Headlines · 2026-08-02

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the planned U.S. strike on Iran has been called off, provided a deal can be finalized quickly. He said the emerging agreement would include a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and claimed Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked for time to work out the terms.

The announcement comes amid still-elevated tensions in the Middle East. AP said mediation efforts are ongoing and that no deal has been reached yet, while BBC reported that Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency denied Tehran had asked Washington to hold off on military action.

Energy markets remain sensitive to any disruption risk around the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of global oil shipments pass. CNBC cited Friday settlement data showing WTI at $84.67 a barrel and Brent at $90.12, levels that keep oil producers, shippers and airline stocks in focus.

Trump also said Israel had agreed to join the commitment to complete the agreement. Iranian officials, meanwhile, continued to warn that they view threats from adversaries as real and credible, underscoring that the situation remains fluid despite the U.S. president’s claim of progress.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama is expected to say on Monday that Tokyo and Washington took joint action in the foreign-exchange market to arrest the yen’s decline, according to multiple reports citing Japanese government officials. One source told Reuters the operation was still ongoing.

The move comes after the yen fell to levels not seen in around 40 years, with market sources saying Japanese authorities bought yen during New York trading hours on Thursday. BOJ data suggested support operations could have reached as much as $58.97 billion.

A confirmed joint intervention would put the currency market, U.S. Treasury yields and Japanese exporters back in focus. A weaker yen typically supports Japan’s export-heavy equities, while also raising import costs and adding pressure to consumers and retailers.

Japan’s finance ministry also posted in English on X that it has a broad range of tools to address market liquidity needs, including access to the Federal Reserve’s repo facility for temporary dollar liquidity. Neither Japan’s finance ministry nor the U.S. Treasury immediately responded to requests for comment in the reports cited.

U.S. long-dated Treasury yields kept climbing. The X signal showed the 30-year yield at 5.267% and the 10-year at 4.718%, while multiple reports said the 30-year touched about 5.26% — the highest since 2007 — and the 10-year closed at 4.738%, a high not seen since January 2025.pomegra.io

The move comes as the Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged and markets continued to digest sticky inflation, higher oil prices and heavier Treasury supply. One report said the long end has been under pressure from a wider deficit, rising issuance and a rebound in term premium, with the 30-year yield holding above 5% for an extended stretch.247wallst.com

Equities that are most sensitive to rates were among the early losers. Reports said the Nasdaq 100 was more than 10% below its all-time high, while technology, utilities and real estate lagged the broader market as higher risk-free rates lifted financing costs and compressed valuations.briefs.co

Market watchers on X also flagged the move as the 30-year yield hit a 19-year high and the 10-year pushed toward 4.72%. The available material does not establish any official policy change, only a sharp repricing in bond markets.

Amazon has completed its full $50 billion investment in OpenAI, giving it an estimated 5% stake, according to reports citing Amazon’s latest financial disclosures. Media reports said OpenAI received the final tranche this week, even though the milestone triggers tied to the additional $35 billion were not met.

The investment was structured in two stages: Amazon initially put in $15 billion in February and later added another $35 billion. Reports also said Amazon has committed up to $33 billion to Anthropic, with $18 billion already deployed, underscoring a broader strategy to back multiple frontier AI labs.

For investors, the key angle is strategic rather than purely financial. The OpenAI tie-up reportedly spans cloud services, compute and chip supply, which could support AWS and Amazon’s Trainium AI chips as the AI infrastructure race intensifies.

Amazon declined to comment on the stake percentage, and the reported $852 billion OpenAI valuation puts the 5% holding at a sizable notional value. The move also highlights OpenAI’s shift toward a more diversified cloud strategy, which matters for Microsoft, AWS and the wider AI infrastructure market.

Tesla’s autonomous-driving and humanoid-robot story was back in focus after short seller Jim Chanos posted on X that FSD is still “less than a $2 billion annual business” after a decade and that Optimus has been pushed back again. He framed the company’s next big thesis as a Robotaxi opportunity rather than a near-term earnings engine.

That claim is commentary, not a company-disclosed figure. What Tesla has disclosed is heavier spending: second-quarter capex reached $5.789 billion, up 142% year over year, and management lifted full-year capex guidance to more than $25 billion, with spending aimed at Robotaxi, Optimus, compute and manufacturing capacity.

The earnings backdrop is mixed. Tesla reported operating profit of $398 million, down 57% from a year earlier, and free cash flow of minus $1.092 billion in the quarter, even as its paid FSD user base reached 1.48 million. Investors are now weighing whether the company’s car business can keep funding AI and robotics projects long enough for those bets to mature.

That tension matters for TSLA because the stock has long traded on future cash generation from autonomous driving and robotics. Any sign of slower rollout, delayed product timing or heavier capital spending can quickly reshape how the market prices that long-duration story.

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Micron reported fiscal third-quarter adjusted gross margin of 84.9%, above Meta’s latest-quarter gross margin of 81.9% and Nvidia’s roughly 75%. Revenue reached $41.46bn, a record for the company, and Micron guided for about 86% gross margin in the fiscal fourth quarter.

The driver is a tight AI memory market. Micron said it is signing long-term strategic customer agreements with floor pricing, and management expects supply conditions to remain tight beyond 2027.

For the market, the headline underscores how memory makers are capturing more of the AI value chain while customers such as Meta and Nvidia face higher component costs. Micron shares and the broader memory supply chain are in focus as investors weigh the durability of this pricing power.

No direct response from Meta was identified in the materials reviewed. Micron management said customers increasingly view advanced memory access and reliable long-term supply as strategic requirements.

Amazon said AWS now has an annualized revenue run rate of $169 billion, while its AI business and chip business each exceeded a $25 billion run rate. CEO Andy Jassy also said the company now expects cash capex of about $220 billion in 2026, up from a prior guide of about $200 billion.

Jassy said higher memory costs were a key reason for the increase and added that even with that level of spending, Amazon still will not have enough capacity to meet all of its 2026 demand. AWS revenue rose 37% year over year in the quarter, its fastest growth since 2021.

The spending update keeps Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet in focus as all three race to expand cloud and AI infrastructure. Strong cloud growth across the group underscores why investors are watching backlog, capacity additions and free cash flow so closely.

Amazon shares rose after the report, as investors responded to faster AWS growth and management’s insistence that demand is still outstripping supply. The company’s message suggests the near-term story remains about building capacity rather than harvesting it.

Nikkei Asia reported that SpaceX is tightening oversight of its global supply chain, telling suppliers that Chinese nationals cannot be assigned to facilities producing SpaceX products and that China-made systems or equipment are off-limits. The report also said SpaceX is pursuing a so-called NCNT, or non-China, non-Taiwan, supply chain.

The push comes as SpaceX becomes more central to U.S. space missions. The company is a key partner in NASA’s Artemis program, which gives its manufacturing and sourcing standards a stronger national-security dimension.

The move could reshape the Taiwan satellite and networking supply chain. Local suppliers have reportedly been asked to raise overseas output, with some production already shifting to Southeast Asia to meet SpaceX sourcing requirements.

The report is based on industry and supplier sources, and SpaceX has not publicly detailed or denied the specific internal rules described. If the measures continue, vendors may need to rethink staffing, equipment procurement and factory locations.

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Crypto advocates have now contacted lawmakers 1 million times in support of the CLARITY Act, according to campaign updates and multiple reports. Coinbase policy chief Faryar Shirzad said the measure has strong bipartisan backing and that lawmakers should be ready to vote.

The bill seeks to define the split between the SEC and the CFTC over digital assets. A revised 616-page version released on July 22 added ethics provisions and a 2029 sunset clause, while reports said the White House was reviewing the updated text ahead of the Senate’s Aug. 7 recess deadline.

The legislation matters for listed crypto firms such as Coinbase and for institutional players weighing digital-asset exposure. Fidelity, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Franklin Templeton have all publicly backed the framework, but the odds of passage still hinge on clearing the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold.

Some Senate Democrats remain uneasy about ethics language and enforcement powers, suggesting the coalition is not yet fully locked in. For now, the bill remains in play, but the final path depends on whether negotiators can convert the current momentum into floor action before lawmakers leave Washington.

CoreWeave raised the pricing on a $2.6 billion loan to nearly 9.1% and added lender-friendly protections after demand for the deal initially came in weak, according to people familiar with the matter. Orders later improved sharply after the company revised the terms.

The financing is backed by CoreWeave’s compute agreement with Anthropic. The move underscores how loan investors are becoming more selective, after years of accepting tighter spreads and looser terms across leveraged credit.

Bloomberg reported that loan investors are pushing back for the first time in years, a shift that could lift borrowing costs across private equity and highly indebted AI companies. Other reports said CoreWeave’s prior $3.1 billion financing was priced at SOFR plus 450 basis points, highlighting how fast pricing has moved.

For markets, the message is clear: AI infrastructure debt is no longer pricing on momentum alone. CoreWeave, related AI suppliers, and the broader high-yield and leveraged loan market are now facing a tougher funding backdrop as investors demand stronger protections and higher returns.

U.S. retail giants are leaning harder into GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. CNBC reported that Amazon rolled out a GLP-1 management program in April through One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy, offering insured patients prices as low as $25 a month, same-day delivery in nearly 3,000 cities, and a plan to expand to 4,500 cities by year-end; Walmart is bundling prescriptions with nutrition coaching, fitness apps and AI tools across its roughly 4,600 pharmacies to win more traffic.cnbc.com

The push comes as employers get more cautious on coverage. CNBC, citing Mercer, said 6% of large employers cut GLP-1 coverage this year, while the drugs’ share of claims rose to 11.4% from 6.9% in 2023, steering more patients toward cash-pay and direct-to-consumer options.cnbc.com

That shift is turning prescription fulfillment into a customer-acquisition tool for big-box retailers and membership clubs. Costco’s Sesame partnership is pricing Wegovy at about $349, underscoring how the drug can also support membership economics; independent pharmacies, by contrast, may lose prescription volume as patients gravitate to larger chains.cnbc.com

CVS said its pharmacists are prepared to treat the whole patient and help with adherence, while industry specialists warned that fragmented access can complicate medication review and follow-up care. The real prize for retailers appears to be the refill relationship, not just the initial sale.cnbc.com

Multiple traders on X said Bitcoin’s near-term structure remains fragile. Ted Pillows said BTC has closed above the $62,500 support zone, but is “not completely out of danger” and needs to reclaim $65,000 soon, or sellers could push the price toward $60,000. Daan Crypto Trades added that BTC is still holding the 2023 breakout level relative to tech stocks, but the key question is whether bulls can press higher or are merely stalling.

Prior technical commentary has pointed to similar levels. An Odaily analysis highlighted resistance around $64,700 and support in the $60,950 to $62,000 area, while a ChainCatcher-reported view said BTC remained range-bound and could retest lower levels if it breaks below $57,000. Together, the signals point to a market still trading around well-watched support and resistance bands.

The move matters for broader crypto sentiment because BTC often sets the tone for risk appetite across the sector. If Bitcoin keeps oscillating around $62,500 to $65,000, traders tend to watch spillover into higher-beta names such as Ethereum and HYPE; on X, HYPE was also mentioned at $51.55 with traders looking for a move back toward $55 to $57.

These are trader views and technical readings, not official company or exchange statements. The immediate focus remains whether Bitcoin can reclaim $65,000 and avoid a test of $60,000 support.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron said fuel prices may stay elevated even if crude oil keeps sliding in the coming months. Bloomberg reported that the refining system, not crude supply, has become the main bottleneck for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices.

The backdrop is a tighter global product market driven by war-related disruptions, refinery outages and limited spare capacity. The report said US average gasoline prices have climbed above $4 a gallon, while WTI is down 26% from its 2026 high and diesel is only 6% below this year’s peak, underscoring a weaker link between crude and refined products.

For energy investors, the setup supports refiners and integrated oil majors with strong downstream operations, including Exxon and Chevron, because high utilization and wide crack spreads can boost refining earnings. But airlines, shippers and consumer-facing industries face higher fuel bills, which can filter into freight and inflation.

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said middle distillates could tighten further as the Northern Hemisphere restocks heating oil ahead of winter, while Exxon CEO Darren Woods said available refining capacity relative to demand is at very low levels. The companies’ comments suggest little near-term relief in product markets even if crude softens.

FactSet’s July 24 update showed that 27% of S&P 500 companies had reported second-quarter results at that point, with 86% of those firms beating EPS estimates. On an aggregate basis, reported EPS came in 31.4% above estimates, while the blended year-over-year earnings growth rate for Q2 stood at 47.4%.

The firm said the headline numbers were heavily skewed by massive non-operating gains at Alphabet and Amazon. Alphabet’s Q2 GAAP EPS included a $98 billion gain, while Amazon’s GAAP EPS included $53.4 billion of pre-tax other income, mainly tied to investments in Anthropic.

Excluding Alphabet and Amazon, FactSet said the S&P 500’s EPS beat rate would fall to 9.2% from 31.4%, and the blended earnings growth rate would drop to 28.8% from 47.4%. That matters for SPY, RSP and mega-cap tech names because the index-level earnings narrative is being driven by a small group of giants, while the equal-weight index gives a broader read on underlying profitability.

FactSet also said 77% of reporting companies had topped revenue estimates, with aggregate revenue 2.9% above consensus. Separate market signals circulating on X also pointed to an 86% EPS beat rate among reporting S&P 500 companies, matching the FactSet update.