Monday, July 13, 2026 · Published 5:53 PM JST
Sunday's brief calm over the Strait of Hormuz didn't survive the weekend. The US carried out a fresh round of strikes on Iranian targets near Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and Qeshm Island Sunday evening US time, and Iran hit back Monday with drone and missile attacks on US bases in three separate countries — a missile depot was set ablaze at a base in Kuwait, Jordan's military said it intercepted four missiles aimed at Prince Hassan Air Base, and air-raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, according to Al Jazeera's live coverage and CNN. Washington continues to insist the Strait itself remains open to commercial traffic, but Iran's strait authority says otherwise, and oil jumped sharply Monday on the news, dragging equities lower across Asia and Europe as the region opened for the week. Tokyo gave back Friday's strength: the Nikkei 225, which closed last week at 68,814.0, fell sharply Monday as the jump in crude prices dented the outlook for exporters and industrials just as Japan's earnings season gets underway, according to Business Recorder; TOPIX also softened, though by less.
The other story rattling Asian trading desks had nothing to do with Iran. South Korea's SK Hynix, fresh off a blistering 13% first-day pop in its Nasdaq debut Friday — American depositary receipts opened at $170, roughly 14% above the $149 reference price, in an offering that raised $26.5 billion — reversed hard Monday, sliding more than 15% in Seoul for its largest one-day drop on record as investors booked profits and second-quarter HBM shipment worries resurfaced, according to CNBC and Bloomberg. The selloff dragged the KOSPI down with it and tripped a trading halt in Seoul. On the yen, USD/JPY and EUR/JPY both carried Friday's reversal into the new week, still shaped by the GPIF pension-reallocation story working against a four-year-extreme bearish yen positioning survey — full detail is in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Elsewhere, TSMC posted June revenue up 68% year-on-year, a number so strong that historically-declining June sales instead rose 6.2% from May, underscoring just how tight AI chip demand remains heading into Thursday's Q2 print, per CNBC.
In Washington, the Senate returned Monday still absorbing the shock of Senator Lindsey Graham's death Saturday night at 71; South Carolina's special-election machinery is now running in parallel with a fight over who Governor Henry McMaster appoints as interim replacement, while flags fly at half-staff on President Trump's order. Corporate America's biggest AI hardware feud kept escalating too: Apple's trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI — alleging systematic theft of unreleased hardware designs by two former Apple engineers now at OpenAI — pulled Elon Musk and Sam Altman into a fresh public spat, and Meta confirmed its in-house "Iris" AI chip clears production in September as part of a plan to double data-center capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027.
It's a genuinely loaded week ahead regardless of how Hormuz resolves. Five of the largest US banks report second-quarter earnings Tuesday before the open, US CPI lands the same morning, and new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gives his first congressional testimony shortly after — a real test given his committee already dropped its rate-cut bias in June. TSMC's own earnings follow Thursday, and both the FOMC and BOJ meet at month-end. With Tokyo's session already closed as this publishes, the next test is Wall Street's open tonight, which hasn't traded on Monday's Hormuz escalation yet. Mixed
Oil jumps as the Hormuz standoff draws in three more countries
Crude climbed sharply Monday after Iran expanded its retaliation beyond Israel and US naval assets to strike bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan directly, a materially wider footprint than last week's exchanges, according to the BBC and Al Jazeera. The US maintains the Strait itself remains passable, but the risk premium in the price says traders aren't taking that on faith. Bearish
Yen holds Friday's reversal as the new week opens
USD/JPY sits near ¥161.67 and EUR/JPY near ¥184.38 entering Monday evening, both firmer than midweek levels, as the GPIF pension-reallocation story continues to outweigh a four-year-extreme bearish yen positioning survey from BofA. Full FX and BOJ-Watch detail is in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Mixed
Nikkei and TOPIX give back Friday's gains
Japan's benchmark, which closed Friday at 68,814.0 (+1.58%), fell sharply Monday as the oil spike weighed on exporter and industrial margin expectations just as domestic earnings season opens; TOPIX also softened, by less. Stock-level detail is in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Bearish
Wall Street hasn't priced Monday's escalation yet
Friday's close saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both notch weekly gains as the AI-memory trade absorbed SK Hynix's debut without cracking. None of that reflects the weekend and Monday's Hormuz escalation — tonight's US open is the first real test. Neutral
10-year JGB and UST yields hold near recent highs
Both benchmark yields remain elevated, with Japan's long end still digesting last week's fresh multi-decade highs on inflation and fiscal-spending concerns before a late-week easing, and the US 10-year holding near its own multi-month highs. Full JGB detail is in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Neutral
SK Hynix's record one-day drop drags the region lower
SK Hynix fell more than 15% in Seoul Monday — its largest single-session decline on record — as investors booked profits on last week's Nasdaq euphoria and second-quarter HBM4 shipment growth came in softer than hoped, according to CNBC. The move dragged the KOSPI sharply lower and tripped a trading halt in Seoul; full Japan semi read-through is in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Bearish
TSMC's June revenue reframes the AI-demand debate
TSMC posted June revenue up 68% year-on-year and 6.2% from May — a month that has historically declined sequentially every year since 2022 — pushing first-half 2026 revenue to NT$2.4 trillion ($74.99 billion), up 35.6% from a year earlier, according to CNBC. The foundry says it remains sold out on the N3 node feeding leading AI GPU and CPU makers. Bullish
Five big US banks kick off earnings season together Tuesday
JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup all report second-quarter results Tuesday before the open, with net interest margin the metric to watch given how uncertain the Fed's rate path looks under new Chair Kevin Warsh. Options markets are pricing the largest single-day implied moves in Goldman Sachs (6.0%) and Citigroup (5.5%). Neutral
Warsh's first congressional testimony lands Tuesday, hours after CPI
New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh testifies before Congress for the first time Tuesday, hours after the June CPI print, having already surprised markets in June by dropping the Fed's rate-cut bias entirely — nine of his 18 committee colleagues signaled support for higher, not lower, rates this year. Iran-linked energy inflation gives that hawkish tilt a fresh test this week. Bearish
Retail attention this evening is concentrated in the names already driving the tape: Micron topped ApeWisdom's Reddit mention tracker with 169 mentions in 24 hours — nearly 5x its prior-day count — while SPY, Microsoft and SpaceX round out the top four; SpaceX is also the only name showing up in the top five of more than one independent source today. On Robinhood's Investor Index of top holdings by conviction (as of July 1), Nvidia, Tesla and Apple remain the top three, with SpaceX now cracking the top five ahead of Amazon. On the Japan side, JPX's most recent weekly data (June 29–July 3) shows TSE Prime individual investors were modest net sellers, and Matsui Securities' bull-bear ratio shows retail sentiment on Kioxia (285A) and Taiyo Yuden (6976) sitting almost exactly at the 50% line — no strong directional lean either way heading into this week's chip-sector volatility.
Iran expands retaliation to US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan
Iran's response to Sunday's US strikes went well beyond the Strait itself Monday: a missile depot was set on fire at a US-linked base in Kuwait, Jordan's military intercepted four missiles targeting Prince Hassan Air Base, and air-raid sirens sounded across Bahrain, according to The National and Al Jazeera. This is a materially wider footprint than any prior exchange in the conflict. Bearish
Senator Lindsey Graham dies at 71; South Carolina succession fight begins
The Senate returned to Washington Monday still absorbing Graham's sudden death Saturday night from what his office called a brief illness — aortic dissection is drawing scrutiny as the likely cause. South Carolina holds a special primary August 11, with the candidate filing period closing July 21; Governor Henry McMaster will separately name an interim appointee, with Rep. Nancy Mace "strongly considering" a run and expected to release internal polling Monday, according to CNBC. Graham chaired the Senate Budget Committee, complicating several pending GOP fiscal priorities. Neutral
China evacuates nearly 2 million people ahead of Typhoon Bavi
Northern China shut schools and tourist sites and moved close to 2 million residents out of the storm's path as Typhoon Bavi made landfall, one of the largest single evacuation operations of the season so far. Neutral
McConnell breaks weeks of silence on his health
Senator Mitch McConnell confirmed he suffered a fall followed by pneumonia, explaining his long, unexplained absence from the Senate floor, and said he isn't yet able to return, according to CNBC. Neutral
Bangkok bar fire kills at least 27
A fire tore through a Bangkok bar over the weekend, killing at least 27 people and critically injuring eight more, reviving longstanding concerns about fire-safety enforcement in the city's nightlife district, according to Yahoo News and Al Jazeera. Neutral
Ukraine's uncrewed ground vehicle use jumps 122% in six months
Frontline use of uncrewed ground robots has more than doubled since the start of the year as both sides push human troops further back from the most dangerous stretches of the line, according to Business Insider — a structural shift with implications for Western defense-tech suppliers well beyond this conflict. Neutral
BOJ independence jitters force a government walk-back
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's administration is scrambling to contain the fallout from a draft economic-policy document whose wording rattled JGB and yen markets last week; Tokyo now plans to add an explicit reference to Bank of Japan independence — citing the BOJ Act directly — into a footnote of the government's economic blueprint, and Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Monday she is aware of the "shock" the earlier wording caused, according to the Japan Times. Full BOJ Watch continues in today's Japan Intelligence Brief. Mixed
GPIF pushed toward a bigger alternative-assets allocation
A government panel is set to recommend Japan's ¥248 trillion ($1.8 trillion) public pension fund raise its alternative-investments allocation toward the existing 5% cap, up from just 1.7% as of March, as part of the "Strong Japan" fiscal strategy, according to Nikkei Asia. Bullish
Japan builds its first centralized intelligence agency since WWII
Tokyo is quietly seeking technical and staffing advice from the US, Australia and Germany as it stands up a new, CIA-style national intelligence agency, driven partly by reports that dozens of Russian intelligence operatives have relocated to Japan to help evade sanctions, according to the New York Times. Neutral
Suntory PepsiCo opens its biggest Asian factory as soda demand shifts
The Suntory-PepsiCo joint venture opened a roughly $300 million, 1.24-billion-liter-capacity plant in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, its largest and most advanced facility in Asia, betting on rising demand for healthier beverages over traditional soda, according to Nikkei Asia. Bullish
Full Japan equities, semiconductor, and corporate coverage — including SK Hynix's read-through for Advantest (6857) and Tokyo Electron (8035), Japan's megabank dollar-funding squeeze, and today's human-interest close — continues in today's dedicated Japan Intelligence Brief.
China temporarily bans helium exports as the chip-cooling gas gets squeezed
Beijing imposed a temporary halt on helium exports Friday, adding to a global supply crunch already worsened by the Iran war forcing a major Qatari helium facility offline; China imports roughly 85% of its own helium needs, and the gas is critical for wafer cooling, plasma etching and lithography support across the chip industry, according to Nikkei Asia. The US has emerged as the top helium supplier to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as a result — a quiet but real structural win for US suppliers in the chip supply chain. Bullish
KOSPI plunges as SK Hynix's Nasdaq-debut euphoria unwinds
South Korea's benchmark fell sharply and briefly halted trading Monday as SK Hynix's record one-day drop dragged Samsung Electronics and the broader index down with it — full detail is in the Markets & Macro section above. This is the clearest read yet on how fragile the AI-memory rally's positioning has become. Bearish
China's optical-chip breakthrough claims a 100x AI speed gain
Researchers at Peking University published an all-optical interconnect system linking standard electronic chips that reportedly boosts distributed AI inference speed more than 100-fold while using a fraction of the compute resources, according to the South China Morning Post. It's an early-stage academic result, not a commercial product, but it underscores how much research capital China is pouring into workarounds for US chip-export controls. Neutral
China's property developers face a fresh liquidity crunch
Chinese property developers are grappling with renewed funding stress as refinancing conditions tighten again, according to Nikkei Asia, a reminder that the sector's multi-year deleveraging still isn't finished even as Beijing focuses attention elsewhere. Bearish
Apple sues OpenAI over alleged hardware trade-secret theft
Apple filed suit against OpenAI in federal court in Northern California, alleging systematic theft of unreleased hardware designs, technical specifications and supply-chain details by two former Apple engineers — Tang Tan and Chang Liu — now working at OpenAI on its consumer hardware push, with Apple's filing alleging the scheme operated "at every level" of the company, according to CNBC. The suit lands two months after OpenAI won its own trial against Elon Musk over his nonprofit-governance claims, and Musk waded back in Monday, mocking OpenAI's defense before Sam Altman fired back that Musk is "the one selling investors on space datacenters," per Monday's digest coverage. Full tech-industry read is in today's Tech Intelligence Brief. Bearish
Meta's in-house AI chip clears production for September
Meta's custom "Iris" accelerator — the first of a four-generation, in-house Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) roadmap co-designed with Broadcom and manufactured by TSMC — cleared testing in six weeks and enters production in September, part of a plan to double Meta's data-center computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027, per a Reuters-reviewed internal memo carried by CNBC. Meta expects to spend up to $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone. Bullish
TSMC's June revenue is the clearest AI-demand signal yet
TSMC's 68% year-on-year June revenue jump, against a month that has historically declined sequentially, is the tech sector's single clearest data point this week on AI-chip demand durability — full detail is in the Markets & Macro section above. Bullish
Full AI-model, semiconductor, and infrastructure coverage — including the open-weight-model policy fight and Anthropic's distillation campaign, Google's TPU commercial pivot, and Apple's own long-dated silicon roadmap — continues in today's Tech Intelligence Brief.
Trump orders flags to half-staff for Graham, touts a 59% approval reading
President Trump ordered American flags lowered to half-staff through Saturday evening in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, whom he called "a dear friend," while separately citing a 59% approval rating and falling gas and oil prices in a series of Truth Social posts Monday — a claim that sits awkwardly against Monday's oil spike on the Hormuz escalation. Neutral
McConnell's health disclosure reshapes a quiet Senate storyline
Confirmation of a fall and subsequent pneumonia — covered in full in World News above — adds a second health-driven vacancy risk to a Senate GOP conference already managing Graham's death. Neutral
Bitcoin slips below $63,000 in an Asian-session flush
Bitcoin fell below $63,000 during Monday's Asian trading session in what CoinDesk describes as a leverage-driven flush, pulling back from levels near $63,800 held earlier in the day even as broader risk assets absorbed the brunt of the Hormuz-driven selloff — crypto has held up notably better than equities through the war-premium repricing. Bearish
Bitcoin ETFs snap an 8-week outflow streak
US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew a net $197 million last week, the first weekly inflow after eight straight weeks of redemptions, according to Cointelegraph. The timing — just ahead of Monday's leverage flush — suggests the inflow came from longer-horizon buyers rather than momentum chasers. Bullish
Sam Neill, star of "Jurassic Park," dies at 78
The New Zealand actor, who survived a public blood-cancer battle in recent years, died Sunday, with his family confirming the news; tributes poured in across the industry, according to Rolling Stone and The Guardian. Neutral
Caitlin Clark breaks a WNBA record as the Fever rout the defending champions
Clark set a new league record in Las Vegas as the Fever handed the defending-champion Aces a lopsided loss, according to Fox News — the kind of statement win that keeps the WNBA's viewership momentum building into the second half of the season. Bullish
Disney's live-action "Moana" barely outdraws "Snow White" in a bruising opening weekend
Disney's latest live-action remake posted an opening weekend that barely cleared its notoriously weak "Snow White" predecessor, reigniting the industry debate over remake fatigue, according to IGN. Bearish
Speed Games Done Quick raises $2.4 million for Doctors Without Borders
The biannual speedrunning marathon closed out its summer event having raised $2.4 million for charity, according to Eurogamer — a reminder of how much fundraising infrastructure the gaming community has quietly built over the past decade. Bullish
The Economist warns of "storm clouds" over America's financial supremacy
A widely-discussed essay argues the dollar's exorbitant privilege is facing its most serious structural test in decades, citing fiscal trajectory and de-dollarization pressure, according to the Economist — worth reading in full given how much of this week's macro data could either reinforce or undercut the thesis. Neutral
Today's dominant tone was risk-off with a genuine geopolitical trigger, not the usual grind of positioning and rate speculation — Iran's decision to strike US bases in three separate countries is a meaningfully larger escalation than anything seen in this conflict so far, and oil's reaction says the market believes it. But the more interesting story for Japan-focused traders may actually be SK Hynix's record one-day drop, which is the first real evidence that the AI-memory trade's most euphoric recent move — a Nasdaq listing that raised $26.5 billion — was also its most crowded. Watch Advantest and Tokyo Electron closely this week for whether that unwind is a Korea-specific profit-taking event or the start of a broader re-rating across the memory and equipment complex.
The single most underappreciated story today isn't Hormuz or SK Hynix — it's the quiet scramble in Tokyo to reassure bond and currency markets that the BOJ's independence isn't up for negotiation. A government walking back its own economic-blueprint language, in public, within days of publishing it, is not a small thing; it's a tell that Tokyo understands exactly how thin the market's patience has become on fiscal dominance risk. That story, not the day-to-day Hormuz headlines, is probably the one still mattering in three months.
One thing to watch overnight: whether Wall Street's open tonight treats the Hormuz escalation as a one-day risk-off flush or the start of something that bleeds into Tuesday's bank earnings and CPI print. Given how loaded this week already is, markets have very little room left to absorb a third shock.