Markets & Finance

Brent crude posted its largest single-day percentage gain since April on July 17, closing at $88.10 after six consecutive nights of US strikes on Iran, an Iranian retaliatory strike on a Kuwaiti desalination facility, and Reuters data showing Strait of Hormuz tanker transits at a two-month low. The move was amplified by an already tight physical market: EIA data showed commercial crude stocks 6% below the five-year average, gasoline inventories 8% below seasonal norms, and refinery utilization at 96.2%. The AAA national gasoline average reached $3.998 per gallon by July 19, while war-risk insurance premiums for Hormuz transits rose tenfold to as high as 5% of hull value, a cost increase that applies regardless of whether the strait formally closes.

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo collectively generated approximately $342 billion in net revenue during the first half of 2026, up roughly 17% from $293 billion in H1 2025, with equities trading rising 45% or more at four of the six banks and investment banking fees climbing 30% to 58% across all six. The global investment-banking fee pool separately reached $61.4 billion in H1 2026, a 24% year-over-year increase and the strongest first half since 2021, according to Dealogic data cited by Reuters. Goldman Sachs reported its investment banking backlog at a five-year high, while Citigroup announced a $30 billion share buyback and JPMorgan returned $10.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter alone.

ASML has revised its 2026 full-year sales forecast upward twice this year, reaching €43–45 billion with a gross margin of 54–56%, driven by logic capacity additions for AI accelerators and memory expansion for high-bandwidth memory. The company projects logic system sales to grow over 25% and memory system sales over 75% in 2026, with 2027 low-NA EUV capacity described as nearly fully covered by existing orders. Notably, ASML withheld its Q2 order-intake figure for the first time, removing a key forward-looking metric analysts have historically used to gauge semiconductor capital expenditure cycles.