The infoshot to help kick-start your week
Coming up this week:
Copia Capital Quarterly Market Review – 10am Wednesday
I’ll be joined by our Managing Director, Ian Hooper, for our next Quarterly Market Review. Ian will give a very quick update on Copia before I go through market performance in the last quarter. I’ve also prepared an extended section on AI and tech following all the recent turbulence. If you’re free at 10am on Wednesday, you can register for the 30-minute webinar here.
ECB Forum on Central Banking 2026 – Monday to Wednesday
This year’s ECB Forum on Central Banking starts today. Central bank governors and academics will discuss topics around growth, AI, digital payments and migration. New Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, will join Andrew Bailey, Christine Lagarde and Tiff Macklem for the policy panel at 2pm on Wednesday. You can read my thoughts on the challenges facing central banks following the war in Iran here.
Last week:
AI drags US and Asian markets down
In a turbulent week, worries about the US war in Iran took a backseat with the future of AI in the spotlight again.
Tuesday’s tech sell off was sparked by concerns about valuations (seven tech companies currently make up 30% of the US’s main index’s value), high capital expenditure plans, the prospect of higher US interest rates, and some profit taking. SpaceX’s announcement that it’s looking to raise $20bn in a bond sale restarted the conversation around the massive cost of AI spending. The downturn spread across to Asia sending South Korea’s main index down 9.99%, its biggest drop in three months.
On Thursday, Apple raised the price of iPads and MacBooks by as much as 25% to keep up with the soaring cost of memory and storage chips. Apple said in their statement, “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly” and “we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices”. According to TrendForce, the price of RAM (Random-access memory) has increased 98% in the first quarter of 2026 and could rise another 63% in the current quarter. Reports later in the week suggested OpenAI are now considering delaying their IPO until next year. SpaceX’s rocky market debut saw them close week two down -13% costing, Elon Musk his trillionaire status, and sparking concerns that OpenAI will struggle to meet Sam Altman’s ambition of a trillion-dollar valuation. Apple’s response to AI inflation, and the OpenAI news, helped kick start another sell off. It carried on into Friday to cap off a five-day losing streak for US markets.
Investors rotated into more defensive sectors like healthcare and real estate, and with Europe’s heatwave dominating the news, various air conditioning and construction stocks performed well last week.
UK markets flat following Starmer resignation
Here in the UK, markets were relatively flat despite the resignation of yet another Prime Minister. With a leadership change largely priced-in already, UK bond yields fell following a brief spike on Monday.
Reports on Friday suggest Andy Burnham is set to become Prime Minister on Monday 20 July 2026. He’ll deliver his first major policy speech in Manchester this morning. Expect him to provide more detail on how he’ll try to deliver growth across the country via devolution and the transferring of power out of Westminster to local communities.
Hormuz traffic off to a sluggish restart
The Strait of Hormuz tried to start its return to normality last week. Seventy-three vessels left the waterway on Wednesday, the highest number since the war began at the end of February. That was still way below the pre-war numbers where up to 160 ships would sail through the passage every day. However, traffic slowed down again this weekend following renewed strikes by US and Iranian forces.
Notice:
For regulated financial advisers and investment professionals only, Copia does not provide financial advice, and the contents of this document should not be taken as such.
The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.
