Rekt Mkts: Oil drops while US futures bounce

The weekend gave markets some relief after the US and Iran paused attacks, with oil down hard and US futures bouncing. Korea is participating as well, with KOSPI up around 1% and its two biggest chip names both green. I can understand the relief trade coz taking some of the immediate oil risk out of the market obviously helps, but this is still a pretty weird tape. US tech and memory got hit again on Friday, Korea has bounced today but modestly and we have a huge Fed and earnings week ahead. I don't know if this is the start of something better or just another squeeze, so I still don't feel any need to chase the open and will sell strength on small dip positions bought last week mainly for scalps

SPX finished basically flat on Friday while NDQ fell 1.1%. This morning, SPX futures are up 1.0% and NDQ futures are up 1.6%. The obvious driver is oil. WTI is down 7.1% around $83 after the US and Iran paused attacks over the weekend, a pretty large reversal from the $90 area last week. Gold is still 0.6% higher around $4,094, so I would not read this as every bit of geopolitical risk disappearing. The latest Treasury close from Friday had the 10Y at 4.68%, down around 2.4bps, and the 30Y at 5.16%, about 1bp lower. Lower oil and slightly lower yields are a much friendlier setup for equities than we had last week, but the Fed and a lot of big earnings are still in front of us. Personally my book is around 59% cash, which feels fine until the market proves this bounce can actually hold.

Friday was another proper hit for the stocks I have been watching. MU fell 7%, SNDK dropped 10.8% and NBIS lost 15%. That came after Thursday's US tech selloff and makes the memory strength earlier in the week look a lot less convincing. Korea is firmer today. KOSPI closed up 1%, while SK Hynix rose 3.2% and Samsung gained 1.8%. The memory names outperforming the broader index is a better signal than the draft originally suggested, but one session is not enough to cancel Friday's selloff in the US. I nibbled on a bit of GOOGL and TSLA which are still in the book. Primarily bought for a bounce/scalp rather than some grand new thesis, and this morning's futures move should help hopefully. SK Hynix earnings on Jul 29th remain the next big memory event for me. After the PA over the last few sessions I would rather see what the market does with those numbers than add into a futures squeeze...still hoping to be able to buy memory names a decent bit lower than where we are currently.

Crypto has basically held its ground through the weekend, although it is not really joining the futures bounce yet. This morning, BTC is around $65.3k and basically flat today, ETH is around $1,965 and SOL around $76.50. BTC not breaking during Friday's tech selloff was notable, but if NDQ futures are now up 1.6% and BTC is still sitting in the same place then the relative performance is less exciting this morning and once again shows the diversion between the two asset classes. I would still like to see it to reclaim $67k and hold. PONS has been a great position for the book. It's up to a $50M mkt cap today, 25% over 24H and 2x from the lows on Friday. It remains my only Robinhood ecosystem coin in the book. The reason I prefer it has not changed: it is a picks and shovels bet on activity through the launchpad, with fees funding buybacks, rather than me trying to rotate through every meme that launches. That gives it continuous bid pressure and a way to benefit if the ecosystem grows, although obviously none of that makes a small coin safe. For pro members we have updated our Pons Tracker in the Tools section so would highly recommend checking it out as momentum seems to be increasing to me. Good luck today.