The Closer
Published
The session's core story stays unchanged into the evening: a historic bond selloff, not the Iran standoff, is setting the tone for every asset class, and nothing since the close argues against that. Treasury yields remain near their highest levels since 2002, and the headlines rolling in tonight if anything reinforce how the energy conflict is becoming a second, compounding stress rather than the primary one.
Shell evacuated all personnel and shut production at five Gulf of Mexico assets, Mars, Olympus, Ursa, Vito and Appomattox, after already pulling staff from Stones, a tangible escalation beyond the Strait of Hormuz standoff that adds a direct hit to US output alongside the Gulf production already running more than 25% shut in. Trump added to the uncertain diplomatic backdrop by saying he does not think pursuing an Iran deal is something he wants to do, while Iran's foreign ministry said its response to US proposals would come through intermediaries, leaving the standoff unresolved on both the shipping and diplomatic fronts.
Against that, capital keeps flowing into AI infrastructure regardless of the macro strain. Broadcom is arranging over $50 billion in financing for OpenAI's custom AI chip project, Oracle and SpaceX are separately pursuing debt deals for chip buildouts, and SpaceX is also in talks to raise $40 billion for Nvidia chip purchases, a reminder that financing for compute capacity is proceeding on its own track even as sovereign borrowing costs spike.
Corporate news was lighter after hours. Levi Strauss beat on earnings, with EPS of $0.48 versus expectations, though revenue came in light at $1.61 billion against $1.65 billion expected; the company still raised full-year EPS and margin guidance and added a $100 million buyback. Samsung Electronics posted operating profit of 107.4 trillion won, above estimates, but revenue of 195 trillion won missed. Corteva completed its spinoff into Vylor Inc., naming Luke Kissam as CEO, and Amazon disclosed layoffs of fewer than 1,000 roles, a smaller cut than prior rounds.
None of this changes the dominant read: yields, not oil, remain the market's main pressure point, with the energy conflict now adding incremental, not primary, stress.