Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving.
The S&P five hundred closed out July in the red for the first time since two thousand fourteen, and the pain was concentrated in semiconductors, which posted their worst month in twenty-four years. The index whipsawed into month-end as investors rotated hard out of high-multiple tech, leaving chip names particularly exposed.
Feeding that unease is the intensifying debate around artificial intelligence regulation. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were both in Washington ahead of a White House deadline tied to the administration's AI executive order. The presence of those two names in the same room as regulators tells you everything about where the policy pressure is landing.
On the commodity side, crude found a bid Friday, with September West Texas Intermediate closing up roughly one and a quarter percent. The driver was supply anxiety, specifically disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which remains one of the most sensitive chokepoints in global energy markets. That pressure helped the dollar steady itself as well, with T-note yields lending support after stronger-than-expected employment cost data came in above consensus.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
