There's still at least a one-in-four chance of a Fed rate hike on Wednesday priced into futures, despite the latest retreat in oil prices. The Bank of Japan and Bank of England are also set to meet this week, with the former eyeing fresh yen weakness and the latter meeting just as a new UK prime minister takes office.
But oil prices set the tone first thing this week. Brent crude began falling from the triple-digit level on Friday, and the U.S. then said it was pausing strikes on Iran after 13 straight days of attacks. Iran indicated it would reciprocate and we now have to wait to see if some mediation resumes.
There were some reports of the U.S. side running low on munitions, but many in the market will now assume that $100 oil is a pinch point that focuses minds - at least in Washington.
Brent fell further to around $89/bbl early on Monday. Shares in Asia firmed and Wall Street futures were up sharply before the bell.
In earnings, the hyperscalers will be forensically examined again after Alphabet's second-quarter cash burn saw its stock fall last week despite a big earnings beat.
Elsewhere in the AI world, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia was in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI as part of a data center project. That speaks to both the intensifying cross-financing in the sector and OpenAI's efforts to build out its own infrastructure.
On the other side of the world, Chinese chipmaker CXMT had a blowout IPO on Monday that saw its stock soar nearly 500% in its Shanghai debut.
