Trade Secrets: Dailies 07.31.2026

US Stocks surge into the final session of July as Amazon's fastest AWS growth in 18 quarters and Citadel's emergency rescue of AI hedge fund Situational Awareness extinguish the month's AI-bubble fears in a single overnight session, though Apple's China miss keeps the tape split and the KOSPI's record 18% single-day rebound — the biggest in its history — signals global markets are fighting their way back from the brink.

Nasdaq-100 futures surged in premarket and S&P 500 futures gained 0.67% as Polymarket implied a 94% probability that the S&P 500 would open higher Friday — the highest single-day conviction reading since the Iran deal announcement in mid-June. The S&P 500 rose 1.66% to 7,437.63 on Thursday in its biggest single-session gain since late June, while the Dow climbed 0.53% and the Nasdaq added 1.6%, though the Russell 2000 lagged badly, falling 1.61% as small caps struggled with the sustained high-yield environment. US futures are extending those gains heading into Friday's open on the Amazon print and the Situational Awareness resolution.
Amazon (AMZN) surged 11.7–13% in premarket after posting Q2 revenue of $200.6 billion — up 20% year-on-year and its biggest quarterly revenue in company history — with AWS cloud revenue jumping 37% to $42.23 billion, beating the $40.57 billion estimate and marking its fastest growth in 18 quarters. Adjusted EPS came in at $5.75, more than tripling the $1.82 consensus. Q3 guidance of $197–$202 billion in revenue was above the $195.9 billion estimate. CEO Andy Jassy said both the AI and custom chips businesses are "rapidly gaining momentum," joining Microsoft and Alphabet in confirming that the AI capex supercycle is generating real cloud revenue acceleration — a direct answer to the month's central market anxiety.
Apple (AAPL) fell 6–7.8% in premarket despite beating Q3 revenue expectations — iPhone sales rose 22% year-on-year — as weaker-than-expected Services revenue and a sharp decline in Greater China sales overshadowed the hardware beat. Apple also warned that supply constraints would hurt Q4 growth, limiting its ability to meet demand for AI-enabled devices, and guided fiscal Q4 revenue below Wall Street's estimate. The stock had briefly hit a $5 trillion market cap earlier in the week before its slide, and US regulators separately blocked Apple's plan to source memory chips from Chinese suppliers CXMT and YMTC.
The week's hidden catalyst was Citadel. Billionaire Ken Griffin's firm agreed to rescue Situational Awareness — one of the largest and most closely watched AI-focused hedge funds — after the fund suffered catastrophic losses during the month's AI-linked selloff. The deal, which involved Citadel acquiring a large equity stake and providing emergency liquidity, was the single event that most directly triggered Thursday's sharp US recovery and Friday's Asian relief rally, as forced selling that had been liquidating AI positions across the global chip complex was brought to a halt. Investors said the Situational Awareness rescue gave them confidence to wade back into AI-linked stocks across the board.
July closes as the worst month for the KOSPI since the 1997 Asian financial crisis — down approximately 25% for the month — despite Friday's extraordinary bounce. The S&P 500 is heading for a monthly loss of roughly 3–4%, its worst July since 2002, while the Nasdaq posted its weakest July since the dot-com era. Despite the carnage in July, the S&P 500 is on track to close Q2 earnings season with roughly 40% profit growth year-on-year, one of the strongest earnings seasons in recent history.
Lam Research (LRCX), which surged 14.1% in Thursday's premarket on record quarterly results, and Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), AbbVie (ABBV), and Colgate-Palmolive (CL) all report before Friday's open. The Bank of Japan held rates steady at 1% at the conclusion of its two-day July meeting as widely expected, but issued its most hawkish statement in years — warning for the first time that underlying inflation could exceed its 2% target — and signaling that future policy discussions will focus on upside price risks, strongly implying a September rate hike. The yen surged sharply overnight on suspected coordinated intervention by the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Japanese authorities, with USD/JPY moving violently from around 164 to below 160 — a magnitude of move that analysts said was not accidental given the BOJ meeting timing.
Oil held near $84.23 for WTI and $89.57 for Brent as Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces struck two tankers at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz on Friday morning, partially reversing the prior session's decline on reports of increased tanker traffic through the waterway. Gold fell 1.21% to $4,110.10 and Bitcoin was little changed near $64,211 as safe-haven demand eased on the AI-equity relief rally. The US Dollar Index fell on yen strength and the euro held near a one-month high above $1.14.
South Korea's KOSPI surged a record 18% to close at approximately 6,601 — the largest single-day percentage gain in the index's history, surpassing the prior record of nearly 12% set during the 2008 global financial crisis — as Samsung Electronics jumped 21% and SK Hynix soared 24.6–25.6% in Seoul, recovering a large portion of the week's losses. The Kosdaq also surged sharply. Despite the historic bounce, the KOSPI remains well below its June peak above 9,000. South Korea's regulators raised the minimum cash deposit requirement for single-stock leveraged ETFs effective today from 10 million won to 30 million won.
Japan's Nikkei 225 surged 2,494 points or 4% to close at 64,362.02, its best single-day performance in weeks, with SoftBank Group jumping 13.8–15% and Tokyo Electron rising 6.2–11%. Taiwan's TAIEX soared 7–8%, one of its strongest sessions since the post-IPO SpaceX surge in mid-June. Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 25 points to 25,884. China's Shanghai Composite rose 27 points to 3,832. Germany's DAX gained 1% to 25,870.09, the CAC 40 climbed 1% to 8,570.48, and Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.8% to 10,983.31. MSCI's broadest Asia-Pacific index outside Japan gained 4.6–4.7%, its best single day since March.

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