RECORD HIGH, RUNNING ON EMPTY

THE ELEVEN: US MARKETS

Episode 15: RECORD HIGH, RUNNING ON EMPTY, Week 33

Key Themes & Analysis — Week 33

The Wall Street / Main Street Divide: The S&P 500 hit a fresh all-time high this week even as July retail sales posted their worst drop in over a year and consumer sentiment cratered to its lowest reading since June. Record index levels and a nervous household sector are now the defining tension of the market, one that show hosts flagged as the top thing to watch heading into next week's big-box retail earnings.

The Fed's Moving Target: Chair Kevin Warsh's Fed held rates steady in July with three dissents favoring a hike, setting up a genuinely uncertain September 16th meeting. Odds of a hike swung from roughly two-in-three a couple of weeks ago down to about 30% this week, as softer retail and sentiment data gave doves new ammunition even as inflation (3.4% headline, 2.5% core) remains above target.

Iran & the Strait of Hormuz - Still Unresolved: Ship attacks in the Strait continued this week and Treasury Secretary Bessent previewed a new, unspecified round of "unprecedented" economic measures against Iran, with more detail expected in the coming days. Oil (Brent ~$88) remains structurally elevated, and any move toward secondary sanctions on Iran's remaining oil buyers (chiefly China) is a wildcard for global trade and energy prices.

The AI Infrastructure Trade Keeps Widening: SpaceX's volatile post-IPO trading, Nvidia's newly disclosed $21B stake in SpaceX, OpenAI crossing $40B in annualized revenue, and Anthropic's first operating profit and reported $2 trillion IPO valuation chatter all point to the same theme - AI infrastructure spend and monetization are accelerating faster than most public-market frameworks can price them.