Oil soars amid Middle East tensions

This report comes from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open tells investors everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Do you like what you see? You can register here.

Wall Street has changed little
THE S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite large held on to gains in choppy trading before key inflation figures. The S&P 500 ended largely unchanged, up 0.23 points, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.21%, boosted by gains in Nvidia shares. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.36%. The 10-year yield Fund with a lower end.

Trends in the Middle East
US crude oil prices rose more than 4% on Monday, topping $80 a barrel The Pentagon deployed additional forces in the Middle East in response to heightened tensions. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a carrier strike group, including F-35 fighter jets, and a guided-missile submarine to the area. Israel is bracing for retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah after the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran.

Elliott-Starbucks Settlement;
Activist investor Elliott Management and Starbucks it’s inside settlement talkswith possible terms including a board seat for Elliott’s Jesse Cohn and governance improvements, according to CNBC’s David Faber. CNBC previously reported that the talks held last week would allow CEO Laxman Narasimhan to keep his job and board position. Starbucks chairman emeritus Howard Schultz opposed the settlement. Elliott has built one $2 billion stake in Starbucks.

The Trump interview was interrupted
Elon Musk’s interview with former President Donald Trump about the The X platform experienced significant technical problemswith users unable to join the live stream initially. Musk blamed a cyber attack for the outage, though CNBC could not verify that. After nearly an hour of troubleshooting, the interview finally began and ran for over two hours, with up to 1.3 million viewers at its peak. Musk claimed the attack was aimed at silencing Trump.

Japanese stocks rise
Japan’s benchmark indices rose sharply on Tuesday amid Asia-Pacific mixed marketswhile the yen weakened. The Nikkei rose as much as 3% as markets resumed trading after a break. of Singapore Straits Times rose 0.85% as its economy grew 2.9% in the second quarter. Elsewhere, South Korea Kospi slipped marginally, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.12%. of Hong Kong Hang Seng Index It rose 0.10%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 fell 0.21%.

[PRO] Two-month race
Investors may be in for a tough two months as Wall Street’s fear index recently soared to its highest level since the pandemic. Bank of America notes that the S&P 500 typically falls after that instability spikes from the pandemic. Bank of America notes that the S&P 500 typically falls after that instability spikes.

Nvidia gave Wall Street a boost at the start of the week, jumping 4% to take its gains to more than 120% so far this year. But the chip giant has fallen more than 11 percent in the third quarter as investors worry about returns on AI investments and shift their focus to neglected areas of the market.

Nevertheless, UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri reiterated his buy rating on Nvidia ahead of its Aug. 28 earnings report, setting a $150 price target, representing a 37% gain from Monday’s close. Arcuri also raised its 2025 earnings per share forecast for the company.

Steve Grasso, CEO of Grasso Global, told CNBC “The exchangethat Nvidia could soon see a return to $120. “This is definitely a momentum stock,” Grasso said, noting that it was “a wink of the eye” away from $115 during Monday’s session. “I think you’ll see a 120 frame sooner rather than later.”

A more cautious Dan Niles, of Niles Investment Management, thinks the stock has it has not yet reached a 2024 low.

Capital investment “is going to be the lamp around which this market goes or goes down pretty hard from here,” Niles said, adding that AI chip supply is catching up with demand.

“I strongly believe they’re going to beat the quarter in revenue and EPS, but as you’ve seen, you know, with Microsoft, Amazon, Google or Tesla. I personally think the guidance might be weak.”

Investment research firm TS Lombard also issued a cautionary note to investors, highlighting high earnings expectations. However, the company still sees megacap technology as the key driver of the market.

“Make no mistake, it’s still the US tech giants that set the tone for stocks,” Konstantinos Venetis and Davide Oneglia wrote to clients. “Their weight – in terms of market cap, earnings and margins – is simply too great to allow for a sustained broad market divergence at this stage.”

Meanwhile, Savita Subramanian, chief US equity strategist at Bank of America Securities, has advised investors to focus on large-cap stocksespecially in the industrial, financial and material sectors.

“We are at a point where you don’t necessarily want to sell wholesaleyou want to pick your spots,” Subramanian told CNBC “Skook on the road.” “I really like large-cap stocks here. I think it’s an undervalued sector of the market that’s poised to do quite well over the next few months, if not years.”

— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Jeff Cox, Sarah Min, Sam Meredith, Rohan Goswami, Brian Evans, Tanaya Macheel and Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.