On Wednesday, stocks were falling for a sixth straight session, oil was rising on violence near a critical shipping route, and the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) had just declined to offer any comfort. Twenty-four hours later, Amazon and Microsoft posted earnings so strong that all of it seemed to stop mattering. By Friday, US stocks were sitting at record highs.

Equities

The Nasdaq Composite, the index most stacked with technology names, bore the brunt of that losing streak, and the Fed's cautious message on Wednesday made things briefly worse before Thursday's earnings turned the mood around. Amazon's and Microsoft's numbers were the turning point: Amazon jumped 15% as its cloud-computing arm grew faster than expected, and Microsoft rose 16% on similarly strong Azure cloud growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.2% that day and the Nasdaq 2.8%, snapping the losing streak in one session. Not every report told the same story: Meta Platforms fell almost 9% on a profit miss, and Apple dropped 7% on weak Services and China revenue, a reminder that investors were rewarding real growth, not optimism in general. By Friday the S&P 500, an index of 500 large US companies, had climbed to a record 7,489.72, the Nasdaq to 25,373.85, and the Dow to 52,485.03.

The mood crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific too: Europe's STOXX 600 touched a record before settling flat, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 both rose, and Japan's Nikkei 225 leapt 4% on Friday alone.

Rates & Credit

Away from stocks, a quieter story was harder to ignore. Bond yields, which set the tone for mortgage rates and the cost of borrowing, kept climbing on worry that pricier oil would keep inflation elevated. The 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 4.74%, and the 30-year touched 5.25%, its highest since 2007. Germany's 10-year Bund yield neared a 15-year high at 3.20%, and France's 10-year OAT (Obligation Assimilable du Trésor, France's benchmark government bond) rose to 4.00%. Yet one part of the credit market stayed calm: the extra interest investors demand to lend to companies rather than governments, a gauge of perceived risk, stayed near historic lows, around 80 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point) for the safest companies. Government borrowing is getting pricier; lenders are not yet worried about companies themselves.

Currencies

Currencies had their own subplot: the Japanese yen swung wildly midweek on suspected intervention by the Bank of Japan to defend its value, before settling near 160–161 to the dollar, while the euro held above $1.15 and the pound firmed toward $1.34. The Swiss franc, traditionally bought as a safe haven in nervous times, gave back gains as the dollar reclaimed part of that role. In Brazil and Mexico, investors watched inflation data for clues on where interest rates head next.

Commodities & Gold

Oil sat behind almost everything else. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose to around $88 a barrel and US benchmark WTI (West Texas Intermediate) traded near $84, Brent's best month since March, after attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for global oil shipments, raised fears of wider disruption. Gold held near $4,040–4,100 an ounce as a quieter hedge, and copper stayed near historically high levels around $6.40 a pound.

The Week Ahead

Next week brings the next test: Friday's US jobs report for July, which will show whether June's surprisingly weak hiring was a one-off, plus earnings from Palantir Technologies, AMD and SanDisk that will tell investors whether heavy spending on artificial intelligence keeps paying off. The Strait of Hormuz remains the wild card that could still rewrite every other storyline.