📊 Market Snapshot

  • Spot Gold (XAUUSD): 4600.28, +0.13% intraday, faded from session high 4643.07
  • WTI Crude (USOIL): 80.52, -1.13% intraday; Brent ~85.57 (-0.9%)
  • Asia-Pacific close: Nikkei 66131.98 (-0.20%), KOSPI 6912.37 (+1.53%), S&P/ASX200 9028.80 (-1.08%)
  • A-shares firmer in afternoon: Shanghai Composite +1%, Shenzhen Component +1.36%, ChiNext +1.6%

🔥 Key News This Hour

  • ⛽ WTI and Brent slide: WTI down 1% intraday to ~$80.62/bbl, Brent -0.9% to ~$85.57/bbl; US diesel inventories at record seasonal lows
  • 🛢️ Hormuz Strait oil flows back to roughly three-quarters of pre-conflict levels: after UAE and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and smaller producers are also shipping crude via “shuttle” operations, squeezing out the geopolitical premium
  • 🇺🇸 US Q2 real GDP annualized revised at 1.5%, matching the preliminary reading and expectations
  • 💻 Morgan Stanley raises NVIDIA (NVDA) target $288 → $300, extending the AI-demand narrative
  • 📈 Schwab: AI spending, tariffs and energy dominate the US inflation picture; First Financial Holding sees no Fed hike before 2026
  • 💼 “De-rating” anxiety in Treasuries: fund managers rank disorderly yield rises as the second-biggest risk after the AI bubble; Wall Street eyes the tipping point
  • 🏦 Philippine central bank hikes 25bp for a third straight meeting to 5%, as expected
  • 🇮🇷 Iran’s President Pezeshkian: the US and Israel waged war on Iran during Washington negotiations; Tehran reserves the right to self-defense, in strong wording
  • 🇺🇸 Middle East conflict strains global posture; US carrier deployments set a Cold War-era record, Navy seeks $8B supplemental budget

🧭 Assessment

Oil’s retreat is the main theme this hour: Hormuz flows have recovered to roughly three-quarters of pre-conflict levels, with Kuwait, Qatar and smaller producers joining “shuttle shipping”, squeezing out the geopolitical premium and pushing WTI below $81.

Yet Iran’s president struck a hawkish tone and US carriers’ “extended deployments” show the situation has not really cooled, so the oil slide could see reversals.

Treasury yields are becoming the market’s biggest concern, with “disorderly yield rises” ranked by fund managers as the second-biggest risk after the AI bubble; the “de-rating” tipping point is the focus on Wall Street.

Inflation expectations are oscillating: AI spending, tariffs and energy are cited as the three main drivers, lifting worries about rate hikes, though mainstream institutions still expect the Fed to stay on hold before 2026.

Gold faded from highs back toward 4600, caught between safe-haven demand and rate pressure; near-term direction awaits a trigger.

⏰ Upcoming Key Data

  • Aug 28 (Fri) 10:00 NDRC August press conference
  • Watch European gas storage progress: reserves are tight and institutions warn prices could break €100/MWh this winter