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Five years of high inflation is testing the patience of Federal Reserve officials and exposing a split between those willing to wait before hiking interest rates and those who say time is running out, Bloomberg reported. After the Fed held its benchmark rate steady last month, recent comments suggest a broader minority now see a case for raising rates soon, with some non-voting FOMC members siding with the three dissenters who preferred a modest increase. Others in the majority argue inflation could still cool on its own, though their patience is wearing thin. Friday's surprise decline in July payrolls did little to settle the debate. BNP Paribas chief US economist James Egelhof said the data has been ambiguous about which story is playing out, and that pressure on the Fed to act is increasing.
Attention now turns to inflation data before the September meeting, including a consumer-price report due next week, according to Bloomberg. The CPI stood at 3.5% in June and the Fed's preferred core measure at 3.3%, versus a 2% target officials see reached only by 2028. Dissenters Neel Kashkari, Lorie Logan and Beth Hammack have warned that waiting could require more aggressive tightening later, while Governor Lisa Cook said hiking too soon could hurt the labor market and noted some disinflationary forces are already in play. A notable absence from the debate has been Chair Kevin Warsh, whose reluctance to guide markets has clouded his economic view. Apollo's Torsten Slok said the issue is no longer just the data but also Fed credibility, with inflation above target since 2021. Warsh will take center stage at Jackson Hole later this month.

U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 setting a record closing high and all three major indexes posting sizable weekly gains, according to Sina Finance. The Dow rose 151.83 points, or 0.28%, to 54,036.93; the Nasdaq gained 342.26 points, or 1.30%, to 26,690.62; and the S&P 500 climbed 47.68 points, or 0.62%, to 7,757.64.
For the week, the Dow added 2.96%, the Nasdaq rose 5.19%, and the S&P 500 gained 3.58%.
A U.S. government report released Friday showed nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly fell in July, while June figures were revised lower, prompting traders to trim bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike.
Traders now expect about a 12-basis-point hike at the September meeting and a cumulative 30 basis points for the rest of the year, down from 35 basis points priced in at Thursday's close.
Among individual stocks, Airbnb surged 17.4% after the vacation-rental company reported revenue and profit that beat expectations, and Cloudflare rose 5.6% after the cloud networking and security firm issued a solid full-year and current-quarter outlook.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, while June was revised down to a decline of 20,000; the consensus in a Dow Jones survey had called for a gain of 83,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1%, while the labor force participation rate slipped further to 61.4%, the lowest in more than five years. May's final figure was also revised down to 63,000, a reduction of 66,000 from the prior estimate, bringing the 12-month average of job gains to just 34,000.
The declines were led by a loss of 50,000 in local government education and 19,000 in retail, while financial activities shed 14,000. Health care, previously a leading driver of job growth, added 22,000, below its 12-month average of 36,000. Average hourly earnings rose just 2 cents, lowering the 12-month gain to 3.2%, below the 3.5% expected.
Fed policymakers remain divided on the rate path, with several officials recently signaling support for a hike as early as September if price gains do not slow; the FOMC voted 9-3 last week to hold the benchmark rate steady. After the report, the probability of a September hike fell to 44% and an October hike to 58.3%, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

According to Jin10, The Information reported that SpaceX (SPCX.O) could complete its $60 billion acquisition of coding startup Cursor as early as next weekend, and Cursor will be integrated with SpaceX's AI team.

Bitcoin crossed $65,000 on Friday — barely changed over the prior 24-hour period at $64,700 before the move — as Yemen's Iran-linked Houthi forces attacked Saudi Arabia, escalating Middle East tensions beyond the US-Iran Strait of Hormuz conflict that has dominated the macro narrative since February. Brent crude dropped below $80 per barrel on the Saudi attack. Gold rose 1.5% to $4,300 per ounce as investors moved toward safety in the face of uncertainty. The 10-year Treasury yield held at 4.67% — slight correction from Thursday's 4.73% peak but still in the zone Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer described as where "history suggests nothing good happens." The broader CoinDesk 20 Index was down 0.2% over 24 hours. The long-short taker ratio returned to neutral after leaning bullish on Thursday, suggesting traders adopted a more cautious stance ahead of the payrolls report. BVIV remained near its floor of 36% with no signs of stress despite the Clarity Act delay and impending jobs data.Bitcoin at $65,000 — The Level Nexo's Kalchev Said Would Launch the Recovery NarrativeBitcoin crossing $65,000 — even briefly — is the specific technical event that Nexo analyst Liya Kalchev identified as the threshold needed for a genuine recovery narrative to take hold. Her assessment this week was precise: the marginal buyer looks tactical rather than convicted, and a decisive close above $65,000 was the condition under which convicted institutional buyers would step in and validate the $1.2 billion in whale accumulation and $754 million in weekly ETF inflows as structurally significant rather than tactically positioned.The mechanism driving the $65,000 cross is not the Goldilocks NFP or a dovish Fed pivot — it is Middle East escalation sending Brent above $83 and gold to $4,300, with Bitcoin apparently participating in the safe-haven and inflation-hedge bid rather than being suppressed by the hawkish macro implications of higher oil. This is the first session in the six-month conflict where Bitcoin's price action has diverged from the standard oil-up-yields-up-BTC-down chain that Fidelity's Timmer identified as the dominant summer constraint. If Bitcoin is beginning to trade as a safe-haven alongside gold — rather than as a risk asset suppressed by oil-driven inflation fears — the macro chain that has capped it since May is breaking down.The Houthi Saudi Attack — A Third Simultaneous Conflict TheaterYemen's Houthi forces attacking Saudi Arabia adds a third simultaneous active conflict theater to the Middle East crisis: the US-Iran direct confrontation over Hormuz, the Houthi Red Sea campaign targeting international shipping, and now a direct Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia itself. The Saudi attack is categorically different from the Houthi Red Sea operations — which targeted commercial shipping in international waters — because it represents a direct strike on Saudi territory, activating Saudi Arabia's defense posture and potentially drawing Riyadh into a more active military role beyond its current coordination with US forces.For oil markets, the Houthi Saudi attack introduces the possibility of disruption to Saudi oil production infrastructure — not just Hormuz transit. Saudi Arabia produces approximately 9-10 million barrels per day, representing roughly 9% of global supply. A successful Houthi attack on Saudi oil production infrastructure — as occurred with the Abqaiq-Khurais attack in September 2019, which briefly cut Saudi output by approximately 50% — would create a supply shock far more severe than Hormuz transit disruption alone. Brent at $83 rising toward $85-90 on this escalation is pricing the probability of that scenario rather than its certainty.Gold at $4,300 and Bitcoin at $65,000 — the Simultaneous Safe-Haven SignalGold's 1.5% rise to $4,300 and Bitcoin's cross above $65,000 occurring simultaneously — while Brent rises and yields hold elevated — is the clearest single-session evidence that Bitcoin is beginning to participate in the safe-haven trade rather than being purely suppressed by the hawkish macro implications of oil-driven inflation. In every prior session of the six-month conflict, gold and Bitcoin have been inversely correlated through the macro chain: oil up drives inflation fears, drives Fed hawkishness, drives yields and dollar, which suppresses Bitcoin while gold — as a genuine inflation hedge — benefits from the same oil-driven inflation concern.Friday's session shows gold up 1.5% and Bitcoin crossing $65,000 — both rising simultaneously on the same Middle East escalation catalyst. If sustained, this co-movement would represent the beginning of a narrative shift in how institutional capital categorizes Bitcoin during geopolitical stress: from risk asset suppressed by macro tightening to inflation hedge and geopolitical uncertainty store of value. The 20,000 BTC in whale accumulation since July 29, the $754 million in weekly ETF inflows, and Santiment's "$70K+ more probable than sub-$60K" assessment would all be validated by this narrative shift rather than requiring a dovish Fed pivot to materialize.The Derivatives Configuration — Neutral Positioning Into NFPThe long-short taker ratio returning to neutral after leaning bullish Thursday — suggesting cautious repositioning ahead of payrolls — combined with BVIV at its 36% floor and puts at $60,000 and $62,000 dominating Deribit volume describe a market that has not yet converted the $65,000 cross into leveraged bullish conviction. The 36% BVIV — below the 40% level and approaching the 35-38% floor that has historically triggered volatility bounces — continues to signal that the market is not pricing near-term stress despite the Houthi Saudi attack, elevated yields, and NFP uncertainty.ETH's $2,000 call as the most active Deribit option for Ether — while BTC puts at $60,000 and $62,000 dominate BTC options volume — describes the specific intra-crypto directional divergence that has characterized the past two weeks: institutional options participants are more bullish on Ether's upside through $2,000 than they are on Bitcoin avoiding downside to $60,000. This confirms the ETH-over-BTC institutional preference that Bitmine's weekly accumulation, ETH ETF inflows, and the Coinbase premium's 77-day negative streak for Bitcoin all independently support.Canton Network's CC token seeing futures OI surge 5% while the price fell 13% — with negative OI-adjusted CVD confirming aggressive short selling — is the session's clearest example of the downtrend validation dynamic: declining price with rising OI and negative CVD means new short positions are being aggressively opened, confirming the downtrend rather than providing contrarian support.Sui's Quantum-Resistant Security — The Most Forward-Looking Technical Development of the WeekSui's integration of two NIST-approved post-quantum signature schemes — ML-DSA-65 for everyday accounts at the protocol level and SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s inside Move smart contracts for high-value vaults — is the most significant blockchain security development of the current week and arrives in the same month that Strategy and BlackRock formed a consortium to prepare Bitcoin for the same quantum threat.The specific risk Sui is addressing is the "harvest now, forge later" attack vector — where attackers collect exposed public keys from onchain transactions today and crack them once quantum computers capable of running Shor's algorithm become available. The threat is uniquely severe for blockchain because public keys are permanently exposed onchain the moment an account transacts, unlike traditional systems where an attacker must breach a system before accessing key material. Sui's implementation uses two different mathematical foundations — so a weakness in one scheme does not compromise the other — and was prompted by a July incident where an AI model halved the effective strength of a different post-quantum candidate, demonstrating that conservative security margin selection is warranted.The contrast with Bitcoin and Ethereum is significant: Sui's "cryptographic agility" architecture allows new signature schemes to be added without touching consensus or existing balances — a routine protocol update. Bitcoin and Ethereum face a substantially heavier lift for quantum-proofing given their simpler but less agile base protocol architectures. For the current market, Sui's quantum-resistance upgrade is a technical credibility signal in the L1 competition for institutional adoption — the same institutions building quantum-resistant portfolios through the Strategy-BlackRock consortium are evaluating which blockchain infrastructure is prepared for the quantum threat.The NFP and the $65,000 Close — The Two Variables That Define the WeekendBitcoin crossing $65,000 on Middle East escalation rather than on a dovish NFP is the most unexpected path to Kalchev's decisive close threshold. Whether the $65,000 level is sustained through the US NFP release and into the weekly close will determine whether Friday's cross is the genuine recovery narrative trigger or a temporary spike that reverses on a strong jobs print. A decisive close above $65,000 — sustained through whatever the NFP delivers — would validate the whale accumulation, ETF inflows, and narrative shift simultaneously and establish $65,000 as support rather than resistance for the first time since the recovery began.

SpaceX shares rose 6.6% to top $122, while the company’s market value reached $1.613 trillion. According to Odaily, SpaceX moved ahead of Meta and ranked 12th globally by asset market value.

According to Jin10, SPDR Gold Trust holdings increased by 2.818 tons from the previous day to 1017.537 tons.

Spot gold rose as much as 3% intraday to $4,368.18 an ounce on August 7, its highest level since June 17, according to Jiemian News.

According to Jin10, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said that for the week ended August 4, COMEX gold speculative net long positions increased by 12,070 contracts to 132,398 contracts, COMEX silver speculative net long positions increased by 2,679 contracts to 11,067 contracts, and COMEX copper speculative net long positions increased by 11,307 contracts to 77,796 contracts.

UBS said the current gold rally has fundamental support and that gold prices are likely to move toward $5,000 per ounce in the first half of 2027. According to Sina Finance, Chief Investment Officer Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi and her team published the view on Thursday.
According to Sina Finance, the bank said gold futures rose more than 4% over five trading days, helped by buying from Chinese investors and continued inflows into gold ETFs. UBS also said central banks are expected to keep buying gold, which it said will provide floor support for prices. The bank added that gold rose more than 65% in 2025, while prices have been broadly flat so far this year.

Alphabet announced on August 7 local time that it plans to issue $25 billion of senior unsecured bonds, including floating-rate and fixed-rate notes, with maturities ranging from 2028 to 2066. The longest-dated fixed-rate bond would mature in 2066, and the top coupon on the fixed-rate tranches is 6.5%, according to Jiemian News.

Tanger CEO Stephen Yalof said consumer spending has been strong during the back-to-school shopping season, according to Bloomberg. Speaking on "Bloomberg Open Interest," he also said the World Cup helped drive retail traffic and discussed the outlook for the holiday shopping season.

According to Jin10, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said that in the week ended August 4, speculators reduced net long positions in WTI crude by 4,683 contracts to 101,824 contracts.

China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges on August 7 opened a consultation on new rules for Listed Open-ended Funds (LOFs) that would spell out delisting procedures and target speculative trading in high-premium products, according to Jiemian News. Under the draft, commodity futures LOFs, QDII LOFs and small-size LOFs with daily on-exchange net asset value below 10 million yuan for 60 consecutive trading days would be required to leave the market.
The proposal sets a transition period for commodity futures LOFs and QDII LOFs, with delisting no later than December 31, 2027, and filings due by November 12, 2027. Small-size LOFs would have no transition period: once the 60-day threshold is met, managers must announce the condition before trading opens on the next trading day, the fund is suspended from that announcement date, and delisting documents must be submitted within two trading days. The exchanges would decide on delisting within 10 trading days of receiving the documents.
The draft also tightens disclosure and risk-warning requirements. Commodity futures LOFs and QDII LOFs would have an asterisk added before their secondary-market abbreviations from the effective date of the rules, while small-size LOFs that stay below 10 million yuan for 40 consecutive trading days would trigger daily risk disclosures from the next trading day until the issue is resolved or delisting conditions are met. Securities firms would need to place LOFs with delisting notices on a key monitoring list, and step up warnings through their websites, trading systems and quote systems.
Jiemian News reported that the exchanges said the overhaul is meant to address rising premiums and illiquidity in some LOFs. It cited Wind data showing 402 LOFs in the market with combined assets of 54.566 billion yuan as of August 7, and 12 funds trading at premiums above 5%, including Global Chip LOF, Caitong Fuxin Balanced and Guotou Silver LOF. The report estimated that about 125 LOFs with combined on-exchange assets of roughly 26 billion yuan could be affected by the new rules.

Bank of America kept its Buy rating on Western Digital but lowered its price target from $732 to $720. According to Odaily, BofA said the company’s growth this quarter was driven mainly by higher prices rather than shipment growth.

According to Jin10, New York Mercantile Exchange light crude for September delivery rose 89 cents to $78.18 a barrel, up 1.15%, and London Brent crude for October delivery rose $1.06 to $83.55 a barrel, up 1.29%.

Morgan Stanley economists Seth Carpenter and Michael Gapen said in a report that the firm's base case is for the Federal Reserve to shrink its balance sheet by about $1.5 trillion over roughly two years, with the earliest possible start in the first quarter of 2027. According to Sina Finance, they said a reasonable reduction range is $600 billion to $2.5 trillion.
They expect the Fed to continue using an ample reserves framework while reducing reserve demand and supply. They said policymakers may begin discussing a return to a scarce reserves framework, but that would require more implementation preparation and could increase day-to-day funding volatility in money markets.
The economists said tiered interest payments on reserve balances would encourage banks to replace some reserves with U.S. Treasury bills. Treasury bills have similar regulatory treatment to reserves while still earning market rates.
They also estimated that other Fed liability items could create room for hundreds of billions of dollars more balance sheet reduction, including the U.S. Treasury General Account and cash held by foreign official institutions in the reverse repo facility.
Matthew Hornbach, Martin Tobias, and Jay Bacow said the market impact of balance sheet reform should depend less on the overall size of the reduction and more on choices such as which liabilities decline, which assets leave the Fed's System Open Market Account, how the U.S. Treasury will finance the adjustment, and whether reserves remain ample.

According to Sina Finance, Mitsubishi UFJ analysts recommended going long the Australian dollar against the Japanese yen, saying the impact of intervention is fading and that traders' reduced bets on further Federal Reserve rate hikes have improved the environment for carry trades.
The analysts, Derek Halpenny, Lee Hardman and Abdul-Ahad Lockhart, said they expect AUD/JPY to continue recovering losses caused by intervention because fundamental conditions have not changed enough to support a sustained yen advance. They set a target of 114.50 and a stop-loss at 109.20. They also said the weaker-than-expected U.S. July nonfarm payrolls report lowered market expectations for additional Fed tightening, easing a major risk to financial market stability and supporting demand for high-yield G10 currencies such as the Australian dollar.

Brazil’s government is seeking flexibility, not a surge in foreign bond sales, as it asks Congress for authority to issue as much as $35 billion a year in global markets, Treasury Secretary Daniel Leal said in an interview, according to Bloomberg. The request is aimed at giving the treasury room to borrow abroad if needed.

Bitcoin traded near $64K on Friday — unchanged on the week — as the entire market drifted ahead of the US July payrolls report, with Ether holding at $1,903 and the rest of the majors sitting within a percentage point or two in either direction. The setup turned slightly less friendly overnight: Brent rose 1.4% to $83.61 after reports that Iran will try to restrict US and Israeli ships through the Strait of Hormuz and demand compensation from countries it deems hostile before allowing transit — stalling the deal that had been pulling oil lower since Trump's WWII-scale canceled strike disclosure. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed seven basis points during the US session in response, reaching 4.73% — a level Fidelity's Director of Global Macro Jurrien Timmer explicitly labeled "well into the danger zone," noting that "recent history suggests nothing good happens above 4.5%." The dollar posted its best day in two weeks. SK Hynix announced a 54 trillion won ($38 billion) expansion of chipmaking facilities in South Korea to meet AI memory demand — the largest single capital commitment from the memory sector of the current cycle. Today's NFP is the one scheduled catalyst capable of breaking Bitcoin out of the range it has been trapped in since May.
The Macro Chain — Oil, Yields, Dollar, Bitcoin
Fidelity's Timmer has identified the same transmission chain that has governed Bitcoin's price action throughout the summer with unusual precision. Oil up feeds inflation expectations. Inflation keeps yields and the dollar firm. Firmer financial conditions cap risk assets including Bitcoin. The 10-year yield at 4.73% — seven basis points above Thursday's close and well above the 4.5% threshold that Timmer identified as the boundary between constructive and damaging for risk assets — is the most direct expression of the oil rebound's macro consequences.
Timmer's explanation of what is driving yields above 4.73% is analytically richer than the simple oil-inflation channel. His first explanation — AI companies' "insatiable demand for financing" creating a reverse crowding-out effect, diverting investor appetite away from Treasuries — connects the AI infrastructure buildout directly to the yield pressure that is capping Bitcoin. The same $38 billion SK Hynix commitment announced Friday is part of the AI capital expenditure cycle that Timmer says may be pushing yields higher. The irony is precise: AI infrastructure demand is simultaneously the source of SK Hynix's bullish commitment and one of the drivers of the high-yield environment that is suppressing Bitcoin's price.
His second explanation — growing skepticism that the Fed will back hawkish rhetoric with action — is the 35% July hike probability that Citadel Securities backed and Bank of America's 60-rule prevented. A Fed that talks hawkishly but does not hike creates an uncertainty premium in longer-dated yields as the market prices a wider range of outcomes rather than a clear rate path. His third explanation — reduced Fed transparency increasing uncertainty and risk premia — connects to Warsh's communication approach in his first FOMC cycle. "Bear steepening" — longer-dated yields rising faster than shorter-dated yields — is the specific yield curve configuration that is most damaging for risk assets and most consistent with the 10-year at 4.73% against a Fed funds rate of 3.50%-3.75%.
Iran's Hormuz Restriction Threat — The Deal That Was Pulling Oil Lower Just Stalled
Iran's reported plan to restrict US and Israeli ships through the Strait of Hormuz and demand compensation from hostile countries before allowing transit is the most significant single reversal of the deal-optimism narrative since Trump's WWII-scale canceled strike disclosure sent Brent to $81.55. The specific mechanism — not a return to strikes but a conditions-based access restriction — is a new form of Hormuz leverage that Iran has not explicitly deployed in the six-month conflict. Rather than disrupting all transit through military action, this approach would selectively restrict passage for ships from specific nations, creating a tiered access system that maintains Iran's leverage without the full military escalation that prompted Trump to order the WWII-scale strike.
For oil markets, the Hormuz restriction threat is sufficient to reverse the deal-optimism discount that had brought Brent from $90+ to $81.55. The 1.4% Brent rise to $83.61 — partially reversing the deal-optimism decline — is the market pricing the probability that the Iran deal is more complicated than Trump's "imminent" language suggested. For Bitcoin, the Hormuz restriction threat removes the most constructive macro development of the past week — the deal signal that was expected to send Brent below $80 and compress September rate hike odds from 63% — and reinstates the oil-inflation headwind that has capped Bitcoin all summer.
The Three-Outcome NFP Framework Into Friday
Every analysis of the week has converged on Friday's NFP as the defining catalyst. IG analyst Tony Sycamore's Goldilocks target of approximately 88,000 jobs with 4.2% unemployment unchanged is the specific print that provides the maximum constructive setup: enough jobs growth to eliminate recession concern without enough to validate September rate hike probability above 50%. The oil rebound and yield increase heading into the NFP have tightened the conditions under which a dovish NFP reaction is possible — with Brent at $83.61 and the 10-year at 4.73%, even a soft NFP would need to be quite significantly below consensus to compress September rate hike odds meaningfully.
A Goldilocks print in the 70,000-100,000 range provides Bitcoin with the macro permission to test $65,000-$67,250 as the oil headwind is partially offset by Fed dovishness. A miss below 50,000 — consistent with June's 57,000 and the 15,000 weekly ADP — would send September rate hike odds sharply lower and potentially trigger a dollar reversal from its best day in two weeks, providing Bitcoin with the most direct bullish catalyst of the recovery period. A strong print above 100,000 — stacked on Brent at $83.61, the 10-year at 4.73%, and Iran's Hormuz restriction threat — hands the hawks another argument and validates the range that has held since May for another extended period.
Timmer's specific instruction — watch the reaction in yields, not just the headline number — is the most important analytical note for how to interpret today's print. A 100,000 NFP that sends the 10-year below 4.60% because markets interpret it as preventing a recession without requiring additional hikes would be more constructive for Bitcoin than a 60,000 NFP that sends the 10-year from 4.73% to 4.71% because markets see it as insufficient to change the Fed's calculus. The yield reaction is the transmission mechanism, not the headline job count.
SK Hynix's $38 Billion AI Memory Bet — The Infrastructure Demand Confirmation
SK Hynix's 54 trillion won ($38 billion) commitment to expand chipmaking facilities in Yongin and Cheongju — to meet what the company described as "continuously growing demand for memory in the AI era" — is the single largest AI memory capital commitment from the sector and arrives the same week as Amazon's 37% AWS growth beat and Palantir's 14% raised guidance surge. The three data points together — hyperscaler cloud demand accelerating, AI software guidance rising, and the largest memory producer committing $38 billion to capacity expansion — constitute the most comprehensive AI infrastructure demand confirmation since the current cycle began.
For Bitcoin, SK Hynix's $38 billion commitment is a read that the AI infrastructure spending Bitcoin has loosely tracked is still climbing rather than peaking. The 10x Research commoditization thesis — that China's DUV breakthrough and AI model proliferation would depress AI infrastructure demand — is being tested against a $38 billion real-money commitment from the company that would have the earliest visibility into whether that demand is moderating. SK Hynix betting $38 billion on memory expansion says the demand is not moderating. That is constructive for the AI-Bitcoin correlation channel, even if the same AI capital demand may be one of the drivers of the high yield environment Timmer is flagging.
The Summer Range — May to August, $62,000-$65,000
Bitcoin unchanged on the week at $64,350 — four months after the range began forming in May — is the quantified expression of every analytical framework that has been applied to the current market. The ARP Digital exhaustion thesis. The 157-day sub-Treasury futures basis streak. The Coinbase premium's 77-day negative streak. The 5% spot concentration at 12% approaching the 15% violent breakout threshold. The 200-week SMA holding every test. All of these frameworks describe the same underlying market: maximum structural support, minimum directional participation, and a catalysts requirement that has not yet been fully met.
Today's NFP is the scheduled catalyst most capable of meeting that requirement. The Iran deal signal that was expected to be the unscheduled catalyst has just been partially reversed by Iran's Hormuz restriction threat. With the unscheduled catalyst stalled and the scheduled catalyst arriving this morning, Friday's NFP print is Bitcoin's clearest opportunity since June to break directionally from a range that has held since May.

Unionized workers at BHP Group’s Port Hedland iron ore export hub in Western Australia have started rolling 24-hour strikes over a pay dispute, according to Bloomberg.
Further meetings with the company are scheduled.

According to CNBC, Jet2 has emerged as a potential takeover target for private equity buyers after Apollo Global Management moved to take EasyJet private, with Hargreaves Lansdown investment strategy director Anna Macdonald pointing to the U.K. budget carrier's similar low-cost airline profile. Macdonald said Jet2 had traded at a price-to-equity ratio of 6-7 times and had risen about 60% from its low, adding that investors may see more private equity interest ahead. Jet2 shares rose 0.5% in afternoon trade Friday. Apollo is expected to take EasyJet private in a deal valuing the airline at about $7.7 billion, after Castlelake withdrew its $7.3 billion bid on Thursday. EasyJet shares were down 0.48% in afternoon trade Friday after closing the previous session 2.8% higher.

According to Jin10, Deutsche Bank's U.K. economist expects June GDP to fall 0.1% month on month, leaving second-quarter 2026 GDP growth at 0.4% quarter on quarter, but with increased downside risk.

SK Hynix said it plans to invest 19.1 trillion won in its M17 chip plant in Cheongju, South Korea, and complete the investment by 2031. According to Odaily, the company also plans to invest 35.2 trillion won in Yongin, South Korea, for the second phase of chip plant construction.

A $9.6 billion Lazard Asset Management fund bought Samsung Electronics Co. for the first time in more than a year after the stock plunged in July, according to Bloomberg.
The fund’s manager used the decline to add the shares during a memory-sector rout.

According to Jin10, ICE said that as of the week to August 4, Brent crude oil speculators reduced net long positions by 20,361 contracts to 164,722 contracts, while diesel speculators increased net long positions by 1,163 contracts to 88,357 contracts.

Switch Inc. filed confidentially for a US initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.
The data center company joins peers seeking investor demand for exposure to the artificial intelligence theme, Bloomberg reported.

A new XRP Ledger amendment proposal would let institutions encrypt token balances and transfer amounts while still giving issuers, auditors and regulators selective access. The update is part of XRPL version 3.3.0, which includes six proposed amendments and targets institutional users on a ledger that already hosts more than $530 million in tokenized real-world assets, according to CoinDesk, with RLUSD, Ondo, VERT Capital, Archax and Societe Generale among the tracked issuers.

According to CNBC, BlackRock said municipal bond issuance is on pace to exceed $580 billion this year, while new cash flows into muni bonds reached $56.6 billion in the first half of the year, the second-best start to any year. Patrick Haskell, head of BlackRock's municipal bond group, said investors can still find tax-advantaged yield opportunities but should remain selective in the second half. He said his team is neutral on duration but favors parts of the long end of the municipal curve, including the 20- to 22-year range, while staying high in quality and favoring coupons above 5%. Haskell also said the team likes revenue bonds, especially in housing and transportation, and continues to like select corporate-backed municipal bonds.

Bitcoin holders could lose real BTC if they try to sell coins from a possible BIP-110 fork this weekend, because a signed sale on the minority chain could be replayed on bitcoin itself. According to CoinDesk, developer Kevin Loaec warned that the safest move for holders who cannot separate the two balances is to do nothing, as unsent coins cannot be replayed. BIP-110 would require block markings from block 961,632, expected this weekend, while its transaction-data restrictions would not begin until block 965,664, expected around the start of September.

According to Jin10, Citi said the Brent crude average price forecast was adjusted to $80 in the third quarter, held at $70 in the fourth quarter, and set at $65 in 2027 amid volatile U.S.-Iran negotiations.

According to Sina Finance, PNC rate research head Isfar Munir said Japan's Ministry of Finance is unlikely to sell even intermediate-term U.S. Treasuries if it needs funding for foreign-exchange intervention, so the impact on long-term Treasury yields should be limited. He wrote that even if intervention eventually affects longer-dated yields through a market-perception channel, it would likely require markets to read intervention as a sign of reduced Treasury demand over a longer period.
Munir said that while such an outcome is possible, it is more of a tail risk, because foreign-exchange intervention is temporary and is unlikely to send much information to the market about Japan's Ministry of Finance's long-term demand for Treasury assets. He added that a more likely channel for affecting long-term Treasuries would be Japan's current fiscal concerns spreading into a global narrative about fiscal expansion, but that this would still require more time and evidence to show that global debt issuance is outpacing market demand at current yield levels.
He also said Japan could impose some form of quasi-capital-control measures that push domestic fixed-income asset managers to reduce overseas holdings and increase Japanese government bond purchases, which could have a broad impact on the entire U.S. Treasury yield curve.

European stocks rose for a fourth straight week, pushing regional indexes to new highs on a stronger-than-expected earnings season and rising expectations for merger-and-acquisition activity. According to Sina Finance, the Stoxx Europe 600 closed up 0.3% and gained 1.7% for the week.
Technology and health care stocks led the advance, while energy shares lagged. Goodwin Plc climbed 9.8% after it said it was considering selling most of the assets in its mechanical engineering business. Genel Energy Plc surged 26% after rejecting a takeover offer from Norwegian oil producer DNO ASA, while satellite operator Eutelsat Communications SACA fell 4.6% after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance.
According to Sina Finance, Bloomberg Intelligence data showed second-quarter profits for MSCI Europe Index constituents rose 17%, the biggest increase since late 2022. A report from Bank of America citing EPFR Global data said European equity funds recorded $55 million in inflows in the week through Wednesday.

Hedge funds sharply reduced bearish bets on the yen after coordinated efforts by US and Japanese officials helped stabilize the currency, according to Bloomberg.

Elon Musk said the Starship spacecraft recovery from the 13th flight mission is not looking promising at the moment. According to Odaily, close-up photos of the heat shield and key engine areas have already been obtained for future upgrades and improvements.

Take-Two Interactive Software shares rose after quarterly bookings beat estimates, according to Bloomberg. The company said preorder demand for Grand Theft Auto VI is "unprecedented," with Rockstar set to unveil an extended look at gameplay before the game's November release.
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier discussed the high expectations for GTA VI on "Bloomberg Tech."

Sandisk management said after this week’s earnings release that the stock’s decline is unlikely to continue. According to Sina Finance, Citigroup analyst Asiya Merchant said after speaking with Sandisk CEO and CFO on Friday that the company may continue share buybacks.
According to Sina Finance, Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace data showed Sandisk repurchased $4.5 billion of its own stock in the previous quarter, with $14.5 billion remaining under its current buyback authorization. Merchant said management remained highly optimistic and projected the total addressable market for NAND flash to reach about $50 billion in 2027, up from $30 billion in 2026.
Sandisk reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $8.97 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $39.25, both above Wall Street expectations. Data center revenue rose 103% quarter on quarter to $2.98 billion. The stock fell 6.8% on Thursday after the company guided first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue to $10.3 billion-$10.8 billion, below the $10.8 billion consensus. On Friday morning, Sandisk traded at $1,200.00, down 58.58, or 4.65%.

The copper market is tightening fast as shipments to the US surge and orders in China rise, according to Bloomberg.
The moves are setting the stage for a rally that could lift global benchmark copper prices to all-time highs.

Brazil’s worst trading outage in financial markets was the latest disruption to hit investors in Latin America’s biggest economy, according to Bloomberg.
The incident has drawn renewed attention to B3’s near-monopoly in Brazil’s market infrastructure.

U.S. solar stocks rose sharply in premarket trading on Friday. According to Sina Finance, First Solar was up more than 7% before the open, SolarEdge Technologies gained 1%, and the Invesco Solar ETF rose 4%.

Activist investor Douglas Bergeron is seeking to replace Ethan Allen's entire board, saying the furniture maker needs an overhaul of its leadership and governance, according to Bloomberg.
Ethan Allen Chairman and CEO Farooq Kathwari responded to the activist campaign on Bloomberg Open Interest.