Your Weekly Market Compass –July 10, 2026

The uneasy peace between Washington and Tehran came apart this week, and the market barely broke stride. Iran attacked three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump declared the ceasefire over, and the United States answered with successive rounds of strikes on roughly 80 Iranian military targets. Oil rose about 5%, with West Texas Intermediate climbing back near $75 per barrel. Yet equities absorbed the news and kept moving: the S&P 500 returned 1.3% for a second straight weekly gain, powered by a 2.2% advance in large-cap growth, while value finished flat and small caps, mid caps, and international markets all eased. The week also delivered a capital markets milestone, as South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in the largest U.S. listing ever completed by a foreign company, and the second-quarter earnings season quietly opened. Beneath the resilience, the economic picture grew more complicated: June payrolls badly missed expectations, the Fed’s June minutes confirmed its hawkish tilt, and long-term Treasury yields rose to their highest levels since late May.

The pattern of the week is worth naming plainly. A collapsing ceasefire and a 5% oil spike would once have driven a broad equity retreat. Instead, the technology trade carried the index higher while nearly everything else declined, and the bond market did the worrying: the 10-year Treasury yield rose roughly nine basis points to 4.57%, pushing the ICE US Treasury 20+ Year index down 1.3% for the week and back into negative territory for the year. The market’s message was not complacency about Iran. It was a bet that the AI earnings engine matters more, a bet that gets tested directly when the banks open earnings season in earnest next week.

A Record Foreign Listing and the Start of Earnings Season

On Friday, SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker at the center of the artificial intelligence build-out, completed the largest U.S. listing ever by a foreign company. The company’s American depositary receipts priced at $149, raising $26.5 billion, and opened on the Nasdaq at $170 before finishing the session up roughly 13%. The offering extends the run of landmark listings that began with SpaceX in June and underscores how much investor appetite remains for the AI supply chain, even as some traders noted the new shares may compete for capital with U.S. memory names such as Micron.

SK Hynix · Nasdaq Debut

Priced July 9 · First trade Friday, July 10 · Largest U.S. listing by a foreign company

SK Hynix sits at the heart of the AI memory complex, supplying the high-bandwidth memory that advanced AI accelerators require. The listing’s success, one month after SpaceX’s record IPO, confirms that the capital markets reopening of 2026 has depth: investors are absorbing enormous offerings without disruption, and the AI supply chain remains the destination of choice for new capital.

The second-quarter earnings season also opened quietly. PepsiCo reported net revenue growth of 6.4% with organic growth of 2.4%, a 4% increase in core earnings per share, and affirmed its full-year guidance, an encouraging early read on the consumer. Levi Strauss and Delta Air Lines rounded out the opening slate, with Delta’s Friday report serving as the traditional kickoff for the airlines. Among the megacaps, Meta Platforms surged 15% for its best week since early 2024 on optimism about its artificial intelligence compute position, the single largest driver of the growth index’s outperformance. The main event arrives next week, when JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo open the heart of the season on Tuesday.

A Cooling Labor Market Meets a Hawkish Fed

The economic picture grew more complicated this week. The June employment report, released July 3, showed just 57,000 jobs added against expectations near 115,000, a sharp deceleration from May’s 172,000 and the clearest sign yet that the labor market is cooling. Days later, the minutes of the June Fed meeting, Chairman Kevin Warsh’s first, confirmed the committee’s hawkish tilt, with nine of eighteen officials still projecting at least one rate increase this year. The tension between softening employment and inflation above 4% now defines the policy debate, and the renewed oil spike only sharpens it.

The higher-frequency data stayed firm even as the hiring trend softened. Initial jobless claims fell to 215,000, below estimates, suggesting layoffs remain contained even as hiring slows. Existing home sales for June unexpectedly slipped to an annualized 4.09 million units as elevated mortgage rates continued to weigh on housing. The bond market absorbed all of it with rising caution: the 10-year yield at 4.57% and the two-year above 4.2% reflect a market bracing for next week’s June inflation readings, the first since the Fed signaled its hike bias. The combination of a 57,000-job month, a hawkish dot plot, and a fresh energy shock leaves the Fed with the most genuinely conflicted data picture of the year.

A labor market adding 57,000 jobs and a Federal Reserve projecting rate hikes are not usually found in the same economy. One of them is going to give. Next week’s June CPI, the first inflation print since the Fed signaled its hike bias, is the release most likely to decide which.
— Goldstone Financial Group Investment Research

What It All Means for Investors

The week captured the market’s central tension in miniature. A collapsing ceasefire and a 5% oil spike would once have driven a broad retreat; instead, the technology trade absorbed the shock and pushed the S&P 500 to a second straight weekly gain, while a record $26.5 billion foreign listing showed how much capital is still chasing the AI build-out. Beneath the surface, the picture is less serene: yields rose all week, the June jobs report showed hiring slowing sharply, and inflation remains above 4% with a fresh energy shock now feeding into it. The Fed’s hawkish posture and a cooling labor market are on a collision course, and next week’s inflation data, bank earnings, and Chairman Warsh’s testimony will determine which force sets the market’s tone.

Leadership this week rotated back toward growth after value’s strong late-June run, the reverse of two weeks ago, and the swings between those regimes are precisely why we do not chase them. Large-cap growth gained 2.2% while value finished flat this week; two weeks ago, value gained while growth fell more than 3%. Year-to-date, the broader picture still favors the diversifiers: Russell 2000 Value leads at +22.3%, emerging markets at +21.7%, and Russell 1000 Value at +18.3%, all far ahead of large-cap growth at +5.1%.These shifts in market leadership illustrate the potential benefits of maintaining diversification across multiple asset classes and investment styles.

The bond market deserves attention heading into next week. The ICE US Treasury 20+ Year index is back to negative territory for the year and the Aggregate sits at break-even, with yields at their highest since late May. That reflects a market pricing the Fed’s hike bias and the new energy shock simultaneously. If June CPI shows the oil-driven relief that the late-June crude collapse should deliver, the pressure eases; if core inflation firms instead, the hawkish dots start converting into expectations of action. Either way, next week’s data does more to set the second half’s direction than anything since the June FOMC meeting.

A ceasefire undone, oil up 5%, a record foreign listing, and the opening bell of earnings season: this week tested the market’s resilience and found it intact, for now. GoldstoneBuilder™ constructs portfolios diversified across value, growth, small-cap, international equity, and fixed income, with the objective of reducing reliance on any single market segment or investment style. GoldstoneBalancer™ keeps your allocation aligned with your long-term objectives as the Fed, the energy market, and earnings season unfold. Clients with questions about positioning ahead of the June CPI report, bank earnings, or the evolving Iran situation are encouraged to reach out directly to their Goldstone advisor.