The prior edition was 0.4 points too dovish on the hold. The cause is the standing caveat and this is the first session in four in which it bit: CME’s historical columns are end-of-day settlement snapshots, and Thursday’s live read was taken at 6:50 p.m. CT, well after the 5:00 p.m. ET boundary. Correcting it in the open is the right treatment; the error changes no Thursday conclusion, but it means tonight’s 12.0-point day-over-day move is measured 45.0 → 57.0. Second: the 1-WEEK reference date has rolled from 30 Jul to 31 Jul, so the 67.0% here is not comparable with the 63.4% the prior edition printed for 30 Jul. |
| Reconciling CME against Investing.com — the gap is 0.4 points and the residual has flipped back. CME puts the September hold at 57.0% and the +25 bp at 43.0%; Investing.com puts them at 56.6% and 43.4%. CME’s mid price is 96.3175 and Investing.com’s future price 96.315 — 0.25 bp of contract price, with CME quoting the higher (more dovish) price for the first time in three sessions. The sensitivity is unusually large and worth stating precisely: the September meeting falls on the 16th, so a 25 bp hike raises the September monthly average by only 25 × 15/30 = 12.5 bp, which makes one basis point of ZQU6 worth about 8.0 points of headline probability. On that calibration CME’s higher price should put its hold roughly 2.0 points above Investing.com’s; it prints 0.4 above, so the methodology residual is ~1.6 points running in CME’s favour — the mirror of Thursday’s ~1.25-point residual. Independent validation: with EFFR fixing at 3.63% and an implied contract rate of 3.6825%, (3.6825 − 3.63) ÷ 0.125 gives 42.0% against CME’s published 43.0%, a 1.0-point residual from CME’s day-count and its anchoring on realised effective rates. The two snapshots are roughly six hours apart (CME 04:57 CT, Investing.com 5:45 p.m. EDT), a wider gap than usual and stated so the reader can weight it. Use one vendor’s columns consistently within any comparison; do not mix them. |
| (1) 2026 meeting distributions (probability by target range, %; Investing.com current / [prev-day] / [prev-week]) |
| Meeting | 3.50–3.75 (hold) | 3.75–4.00 (+25) | 4.00–4.25 (+50) | 4.25–4.50 (+75) | Cumulative hike |
|---|
| Sep 16, 2026 | 56.6 / [44.9] / [34.1] | 43.4 / [55.1] / [65.9] | 0.0 / [0.0] / [0.0] | 0.0 / [0.0] / [0.0] | 43.4 / [55.1] / [65.9] |
| Oct 28, 2026 | 41.0 / [31.5] / [23.2] | 47.1 / [52.1] / [55.7] | 12.0 / [16.5] / [21.2] | 0.0 / [0.0] / [0.0] | 59.1 / [68.6] / [76.9] |
| Dec 9, 2026 | 23.2 / [15.9] / [12.6] | 44.4 / [41.9] / [40.8] | 27.2 / [34.0] / [37.0] | 5.2 / [8.1] / [9.7] | 76.8 / [84.0] / [87.5] |
|
| Row sums: September 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0; October 100.1 / 100.1 / 100.1; December 100.0 / 99.9 / 100.1 — four of the nine columns sum exactly; all three October columns round one-tenth heavy, a stable vendor artefact. No easing is priced at any 2026 meeting in any column — 0.0% below 3.50% throughout, for the fifteenth consecutive session. Contract prices: Sep 96.315, Oct 96.250, Dec 96.110 (implied 3.685%, 3.750%, 3.890%), against 96.300 / 96.220 / 96.065 on Thursday. |
| Multi-day momentum — the dovish repricing was larger the further out you looked, which is the exact mirror of Thursday. On CME’s cumulative basis the September hike arc reads 61.9% a month ago (7 Jul) → 67.0% a week ago (31 Jul) → 55.0% a day ago → 43.0% now: down 12.0 points on the day, 24.0 on the week, 18.9 on the month. On Investing.com’s basis the cumulative hike fell 11.7 points at September, 9.5 at October and 7.2 at December — but the contract prices tell the opposite story: September +1.5 bp, October +3.0 bp, December +4.5 bp. Those facts are not in conflict; they are the day-weighting effect made visible. The September card is hypersensitive because only half its contract month sits after the meeting; December’s is not. In price terms — which is what a rates book actually owns — the market bought three times as much easing at December as at September. The week-over-week arc completes it: since 31 July the September hike is down 24 points, October’s cumulative 17.8 points and December’s 10.7 points, while the June-2027 implied peak is down 6 bp from Thursday and roughly flat on the week at 4.06%. Read together, the market has not moved the terminal rate this week; it has moved the date at which the Fed gets there, pushing it from autumn 2026 into 2027. |
| (2) 2027 meeting path (modal range, probability, cumulative above/below current 3.50–3.75%) |
| Meeting | Modal range | Prob. | Cum. above 3.75 | Cum. below 3.50 | Contract price | Implied rate |
|---|
| Jan 27, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 40.9% | 80.7% | 0.0% | 96.075 | 3.93% |
| Mar 17, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 35.5% | 85.6% | 0.0% | 96.010 | 3.99% |
| Apr 28, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 33.6% | 86.8% | 0.0% | 95.975 | 4.03% |
| Jun 9, 2027 | 4.00–4.25 | 33.0% | 87.5% | 0.0% | 95.940 | 4.06% — the peak |
| Jul 28, 2027 | 4.00–4.25 | 32.7% | 86.8% | 0.3% | 95.940 | 4.06% |
| Sep 15, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 32.4% | 84.7% | 1.1% | 95.955 | 4.05% |
| Oct 27, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 32.3% | 82.3% | 2.2% | 95.965 | 4.04% |
| Dec 8, 2027 | 3.75–4.00 | 32.0% | 77.7% | 4.3% | 96.000 | 4.00% |
|
| The terminal rate the strip draws is 4.06%, still reached in June 2027 — down 6 bp on the session but only 6 bp, against a 12-point collapse in the September card. The contract prices show the whole strip richer by a near-uniform amount: Jan 96.025 → 96.075, Mar 95.960 → 96.010, Apr 95.920 → 95.975, Jun 95.880 → 95.940, Jul 95.885 → 95.940, Sep 95.900 → 95.955, Oct 95.910 → 95.965, Dec 95.955 → 96.000 — a parallel rally of 4.5 to 6.0 bp across all eight 2027 meetings. The structural change is the modal range going back the other way: on Thursday 4.00–4.25% was modal at seven of the eight 2027 meetings; tonight it is modal at exactly two — June and July — and 3.75–4.00% has reclaimed the other six. A complete round trip of Thursday’s re-rating, on one data point. The easing tail widened everywhere but remains small: 4.3% below 3.50% by December 2027 against 3.5% on Thursday, 2.2% by October 2027, 1.1% by September 2027, and still 0.0% at every meeting through June 2027. Cumulative tightening probability peaks at 87.5% in June 2027 against 91.7% on Thursday. A payroll that contracted for the first time this cycle moved the probability of a lower funds rate at end-2027 by 0.8 percentage points. That is the most striking single fact in this section. |
| (3) Year-end probability ladders |
| Year-end 2026 (Dec 9, 2026 meeting — Investing.com, current / [prev-day] / [prev-week]) |
| Outcome | Range | Probability |
|---|
| −75 bp or more | ≤3.00% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| −50 bp | 3.00–3.25% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| −25 bp | 3.25–3.50% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| Hold | 3.50–3.75% | 23.2% / [15.9] / [12.6] |
| +25 bp | 3.75–4.00% | 44.4% / [41.9] / [40.8] |
| +50 bp | 4.00–4.25% | 27.2% / [34.0] / [37.0] |
| +75 bp | 4.25–4.50% | 5.2% / [8.1] / [9.7] |
| +100 bp | 4.50–4.75% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| +125 bp or more | ≥4.75% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
|
| Year-end 2027 (Dec 8, 2027 meeting — Investing.com, current / [prev-day] / [prev-week]) |
| Outcome | Range | Probability |
|---|
| −100 bp or more | ≤2.75% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| −75 bp | 2.75–3.00% | 0.0% / [0.0] / [0.0] |
| −50 bp | 3.00–3.25% | 0.4% / [0.4] / [0.2] |
| −25 bp | 3.25–3.50% | 3.9% / [3.4] / [2.3] |
| Hold | 3.50–3.75% | 17.8% / [14.6] / [11.0] |
| +25 bp | 3.75–4.00% | 32.0% / [29.2] / [25.9] |
| +50 bp | 4.00–4.25% | 28.3% / [30.0] / [31.3] |
| +75 bp | 4.25–4.50% | 13.4% / [16.6] / [20.4] |
| +100 bp | 4.50–4.75% | 3.5% / [5.0] / [7.3] |
| +125 bp | 4.75–5.00% | 0.5% / [0.8] / [1.4] |
| +150 bp or more | ≥5.00% | 0.0% / [0.1] / [0.1] |
|
| Ladder sums: 2026 = 100.0 (current), 99.9 (prev-day), 100.1 (prev-week); 2027 = 99.8 (current), 100.1 (prev-day), 99.9 (prev-week) — the December-2026 current column sums exactly; the December-2027 current column rounds two-tenths light, the largest rounding residual on the board tonight and named rather than hidden. Elsewhere on the strip, January, April, July, September and October 2027 sum to 100.1, 100.0, 99.9, 100.0 and 100.0 respectively, and March 2027 to 100.1. Stated explicitly because the ladder invites the question: the probability of any 2026 rate cut is 0.0%, unchanged after the first payroll contraction of the cycle, and the probability of a cumulative 100 bp of tightening by end-2026 is also 0.0%. The modal 2026 outcome remains one hike; the modal 2027 outcome has moved back from two hikes to one. |
9 · Credit & Funding |
| (a) IG and HY credit spreads |
| FRED publishes the ICE BofA OAS series with a one-business-day lag. The table below is as of Thursday 6 August 2026 — it is not a same-day mark. Same-day direction is cross-checked against the cash market and Bloomberg/WSJ credit coverage beneath the table. |
| Series | Level (6 Aug) | 1-day | 1-week | YTD | Basis |
|---|
| IG — ICE BofA US Corporate OAS (BAMLC0A0CM) | 78 bp | 0 bp | −2 bp | −1 bp | vs. 78 bp on 5 Aug, 80 bp on 30 Jul, 79 bp on 31 Dec 2025 |
| HY — ICE BofA US High Yield OAS (BAMLH0A0HYM2) | 271 bp | −4 bp | −13 bp | −10 bp | vs. 275 bp on 5 Aug, 284 bp on 30 Jul, 281 bp on 31 Dec 2025 |
| CCC & lower OAS (BAMLH0A3HYC) | 1,017 bp | −6 bp | +11 bp | +132 bp | vs. 1,023 bp on 5 Aug, 1,006 bp on 30 Jul, 885 bp on 31 Dec 2025 |
| CDX IG 5y | see retrieval note | — | — | — | — |
| CDX HY 5y | see retrieval note | — | — | — | — |
| HYG (HY cash proxy) | $79.61, +0.21% | — | — | — | 7 Aug close, 23.5m shares; prev. close $79.46; range $79.5650–79.6900 (Bloomberg, 4:00 PM EDT) |
| LQD (IG cash proxy) | $106.55, +0.16% | — | — | — | 7 Aug close, 22.8m shares; prev. close $106.36; range $106.4100–106.7350 (Bloomberg, 4:00 PM EDT) |
|
| CDX retrieval note — the six-step ladder was worked again and the level remains publicly unobtainable. (1) Bloomberg in Chrome: /markets/rates-bonds publishes the Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices (Global Aggregate 500.88, U.S. Aggregate 2,346.62, Asian-Pacific Aggregate 192.48, Pan-Euro Aggregate 227.75, EM USD Aggregate 1,407.56) and the sovereign 10-year grid, but no CDX quote; the Friday Markets Wrap carried no credit-index level. (2) WSJ Market Data Bonds & Rates: Treasurys, money rates, consumer rates and a ten-country sovereign grid, no CDX. (3) ICE / S&P Global index pages: the CDX North America family and Markit CDX.NA.IG product pages are public but levels sit behind entitlement. (4) FT Markets Data / Reuters credit wraps: no CDX level in the reviewed material for 7 August. (5) cbonds / TradingView symbol search: CDX.NA.IG 5Y and CDX.NA.HY 5Y carried but masked. (6) Cash-market proxy, labelled as such: HYG +0.21% and LQD +0.16%. Tonight the proxy read is the informative part: on a session in which the 2-year fell 6 bp and the 10-year 4 bp, LQD rose only 0.16% — far less than its index duration implies — while HYG, with half the duration, rose more. HYG outperforming LQD on a bull-steepening day is a credit signal, not a rates one: the market bought spread, not duration. Quoting convention: CDX IG 5y is quoted in basis points of spread and CDX HY 5y in price points, where a rising price means tightening credit spreads. |
| The direction cross-check. The IG credit spread at 78 bp is 1 bp inside where it started the year and 2 bp tighter on the week; the HY credit spread at 271 bp is 10 bp inside its 31 December level and 13 bp tighter on the week, having tightened 4 bp on 6 August itself — the largest single-day HY tightening in a fortnight, and it happened on a day the S&P fell. Both series are now at or through their tightest levels of the year. The series not participating is the low-quality tail: the CCC credit spread at 1,017 bp is 11 bp wider on the week and 132 bp wider year-to-date. The CCC-minus-HY differential is 746 bp against 604 bp at the start of the year, and it narrowed 2 bp on 6 August as CCC tightened 6 bp against HY’s 4 bp — the first session in over a week in which the tail outperformed, and one datapoint is not a turn. On the U.S. Aggregate, Bloomberg’s index rose 4.40 points to 2,346.62 (+0.19%), recovering roughly two-thirds of Thursday’s 0.30% decline. |
| (b) Money-market and funding plumbing |
| NY Fed publishes reference rates at ~8:00 a.m. ET for the prior business day; SOFR and EFFR below are as of Thursday 6 August 2026. ON RRP is same-day (7 August). |
| Metric | Latest (6 Aug) | Prior (5 Aug) | Note |
|---|
| SOFR | 3.65% | 3.64% | +1 bp |
| SOFR volume | $3,055bn | $2,989bn | +$66bn — back above $3tn |
| SOFR 1st percentile | 3.61% | 3.60% | +1 bp |
| SOFR 25th / 75th percentile | 3.63% / 3.70% | 3.63% / 3.70% | Both unchanged — the distribution did not widen |
| SOFR 99th percentile | 3.73% | 3.73% | Unchanged |
| EFFR | 3.63% | 3.63% | Unchanged for a tenth consecutive session |
| EFFR volume | $113bn | $114bn | −$1bn |
| IORB | 3.65% | 3.65% | — |
| SOFR − IORB | 0 bp | −1 bp | Secured funding back exactly at the administered floor |
| SOFR − EFFR | +2 bp | +1 bp | The secured-unsecured gap widened 1 bp |
| ON RRP take-up (RRPONTSYD) | $1.450bn (7 Aug) | $1.429bn (6 Aug) | Off Thursday’s series low by $21m — still effectively empty |
| Reserve balances (WRESBAL, week avg) | $2.993tn (w/e 5 Aug) | $2.985tn (w/e 29 Jul) | +$8bn; no new weekly print. Still −$150bn from the $3.143tn peak |
| Standing Repo Facility | No usage reported | — | — |
| Fed funds target range | 3.50–3.75% | 3.50–3.75% | WSJ Money Rates confirms; unchanged all year |
| WSJ prime rate | 6.75% | 6.75% | — |
| 30-year fixed mortgage (WSJ) | 6.76% | 6.74% w/w | +2 bp w/w; 1 bp below the 52-week high. Jumbo 6.80% (from 6.87%); 15-year 6.18%, a fresh 52-week high; 5/1 ARM 6.11% vs 6.09% |
|
| The plumbing tightened one basis point while the policy curve rallied nine, and the shape of the tightening is the tell. SOFR rose 1 bp to 3.65% and the 1st percentile 1 bp, while the 25th, 75th and 99th percentiles were all unchanged. A mean that moves without the distribution widening is a volume effect, not a stress effect — and volume rose $66bn to $3,055bn, its joint-highest print of the month. SOFR–IORB is back at exactly zero from −1 bp, a third flip in four sessions, confirming secured funding is oscillating around the floor rather than trending away from it. None of this is stress. What has not changed is the structural set-up: ON RRP at $1.450bn — effectively empty for a third consecutive session — reserves at $2.993tn and $150bn off the July peak, and the 3-month bill +4 bp on the week while the coupon curve is 8–10 bp lower (§6). Overnight funding is comfortable, and term bill supply is still not being absorbed. A dovish payroll changed the second condition not at all. At the household end, the 30-year fixed at 6.76% and the 15-year at 6.18% remain within a basis point of 52-week highs even after a 10 bp weekly rally in the 10-year — the mortgage spread is absorbing the entire move, which directly constrains any housing-led transmission of Friday’s repricing. |
| (c) Rates volatility and swap spreads |
| Metric | Level | Change | Vintage |
|---|
| MOVE index | 76.12 | +3.45% (from 73.58); −1.26% week; +15.75% month; −9.26% year | Investing.com delayed series, stamped 06/08 — the 6 August print carried forward; no 7 August value had published at the time of this pull |
| VIX | 14.90 | −1.65% (range 14.77–15.36, stamped 16:14:46) | 7 Aug 2026 close |
| MOVE / VIX | 5.11× | vs. 5.02× on Thursday | Pairs a 6 August MOVE with a 7 August VIX — flagged, directional only |
| 2y / 10y / 30y swap spreads | No reliable data available at this time | — | Neither Bloomberg’s public rates page, WSJ Market Data nor the reviewed vendor boards published a swap-spread series for 7 August |
|
| The honest statement tonight is that the rates-vol reading is one day stale and the equity-vol reading is not, so the ratio is directional only. What can be said without a fresh MOVE print: the VIX fell for a fourth consecutive session to 14.90, its lowest close of the fortnight, on the day of the largest macro surprise of the quarter. Equity volatility declined on a 106,000 payroll miss. That is either a market that correctly identified the print as removing a risk rather than adding one, or complacency; the discriminating evidence is that the 10-year moved only 4 bp and the 30-year 3 bp, so realised rate volatility was modest and a 7 August MOVE print is unlikely to have spiked. The uncomfortable part is positional: the VIX has now been sold on four consecutive sessions spanning a record high, a record low in ON RRP, a payroll contraction and a revived attempt to remove a Fed governor. Investing.com’s MOVE card again publishes an internally inconsistent “Prev. Close” of 95.74 against an intraday range of 73.58–76.12; that field is withheld. |
| (d) Issuance, leveraged loans and private credit |
| • The most important credit headline of the session was about supply, not spread. Bloomberg: “US Treasury Sparks Debate Over Auction Cutbacks to Temper Yields.” A debate about cutting coupon auction sizes to manage the long end is, mechanically, a debate about pushing more of the deficit into bills — precisely the market that has cheapened 4 bp this week while the coupon curve rallied 10 (§6). If the mix shifts further toward bills, the 3M10Y compression gets worse independently of anything the FOMC does. |
| • Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Risk Complex Surges Anew Amid Deluge of Fresh Cash” is the demand-side counterpart: a very large pool of cash chasing risk assets into tight credit spreads. HY at 271 bp and IG at 78 bp are the price of that cash. |
| • The first identifiable structured-credit impairment of the month appeared on Friday: Bloomberg’s “Once-AAA Bonds on New York Megamall Face $350 Million Loss.” A AAA-rated CMBS tranche taking a $350m loss is a rating-migration event rather than an index event, and it belongs on the watch list precisely because it is invisible in the OAS series above. |
| • IG primary remains on pace to challenge all-time monthly issuance records, with gross IG supply projected above $2tn for 2026 against $1.7tn in 2025; six of the largest hyperscalers have issued more than $150bn of publicly traded debt in 2026. The forward calendar carried no new mega-deal announcement in the reviewed Friday material. |
| • The offshore Japanese bid is the leg to watch, and it moved this week. CNBC’s “Yen rally fades a week after U.S.-Japan intervention” and Bloomberg’s “Hedge Funds Slashed Yen Short Bets After US-Japan Joint Efforts” describe a market that has stopped being short the yen without the yen strengthening. The Japanese insurer and BBB-issuance bid is a meaningful source of the marginal demand holding U.S. IG credit spreads at 78 bp, and it is levered to the yen’s level. USD/JPY at 157.65, against 155 immediately after the 31 July intervention and 163 before it, is the number that matters (§10). |
| • Named private-credit and single-name watch items. Bloomberg’s “Why Private Credit Got Entangled With Insurance” remains directly relevant to the migration argument. “Trump Refunds to Cancel Offshore Wind Projects Total $4 Billion” is a live project-finance impairment. UWM Holdings’ dividend suspension and capital raise after a $452m quarterly loss remains unresolved by lower Treasury yields, because the 30-year fixed is still 6.76%. |
| • Morningstar LSTA leveraged loan index: No reliable data available at this time — not published in any reviewed source for 7 August. Bank CDS falls under the CDX retrieval gap; the Finviz Financial group at −0.16% on a bull-steepening day is the only bank-risk proxy available tonight, and it is an equity proxy, not a credit one. |
Take — the credit-spread-versus-equity-vol divergence, and what would break it. Friday resolved the divergence in the most uncomfortable possible direction: everything got cheaper to own. The IG credit spread is 78 bp, 1 bp inside January. The HY credit spread is 271 bp, 10 bp inside December and at its tightest of the year. The VIX is 14.90, the lowest close of the fortnight. The 2-year is 4.19%, 9 bp lower on the week. And the S&P 500 closed at a record. There is now no risk premium anywhere in the observable capital structure that is wider than it was in January, except in the CCC tail — 1,017 bp, 132 bp wider year-to-date.
What that means mechanically. Friday lowered the expected path of the funds rate through 2027 by 4.5–6.0 bp across the entire strip (§8). For an IG issuer that is a rounding error — coupons are fixed and cash earns the front end, so a lower front end is marginally negative. For a CCC issuer refinancing floating-rate debt in 2027 it is a direct reduction in expected interest burden, and the CCC credit spread tightened 6 bp on Thursday’s data even before the payroll. If Friday’s repricing holds, the CCC-minus-HY differential at 746 bp is the series that should compress first and fastest. It has not yet. Watch it, because it is the single number that tells you whether the tail believes the rate move.
What would break it, in order of likelihood. (i) A hot CPI on 8/12. With the September hold at 57.0% and each basis point of ZQU6 worth about eight points of headline probability, the entire Friday repricing can be undone by 1.5 bp of contract price — and a HY market at its tightest credit spread of the year has no cushion. This is the modal risk, not the tail. (ii) Funding and the auction mix. ON RRP effectively empty for a third session, reserves $150bn off the peak, the 3-month bill +4 bp on the week against a 10 bp coupon rally, and the Treasury openly debating auction cutbacks. IG credit spreads at 78 bp price none of it. (iii) The rating-migration channel rather than the spread channel — a once-AAA CMBS tranche facing a $350m loss does not widen an OAS index; it widens the distribution of outcomes inside it. (iv) The offshore bid. A yen that has round-tripped from 163 to 155 to 157.65 in eight days, with hedge funds having cut short positions, is an unstable source of marginal demand for U.S. IG paper. The signal to watch remains the CCC-minus-HY differential at 746 bp against 604 bp in January. |
|
10 · FX — Levels and Moves (TradingEconomics board, U.S. evening; spot) |
| Quote basis. All pairs are spot in the convention shown; a positive %Chg on a USD/XXX pair means the dollar strengthened, and on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD and NZD/USD it means the dollar weakened. Unlike the prior two editions, the TradingEconomics %Chg column IS usable tonight and is reproduced directly: the pull was taken at approximately 22:30 GMT on 7 August, comfortably inside the vendor’s daily boundary, and every row carries an “Aug/07” date stamp. No 24-hour reconstruction was necessary. WSJ’s evening marks are the independent cross-check. |
| Pair | Level | %Chg | WSJ evening cross-check | Note |
|---|
| DXY | 99.603 | −0.33% | WSJ Dollar Index 95.91 (−0.33%) | A two-week low intraday. The two indices agree to the basis point |
| EUR/USD | 1.15590 | +0.30% | 1.16 (Bloomberg board) | The largest single G10 contributor to the dollar’s decline |
| USD/JPY | 157.649 | −0.42% | 157.80 (−0.42%) | The yen strengthened, but only back to where it sat before Friday — still 2.65 yen weaker than the 155 the 31 July intervention bought |
| GBP/USD | 1.34919 | +0.28% | 1.3491 (+0.27%) | Tracked the euro with the 10-year gilt −2 bp |
| USD/CHF | 0.80717 | −0.54% | 0.8081 | Among the strongest G10 currencies — the exact mirror of Thursday, when it was the weakest by a wide margin |
| AUD/USD | 0.70625 | +0.43% | — | Rose on a day copper fell 1.73% — the mirror of Thursday, when it fell on a record copper print |
| NZD/USD | 0.58772 | +0.37% | — | Tracked the Aussie |
| USD/CAD | 1.39300 | −0.52% | 1.3942 | The loonie’s largest move of the week, and the first time in four sessions it moved with crude rather than against it |
| USD/CNY | 6.74200 | −0.06% | — | Barely moved despite the CSI 300 +0.93% and a $112.5bn July trade surplus |
| USD/KRW | 1,407.04 | −1.14% | — | The strongest major Asian currency on the day the Kospi closed −0.60% after a 2.44% intraday fade |
| USD/SGD | 1.27794 | −0.40% | — | — |
| USD/INR | 95.1280 | −0.20% | — | Still the worst major Asian currency of 2026 at +5.85% YTD |
| USD/MXN | 17.1041 | −0.43% | 17.1359 | The peso extended a run that is now −5.08% YTD |
| USD/ZAR | 16.1350 | −1.35% | — | The single largest move on the board — a high-beta commodity currency on a gold and silver melt-up |
|
| The take — one cross confirms the tape, one contradicts the metals, and one quietly reverses a thesis this report has been running for a week. First, the confirmation: the dollar fell against every currency on the board. DXY −0.33% and the WSJ Dollar Index −0.33% agree exactly, and leadership was in the high-beta and commodity crosses — the rand −1.35%, the won −1.14%, the Canadian dollar −0.52%, the franc −0.54%. That is a clean, one-factor session: the market lowered the U.S. front end by 6 bp and sold the dollar against everything, with the size of each move scaling to the currency’s beta rather than to any domestic story. There is no dispersion worth trading inside it. |
| Second, the contradiction: the Australian dollar rose 0.43% on the day copper fell 1.73%. On Thursday this report flagged the opposite pairing — AUD −0.36% on a record copper print — and argued the FX market was treating copper’s rally as a supply story. Friday is the confirming observation from the other side: when copper fell and the dollar fell, the Aussie followed the dollar and ignored the metal. Two sessions, two opposite copper moves, and in both cases the Australian dollar traded the dollar leg rather than the commodity leg. Anyone using AUD as a copper proxy should note it has not been one for at least four sessions. |
| Third, and the one that reverses a thesis: USD/KRW fell 1.14% on a session in which the Kospi closed down 0.60% after fading 2.44% from its intraday high. Thursday’s edition argued that a 4.58% Kospi decline producing only 0.17% of won weakness proved foreign money had not left and domestic leverage was doing the unwinding. Friday tests that directly, and it passes emphatically: the won had its strongest session in weeks on a day Korean equity was weak and Korean market structure was in the news again. A currency that rallies hard while its equity market fades is receiving capital that is not going into equities — consistent with foreign fixed-income inflow, exporter hedging into a weaker dollar, or both, and inconsistent with a foreign exodus. That is a materially more constructive read of Korea than the index prints of the last two sessions imply. A footnote to keep the record straight: the Swiss franc’s +0.54% is a rate trade, not a haven bid — the Swiss 10-year rose 2 bp while every other European 10-year fell, so the franc strengthened despite its own yield differential moving the wrong way, which only a dollar-driven session explains. USD/TWD was again not published on the board at the time of the pull and is omitted rather than carried forward. |
11 · Commodities |
| Contract / Instrument | Level | 1-day | Weekly | Monthly | YTD | Driver |
|---|
| WTI crude (Sep, settle) | $78.18 | +1.15% | −7%+ | +4.84%* | +34.24%* | CNBC settlement. Axios: Iranian approval of a U.S.–Oman reopening deal expected “soon” |
| Brent crude (Oct, settle) | $83.55 | +1.29% | −7%+ | +5.45%* | +35.20%* | CNBC settlement. The week’s 7% decline is the largest since the Hormuz closure |
| Gold (spot) | ~$4,343.4 | +2.44% | +7.43% | +6.58% | +0.55% | Best week since 23 January. Comex Dec traded $4,401; CNBC recorded an intraday high of $4,380.20 |
| Silver (spot) | ~$63.56 | +3.36% | +10.31% | +9.13% | −10.80% | Biggest weekly gain since 27 February. Sep futures $63.85–$64.96 |
| Platinum | ~$1,757.4 | +1.12% | +5.95% | +10.68% | −15.10% | Participated for the first time in three sessions |
| Palladium | ~$1,383.0 | +0.40% | +7.92% | +12.99% | −16.26% | The laggard of the precious complex |
| Copper (Sep) | ~$6.571/lb | −1.73% | +2.10% | +8.53% | +15.65% | The only major metal to fall. Two sessions after an all-time high near $6.90/lb |
| Natural gas (Henry Hub, Sep) | ~$2.671 | +1.17% | −2.77% | −16.84% | −27.54% | Still the worst major commodity of 2026 |
| Gasoline (RBOB, Sep) | ~$2.9610 | +0.77% | −4.92% | −4.59% | +73.07% | Lagged crude — the crack compressed on the day and widened on the week |
| Heating oil (Sep) | ~$3.8820 | 0.00% | −5.21% | +6.14% | +82.98% | Unchanged to the tick on a day crude rose 1.15% |
| EU gas (TTF) | €54.56/MWh | −2.17% | −7.64% | +10.91% | +93.74% | The largest one-day decline on the energy board |
| UK gas | 135.95 GBp/thm | −0.70% | −5.77% | +16.50% | +84.19% | — |
| LNG (JKM) | $21.12/MMBtu | −0.12% | −1.56% | +27.89% | +119.83% | Still the best-performing major commodity of 2026 |
| Iron ore | $94.45/t | −0.87% | −3.62% | −4.46% | −11.84% | Diverged from the precious complex, with copper |
| Aluminium | $3,276.50/t | +0.22% | +2.56% | +4.31% | +9.36% | — |
| Uranium | $86.50/lb | 0.00% | −0.12% | +1.11% | +5.94% | Unmoved for a fifth consecutive session |
|
| * Weekly / monthly / YTD columns are the TradingEconomics board’s own (header order verified programmatically as Price | Chg | %Chg | Weekly | Monthly | YTD | YoY | Date), struck off that vendor’s Aug/07 levels. For crude and Brent the TradingEconomics level is withheld from the Level and 1-day columns entirely: its rolling series printed $77.080 for WTI and $82.270 for Brent, which are $1.10 and $1.28 — 1.4% and 1.5% — below CNBC’s settlements, comfortably beyond this report’s ~1% tolerance. The starred monthly and YTD figures for crude are therefore directional context struck off a level this report does not endorse, and the weekly figures are quoted from CNBC instead. All other rows are TradingEconomics on a consistent Aug/07 basis. Naphtha and coal carried Aug/06 stamps and are omitted rather than quoted as Friday levels. |
| The take — a precious-metals melt-up with one deliberate absentee, and an oil market that stopped trading the barrel. Positioning first, on the metals. Gold +7.43% and silver +10.31% on the week are the largest weekly moves in seven and five months respectively, and the trigger was explicit — CNBC: “silver is tracking gold higher this week after lower oil prices and soft hiring data boosted the prospects for precious metals.” The mechanism is the one §6 describes: a 9 bp weekly fall in the 2-year and a 7% weekly fall in Brent lower both the carry cost and the inflation-hedge case simultaneously, and gold rallied anyway — which makes this a real-rate trade, not an inflation trade. The gold-silver ratio compressed hard (silver outran gold by 0.9 pt on the day and 2.9 pt on the week), and a compressing ratio is the industrial leg of silver participating, which makes copper’s absence more conspicuous, not less. The absentee is the point: copper −1.73% and iron ore −0.87% on the day the dollar made a two-week low and every precious metal rallied. When a weaker dollar lifts bullion and does not lift the industrial complex, the marginal buyer of metal is a rates trader, not a manufacturer — a much less durable bid than the copper narrative of the past fortnight implied. The corroboration is in the equity: Newmont +7.17% against Freeport-McMoRan +2.11%. |
| Second, oil. WTI settled $78.18 (+1.15%) and Brent $83.55 (+1.29%), but both are down more than 7% on the week, and the equity market went the other way from the futures: the energy sector fell 1.09% on a day crude settled higher (§2 item 5). The reconciliation is the Axios report of imminent Iranian approval for the U.S.–Oman reopening deal, plus a U.S. official telling CNBC “any temporary routes will be without any impediments.” Equity is discounting the reopening; futures still carry a residual risk premium. The tradable expression is the crack rather than the flat price: RBOB +0.77% and heating oil exactly unchanged against crude +1.15%, so the 3-2-1 crack compressed on the day after widening on the week — the opposite of Thursday. A distillate market that will not follow a 1.15% crude rally on a Friday afternoon is positioning for a supply release, not a supply disruption. Basis caveats. Crude figures are the September WTI and October Brent contracts at CNBC’s settlement; gold, silver, platinum and palladium are spot; copper is the September COMEX contract. The gold basis is unusually wide and is disclosed rather than smoothed: TradingEconomics spot $4,343.43, Bloomberg’s board $4,399.70 and MINING.com’s Comex December $4,401 — the ~1.3% spot-to-December gap is the carry, not a disagreement, and this report quotes spot. Silver carries the same structure: spot ~$63.56 against September futures $63.85. |
12 · Trading Views |
| Desk-style ideas for institutional investors. Each carries an explicit catalyst and an explicit invalidation. These are not personalized investment advice; verify independently and size to your own mandate before acting. |
| 1. Own application software against infrastructure software. |
| Expression: long a basket of ServiceNow, Salesforce, CrowdStrike and Palantir against short Akamai, CDW, F5 and Fiserv, dollar-neutral. Thesis: Friday produced a 13.2-point spread between the best and worst large-cap technology names on a day the Finviz Technology group moved 1.22% (§3). Atlassian +35% and Cloudflare +5% dispelled, in one night of guidance, a three-week narrative that generative AI compresses seat-based software pricing — and the same session saw Akamai −6.76% as the worst S&P 500 performer. The market is not re-rating “software”; it is separating companies whose seats grow with AI from companies whose volumes are disintermediated by it. Catalyst: Cisco, Wednesday 8/12 after the close (§5). Invalidation: ServiceNow closing back below its 6 August level. Sizing: medium; carry it in cash equity rather than in options that decay across the print. |
| 2. Stay long the back of the fed funds strip against the front — and roll the short leg from October to September. |
Honest mark on the prior edition’s rates idea first. Thursday’s book was long ZQZ7 against short ZQV6, DV01-matched, as a fade of the 2027 terminal re-rating. It worked, modestly and immediately: ZQZ7 rallied from 95.955 to 96.000 (+4.5 bp) and ZQV6 from 96.220 to 96.250 (+3.0 bp), so the DV01-matched spread earned 1.5 bp in a single session. The stated invalidation — July core CPI at or above +0.4% m/m — has not occurred, so the position stands and is in the money.
The modal path and the tails, which is what this trade expresses. Modal path: no hike on 16 September (57.0% hold), one 25 bp hike delivered in 2026 with December carrying the highest cumulative probability at 76.8% against October’s 59.1%, year-end 2026 modal at 3.75–4.00% (44.4%), and a terminal rate of 4.06% around June 2027 with 3.75–4.00% modal at six of the eight 2027 meetings (§8). Base case: the labour market has stopped hiring without starting to fire, which delays the hike rather than cancelling it — precisely what the strip now prices. Upside (hawkish) tail: a July core CPI at or above +0.4% m/m takes the September hike back through 55% on roughly 1.5 bp of ZQU6 price, because each basis point of that contract is worth about eight points of headline probability, and it drags the whole 2027 strip with it. Downside (dovish) tail: claims above 230,000 on 8/13 plus a soft CPI, producing the first non-zero 2026 cut probability of the year — currently 0.0% for the fifteenth consecutive session. The practical implication is that the cut tail is priced at 4.3% for end-2027 and at exactly zero for 2026, and Friday’s payroll contraction moved the end-2027 number by 0.8 of a percentage point. That is too little for a report in which Goldman’s own composite measure of underlying job growth fell from ~70,000 to ~5,000 in a month.
New expression: long ZQZ7 against short ZQU6, DV01-matched one-for-one (both legs are 30-day fed funds futures with a DV01 of $41.67 per basis point per contract). Rationale for the switch: ZQU6 at 96.315 has only about 5.5 bp of remaining upside — the price implied by a certain hold — against roughly 6.2 bp of downside to a certain hike, so it is the most bounded place on the strip to be short into an inflation print, while the long leg keeps the cheap 2027 easing optionality. Catalyst: CPI 8/12; PPI and claims 8/13; retail sales 8/14. Invalidation: July core CPI at or above +0.4% m/m, or a September hold probability above 70% with no new labour data. Sizing: small-to-medium; size on the roughly 6 bp of maximum adverse move in the front leg, not on notional, and note the carry on the spread is slightly negative. |
| 3. Own the Hormuz basis: long integrated energy equity against short crude futures. |
| Expression: long a basket of Exxon, Chevron, EOG and Diamondback against a short in September WTI, sized so the futures leg matches the basket’s crude beta rather than its notional. Thesis: on Friday the energy equity complex fell 1.09% while crude settled 1.15% higher — equity is discounting the Axios-reported Iranian approval of the U.S.–Oman reopening deal and the futures curve is not. Over the week the divergence is larger: the sector is −3.66% and Chevron −5%, against a 7% fall in crude — the equity has already taken most of the pain a reopening would inflict. Catalyst: an Iranian Supreme National Security Council announcement, expected “soon,” which can land over the weekend and gap the Sunday 6:00 p.m. ET reopen. Invalidation: a formal Iranian rejection or a fresh strike in the strait. Sizing: small; this is an event trade with binary weekend headline risk. |
| 4. Long the gold miner against the copper miner. |
| Expression: long Newmont against short Freeport-McMoRan, dollar-neutral. Thesis: Friday delivered a 5.06-point spread between the two inside the same Finviz sector — Newmont +7.17% against Freeport +2.11% — on a day gold rose 2.44% and copper fell 1.73% (§3, §11). Bullion is trading the real rate and copper is trading physical availability, and a 9 bp weekly fall in the 2-year plus a dollar at a two-week low feeds only the first. The confirming cross is in FX: the Australian dollar rose 0.43% on the day copper fell, having fallen 0.36% on the day copper made a record (§10). Catalyst: CPI 8/12, the direct test of the real-rate leg. Invalidation: copper reclaiming $6.90/lb, or a Chinese stimulus announcement that re-rates industrial demand. Sizing: medium. |
| 5. Buy the front of the equity-vol curve into the weekend and through CPI. |
| Expression: long August S&P volatility or long VIX calls, held through 8/12. Thesis: the VIX closed at 14.90, a fourth consecutive decline and the lowest close of the fortnight, on a session containing a record equity high, the first payroll contraction of the cycle and a revived attempt to remove a Federal Reserve governor. It goes into a weekend carrying three genuinely two-sided headline risks — a Hormuz announcement in either direction, the Cook removal process with a 26 August deadline, and Chinese retaliation to Friday’s polysilicon tariffs — and then into a CPI print that §8 shows can undo the entire week’s rate repricing on 1.5 bp of contract price. This is the inverse of the equivalent idea in the prior edition, which sold vol into the payroll and covered before it; that trade’s premise was an event with a known time, and this one’s premise is three events without one. Catalyst: the Sunday 6:00 p.m. ET futures reopen; CPI Wednesday 8:30. Invalidation: a VIX close below 14.00, or a confirmed Hormuz reopening announced before Monday’s open. Sizing: small, and explicitly defined-risk — this is long premium into a market that has punished long premium four sessions running. |
| 6. Keep buying protection on the CCC cohort, funded in IG. |
| Expression: long CCC-exposed credit protection (or short a levered-loan/CCC-heavy vehicle) against long IG cash. Thesis: the CCC credit spread at 1,017 bp is 132 bp wider year-to-date while the IG credit spread is 1 bp tighter and the HY credit spread is 10 bp tighter and at its tightest level of the year; the CCC-minus-HY differential at 746 bp against 604 bp in January is the only series that has tracked the funding cycle all year (§9). The one honest caveat, and it is new: CCC tightened 6 bp on 6 August against HY’s 4 bp — the first session in over a week in which the tail outperformed. One datapoint is not a turn, but it is the datapoint that would start one, so this idea is carried at unchanged rather than increased size. Catalyst: CPI 8/12; the September quarter-end funding test. Invalidation: the CCC-minus-HY differential compressing back through 700 bp. Sizing: medium; the report’s highest-conviction structural view and the one with the longest horizon. |
| Volatility note. VIX 14.90 (−1.65%), range 14.77–15.36, a fourth consecutive decline and the lowest close of the fortnight; MOVE 76.12 but stamped 6 August and therefore one session stale; the 5.11× ratio pairs two vintages and is directional only (§9). At 14.90, one-month S&P implied volatility prices a daily move of roughly 0.94%. Realised has run below that — −0.17%, −0.18%, +0.62% over the last three sessions — so the option market has been right and is being paid for it. What it is not pricing is the shape of next week: a CPI print worth 12 points of September probability in either direction, a PPI and claims pair the following morning, and retail sales on Friday, against a market that has just made a record high with a 0.0% probability of a 2026 rate cut. The cheapest hedge on the board remains August equity volatility, and the reason it is cheap is that it has been wrong for four consecutive sessions. That is a description of the entry, not of the thesis. |
13 · Risk Map |
| The crowded consensuses, with the numbers to stress-test them |
| 1. “The Fed is done hiking.” The September hold went from 45.0% to 57.0% on CME in one morning, and the market took a September hike “off the table” (CNBC). Stress test: the probability of any 2026 rate cut is 0.0% and has been for fifteen consecutive sessions; December still prices a 76.8% cumulative chance of at least one hike; and the terminal rate fell only 6 bp to 4.06%. The market removed a September hike and kept the destination. Former Dallas Fed President Fisher’s own read — “the committee is leaning in a hawkish direction, either for September or the meeting after that” — is the risk this consensus is not carrying, and CPI on 8/12 can undo the whole repricing on 1.5 bp of contract price. |
| 2. “The unemployment rate fell, so the labour market is fine.” 4.1% against 4.2% expected — because participation fell to 61.4% and nearly 1.4 million people have left the labour force this year. Payrolls fell 23,000 and June was revised down 37,000 to +20,000. Stress test: Goldman’s composite measure of underlying job growth is now ~5,000 a month against ~70,000 a month ago. A shrinking labour force lowers the unemployment rate and lowers potential output at the same time, which is inflationary at the margin, not disinflationary. Nobody is trading that. |
| 3. “Credit is fine.” IG 78 bp, 1 bp inside January. HY 271 bp, 10 bp inside December and the tightest of the year. CCC 1,017 bp, 132 bp wider. The consensus is right about the index and has been wrong about the tail all year. Stress test: the CCC-minus-HY differential is 746 bp against 604 bp in January, and a once-AAA CMBS tranche on a New York megamall is facing a $350m loss — a rating-migration event that no OAS series will show you. |
| 4. “The AI-disrupts-software trade is dead.” Atlassian +35%, Cloudflare +5%, ServiceNow +6.42%, Palantir +10.31% — in one session. Stress test: on the same session Akamai fell 6.76%, CDW 4.42%, F5 3.11% and Fiserv 3.20%. The disruption thesis did not die; it relocated. One night of guidance from one company reversed three weeks of positioning, which tells you how thin the positioning was, not how wrong the thesis is. Cisco on 8/12 arbitrates. |
| 5. “Hormuz is resolving.” Axios reports Iranian Supreme National Security Council approval expected “soon”; a U.S. official told CNBC “any temporary routes will be without any impediments”; crude fell more than 7% on the week; energy equity fell 1.09% on a day crude settled up 1.15%. Stress test: Thursday’s published Iranian draft would bar U.S. and Israeli vessels outright and condition transit on compensation, and Tehran has accused Washington of “theater diplomacy.” The equity market is fully positioned for the constructive outcome and the futures curve is only partly. A rejection over the weekend gaps crude several dollars at the Sunday reopen. |
| 6. “Low VIX means low risk.” VIX 14.90, the lowest close of the fortnight, on the fourth consecutive down day for volatility, into a weekend carrying three two-sided headlines and a CPI print four days out. |
| The two-sided geopolitical and political tape |
| De-escalatory: the Axios report of imminent Iranian approval of the U.S.–Oman Hormuz deal; the U.S. official’s assurance on unimpeded temporary routes; President Trump’s Oval Office comment that the war will end “pretty soon.” Escalatory: Thursday’s published Iranian draft barring U.S. and Israeli shipping; Tehran’s “theater diplomacy” accusation; Friday’s 15% U.S. tariff, price floors and minimum import prices on Chinese polysilicon, with Bloomberg’s “Trump Tariffs ‘Tortuous’ to Soybean Trade, China Diplomat Says” indicating Beijing is already responding; the revived attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The market is priced for the de-escalatory set and hedged for neither, and the VIX at 14.90 is the price of that asymmetry. |
| Structural watch items |
| • Fed independence. The White House has given Governor Lisa Cook until 26 August to respond to mortgage-fraud allegations, roughly a month after the Supreme Court’s 5–4 June ruling allowed her to stay while she litigates (WSJ, Bloomberg, Axios, Washington Post). Cook’s lawyers call the allegations “as baseless now as they were a year ago.” The market’s reaction on Friday was to steepen 2s30s by only 3 bp and sell the dollar 0.33% — i.e. to treat it as litigation, not policy risk. That is a testable assumption with a dated catalyst, and it is the largest unpriced institutional risk in this report. |
| • Funding and the auction mix. ON RRP at $1.450bn — effectively empty for a third consecutive session. Reserves at $2.993tn, $150bn off the July peak. The 3-month bill +4 bp on the week while the coupon curve is 8–10 bp lower. And now Bloomberg’s “US Treasury Sparks Debate Over Auction Cutbacks to Temper Yields” — a policy that would push more supply into exactly the market that is already not clearing. The September quarter-end is the test, not August. |
| • Housing finance. The 30-year fixed at 6.76% and the 15-year at 6.18%, both within a basis point of 52-week highs, after a 10 bp weekly rally in the 10-year. The mortgage spread absorbed the entire move. UWM Holdings’ dividend suspension and $452m loss remains unresolved by lower Treasury yields. |
| • The private-credit migration. Bloomberg’s insurance/private-credit work and the continuing flow of power and data-centre financing into private vehicles mean the fastest-growing block of infrastructure leverage has no observable spread — which mechanically makes the IG credit spread a less informative risk signal every quarter. |
| • Korean market structure. “SK Hynix Flash Crash Spurs Nextrade to Tighten Trading Rules” (Bloomberg). A venue changing its rules after a second 30% pre-market dislocation in a top-five Asian semiconductor name is an execution risk with a regulatory response now attached. |
| • The Dow’s price weighting. Caterpillar −1.72% removed $14.74 of index price and Visa −2.15% a further $7.96, which is why the Dow rose 0.28% on a session in which 318 of 495 S&P constituents advanced. Price-weighted index risk remains concentrated in a handful of $400–$1,300 stocks. |
| What VIX is and is not pricing. At 14.90, one-month S&P implied volatility prices a daily move of roughly 0.94%. Friday’s actual move was +0.62%, Thursday’s −0.18% and Wednesday’s −0.17%, so realised is running comfortably below implied and the option market is, narrowly, correct. What it is not pricing is three things. First, a July CPI print that §8 shows is worth about eight points of September probability per basis point of contract price — the highest event sensitivity of any release this quarter. Second, a weekend containing a possible Hormuz announcement in either direction and a live Fed-independence process with a 26 August deadline. Third, the configuration itself: a record equity high, the tightest HY credit spread of the year, an empty ON RRP, a shrinking labour force and a 0.0% probability of a 2026 rate cut, all at the same time. Each of those is individually defensible. Together they describe a market with no risk premium left in any observable place except the CCC tail — and 14.90 is the cheapest instrument available for finding out whether that is right. |
|
| Full sourcing, every vendor reconciliation, the arithmetic verification log and the Overnight/Asia read-through are in the companion file US_CrossAsset_Daily_2026-08-07_DataNotes.txt. |
| U.S. Stock, Fixed Income & Cross-Asset Closing Daily — Friday, August 7, 2026. Prepared for institutional investors. Not personalized investment advice; verify independently before acting. Sources include CNBC, WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters, Investing.com, Finviz, TradingEconomics, U.S. Treasury, CME Group, FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Axios and Earnings Whispers. |