Morning Forecast: Monday 29 June
Oil tumbles as the US and Iran stand down, Comcast jumps 25% on a plan to split in two, and JPMorgan lifts its S&P 500 target to 7,800.
This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research. Not financial advice (NFA).
👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
🛢️ Oil slides on Iran truce: Brent hit a four-month low near $72 as the US and Iran agreed to stand down and the Strait of Hormuz reopened.
📺 Comcast spins off NBCUniversal: The cable giant will hive off Peacock, Sky and the studios into a separate company, and shares jumped about 25%.
💻 Tech leaders in correction: Apple’s memory-driven price hikes and fresh AI-demand doubts have pulled the Mag 7 at least 10% off their highs.
🎯 JPMorgan targets 7,800: Wall Street’s most bullish desk lifted its S&P 500 forecast on AI spending, then warned of a possible flash crash.
🏛️ Warsh’s Sintra debut looms: The new Fed chair faces global peers midweek, with a pulled-forward jobs report and a Supreme Court ruling close behind.
🪙 Crypto fear turns extreme: Bitcoin is holding under 60k while Ether and XRP slip, and the Fear and Greed gauge has sunk to 18.
🥇 Bullion loses its shine: A firmer dollar and higher-for-longer rate bets pulled gold back toward $4,000, with silver holding just below $60.
🚀 SpaceX firms on dealmaking: The stock rose with the risk-on mood as its $60 billion Cursor deal and IPO speculation keep building.
🔍 Binance shut out of Europe: Today’s Deep Dive on why the world’s biggest exchange failed MiCA while its rivals walked right in.
📈 Chart of the Day: Sensei’s chart of the session, with the key levels and trigger worth watching into the close.
🧠 One Big Thing
The cleanest signal today is not oil’s drop itself, it is what cheaper energy does to the inflation maths just as the Fed takes centre stage. Brent at a four-month low pulls down headline inflation through petrol and shipping, and it arrives days before Warsh speaks in Sintra and payrolls land. That hands the Fed a softer inflation backdrop to point at if it wants to sound dovish. The tension is that core inflation is still sticky, so energy relief may not be enough to shift the dots. Watch whether Warsh leans on falling oil this week, because that would signal a cut is edging back onto the table.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
7,800
JPMorgan’s new year-end S&P 500 target, about 6% above the recent close near 7,365.
⚔️ Winners vs Losers
Winners
NNBR 0.00%↑ +42.40% NN, Inc. surged after announcing significant new awards for stainless steel liquid cooling products used in NVIDIA AI data center racks, an expansion of what the company calls its second largest business that it expects to add to 2026 sales.
IRDM 0.00%↑ +22.61% Iridium Communications Inc. jumped after agreeing to be acquired by Rocket Lab in a cash and stock deal valuing the satellite operator at about $8 billion, with shareholders set to receive $27 in cash plus Rocket Lab stock for each share.
CHTR 0.00%↑ +22.61% Charter Communications, Inc. rallied on read through from Comcast’s planned breakup and on reports that Charter is in talks with SpaceX to carry mobile traffic.
CMCSA 0.00%↑ +22.57% Comcast Corporation rose sharply after saying it plans to separate into two independent publicly traded companies.
LBRDA 0.00%↑ +19.05% Liberty Broadband Corporation climbed alongside Charter, its principal holding, as the cable group jumped on the Comcast separation news.
PLTR 0.00%↑ +4.14% Palantir Technologies Inc. extended Friday’s rebound after investor Michael Burry disclosed he had closed out half of his short position, lifting a bearish overhang that had weighed on the stock through June.
Losers
LRMR 0.00%↑ -20.77% Larimar Therapeutics, Inc. fell after reporting topline open label data for nomlabofusp in Friedreich’s ataxia and submitting the first module of its rolling BLA this morning, with shares dropping on a sell the news reaction despite the company describing the data as positive and following a sharp run into the readout.
BLD 0.00%↑ -7.41% TopBuild Corp. declined as the deadline for stockholders to elect their consideration in the QXO acquisition arrives today, leaving shares trading largely on the value of the stock portion of the deal, set at 20.2 QXO shares per TopBuild share.
📊 Market Snapshot
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC): $60,612 (▲ 1.89%)
Ethereum (ETH): $1,593 (▲ 1.49%)
XRP: $1.06 (▲ 1.52%)
Equity Indices (Futures):
S&P 500: 7,464 (▲ 0.84%)
NASDAQ 100: 29,711 (▲ 1.17%)
FTSE 100: 10,501 (▲ 0.24%)
Commodities & Bonds:
10-Year US Treasury Yield: 4.38% (0.00%)
Oil (WTI): $70 (▼ -0.53%)
Gold: $4,048 (▼ -1.01%)
Silver: $58.21 (▼ -1.57%)
Data as of: UK: 13:15 BST / US: 08:15 EDT / Asia (Tokyo): 21:15 JST
✅ 5 Things to Know
🛢️ Oil tumbles as the US and Iran step back
Brent crude slid to about $72 a barrel late last week, its lowest since late February, after Washington and Tehran agreed to “stand down for now” following an exchange of fire near the Strait of Hormuz, the channel that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil. Tankers are moving freely again, Saudi Arabia has restarted loadings at its Ras Tanura terminal, and Gulf exports have recovered to around three quarters of pre-war levels. The two sides are due to meet in Doha tomorrow to push on with a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month, and US stock futures rose as oil steadied this morning (CNN).
Cheaper crude lands like a tax cut for anyone who drives, flies, or ships goods, and the relief is already showing in the market. Airline and cruise shares, where fuel is one of the largest costs, tend to climb when crude falls, and the sector has treated the truce as a tailwind into the summer travel season. The risk is that the calm is fragile: the ceasefire has been tested once already, and any fresh flare-up near Hormuz could send oil straight back up. Watch tomorrow’s Doha talks and this week’s US inventory report for the next read.
Sensei’s Insight: The bigger story is what cheaper oil does to the inflation debate. Falling energy quietly cools headline inflation right as Warsh prepares to speak and payrolls land, and that could hand the Fed the cover it needs to sound softer. Cheaper petrol may matter more than the missiles.
📺 Comcast breaks itself in two
Comcast said today it will split into two separate public companies, spinning off NBCUniversal and Sky into a standalone media and entertainment group while the remaining business keeps broadband, wireless, and connectivity. The new media company gathers the film and TV studios, Peacock, NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, the Universal theme parks, and Europe’s Sky under one roof. Comcast President Mike Cavanagh will run it, former finance chief Michael Angelakis returns to lead the connectivity business, and chairman Brian Roberts stays involved with both. Shares jumped about 25% before the open (NBC News).
For investors the logic is the one behind most break-ups: a slow-growing cable and broadband business and a content arm chasing streaming were dragging on each other inside a single share price. Splitting them lets each court its own holders, and it sets NBCUniversal up as a cleaner buyer or target as media consolidates, with Netflix’s pending takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery already redrawing the map. The deal needs board and regulatory sign-off and is set to take about a year, so the terms and the debt split that come next are what to watch, not the first-day pop.
Sensei’s Insight: Break-ups tend to reward patience rather than the opening surge. The record is fairly clear that spin-offs unlock value over the following year as each piece gets judged on its own merits, so the move that matters is who ends up owning the slimmer NBCUniversal.
💻 The Mag 7 has quietly slipped into a correction
The seven giants that drive about a third of the S&P 500, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla, have fallen at least 10% from their highs, the textbook definition of a correction, as doubts about the payoff from heavy AI spending spread through tech. The clearest symptom came when Apple raised prices on Macs, iPads, and home devices to offset a memory-chip shortage, with memory prices now quadrupled in three quarters. The 13-inch MacBook Air jumped to $1,299 from $1,099, and the stock fell about 6%, its worst day in over four months (CNBC).
This is the AI boom’s bill arriving downstream. The same data-centre demand that handed memory makers a record quarter is now starving phone and laptop makers of chips and forcing price rises that buyers feel at the till. Nvidia has slipped too, pressured by reports that Alphabet’s in-house chips could eat into its lead in AI processors. Tech futures are bouncing this morning on the calmer geopolitics, so the test is whether dip buyers return with conviction or sell into the rally. Watch how the group trades into the late-July results, when the big cloud providers report capital spending and the market judges whether the outlay is paying off.
Sensei’s Insight: A 10% pullback in the most crowded trade on earth is healthy, not alarming, on its own. What I am watching is breadth. If money keeps rotating into the other 493 names while the giants cool, the bull market broadens rather than breaks, and that is the better outcome.
🎯 Wall Street’s biggest bull sets 7,800, then warns
JPMorgan lifted its year-end S&P 500 target to 7,800 from 7,600, about 6% above the index’s recent close near 7,365, one of the most bullish calls on the Street. The bank raised its 2026 earnings estimate to $350 a share, a 29% jump, crediting a wave of profit upgrades, easing US-Iran tensions, and a near doubling of AI capital spending among the big cloud providers. In the same breath it warned the rally faces a high risk of a “flash crash”, driven by speculative momentum trading in second-tier AI names (Yahoo Finance).
The split message is the point. A higher target says the earnings engine is real, while the flash-crash warning says the path there could be violent, because the same crowded AI bets that lift the index can unwind in minutes when momentum turns. For everyday investors the takeaway is about expectations: a 6% gain from here would be a calm year by 2026 standards, yet the route may not feel calm. JPMorgan also expects the Fed to hold rates through this year before turning to hikes in 2027, so watch whether earnings keep beating fast enough to justify the price.
Sensei’s Insight: Price targets are guesses dressed as forecasts, so I weight the warning more than the number. The honest message from the most bullish desk on the Street is that the upside is real and the ride could get violent, so the smart stance is to expect volatility, not be surprised by it.
🏛️ Warsh faces his first big test in Sintra
The week’s real market test is building rather than breaking today. The European Central Bank’s annual Sintra forum opens in Portugal, and midweek the new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, sworn in last month after succeeding Jerome Powell, joins Christine Lagarde, the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey, and Canada’s Tiff Macklem on a panel that marks his global debut. Markets will weigh every word for whether he leans toward the rate cuts the White House wants or the inflation discipline he built his name on (Reuters).
Two more events stack up behind him in a holiday-shortened week. The June jobs report has been pulled forward to later this week because US markets close for Independence Day, and it lands as the clearest read yet on whether hiring is cooling from May’s 172,000. A soft number would harden the case for a cut, a hot one would push it back. The Supreme Court is also expected to rule on the President’s attempt to remove a Fed governor, a direct challenge to the central bank’s independence, and thin holiday liquidity could make any surprise hit harder (Kiplinger).
Sensei’s Insight: The setup is a trap for anyone expecting calm into the long weekend. Cheaper oil cools inflation just as Warsh takes the stage, so a dovish hint from him plus a soft jobs print could light a fire under stocks. The reverse would sting just as fast.
Stories You Might Have Missed
🪙 Bitcoin stuck below $60,000 as fear grips crypto
Bitcoin is changing hands near $59,900, back under the $60,000 line and close to its cycle low around $59,100, while Ethereum sits near $1,580 and XRP near $1.05, all softer over the past day. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has dropped to 18, deep in extreme fear, after a brutal June of record ETF outflows. Prediction-market odds of the CLARITY Act clearing the Senate have slipped sharply, though spot XRP funds have quietly logged a seventh straight week of inflows, and the Ripple escrow unlock plus the bill’s July 4 target are the next things to watch (blockchainreporter).
🥇 Gold cools toward $4,000 as the dollar firms
Gold eased to about $4,036 an ounce, down more than 1% on the day and well off January’s $5,600 peak, as a firmer dollar and bets that the Fed will hold rates higher for longer sap demand for an asset that pays no yield. Silver is holding just below $60. The pullback is a reminder that even this year’s haven trades have lost some shine in 2026, with cash and short-dated bonds offering real competition for the first time in years. A dovish turn from Warsh this week could revive the metals, while another hot inflation print would keep the pressure on (CNBC).
🚀 SpaceX edges higher as its empire keeps expanding
Shares of SpaceX firmed before the open, rising with the broader risk-on mood. The move comes as the company digests a busy stretch of dealmaking, including a $60 billion all-stock agreement to buy AI coding startup Cursor, expected to close in the third quarter, and continued speculation about a long-awaited public listing (CNBC). For retail investors who can now own the shares directly, SpaceX has become a rare way to get exposure to space, satellite internet, and AI infrastructure in a single name, so the IPO timeline is worth watching.
🔍 Deep Dive
Binance Loses Europe Over Its Past, Not Paperwork
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