Half the Fed Pencilled a Hike. The Tape Bought the Dip Anyway.

Stock Market Edge

The Rally That Argued With Its Own Central Bank Yields blinked lower, chips set a record, and the dip vanished before lunch.

The round-trip:
Wednesday’s hawkish dots knocked the S&P down 1.2%; Thursday it closed up 1.08% at 7,500.58, the Nasdaq up 1.91% and the Russell 2000 leading at +2.12%. The whole Fed-day wound healed in one session, the tightening warning still wet on the page.

What actually lifted it:
the two-year eased from its 4.21% spike and the 10-year from 4.49%, a modest relief small caps treat like oxygen. Nvidia rose 3.08%; the SOX set a record, up over 6%. The bounce was real, the logic less so.

The Intel pantomime:
Intel jumped about 9% on a Truth Social post claiming an Apple chip deal neither company has confirmed. The president announcing it owns 10% of the stock. Apple, the supposed partner, rose all of 0.6%, telling you who the market thinks got the favour.

The peace dividend nobody in defence wanted:
the US and Iran signed an MOU, tankers began crossing Hormuz, and WTI fell to $75.83. Defence and energy slid on the same calm that lit the chips. Oil is off about 8% on the week.

📊 There’s a level on SPX I’m watching closely this morning. My full analysis briefing has it – plus what happens if we hold it, and what happens if we don’t. [Read it here →]

Crypto Market Edge

The Market That Showed Up to Work on the Holiday Stocks took the day off. Bitcoin read the room and sold.

The lone honest tape:
with US equities closed for Juneteenth, bitcoin slid to about $62,716, down 2.7%, breaking the $65,000 support defended for weeks. Ether fell about 3% to $1,693, Solana 4.5% to near $68.50. It spent the holiday pricing Wednesday’s hawkish Fed, the one stocks had already forgiven.

The standoff ends:
spot-bitcoin ETFs have bled roughly $4.2bn over three weeks while price held, a divergence we flagged as a question waiting for an answer. This week it answered, lower. The money walking out turned out to be the better-informed half.

Saylor’s asterisk grows a footnote:
Strategy still holds 846,842 BTC, and its recent 1,587-coin buy at an average $63,024 now sits underwater against spot near $62,716. The vow was “never sell.” The update is “never sell, sold once, and now buying the dip into a loss.”

The dollar tightens the screw:
the same hawkish repricing lifting the front end has the dollar index eyeing a multi-week breakout, the most reliable headwind crypto knows. Into Monday’s reopen, that is the variable that decides whether $62,716 was a flush or a floor.

TL;DR – The Bottom Line

• Nine of 18 Fed officials now pencil a 2026 hike, the committee that promised a cut in March. Warsh dropped forward guidance. A quarter-point move is fully priced by year-end.
• Stocks sold the hawkish Fed Wednesday and bought the whole dip back Thursday. S&P +1.08%, Nasdaq +1.91%, and the Russell led at +2.12%, the small caps a hike hurts most.
• Intel rose 9% on an unconfirmed Trump post; the SOX set a record. Nvidia +3.08%. The president announcing the deal owns a tenth of the company.
• The US and Iran signed an MOU, tankers crossed Hormuz, WTI fell to $75.83, oil off 8% on the week. Peace priced early finally arrived, with defence soft.
• Bitcoin broke $65k to near $62,716 with stocks shut, the one open market pricing the Fed everyone else ignored. ETF outflows near $4.2bn. Reopen is Monday.

📌 Fun Fact

The market’s day off is younger than most of the traders taking it. Juneteenth only became a US market holiday in 2022, the first new full-day NYSE closure added since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1998. The exchange now sits idle exactly when its newest contradiction wants pricing.