Three markets are currently telling three entirely different stories.
The fear index sits at 15.99 - calm. The US 30-year Treasury sits at 5.267% - far from calm. And oil has traced a four-month path from $138 down to $70, back to $105, and down again.
Here is what happened, what is coming, and why those three stories are connected.
What Happened Last Week
The week closed on a sharp verdict about one evening's results. Five companies reported after Thursday's close, and the market priced them on Friday in extreme and opposing fashion:
| Company | Market reaction | What it reported |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | +15.35% | AWS +36.6% to $42.2 billion |
| Apple | -8.07% | The strongest June quarter in its history |
| -20.70% | Revenue +61%, profit more than doubled |
And what explains the gap is the breakdown, not the headline. At Apple, $0.11 of earnings was a one-off tariff refund - meaning the true operational beat was about three cents, not fourteen. At Reddit, the AI data-licensing line the entire multiple rests on grew just 24% against advertising growing 64%. The full roundup of that day is here.
And beyond that: the power sector reported almost in full and split in two - the contractors jumped (EMCOR +19.32%, Quanta +17.26%) while every regulated utility fell, including those that raised guidance. And Exxon and Chevron reported the same quarter with opposite results - Chevron beat, Exxon missed, and the difference was where their assets sit on the map.
What Is Coming This Week
An unusually heavy week: more than a thousand companies above $2 billion report. The standouts:
Monday: Berkshire Hathaway, Palantir. Tuesday: SpaceX - its first-ever report as a public company, after the close - plus AMD, Caterpillar, Merck, Arista, Pfizer. Wednesday: Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Western Digital, SanDisk, Disney, Uber. Thursday: Cloudflare, Datadog, Constellation Energy, Airbnb, SoftBank. Friday: Vistra.
And in Israel: Tower Semiconductor on Tuesday; ICL, NICE, Bezeq and Ormat on Wednesday; Nova and NewMed on Thursday. And for the first time, the Israeli and US trading weeks overlap - since January the Tel Aviv exchange moved to Monday-Friday trading, and Sunday trading was abolished.
And Now the Part Nobody Talks About: Bonds
This is the part that determines almost everything, and it does not make headlines.
| Government bond | Current yield |
|---|---|
| US 2-year | 4.262% |
| US 10-year | 4.718% |
| US 30-year | 5.267% |
| Germany 10-year | 3.212% |
| Japan 10-year | 2.791% |
| Japan 30-year | 3.975% |
Wait - what is the difference between a 5, 10 and 20-year Treasury?
A question that comes up often, and the answer is short: there is no difference in the borrower. There is a difference in the date.
In all three the borrower is the same borrower - the US government. Exactly the same credit risk. The only difference is the maturity: when you get your money back.
And two things follow from that:
First - each one tells you something different. A short bond, at two or five years, mainly reflects the rate the central bank is setting today and over the next few years. A 20 or 30-year bond reflects something else entirely: what the market thinks about inflation, growth and the deficit over decades. So when the long end rises and the short end stays put, it does not mean the Fed did something - it means the market changed its mind about the distant future.
And second - they are not equally risky. The same rise in yield knocks down a 30-year bond far more than a five-year. Which is exactly what we saw above - and it is what explains the next section.
Why 5.267% on the 30-year is a number to stop on
The yield on a long bond is the price of money over the long term. It sets mortgage rates, the discount value of every growth company, and the alternative return an investor gets without taking any equity risk.
And at 5.267%, the meaning is simple: you can get over five percent a year, for thirty years, from the US government. Every stock in the market has to justify itself against that number.
And what is more interesting is the shape of the curve. The gap between the 10-year and the 30-year stands at roughly 55 basis points, and the gap between the 2-year and the 10-year at roughly 46 basis points. In other words the curve is steep - the long end is meaningfully above the short.
A steep curve usually says one of two things: either the market expects growth and inflation ahead, or it demands a higher premium to hold long government debt. The difference between those two readings is the difference between health and worry - and at this stage both are on the table.
And Where This Meets an Actual Portfolio: TLT
The numbers above are abstract. The way most investors actually encounter them is TLT - BlackRock's ETF holding US Treasuries with more than 20 years to maturity, managing roughly $41.8 billion.
And its price tells the story better than any yield table:
| TLT | |
|---|---|
| Current price | $82.25 |
| All-time high | $179.70 |
| Distance from the high | -54.2% |
| All-time low | $80.51 |
| Distance from the low | just +2.2% |
A fund holding nothing but US government debt - the asset considered the world's risk-free one - has lost more than half its value from the peak, and sits two percent above its all-time low.
Three things to understand here, and one of them confuses many investors
First - why this happened at all. A bond's price moves inversely to its yield. When the 30-year yield rises from 2% to 5.267%, an existing bond paying a low coupon is worth less - because you can buy a new one paying more. The fund did not "lose money" to credit risk. It fell because rates rose.
Second - why it in particular fell so far. For comparison, the equivalent fund holding 7-to-10-year Treasuries fell 21.11% over the past five years, while TLT fell 44.97% - more than twice as much. Same government, same credit risk, one difference: length of life. The longer the bond, the more sensitive it is to a change in rates. That is the entire difference.
And third - the point that matters most not to miss: if you buy an individual 30-year bond and hold it to maturity, you get your principal back at the end plus the coupons - the decline along the way is on paper. But TLT is not a bond. It is a fund with no maturity date - it sells bonds that have shortened and buys new ones in their place, continuously.
The practical meaning: the logic of "I'll wait until maturity and get my money back" does not apply to it. Holding TLT is holding continuous exposure to rates, not a promise of repayment on a known date. It returns to its high only if yields come back down - not by the passage of time.
And in full fairness to the other side: the same number that caused the decline is also what makes today's entry point different from 2020's. Someone buying now is buying a portfolio yielding above 5%, not one yielding 1.5% as at the peak. And for anyone who believes yields will fall - this instrument rises with exactly the force with which it fell. The leverage to rates works in both directions.
And the rationale you hear often: "when bonds yield more, money moves to them"
This argument returns every time yields rise, and it sounds reasonable. So let us check it in numbers rather than settle for a feeling.
The standard comparison for this is called the equity risk premium: you take the "earnings yield" of the equity index - earnings per share divided by price, the inverse of the price/earnings multiple - and compare it to the yield on a 10-year government bond.
And here is the situation according to recent reporting: the S&P 500's forward price/earnings multiple stands at roughly 21.5, implying an earnings yield of about 4.6%. The realized earnings yield is lower, around 3.4%. And the 10-year sits at 4.718%.
Meaning: on both measures, the bond yields more than equities or roughly the same. According to those reports, this is the widest negative gap since 2003.
And before jumping to a conclusion - three clarifications that have to be said
First clarification, and it is the important one: this is a description of a mechanism, not a recommendation and not a forecast. This site does not provide investment advice, and nothing here is tailored to anyone. What is presented is the rationale used to explain the phenomenon - not an instruction to do anything.
Second clarification: the comparison itself is not symmetric, and this is the point most often missed. A bond's coupon is fixed - what is promised today is what arrives in a decade. Corporate earnings, by contrast, can grow. A stock with a 4% "earnings yield" today may yield more in five years if earnings expand, while the bond will pay exactly the same. So a low premium is not in itself a reason to sell equities - it says you are paying more for that growth.
And third: "money moves to bonds" is a common description, not a law. In practice, what theoretically should happen does not always happen, and not at the pace expected. Institutions are constrained by investment policy, part of the money is committed to equities regardless of yields, and real capital flows are measured in months and years, not days.
What can be said with confidence: the bar a stock has to clear has risen. When you can get above 5% without equity risk, every company has to justify itself against a higher number than before. That is a statement about pricing - not about direction.
Japan: The Story That Moves the World's Money
And here it is worth slowing down, because this is the least-discussed part and the most consequential.
The Japanese 30-year sits at 3.975%. For comparison, through most of the past two decades it was below 2%, and for part of that period below 1%. The 40-year has crossed 4% - levels not seen since these bonds were first issued.
And what brought this about:
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi led the Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide - 316 seats, the party's largest election victory since the Second World War - on a platform of aggressive fiscal expansion: increased government spending alongside tax cuts, including a pause on the 8% consumption tax on food.
And that is exactly what bondholders do not like to hear. A government that increases spending and reduces revenue will need to issue more debt - and holders demand a higher yield as compensation.
And why this touches a portfolio in Tel Aviv
For years Japan was the world's source of cheap funding. When rates there were zero, Japanese institutions - pension funds, insurers, banks - took money abroad and bought American bonds, European bonds and equities. That is the carry trade.
And when the yield at home rises to nearly 4% for thirty years, the equation inverts. A Japanese pension fund that can get 4% in yen, with no currency risk, has less need to travel to New York for 5.2% in dollars.
This is a real mechanism, not a theory: if Japanese money comes home, demand for US Treasuries falls - and yields there rise further. Meaning the Japanese long end and the American long end are, to a large degree, the same story.
And a caveat: this is a gradual mechanism, not a switch. Institutions do not move portfolios in a day, and part of the exposure is currency-hedged so the effective gap differs from the nominal one. The direction is clear; the pace is not.
And the currency: the yen stands at 157.40 to the dollar - after strengthening 1.4% in the last trading session. That is a sharp one-day move in a currency like this. The Bank of Japan is holding its rate at 1%, and Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama expressed support for yen stability in coordination with US authorities - wording the market reads as a hint of intervention.
Iran, the US and Israel - and What Happened Saturday Night
And on Saturday night came the development that changes the oil picture.
President Trump announced he is calling off planned strikes on Iranian energy facilities, citing "perimeters of a deal" that would lead to fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz. According to CNN, the announcement was preceded by a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who raised concerns about the planned strikes.
And this is not the first time. It is another step back in a chain of threats and reversals: American and Iranian delegations have been in negotiations since June, on the basis of a memorandum of understanding signed between the parties.
The background, briefly: the Strait of Hormuz crisis began at the end of February 2026, after the opening of an American-Israeli air campaign against Iran. Traffic through the strait has been largely blocked since. Even after the June memorandum, Iran continued to threaten and attack vessels - with the stated aim of dictating routes and protocols and collecting payment from those passing through.
And on the Israeli side: Iran threatened that Israeli gas fields would be "burned to ashes," and the assessment in Israel is that Tehran would fire missiles even if Israel does not initially join a new American campaign.
And why this appears in a markets review at all
Because the price of oil this year is almost entirely a function of that strait.
| Period | Brent - average | High / low in period |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | $117.29 | a high of $138.21 |
| May 2026 | $107.14 | - |
| June 2026 | $85.40 | a low of $70.16 |
| July 2026 | $82.11 | a jump to $105.32 on July 23 |
| Latest close | $87.93 | - |
Read that table again. Oil fell from $138 to $70 within two months as the memorandum was signed, jumped back above $105 when escalation resumed in July, and fell again to $88.
This is not a market pricing supply and demand. It is a market pricing headlines.
And the practical meaning for the week ahead: if the negotiations really are moving toward reopening the strait, there is meaningful further downside in the price - and that touches every energy stock we have covered, and indirectly inflation and the long end of the curve as well. And if the talks break down, the path reverses just as fast.
My Angle
A personal opinion of Ilan Abramov - not advice, not a recommendation
What catches me this week is the gap between what the equity market is saying and what the bond market is saying.
A fear index at 15.99 is the number of a calm market. Whereas a US 30-year at 5.267%, together with a Japanese 30-year touching 4% after twenty years below 2%, is not a picture of calm - it is a picture of a market demanding growing compensation to hold long debt.
Those two things cannot both stay true for long. Either the bond market is overstating it, or equities are not pricing something.
And what I find most interesting is actually Japan, because it is the least discussed. For twenty years Japan was the supplier of cheap money to the world. Yields there are rising now not because of growth but because of fiscal politics - a government with a historic majority that promised both to spend more and to collect less. That is precisely the structure bondholders demand a premium for.
And the point of caution I hold: it is easy to look at 5.267% and say "the bond market is pricing a crisis." That is not necessarily right. A steep curve can also reflect growth expectations, and simply a lot of debt issuance. The figure itself does not settle which of the two readings is correct - and anyone presenting it as unambiguous proof of one direction is selling you a certainty they do not have.
And what I will watch this week: not the earnings. The oil. If the talks progress and the strait opens, a further fall in the barrel price would ease inflationary pressure and give relief to the long end - and that would affect the pricing of equities more than any single report published this week, SpaceX included.
Summary
Last week the market showed it reads the breakdown and not the headline: Amazon +15.35%, Apple -8.07% and Reddit -20.70% - all on results from the same evening.
This week brings SpaceX with its first report as a public company, AMD, Eli Lilly and Berkshire; and in Israel Tower, ICL, NICE, Nova and Bezeq.
But the big story sits in bonds: the US 30-year at 5.267%, the Japanese 30-year at 3.975% after twenty years below 2%, and a curve that has steepened in both markets.
And above it, oil, which fell from $138 in April to $70 in June, jumped to $105 on July 23, and stands at $87.93 - after Trump called off planned strikes on Iran on Saturday night.
The fear index, meanwhile, sits at 15.99.
Sources: bond yields, exchange rates and the fear index - latest closing data as provided via TradingView; Brent prices - the Alpha Vantage daily series, including the monthly averages computed from it; earnings figures and stock reactions from last week - from the companies' official results releases and from closing changes for the July 30 and 31, 2026 trading sessions; the earnings calendar for the week ahead - from company announcements and trading calendars; developments regarding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz - from CNN, ABC News, Fortune and Reuters reporting of August 1 and 2, 2026; Japan data - from CNBC and Reuters reporting and from Bank of Japan announcements. Data accurate as of the time of writing, and markets are closed at publication. Nothing herein constitutes a forecast, recommendation or advice - see the full disclaimer at the bottom of the page.
