Monday, July 13, 2026
Iran Closes the Strait of Hormuz as Oil Jumps 4%, Overshadowing SK Hynix's Record Nasdaq Debut
Key Indicators
S&P 500
7,575.39
+31.75 (+0.42%) (up)Nasdaq Composite
26,281.61
+74.72 (+0.29%) (up)Dow Jones Industrial Average
52,637.01
+149.60 (+0.29%) (up)10-Year Treasury Yield
4.56%
+0.01 pts (+0.13%) (up)VIX
15.03
-0.81 (-5.1%) (down)WTI Crude Oil
$71.41
-0.67 (-0.93%) (down)Gold
$4,121.08
-0.54 (-0.01%) (unchanged)Bitcoin (BTC/USD)
$64,154.10
+927.40 (+1.47%) (up)Market Recap
Wall Street closes a choppy week higher as SK Hynix soars in a record Nasdaq debut
Wall Street capped a volatile week with modest gains on Friday: the S&P 500 rose 0.42% (31.75 points) to 7,575.39, the Nasdaq Composite added 0.29% (74.72 points) to 26,281.61, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.29% (149.60 points) to 52,637.01, leaving all three indexes higher on the week. The session's marquee event was South Korean memory-chip maker SK Hynix's Nasdaq debut: the stock surged 13% after a record $26.5 billion U.S. share sale, the largest-ever listing by a foreign company, with the CEO telling investors that memory-chip shortages are likely to persist beyond 2030. The VIX, Wall Street's volatility gauge, fell 5.1% to 15.03 as traders looked past lingering Middle East tensions ahead of earnings season, while WTI crude eased 0.93% to $71.41 a barrel.
Delta beats on both lines but slides on margins; EquipmentShare, WD-40 and Meta rally
Delta Air Lines kicked off airline earnings with a top- and bottom-line beat — adjusted EPS of $1.56 versus the $1.48 expected, and adjusted revenue of $17.67 billion versus $17.53 billion expected — but the stock still fell about 2.2% to $87.09. The reason: net income dropped 25% year-over-year to $1.6 billion as elevated fuel costs ate into margins, even though operating revenue grew 19%. Delta affirmed its full-year guidance and guided third-quarter EPS to $2.00-$2.50, a touch above the Street's $2.02 estimate. Elsewhere, equipment-rental technology firm EquipmentShare jumped 17% after raising its 2026 outlook, and WD-40 climbed 11% on strong fiscal third-quarter results. Meta Platforms extended its rally to a 15% gain on the week, making it the top-performing Magnificent Seven stock, as AI-buildout enthusiasm — fueled partly by Micron's newly expanded $250 billion U.S. manufacturing pledge — continued to lift chip- and AI-infrastructure-linked names.
Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz closed after a heavier weekend strike exchange; oil jumps, futures wobble
The bigger story for markets heading into Monday is what happened over the weekend, not Friday's close. U.S. Central Command said it carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Iran on Sunday to degrade the country's ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, hours after a separate wave hit hundreds of targets inside the country. Iran responded with missile and drone strikes on U.S.-aligned Gulf states — the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain — and declared the strait, through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil normally passes, closed. Brent crude jumped as much as 4% to around $79 a barrel and WTI rose in tandem toward the mid-$74s, reversing Friday's small decline, while U.S. stock futures wobbled Monday morning: Nasdaq 100 futures fell close to 1%, pressured by memory-chip names including Micron, SanDisk, and SK Hynix, with S&P 500 futures down modestly and Dow futures roughly flat. Economist Mohamed El-Erian warned of a 'significant intensification' risk in the conflict, and one oil analyst said Brent could hold in the upper-$70s through August and September if the disruption persists.
Week ahead: CPI, PPI, retail sales, and the new Fed chair's Capitol Hill debut
This week brings the data that will determine whether the oil shock feeds into inflation expectations. June CPI lands Tuesday, followed by PPI Wednesday and retail sales Thursday, with a preliminary July consumer-sentiment read on Friday. The timing is pointed: Tuesday is also when Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his first semiannual monetary-policy testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, followed by a Senate Banking Committee appearance Wednesday — his debut before Congress since taking over the Fed. Earnings season also ramps up, with big banks including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo reporting, alongside healthcare heavyweights Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth.
Concept of the Day
Cost-Push Inflation
Cost-push inflation happens when prices rise because the cost of producing goods and services goes up — not because demand for them has surged. The classic trigger is a supply shock to a key input, most often energy: when oil, a cost embedded in everything from gasoline to plastics to freight, gets more expensive, companies either absorb the hit to margins or pass it on to customers. When the pass-through is widespread enough, it shows up in the aggregate inflation data even though consumers haven't actually changed how much they want to buy. This is exactly the mechanism traders are watching for after Iran's declared closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne crude moves through that chokepoint, so a sustained disruption there is a textbook supply shock: oil-intensive industries (airlines, shipping, chemicals, plastics) face higher input costs immediately, and everything downstream — from a bag of chips to a plane ticket — can reprice with a lag of weeks to months. The tricky part for policymakers is that cost-push inflation doesn't respond to the usual tool for fighting inflation. The Fed raises interest rates to cool demand, but a supply shock isn't a demand problem — it's a cost problem. Raising rates into an oil shock can slow growth and even push the economy toward recession without doing much to bring the price of oil itself back down, which is why central bankers usually try to distinguish a 'transitory' supply-driven price spike from a demand-driven one before reacting.
Why it matters
With June CPI due Tuesday and a new Fed chair testifying before Congress the same day, the market's read on this week's inflation data will hinge on whether investors treat the Strait of Hormuz shock as a one-off supply disruption or the start of a broader inflation impulse. If oil-driven cost-push pressure shows up in the data and looks likely to persist, it complicates the Fed's rate path — and for anyone building a portfolio, it's a reminder that energy-sensitive sectors (airlines, transports, chemicals) absorb this kind of shock first and fastest, while companies with pricing power tend to protect margins better than those without it.
What to Watch
Tue, Jul 14
Consumer Price Index (June)
June CPI is the first hard read on whether the Strait of Hormuz oil shock is already feeding into consumer prices, and it lands the same day the new Fed chair testifies to Congress.
Tue, Jul 14
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first congressional testimony (House Financial Services Committee)
Warsh's debut testimony as Fed chair, delivered the same day as June CPI, is the market's first chance to hear how he plans to balance a fresh oil-driven inflation risk against the Fed's rate path.
Wed, Jul 15
Producer Price Index (June)
PPI shows wholesale price pressure before it reaches consumers, an early gauge of whether the oil shock is feeding into business costs ahead of CPI's confirmation.
Thu, Jul 16
Retail Sales (June)
Retail sales will show whether consumer spending is holding up even as oil prices climb, a key signal for how much of the cost shock the economy can absorb.
Fri, Jul 17
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (July, preliminary)
This is the first look at how consumers feel in July, capturing any hit to confidence from the weekend's Iran escalation and the jump in gas prices.