Wall Street rises as materials and crypto stocks offset continued bond sell-off
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks ended lower on Tuesday as oil prices climbed after an Iranian official said the Strait of Hormuz would not be opened until Tehran’s conditions were met.
The main averages had largely tread water earlier in the session as investors remained on the sidelines, with the next market catalyst likely to be key inflation data over the following two days that could shape monetary policy outlook.
The benchmark S&P 500 index declined 0.4% to close at 7,725.76 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite shed 0.6% to settle at 26,445.45 points, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.3% to conclude at 53,791.97 points.
"Stocks seem to be reflecting some disappointment about the lack of tangible progress in the Persian Gulf after exuberantly reacting to promises of an imminent deal last week. Oil and bond yields both rose yesterday, reflecting some impatience about the process, but stocks ignored those factors. With a lack of other catalysts today, stocks are drifting lower," Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told Investing.com.
"But it’s hardly a broad-based selloff. More NYSE stocks and SPX components are rising than falling, but the declines in several large tech stocks (AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT, AVGO) are weighing down key indices like SPX and NDX," he noted.
"In a week with few obvious catalysts and plenty of people on vacation, traders are looking ahead to tomorrow’s CPI. Expectations are for modest monthly rises in July – 0.1% and 0.2% for the headline and core, respectively – so anything well outside the consensus could swing otherwise quiet markets," Sosnick added.
Traders continue to take a beat as Hormuz uncertainty persists
After posting its best week since mid-April on Friday, Wall Street retreated on Monday, largely due to a surge in oil prices amid mounting uncertainty over a deal to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz. Washington and Tehran have made conflicting claims over the status of the vital waterway, with the former insisting that it was open for commercial shipping and the latter warning that it was effectively shut.
Iran has been in discussions with Oman to create a framework for the management of the strait, with Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson saying negotiations between the two countries were in an advanced stage and at a critical crossroads. Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. and Iran were nearing "some sort of an arrangement" on a potential peace deal, citing Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif. Oman and Pakistan have served as the chief mediators between the warring sides in the current conflict.
Iran has demanded that the Hormuz reopening is contingent on the U.S. meeting the conditions outlined in an interim peace deal reached in June that subsequently collapsed, including the lifting of an American naval blockade, the removal of sanctions, and compensation for war damage. President Donald Trump on Monday shot back with compensation demands of his own.
"Every time the enemy breaches its commitments and resorts to war again, it will face harsher conditions and greater resilience than before. This time too, the punishment of the aggressor continues, and the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened until Iran’s conditions are met," Mohammad Mokhber, an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said on social media on Tuesday.
Traffic through the strait has slowed to a trickle, according to Kpler. Data from the shipping tracker showed confirmed vessels crossings fell from 15 on Friday to 11 on Saturday and just six on Sunday.
Trump earlier in the morning said in an interview that Iran was hurting economically and that their money was controlled by the U.S.
"They’re very devious negotiators because they’ll agree to something, then they’ll go out and tell the press that they never agreed to it," the president told TV and radio host Wayne Allyn Root.
Oil prices on Tuesday ticked up nearly 2% after the comment from the Iranian official. They had earlier seesawed after surging about 5% the previous day. Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, were last up 1.7% to $89.20 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures added 1.6% to $83.48 a barrel.
Earnings are a ’freight train’ pushing Wall Street higher
Away from the Middle East, market participants are still digesting the big rally last week that took Wall Street back to a record high for the first time since early June. While a slide in oil prices helped, markets have also been buoyed by sector rotation out of technology stocks and a solid earnings season.
According to LSEG I/B/E/S, of the 436 companies in the S&P 500 that had reported earnings up till Friday, 85.1% had beaten analyst expectations, compared to the long-term average of 67%. Meanwhile, Jefferies noted that large-cap companies in particular had seen a stellar season so far, with blended earnings growth at its highest since 2021.
"The greatest force behind stock markets right now is earnings, which is helping to overshadow concerns about Iran, inflation and AI capex spending viability. Earnings have been an absolute freight train driving this market higher since the March stock market lows and this current earnings season is shaping up to be even better than last quarter’s, which was a blowout in its own right," Dennis Follmer, chief investment officer at Montis Financial, said.
"My main message for investors right now is don’t let your fortunes rise and fall with the S&P 500 or the Mag 7. There are many compelling opportunities, in and out of equities markets, earning strong returns that aren’t tied to AI. Midcap, small caps, and international stocks have a much broader range of drivers, and they are not only doing well, but they are positioned to continue doing well," he added.
Looking at Tuesday’s earnings-related moves, U.S.-listed shares of Sea ended 14.5% higher, after the Singapore-based tech giant comfortably beat quarterly top-line estimates. Sea owns e-commerce platform Shopee, financial services and payments app Monee, and online video game publisher Garena.
Conversely, U.S.-listed shares of Tencent Music slid 12% after China’s dominant music streaming platform reported a quarterly bottom-line miss.
All eyes on inflation data
The spotlight is now on Wednesday’s U.S. consumer price index report for July, which is expected to provide a fresh test of Federal Reserve policy expectations.
The data has taken on added importance after the U.S. unexpectedly shed 23k jobs last month, while payrolls for May and June were revised sharply lower, suggesting that the labor market may be on weaker footing than initially thought. Bets that the Fed could rates in the near-term declined following the release of the data on Friday.
A renewed rise in energy prices could complicate that outlook. In theory, hiking rates can help corral inflation, albeit at the risk of weighing on the labor market and wider economic growth.
"Right now, markets are pricing a goldilocks combination where growth remains strong, central banks only hike a bit, that the supply shocks will prove temporary, and oil prices fall back again. This is clearly a very benign scenario, but it leaves next to no margin for error," Henry Allen, macro strategist at Deutsche Bank, said.
"The clearest way to resolve this simultaneously would be supply-side driven growth, alongside a resolution of the geopolitical turmoil. With supply-side growth, that would help equities to rally, inflation to fall, and central banks to avoid aggressive tightening cycles. But, even though AI-driven growth might provide a great candidate for that to happen, recent months have also brought clear evidence for how it will also lead to inflationary pressures, as seen with memory chips," he added.
Ayushman Ojha and Scott Kanowsky contributed to this article
