Summary
🟢 Stocks rallied hard across the board Monday after President Trump called off a planned strike on Iran and said talks with Tehran would resume, sending oil sharply lower and easing the inflation anxiety that’s been weighing on risk assets.
Every major index closed firmly higher, led by tech and communication services, as investors treated the diplomatic pivot as durable rather than fragile.
After the close, Palantir Technologies (PLTR) delivered another blowout quarter and a third straight guidance raise, extending the AI-software rally into a week stacked with more marquee earnings.
On the corporate side, Atkore (ATKR) jumped on a sizable all-cash buyout offer, and a stronger-than-expected ISM manufacturing print added to the day’s upbeat tone.
Major Indices & Breadth
🟢 Nasdaq Composite closed at 25,913.90, +2.13%, pacing the rally as AI and software names led the advance on Iran de-escalation and a stronger ISM print.
🟢 Russell 2000 closed at 2,981.91, +1.73%, with small-caps also catching a bid.
🟢 S&P 500 closed at 7,600.50, +1.48% (+110.78 points), closing above 7,600 for the first time.
🟢 Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 53,178.41, +1.32% (+693.38 points), a fresh record close.
🟢 Breadth was broad: 9 of 11 S&P 500 sectors advanced, led by communication services; energy was the lone significant laggard as crude fell more than 5%.
Earnings
🟢 PLTR reported Q2 revenue of $1.94 billion (+93% YoY), beating the $1.81 billion estimate, with adjusted EPS of $0.41 versus $0.35 expected. U.S. commercial revenue surged 149% YoY to $764 million, and remaining U.S. commercial deal value more than doubled to $6.24 billion. The company guided Q3 revenue to $2.160–2.164 billion and raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $8.150–8.158 billion, up from a prior $7.182–7.198 billion. Shares jumped +13% in after-hours trading to roughly $142.01.
🔴 Powell Industries (POWL) posted Q2 CY2026 revenue of $311.7 million (+8.9% YoY), about 1.6% short of estimates, with GAAP EPS of $1.42 missing by 3.4%. Shares fell -14.2% after the report.
AI
🟢 PLTR‘s blowout guide (see Earnings) extended the AI-software rally into a week stacked with more marquee reports. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reports Tuesday after the close — the next major test of whether the AI capex trade can keep confirming at these valuations.
🟢 CoreWeave (CRWV) jumped roughly +18% intraday as investors continued to reward GPU-rental demand ahead of its August 11 earnings report.
🟢 TeraWulf (WULF) climbed +6.9% to close around $18.85 after B. Riley Securities raised its price target to $40, citing a compute deal with Anthropic that the firm said lifts revenue per critical infrastructure roughly 27%.
🟡 Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) also rallied (see Leaders) amid renewed optics and networking demand tied to AI data-center buildout.
🔴 In Asia, SK Hynix shares fell about -9% in Seoul despite posting record Q2 revenue of KRW 79.3 trillion (+257% YoY) and a 76% operating margin, as investors focused on margin durability rather than the headline beat (see Foreign Markets).
Corporate
🟢 Atkore (ATKR) surged +28.0% to $93.40 after Prysmian S.p.A. announced a $3.8 billion all-cash acquisition at $95 per share, roughly a 30% premium to Friday’s close.
🟡 Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) completed its removal from the London Stock Exchange as of July 31, now listed solely on the NYSE, as the company looks to expand its North American investor base around FanDuel.
🟢 Boeing (BA) was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at BNP Paribas; shares rose +5.55%.
🟢 Corning (GLW) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Truist; shares rose +6.76%.
🟡 Starbucks (SBUX) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Melius Research.
🟡 NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
🟡 eBay (EBAY) was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Wells Fargo.
Market Structure
🟡 No index rebalances, additions/removals, or market-structure rule changes were reported today.
Macro/Policy
🟢 The ISM Manufacturing PMI for July came in at 55.6%, up 2.3 points from June’s 53.3% and above the 53.8% forecast — the best reading since May 2022 and a seventh straight month of expansion. New Orders rose to 56.7% and the Employment Index returned to expansion at 52.8%, its first time above 50 since September 2023.
🟡 CME FedWatch odds of a September rate hike eased to roughly 63% from 67% on Friday as today’s oil-price collapse cooled the inflation risk premium that had been building since May’s hot CPI print (see Prediction Markets).
Treasury Bonds
🟢 The 2-Year yield eased 1 basis point to 4.25%.
🟢 The 10-Year yield fell 2 basis points to 4.69%.
🟢 The 30-Year yield declined 3 basis points to 5.23%.
🟡 The 2s10s spread held around 44 basis points, little changed, as the rally was broadly parallel across the curve.
Geopolitics
🟢 President Trump called off a planned “massive” strike on Iran over the weekend and said fresh U.S.–Iran talks would begin today, after regional allies including Saudi Arabia urged a pause to prioritize diplomacy around reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
🟡 Iran publicly denied that direct talks with Washington are underway, though it said discussions with Oman on shipping access through the strait were progressing.
🟢 Turkey and Iraq extended their cross-border oil pipeline agreement by a year, and Kazakhstan resumed crude flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, adding alternative export routes outside the strait (see Commodities).
🟡 Japan and the U.S. conducted coordinated currency-market intervention to support the yen (see Currencies).
Foreign Markets
🟢 The Euro Area’s EU50 index rose +1.42% to 6,448, with banks (UniCredit, Santander, BBVA, BNP Paribas) up more than 2% on falling yields, SAP up +4.4% and Deutsche Telekom up +5% ahead of earnings, and Intesa Sanpaolo up 2.4% after Banca MPS–Banco BPM merger talks collapsed, reviving Intesa’s own acquisition odds for BPM. AstraZeneca tumbled more than -6% on reports of $400 billion merger talks with Bristol Myers Squibb.
🔴 Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell roughly -1.85% to around 63,240 as the stronger yen (see Currencies) weighed on exporter stocks.
Currencies
🔴 Dollar Index (DXY) fell -0.19% to 99.72 as today’s Iran de-escalation and oil selloff eased the inflation/rate-hike premium that had been supporting the dollar.
🔴 USD/JPY fell -0.59% to 156.51 as the yen strengthened after Japan and the U.S. Treasury conducted coordinated currency-market intervention to support the currency, hitting Nikkei exporter stocks (see Foreign Markets).
🟢 GBP/USD fell -0.38% to 1.3431, with the pound underperforming even as the dollar weakened broadly.
🟡 EUR/USD was little changed, -0.02% to 1.1522, hovering near its highest level since mid-June.
Commodities
🟢 Silver rose +1.10% to $58.26 an ounce, tracking gold higher.
🟢 Gold ticked up +0.09% to $4,110.90, roughly flat as the inflation-relief case from lower oil offset a fading safe-haven bid.
🔴 Brent crude fell -4.68% to $83.82 a barrel.
🔴 WTI crude fell -5.44% to $80.06 a barrel, its sharpest one-day drop in months, as Trump’s decision to call off strikes on Iran and pursue talks removed much of the war-risk premium built up in July (see Geopolitics).
Crypto
🟢 Bitcoin (BTC) rose +2.9%, surpassing $64,000, even after a $116 million theft tied to Coldcard hardware wallets. Traders looked past the hack toward improving macro sentiment, regulatory optimism around the CLARITY Act, and today’s Iran de-escalation.
Prediction Markets
🟡 Polymarket’s “Fed Decision in September” contract priced a 56.5% probability of a 25-basis-point hike versus 42.5% for no change, reflecting persistent above-target inflation and resilient ~2.2% GDP growth even before today’s oil-driven relief (see Macro/Policy).
Volatility
🟢 VIX closed at 15.86, -0.81%, near multi-month lows as the Iran de-escalation and oil selloff calmed near-term risk perception heading into a heavy earnings week.
Tomorrow’s Calendar
Earnings before the open: Caterpillar (CAT), McDonald’s (MCD), Pfizer (PFE), Merck (MRK), BP (BP), Spotify (SPOT), TransDigm (TDG), W.W. Grainger (GWW), Cummins (CMI), Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Energy Transfer (ET).
Earnings after the close: AMD, Arista Networks (ANET), Lucid Group (LCID), Pinterest (PINS), SpaceX (SPCX) — its first quarterly report since going public, Opendoor (OPEN), Devon Energy (DVN), Amgen (AMGN), Gilead Sciences (GILD).
Later this week: SanDisk (SNDK) reports Wednesday after the close; the July jobs report is due Friday at 8:30 AM ET.
3 Scenarios
🟢 Bullish: Iran de-escalation holds and Strait of Hormuz shipping normalizes further, oil extends its slide, and the inflation impulse behind recent rate-hike bets keeps fading. AMD‘s Tuesday report confirms AI capex demand alongside PLTR‘s blowout guide, and the S&P 500 pushes further above 7,600 toward new highs.
🟡 Neutral: Diplomatic headlines stay choppy — Iran’s denial of direct talks with Washington keeps the risk premium from fully unwinding — while markets digest a heavy earnings slate (CAT, AMD, MCD, PFE) and July’s strong ISM print keeps the Fed’s September decision a coin flip. Indices consolidate near current levels.
🔴 Bearish: Talks stall or Iran signals fresh escalation, sending oil back toward recent highs and reviving the hot-inflation/rate-hike dynamic that pressured markets in June. A soft AMD report or a weak public-market debut for SPCX reignites AI-valuation concerns, pulling the Nasdaq’s gain back toward flat.
Final Take
Monday delivered the mirror image of June’s dual shock — de-escalation instead of escalation — and every major index closed sharply higher on it.
Trump’s decision to call off strikes on Iran and restart talks knocked more than 5% off crude, and equities treated the relief as a straightforward tailwind rather than a fragile truce.
PLTR‘s after-hours surge on a 93% revenue beat and a third straight guidance raise gave the AI trade fresh legs heading into a week stacked with AMD, SPCX, and CAT earnings.
The S&P 500’s close above 7,600 for the first time is real, but so is the caveat: Iran has publicly denied that direct talks are underway, and a single denial or drone strike could reverse today’s oil move overnight.
Tuesday’s AMD report is the next test of whether the AI capex story can keep absorbing this much good news at these valuations.
Source: CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, TheStreet, Fortune, TradingEconomics, Investing.com, ISM, Polymarket, CME FedWatch, TipRanks, Daily Trade Alert/The Fly, 247wallst.
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