Market Sells the News: Analyzing June's Financial Turbulence (2026)

The market sells the news

Behind what looked, on the surface, like a fairly uneventful session, equity markets have been bubbling since last night. The formula that allowed Wall Street to hold firm into the close has done little for Asian markets this morning. The yen's slide and the release of June PMI business activity data are taking centre stage.

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Late June is always a rather trying time for anyone writing daily notes on financial markets. Companies have gone quiet because they are working on their second-quarter results. Fund managers have completed the necessary tweaks to make their half-year reports shine. And my friends are having barbecue drinks without me because I have to go to bed early, in the hope of retaining enough lucidity when I wake up to keep you entertained.

Even so, yesterday was hardly uneventful on financial markets. The clumsy construction of that sentence is no accident. The market has become clumsy. Shares no longer rise calmly when companies announce good news, they explode higher. When the news is less supportive, they no longer fall, they collapse. Understatement has been banned. Faint signals turn into tidal waves. The equity market has become a game of online poker. I am not sure I like it.

A few examples from yesterday's moves. SpaceX fell 16%. Why? Because when a stock rises 50% in three days, it can perfectly well fall 16% in a single session. Soitec joined the Stoxx Europe 600 indices and the chip sector is in good form? Up 9%. Super Micro Computer announces a new AI-related offering? Up 15%. Kepler Cheuvreux strikes a cautious note on Hermès ? Down 6%. One level up, at the index level, things were calmer. The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.6%, almost matching last week's closing record. The US S&P 500 slipped 0.4%. There was no euphoria after the US-Iran agreement allowing Tehran to resume oil exports, despite the continuing fall in crude prices. The easing has already been priced in. The market has spent recent weeks buying the rumour, and is now selling the news, in keeping with the old stock market adage.

The ingredients of the bull market still appear to be in place in the United States, thanks to the promise of artificial intelligence. But yesterday's session once again highlighted the fractures within the technology sector as it grapples with the paradigm shift under way. Chip suppliers, the direct and obvious beneficiaries of the current boom, remain out in front. Their customers' share prices, however, are taking a more uneven path, because the market is asking whether, and when, they will earn a return on their investments. Caution also prevails in software, where the fundamentals are being undermined by the democratisation of coding. As a result, Micron can gain 6% while Oracle and Verisign lose 5%. The market was not helped either by 5% falls in Amazon and Alphabet , which are also currently on the capital-expenditure side of the ledger. The same pattern is visible in Europe, allowing for differences of scale: Infineon and STMicroelectronics are rising, while SAP SE and Dassault Systèmes continue to slide.

Tuesday will be shaped by the publication of June PMI business activity indicators. These are the best available gauges, globally and for each major economy, of current and future economic trends. The United Kingdom remains in focus after confirmation that Prime Minister Keir Starmer will leave office in the coming weeks. Japan is also under scrutiny, with the yen at a 40-year low against the dollar. The level is worrying enough for US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to have picked up the phone last night to discuss the situation with his Japanese counterpart, we explain here why the US is so concerned about Japan. An intervention by the Bank of Japan, perhaps in coordination with the United States, is probably in the works.

In Asia-Pacific, the Nikkei 225 ended a long winning streak with a 2.7% fall. South Korea, which has done nothing by halves over the past two years, plunged 2%: evidently, investors have decided that South Korea's memory-chip champions are not entitled to the same immunity idol as their American peers. Australia slipped slightly, while India, moving against the tide as usual, gained a few points. In China, red still dominates, especially in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng has now fallen for six consecutive sessions. Europe is expected to open sharply lower.

Today's economic highlights:

GBP / USD: US$1.32
Gold: US$4,121.79
Crude Oil (BRENT): US$76.73
United States 10 years: 4.5%
BITCOIN: US$63,300

In corporate news:

Lloyds Banking is reportedly preparing a takeover bid for Aldermore, a subsidiary of FirstRand.
Azule Energy, a joint venture between BP Plc and Eni, has approved the development of a new offshore oil project in Angola.
OCBC expands wealth operations in Indonesia following its acquisition of HSBC assets.
BP Plc among companies sued in the US for allegedly using AI to boost fuel prices.
New car registrations in the EU rose by 3.2 per cent year-on-year to 955,013 units in May, according to ACEA.
Signify is targeting a 10 per cent margin by 2029 and is adjusting its dividend policy.
ABB will supply the drive system for Guangxi Jianhui Paper’s PM8 line.
UniCredit is dropping its legal action against the Italian government regarding Banco BPM.
Prysmian has secured a €910 million framework agreement in Greece for electricity interconnections.
Electrolux AB is set to raise SEK 9 billion (approximately €824 million) as part of its capital increase.
Brenntag has raised its operating profit forecast.
RWE is investing $4.1 billion in electricity networks to strengthen their resilience.
The CEO of Porsche AG is maintaining his targets despite a sluggish recovery.
Theon International has secured a new €70 million order from Rheinmetall.
IMI has completed the first tranche of £250 million of its share buyback programme.
Oracle is cutting 21,000 jobs as part of its shift towards AI.
Apollo is restricting redemptions from its private debt fund in the face of a surge in redemption requests.
Clinical failure for an experimental Pfizer treatment for lung cancer in phase III trials.
Qualcomm is close to acquiring the AI chip start-up Modular, according to Bloomberg.
Eli Lilly has secured approval from the UK High Court for its $7.8 billion acquisition of Centessa.
Alimentation Couche-Tard reports a sharp rise in Q4 fiscal earnings, exceeding expectations.
SpaceX will provide computing power to Reflection AI under a long-term contract worth $6.3 billion. SpaceX, whose share price fell by 16% yesterday, whilst remaining above its IPO price.
Meta has suspended its internal activity tracking tool following security breaches. Meta is also investing $900 million in the Indian fintech platform CRED.
Omnicom and Netflix are collaborating on AI-driven advertising campaigns.
Tesla is the subject of a federal investigation following a fatal accident in Texas.
BP, Marathon, 7-Eleven and Walmart are facing a lawsuit in California over the alleged use of AI to inflate petrol prices.
IBM is partnering with OpenAI to integrate AI into corporate cybersecurity.
Public Storage is set to acquire Public Storage Canada for $1.2 billion.
TechnipFMC has secured a contract for flexible pipelines for an Azule Energy project in Angola.
Edgewell has rejected a takeover bid from Yellow Wood Partners at $30 per share.
Nissan shareholders have rejected the reappointment of Motoo Nagai, a long-serving external director whose independence had been called into question.
Samsung Electronics is rolling out ChatGPT Enterprise and Codex to its employees.
Petrobras has approved a $1.2 billion renewable fuels project in Brazil.
Today’s key earnings releases: FedEx , Carnival , Sunbelt Rentals , Bunzl