Burnham came in promising the biggest changes in 40 years and fair play he actually did something in week one.. scrapped sales tax on household electricity which is bold given the state of the public finances. Reeves is gone as chancellor. Healey is in. The whole Starmer lot got cleared out basically. And the short sellers are having a field day with it.. White and Case counted 27 companies with over 5 percent short interest in the first half of the year. Utilities getting it worst apparently because the water infrastructure is genuinely falling apart and now youve got a PM who wants to squeeze the sector even harder on regulation. One fund manager called it an explosive cocktail. Comforting.

The footsie ended around 10,765 which doesnt sound bad until you realise its the first down week in five and the miners dragged it there almost single handedly. Antofagasta lost nearly 7 percent Thursday. Rio off 5. Fresnillo about the same. The mining index as a whole down 4.7 percent which is the worst week since March. Copper coming off that record high and suddenly everyones a seller.

Aviva had a good one actually. Profits up 24 percent. Nobody cared.

GDP is the bit that does my head in though. The headline for Q2 is expected at 0.4 percent which sounds fine right.. except the World Cup was on and there were like three heatwaves so services got a massive one off boost. The Bank of England basically said yeah ignore that number the underlying picture is flat. EY reckon 0.9 for the year. KPMG say 0.7. IMF just bumped theirs to 1 from 0.8 but its the kind of upgrade that nobody celebrates. Theyve got a scenario where if Hormuz stays shut into next year the economy actually contracts which.. yeah.

Core CPI coming down to 2.6 in June was the one genuinely good bit of data. Lowest since March 2025 and probably linked to that brief ceasefire window when oil prices eased off. But everyone knows energy is going to feed back through in the second half. Its already started.

The footsie sitting near record highs while the economy underneath it is arguably stagnant is one of those things that either resolves itself quietly or very loudly. History suggests loudly but what do I know.

Gold finished the week up nearly 7 percent and hit about 4,435 on Monday which I did not expect at all. Dollar was firm and yields were climbing and by all rights it should have been a bad week for bullion but here we are. I think the Iran thing is doing more heavy lifting than people realise because every time it looks like a deal might happen someone opens their mouth and kills it. Strait still shut. That deal Trump was talking about.. yeah.

CPI was in line which matters because the rate hike crowd went quiet for five minutes. 4,400 holding or not holding is basically the whole conversation right now. Still 21 percent off the January high so theres that.

Copper though.

6.77 a pound on Comex. New record for copper prices. LME did 14,455 a tonne the day before. And honestly at what point do we just accept that this is what copper costs now because the AI data centre thing isnt slowing down and the mines are getting worse not better. Chile cut output forecasts again. Theres a smelter in Indonesia thats offline. The DRC banned concentrate exports. Like pick a supply problem any supply problem and coppers got it right now.

Pulled back Monday below 6.60 and Chinese imports were actually pretty weak down 11 percent on the year which you could read as bearish if you wanted to but the LME backwardation is screaming at you that physical copper isnt available. Citi want 15 grand a tonne within a year and theres still that tariff thing sitting on Trumps desk unsigned. I struggle to see the bear case honestly even after a record week.

The whole correction is being driven by one thing really and its higher real yields. Jobs data came in at 172 thousand against 80 expected which killed any remaining hope of rate cuts this year and then CPI landed at 4.2 percent the highest since April 2023. Goldman pulled every single rate cut from their 2026 forecast and shifted easing expectations all the way out to mid 2027.. thats brutal for a non yielding asset like gold.

The irony is the Iran war which youd think would be massively bullish for safe havens has actually been the opposite. Oil above 90 bucks is feeding straight into inflation expectations which means rates stay higher for longer.. gold doesnt like that one bit. By Friday though spot had clawed back to around 4,200 after Trump suggested a peace deal could come as early as this weekend. The key level everyone is watching now is 4,100.. a daily close below there and analysts reckon were looking at a proper move toward 4,000. Recovery needs to get above 4,300 to even start looking constructive again. Central banks are still hoovering up physical though with 244 tonnes in Q1 alone so the structural floor hasnt gone anywhere.

Silver got absolutely battered earlier in the week dropping to 63.50 on Wednesday which is the lowest since December. Then Friday morning it ripped 5 and a half percent higher to 67.50 on the peace deal headlines.. classic silver doing twice the move in both directions. The gold silver ratio sitting at 62 is interesting because historically anything in the 60 to 70 range has preceded silver outperformance during bull market recoveries. Silvers still up over 150 percent year on year which is mental when you think about it.

Platinum took an absolute hiding losing over 20 percent in a month falling from the January high near 2,920 all the way down to 1,656 before bouncing to about 1,720 on Thursday. The World Platinum Investment Council is projecting a fourth straight annual supply deficit for 2026 with South African and Russian output both constrained so the fundamentals havent changed.. the paper price just got hammered by the same rate expectations killing everything else. Its still up 42 percent year on year though so perspective matters.

Then Wednesday happened and the cracks started showing. Nasdaq dropped three quarters of a percent while the Dow actually rose over a percent which tells you everything about whats going on under the surface.. proper rotation out of chip names into banks healthcare and retail. Thursday doubled down on that theme with Broadcom cratering 15 percent after missing AI revenue forecasts and suddenly everyone remembered that not every semiconductor company is Nvidia. The Dow ripped 900 points higher to a fresh record led by UnitedHealth and JPMorgan while the Nasdaq slipped again.

The technicals are getting properly stretched now. RSI on the S&P is sat at 75 which is well into overbought territory and the forward PE is around 23 times versus the long run average of about 18. Deutsche Bank pointed out that the S&P gained 16 percent across April and May which has only happened four other times since World War Two.. the last time was right before the 1987 crash which is a fun comparison nobody wants to hear. The Shiller PE ratio is at 42 and a half as well which is basically where it was before the dotcom bust.

The concentration issue is mad too.. Nvidia Micron and Alphabet alone account for over 40 percent of the years earnings revisions on the S&P. Schwabs midyear outlook wasnt exactly cheerful either flagging rising energy costs negative real wage growth and weak consumer savings. Jobs data drops Friday and if it comes in soft with oil still above 90 a barrel thats the stagflation setup nobody wants. Support wise the 50 day moving average sits around 7,100 and the 200 day is down at 6,840.. thats a long way below if this thing rolls over.

A few drone strikes on tankers near the strait, a radio broadcast from the IRGC saying any ship that passes through will be set ablaze, and suddenly insurers pulled coverage and shipping companies just stopped sending vessels. Job done. No mines no naval blockade, just cheap drones and a threat on the VHF frequency that every ship in the area heard and suddenly you had over 150 tankers anchored outside waiting, and the world’s most important oil chokepoint was effectively shut.

The clever bit, and nobody really talks about this enough, is what Iran did in the weeks before. Between February 15th and 20th they tripled their export rate and Iran emptied out oil storage knowing full well what was coming. Saudi did something similar trying to front load shipments. So when the strikes actually hit on the 28th both sides had already moved a chunk of oil out the door which buys everyone a few weeks of breathing room.. but thats all it is. A few weeks.

The retaliation went way beyond Hormuz though. Iran launched missiles and drones at US bases across the Gulf hitting facilities in Qatar Kuwait Bahrain and the UAE. QatarEnergy shut down LNG production completely after Ras Laffan got hit and declared force majeure on natural gas contracts by March 4th. Thats massive because Qatar is one of the biggest LNG suppliers on the planet.. European gas futures went up 45 percent in a day on that news alone. Saudi had to shut units at Ras Tanura after drone debris caused a fire at their biggest domestic refinery.

Iran’s own exports of about 1.6 million barrels a day mostly go to China, and those are now stuck behind the same blockade they created. Kpler tracking showed the only ships still moving through were Iranian and Chinese flagged vessels basically everyone else has walked away. Iraq is having to curtail production in some of its biggest fields because theres physically nowhere to put the oil if you cant export it through Hormuz.

The really scary quote came from Qatars energy minister who warned if this carries on other Gulf producers will have to halt exports too, and that will bring down economies of the world. Not exactly subtle.

By Monday morning the Brent Oil price had gapped up 9 percent to nearly $80 and WTI wasnt far behind jumping about 8.5 percent to $73.

That was just the warm up though because by Friday Brent had smashed through $90 and briefly touched $94 which is the highest since late 2023. WTI cracked $90 for the first time in years too settling around $91. Thats a near 30 percent move in a week which is absolutely insane.

The Strait of Hormuz is the story really.. about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil goes through that narrow bit of water between Iran and Oman, and Irans Revolutionary Guard declared it closed on Monday. Tankers started piling up on either side unable to get insurance or just flat out refusing to risk it. Rystad Energy called it an effective halt of traffic which is not the kind of language you want to hear when you’re talking about 15 million barrels a day of crude oil.

Iran hit back hard too.. missiles and drones flying at US bases in Qatar Kuwait Bahrain and the UAE. QatarEnergy shut down LNG production after their facilities got hit which sent European natural gas futures rocketing 45 percent in a single session. Saudi Arabia had to close units at Ras Tanura their biggest refinery after drone debris caused a fire. The whole Gulf is basically a warzone right now and the insurance market is in tatters.

OPEC tried to calm things down by announcing a 206 thousand barrel per day production increase from April but honestly thats a drop in the ocean when you’re potentially losing 7 to 11 million barrels of flow through Hormuz. Morgan Stanley jacked their Brent forecast up to $80 from $62 and some analysts are saying $100 is on the table if this drags on. Trump himself said the strikes could last weeks which is not exactly reassuring.

The knock on effects are everywhere.. airlines tanking, shipping stocks in chaos, defence names like Lockheed and Northrop flying. Meanwhile Exxon and Chevron are laughing all the way to the bank.

At one point it was down nearly 7 percent on the week, people were rattled about whether 60k would hold again after it nearly cracked through that level back on February 5th. Bitcoin has lost about half its value since it touched 126 thousand in October which is grim reading for anyone who bought the top.

The macro stuff is doing most of the damage right now and thats the frustrating bit for bitcoin bulls who keep banging on about digital gold and inflation hedges.. turns out when equities wobble and the Fed looks less likely to cut rates bitcoin trades like a risk asset not a safe haven. You have gold is sitting pretty above 5 thousand an ounce meanwhile bitcoin is getting dragged around by every tariff headline and Treasury yield move going. CryptoQuant put out a report saying institutional demand has basically reversed.. the spot ETFs that were hoovering up 46 thousand coins this time last year are now net sellers which tells you everything about where the smart money thinks this is heading short term.

Then Wednesday happened and the whole thing flipped. Bitcoin ripped back above 68,500 in what looked like a proper short squeeze.. nearly 400 million in bearish bets got liquidated in 24 hours. The Fear and Greed index had been sat in extreme fear territory for most of February so the positioning was massively one sided.

Funding rates had gone negative multiple times which meant shorts were paying longs to stay in trades.. classic setup for a violent reversal and thats exactly what happened.

Altcoins went even harder on the bounce. Ether jumped 10 percent back through 2 thousand, Solana Doge and Cardano all popped double digits. Circle the stablecoin lot surged nearly 30 percent after smashing their earnings and Coinbase tagged along up 13 percent. Even the mining stocks caught a bid with MARA and Bitfarms up 6 or 7 percent.

The question now is whether this bounce has any legs or if its just a dead cat doing its thing before the next leg down. That 60k level is starting to look like the line in the sand.. analysts reckon if it breaks properly were looking at mid 50s territory and some are even whispering about 50 thousand. Time will tell but the volatility isnt going anywhere soon thats for sure.

Trump said the talks were going well Tehran called it a step forward, but then Washington had American ships on stand by through the Strait of Hormuz which is not exactly what you do when things are going swimmingly. The geopolitical premium came off a couple dollars then went straight back on again like some kind of revolving door. WTI settled mid $64s which tells you the same story from a different angle.

The IEA dropped their February report and basically said supply is going to outpace demand all year.. global inventories built by nearly 480 million barrels in 2025 which is absolutely mental and the surplus isnt going anywhere soon. OPEC keeping quotas through March didn’t help the bulls either and theres this weird situation with India supposedly agreeing to stop buying Russian crude oil as part of a trade deal with the US, except nobody in Delhi seems keen to actually confirm that. Meanwhile US stockpiles jumped by 13 million barrels last week which is the biggest build in over a year.

Natural gas. Henry Hub averaged nearly 8 dollars in Jan thanks to that polar vortex and storm Fern. Fast forward a couple weeks and its back around 3.15 which shows you how quickly sentiment flips when the weather warms up. The EIA reckon storage is going to end March about 8 percent lower than they thought which bumped their annual forecast to about 4.30 but right now spot is nowhere near that.

UK gas slipped below 75 pence a therm at one point.. lowest since early January. Milder forecasts and decent wind generation took the heat off but storage is only about 36 percent full which is thin going into the tail end of winter. Not exactly comfortable.

Miners had a real go of it with Rio up a couple percent and BP tagging along on some Middle East tension nobody wants to talk about properly yet. The big mover though was LSE Group flying nearly 8 percent after word got out that Elliott had built a stake.. activist money always gets people excited even when they dont know what the plan is.

Gold bugs had a decent session too, spot pushed through 5,060 and ended closer to 5,090 which is up over a percent on the day. Silver absolutely smashed it though, nearly 5 percent higher touching 85 dollars an ounce and honestly after that insane crash a couple weeks back, where it lost basically half its value in days, it’s still finding its feet. The gold silver ratio compressed down to about 60 which tells you silvers doing the catching up for now.. whether that holds is anyones guess but the physical market looks properly tight with London vault stocks still shrinking.

Over the pond Wall Street couldn’t make up its mind. Jobs data came in hot at 130 thousand against about 55 expected and everything rallied in the morning.. Dow was up 300 points at one stage looking all pleased with itself. Then the penny dropped that strong jobs means less chance of Fed cuts and the whole thing rolled over. Dow finished down about 65 points just under 50,200, S&P basically flat, Nasdaq off a fraction. Vertiv went absolutely bonkers up 24 percent on earnings which is the AI infrastructure trade still going strong, while the software lot continue getting battered on disruption fears. Zillow tanked 17 percent as well which is grim.

Barratt Redrow had a shocker back in London down 7 percent dragging housebuilders with it.. and the wealth management crowd like St James Place and AJ Bell took another kicking too. Fresnillo was one of the bright spots riding golds coat tails as youd expect.

The macro stuff is doing the heavy lifting though. December retail sales came in flat which was rubbish compared to what people expected and then ADP jobs were absolutely dire.. 22,000 in January when they were looking for way more than that. Job openings at the lowest since 2020 as well. So naturally the market has gone from pricing two Fed cuts this year to three and gold just laps that up doesnt it. Lower rates means less reason to hold cash and more reason to hold the shiny stuff. Dollar still looking weak too with the DXY hanging around the mid 96s so thats another tailwind.

Silver is the one thats still got me scratching my head a bit. Ended the week around $85 after a mad bounce on Wednesday where it ripped nearly 5% in a single session to about $84.70. But then you zoom out and remember this thing was above $100 two weeks ago before it got absolutely hammered.. still down roughly a third from the high. Scott Bessent reckons it was all Chinese speculators driving the blowoff which is convenient but probably not wrong. The volatility is mental though. London vault silver stocks dropped 0.3% in January according to the LBMA which doesnt sound like much but when youve got a structural supply deficit its another bit of tightness that adds up. Gold silver ratio sitting around 60 which suggests silver is playing catch up relative to gold but its hard to have much conviction when the thing moves 5% on a random Tuesday.

Both metals look supported for now. Gold above $5,000 feels solid and silver above $80 is where bulls want to hold the line. CPI data still to come this week so that could change everything.