May the Fourth be with you,

Last week US equities markets extended the weekly winning streak to four, despite the increase in oil prices and yields. It was a busy week of economic data, central bank rate decisions, Iran headlines and earnings. The latter have been very strong, particularly for companies that are exposed to the AI capex boom which has helped to propel the S&P 500 to new all-time highs over the last month rivaling the Millenium Falcon’s hyperdrive.

There has been some Iran related volatility this morning. Yesterday, President Trump announced Project Freedom, to guide stranded ships out of the SOH. Less than 24 hours later ~6:00 am there was a report that a US naval ship had been struck by Iranian missiles sending oil prices higher and equity futures lower. However, about an hour later that was refuted and markets have reversed a good portion of that initial move. CENTCOM has since stated that 2 U.S. flagged merchant vessels have successfully moved through the Strait. It has been a volatile overnight session in oil with ICE Brent up ~2% holding ~110 (Range 105.55 - 114.30). S&P futures were down ~0.5% at the lows but are now only slightly lower. Russell futures are underperforming slightly. There is some outperformance in tech stocks in the pre-market particularly memory names.