Market Report.
🛢️ Oil prices fell as de-escalation momentum continued. Brent dropped below $75 a barrel in the last few hours after the U.S. issued a waiver for Iranian crude and fuel sales, while Iran announced $12 billion in frozen funds had been released.
🚢 Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continued to normalize, with more tankers and cargo ships switching on their transponders, signaling growing confidence following the U.S.-Iran interim deal.
📡 Maritime intelligence firm Windward reported 25 transits on June 22, including French- and Qatari-linked LNG carriers moving openly with active AIS signals. Iranian exports hit a two-month high of 6.79 million barrels for the week ending June 21.
🏛️ The U.S. Senate approved a war powers resolution by a 50-48 vote on June 23, 2026, directing the President to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. This marks the first time the Senate has passed such a measure regarding the current U.S.-Iran conflict.
📜 The resolution invokes the 1973 War Powers Resolution and directs the termination of U.S. involvement in the conflict unless Congress provides authorization through a declaration of war or a specific authorization for the use of military force.
✈️ The war with Iran has involved airstrikes, a naval blockade, and intermittent fighting lasting several months, with costs running into the billions and politically divisive effects including high gas prices.
🗳️ Four Republicans voted with Democrats in favor: Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and Bill Cassidy. One Democrat, Senator John Fetterman, voted against it. The House passed a similar resolution earlier in June with limited Republican crossover.
📊 A Daily Mail and JL Partners poll conducted from June 19 through 21 found Trump’s approval rating had risen to 47 percent, a four-point increase from their previous survey. The pollster linked the uptick directly to progress toward ending the war in Iran and the resulting drop in oil prices.
📰 The Daily Mail survey is a clear outlier compared to other recent polls. Most major surveys in the same period show Trump’s approval in the 36 to 40 percent range, with the RealClearPolitics average at roughly 40 percent and others such as the New York Times and YouGov hovering in the upper thirties.
🎭 Over the last few days, we have seen statements from Vice President JD Vance criticising Israel, alongside President Trump. This could be an attempt to gain political capital ahead of the mid-term elections, given the growing unpopularity of Israel due to its military campaigns.
However, if JD Vance is playing the role of the ‘good cop’, it would be nothing more than a political strategy, in which Marco Rubio would play the role of the ‘bad cop’. Marco Rubio, Trump’s second man in the administration, recently stated that “You can’t have the end of hostilities and conflicts in the region as long as Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq, and are participating in terrorism like Hamas did and Hezbollah did.”
🗺️ The talks between the U.S. and Iran, outlined in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), are in danger of falling apart due to two main factors.
1️⃣ First, Israel is actively undermining the talks by refusing to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, despite U.S. pressure. Recently, Israeli forces attacked Lebanese civilians and responders. The U.S., Iran, and mediators from Qatar and Pakistan are working to prevent further incidents.
2️⃣ Second, U.S. President Trump has disrupted negotiations by making aggressive threats against Iranian negotiators, leading to a halt in direct talks. While the U.S. has made claims about Iran agreeing to use released funds for U.S. agricultural products and allowing inspections, Iran has rejected these points.
🇪🇺 Not only the EU, but also Israel wants to reduce its military dependence on the US, the world’s largest arms producer.
🇮🇱 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for Israel to reduce its reliance on US military aid and build its own independent armaments network. He emphasized the need for autonomy while addressing reserve officers in the West Bank on June 18.
📚 Historically, Israel has received over $300 billion in US aid since 1948. Under a 2016 agreement, Israel receives $3.8 billion annually, which constitutes about 15% of its defense budget. Netanyahu aims to eliminate reliance on US support within a decade.
Ukraine: the other war that continues.
🗞️ The Kyiv Independent reported that a senior Ukrainian official claimed Trump privately told Zelensky to act more boldly against Russia. The report suggests Trump does not believe Putin will negotiate without pressure and that the White House may be backing a campaign to force Russia into meaningful talks.
🎯 The key question is whether new U.S.-supplied ERAM extended range attack munitions were used in recent strikes. Ukrainian reports claimed Storm Shadow and ERAM missiles hit an industrial complex in Voronezh, though only Storm Shadow debris was confirmed. Some unverified Russian reports suggest ERAM debris was found earlier in June, and if American-made missiles were used to strike Russian territory, it would confirm the U.S. decision to raise costs on Putin.
🧨 Putin stated that European countries pursuing escalatory policies against Russia are paying for it with political crises, citing the resignation of Starmer. The author argues that Russia only needs to continue its grinding war and await the slow political collapse of Europe.
🚂 Russia has begun responding in kind by taking the gloves off on targets it previously avoided. It has launched a campaign against Ukrainian railways, destroying dozens of locomotives and infrastructure nodes. Russia is also systematically targeting Ukrainian gas stations, oil terminals, and fuel convoys across the country, with dozens of strikes in recent weeks.
China’s technological overtake of the US is approaching.
💻 China’s LineShine supercomputer has become the world’s fastest, surpassing the previous U.S. record holder El Capitan. It achieved 2.198 exaflops on the High Performance Linpack benchmark, making it the first system to officially exceed 2 exaflops on the TOP500 list.
🏆 This is the first time a Chinese system has ranked number one since Sunway TaihuLight in 2017. It is also the world’s fifth exascale system. It uses a CPU-only design with nearly 13.8 million Armv9-based domestic cores, featuring Huawei LX2 processors and a fully domestic interconnect, without Nvidia GPUs.
📉 China’s approach highlights a push for self-reliance amid U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors, especially GPUs. LineShine’s CPU-focused design excels on traditional HPC benchmarks but lags behind U.S. GPU-heavy systems optimized for AI training and inference.
🇺🇸 The United States still holds the number two spot with El Capitan and number three with Frontier, along with other top positions. American systems dominate in certain specialized metrics and energy efficiency.
Musk’s controversial posts are back.
🚨 Elon Musk has shared two shocking tweets on X. The first suggests that USAID, infiltrated by the CIA, funded the creation of Covid-19 by channelling $53 million to the EcoHealth Alliance, which conducted research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to the text, this caused millions of deaths and economic losses.
🧩 The second tweet accuses Soros’s Open Society Foundation of seeking to dismantle traditional societies, using Karl Popper’s concept of the ‘open society’ to promote demographic changes in the West and suppress criticism, thereby preventing open dialogue.
Corporate News.
📈 Alphabet is taking the place of Verizon in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which may increase its significance in the index.
👓 Meta has launched new smart glasses costing $299, aiming to attract more customers. In Asia, investors are reacting to MSCI’s decisions regarding Indonesia and South Korea.
🌏 Indonesia remains an emerging market after stocks were frozen in January due to investability issues, while South Korea stays in the emerging-market index due to currency convertibility challenges.
🪖 KNDS, one of Europe’s largest military equipment producers, announced its intention to proceed with an initial public offering. The company plans to list its shares in both Paris and Frankfurt.
💼 The listing will involve the sale of up to 20 percent of the company’s existing share capital. The current shareholders, GIAT Industries, a holding company owned by the French state, and the German private holding company Wegmann & Co, will sell the shares directly to institutional investors, with no retail offering.
🛡️ KNDS manufactures the Leopard 2 battle tank and other armored vehicles and ammunition used in Ukraine. The company is considered key to Europe’s rearmament push.
🤝 Separately, the German government reached an agreement with Wegmann to acquire 40 percent of its ordinary share capital. The chief executive stated that Europe is entering a new era of defense and security.
Market View.
📉 Yesterday’s session continued with falls in the tech sector, particularly with the Nasdaq pulling back below the 30,000 point mark and finding support near the 29,800 point area, which is trying to consolidate at present. Mini S&P 500 futures also suffered losses, breaking below the 7,500-point level and currently trading at 7,450 points as a possible support zone.
💵 The US Dollar Index (DXY) has kept advancing aggressively and now stands above 101.50; a pullback could be expected in the coming hours. This has pushed other forex pairs to more aggressive levels, with USD/JPY at 161.70. EUR/USD has lost support at 1.14 and fallen to the current 1.1350.
🌍 In Europe, the pullbacks have been less dramatic than in the United States, as they were already starting from lower levels. DAX 40 futures are trying to consolidate above 25,000 points, whilst Euro Stoxx 50 futures appear to be holding above 6,250 points.
🛢️ Meanwhile, crude oil continues to fall, reaching new lows, with spot Brent crude having dropped below $76.
🥇 With such an aggressive dollar, gold futures keep falling and have returned to the $4,100 per ounce area.
₿ Bitcoin also fails to lift its head, losing the $63,000 level which would serve as potential support; it is currently trading at $62,700.
