The US-Iran ceasefire collapsed: a thirteenth consecutive night of strikes on Tehran, the first Houthi attack on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, Revolutionary Guards detaining tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the suspension of Caspian Pipeline Consortium loadings, which alone removes 80% of Kazakh exports. Brent and WTI both gained more than 6% in a single session, with Brent heading towards $100.

What separates this from the rallies of previous weeks is its nature: this is not a risk premium, it is a physical supply problem. Ships halted, a pipeline that stops loading, shipping lanes that turn dangerous. An inflation path that was cooling thanks to energy revealed itself for what it was — fragile.

The consequence landed on two continents the same afternoon. In the United States the probability of a September Federal Reserve hike rose to 78-82%, helped by jobless claims at their lowest since 1969: a labour market still running hot removes the central bank's excuse to stand still. In Europe the ECB held rates as expected, but its president explicitly cited oil-driven inflation risks and left September open.

On crude, our names were already on the right side: BPLong and ShellLong closed higher in London, among the few sectors in the green across Europe, while TotalEnergiesShort more than doubled quarterly net profit to €4.7bn on an average barrel price up more than 50% year on year, also raising its interim dividend.

Texas InstrumentsLong reported earnings and revenue above expectations, raised guidance for the current quarter and picked up price-target upgrades from three brokers. It closed down 3.1%. ServiceNowShort opened up as much as 7% after a quarter with revenue growing 24% and a raised outlook, then reversed completely and finished down 3.7%.

The reason is the same one that moved rates. When the cost of money can rise, the multiple investors will pay for future earnings compresses, and the stocks that live on future growth pay first, regardless of how good the quarter just closed actually was. It is a mechanism, not a mood, and that is why it deserves to be taken seriously.

TeslaShort was the collapse of the day, down more than 14%: a revenue beat at $28.24bn with record deliveries, but earnings per share of $0.33 against $0.51 expected and an operating margin down to 1.4%. A wave of price-target cuts followed the next morning. AlphabetShort extended its roughly 7% decline from the previous evening: revenue up 24% and cloud up 81%, but 2026 capital expenditure raised to $195-205bn and the first negative quarterly free cash flow in its history.

The AI-capex fear spread across the group. AmazonShort fell 4.6%, though for a reason of its own — a US Senate small business committee inquiry into a possible Chinese influence channel on its marketplace. MetaLong and MicrosoftShort fell on pure sector sympathy, with no negative company news, and AppleLong limited its decline to 1.3%.

Two exceptions capture the day's logic better than any average. MicronShort rose 3.2%, the only large semiconductor name in the green, because the capital expenditure increases announced by Alphabet and Tesla are its revenue. And IntelShort, dragged lower during the session, jumped as much as 9% after hours when its numbers arrived: an earnings beat, $16.1bn in revenue and a data centre division growing 59%.

Lockheed MartinShort jumped more than 10% after a quarter well above expectations — earnings per share of $7.94 against $7.23 expected, revenue of $20.1bn up 11% — with full-year guidance raised across the board and a record backlog of $230.4bn, up 38% year on year, including a $35bn missile-defence contract.

RTXLong followed the same script, gaining around 7% on a $289bn backlog and raised guidance. HoneywellShort, in its first quarter as a standalone company, rose 4.7%, and GE VernovaLong rebounded more than 4%, recovering part of the previous day's fall, with orders up 88% in its electrification division. Among industrials, CSXLong gained almost 6% on record quarterly revenue.

Reading the charts alone, that rally looks like a classic defensive rotation: money fleeing growth and sheltering in the boring sectors. The news says otherwise. Lockheed and RTX rose on results above expectations and order books that geopolitics is genuinely filling. It is the rare case where the same news that unsettles the whole market feeds one sector's earnings.

Milan closed down 2.8%, the worst European index of the day, dragged by three heavyweight names and by a single lesson repeated three times.

STMicroelectronicsShort was the harshest case, falling between 15% and 18%. Yet the quarter itself was not bad: the company returned to profit with $222m against a $97m loss a year earlier, on revenue up 26%. What sank the stock was a gross margin below consensus and, above all, guidance for the current quarter that landed below expectations. The market punished the outlook, not the result. The move spread by contagion to InfineonShort, down more than 6% with no news of its own.

UniCreditLong published the strongest half-year in its history — net interest and fee income of €6.52bn above consensus, quarterly net profit of €2.91bn, full-year profit guidance revised from «at least €11bn» to «well above €11bn» — and closed down 4.6%. That is selling the news after a long rally. On Commerzbank, the chief executive is still waiting for supervisory approval to close by year-end; on Generali he stayed deliberately vague.

MonclerShort lost almost 8% despite half-year revenue up 5% — 9% at constant currency — and net profit rising to €164.7m from €153.5m. Here too the reaction was about the outlook, and the semiconductor collapse dragged the whole Italian luxury complex with it.

In Paris the stock of the day was AirbusLong, up almost 8% after confirming full-year guidance and presenting new profitability targets for 2029, with adjusted operating income expected between €12bn and €13bn, alongside a €5bn buyback over three years. It is the other face of defence: long, visible orders — precisely what the market buys when rates cast doubt on everything else.

BNP ParibasLong reported net profit up 33% to €4.3bn, with capital already at its 2027 target level. In Germany SAPShort closed a quarter with revenue up 9% and cloud up 22%, raising full-year operating profit guidance, although earnings per share came in below consensus: the results were released after the Frankfurt close, so the full reaction will only show in the following session.

In London, alongside the oil majors, the banks moved higher — BarclaysLong and LloydsLong between 1% and 2% — ahead of a week of results that involves all of them. With no company news of their own: this is positioning before the numbers.

Bitcoin dropped below $65,000 after threats of a large-scale strike on Iran, hitting its most direct proxies: CoinbaseShort fell around 3% and StrategyShort 6.4%.

On the same day, however, the entire mining complex closed green: CipherShort up more than 5%, MARAShort and TeraWulfShort around 3%, RiotShort and CleanSparkShort around 2%, with only IRENShort lower on profit-taking after the previous days' rally. The driver was a new sector coverage launch from a major investment bank with a positive rating, reclassifying them not as Bitcoin bets but as infrastructure for artificial intelligence and high-performance data centres. A reclassification thesis overpowered the move in the underlying: that is rare, and worth noting.

Across the rest of high-multiple growth the session was indiscriminate selling: ShopifyLong lost around 5%, UnityLong 4.6%, Trade DeskShort 4.5%, RobloxLong 4.2% and AppLovinShort 3.3%, none of them on a catalyst of their own. PalantirShort, which had lost more than 6% the day before between a UK regulator review and an emerging open-source competitor, instead almost stabilised.

AlibabaLong lost 2.1% after two new securities class action investigations were announced by American law firms, following the European Union's fine on AliExpress. The rest of the Chinese basket was mixed: BaiduShort barely moved as it pursues a dual-primary listing in Hong Kong, XPengShort fell 2% and Li AutoShort rose 2% against the tide.

On the American consumer, two different stories with the same sign. NikeShort fell almost 3%, extending the pressure that began with the announcement that from January 2027 it will end online wholesale distribution agreements in mainland China to concentrate on official digital channels only. DisneyShort lost more than 3% on concerns about slowing attendance at its theme parks and the cost of its sports network's shift to a direct-to-consumer model.

One note of honesty on Brazil: the sources consulted disagree on the Ibovespa's close, between a sharply higher reading and negative intraday readings, and the few company stories identified cannot be reconstructed with sufficient certainty. I would rather say so than fill the gap: the Brazilian session remains an area to re-verify.

The technical analysis of the two American indices threw up an unusually sharp contrast yesterday, and it points to something structural rather than a one-session impression. The Buy Signal on SPYLong is still valid, with the trade around 9% in profit from entry and the index roughly 3% below its record. On QQQLong the signal is switching off on the weekly bar still forming, the trade is back to breakeven and the index sits almost 8% below its record.

Both have left their records behind, but SPY defended its weekly Inversion Point — the level that keeps the signal alive — while QQQ lost it: price ended up around 6% below that level, and the long went with it. In price action trading terms, that is where the two indices parted company.

The reason lies in composition, which is why it is not an isolated episode. QQQ carries more than 50% of its weight in technology, 16% in communications and 13% in consumer discretionary: the three sectors that fell hardest yesterday are almost 80% of the basket on their own. And financials, which cushion the S&P 500 with roughly 13%, weigh 0.2% in the Nasdaq 100. No parachute: the defensive rotation that softens the blow in the S&P passes straight over the Nasdaq. Which is exactly why it broke first.