WS #11738

The US-Iran ceasefire has collapsed, with both sides launching new airstrikes. The US struck Iranian targets near Bushehr, including areas near a nuclear power plant, while Iran retaliated with ballistic missiles targeting a US base in Jordan. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is again at a near-standstill, and Qatar has paused LNG output revival after a tanker attack. Oil prices are volatile: Brent crude rose 5.3% to $78.12 on Wednesday but later fell 2% to $76.5, while WTI dropped 2% to $72.04. The EU's Dombrovskis noted the economy is resilient to the shock, but the situation remains uncertain. Silver jumped 3.71% to $60.33/oz, and gold miners leveraged ETN (GDXU) rose 9.3%. Meanwhile, the AI/semiconductor sector is rallying strongly: Arm stock surged 11% ahead of its July 23 earnings, SK Hynix's US IPO is 7x oversubscribed, Micron raised its US investment plan to $200B and poured first concrete at its Clay fab, Meta announced its first paid AI developer tier and its new AI chips will begin production in September, and OpenAI moved GPT-5.6 to general availability. However, Palo Alto Networks CEO called for 90% AI pricing cuts, and Rackspace slashed its outlook, sending shares down 29%. A $747.92M dark pool SPY order and a $236.16M AAPL dark pool order were detected. The macro narrative is mixed: geopolitical risk supports energy and precious metals, while AI infrastructure spending continues to drive tech. The dominant theme is ESCALATING US-Iran conflict, with counter-signals from EU resilience comments and oil price pullback.