For the most part, market volatility was caused by escalating strikes against Iran. This has a significant impact on oil prices and equities prices. Over the last week, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) went from about $85 a barrel to about $95 a barrel. Since the start of July, the price of WTI reached a low of $75 after the memorandum of understanding was public. However, there is a chance that WTI could get pack to $100 or more per barrel if the conflict were to ramp up further.
On Thursday, the most important scheduled news release took place on Thursday when unemployment claims for the last seven days were made public. It was revealed that 187,000 claims for benefits were made over that period. This was significantly lower than the 211,000 claims expected by analysts and the 209,000 requests for benefits from the previous week.
This suggests that the economy is still strong regardless of inflation and other pressures on consumers. It may also suggest that monetary policy can remain unchanged for the time being. It is expected that the Fed will cut interest rates where they are within a range between 3.75 percent and 4 percent.
The S&P 500 was down about 99 points last week to finish at 7,411. This was a loss of 1.32 percent over the last five trading days. The index is now down 1.15 over the past month. On Wednesday, the market made its high of the week when it hit 7,524 while it made its low of the week on Thursday when it dipped to 7,383.
The Dow was down 0.8 percent this past week to close at 51,946. This was a loss of 416 points over the last five trading days. The index is up 0.28 percent over the past month. On Wednesday, the index made a high of 52,392 while it made its low of the week on Thursday of 51,561.
Finally, the Nasdaq was down 2.86 percent to close at 24,975. This was a loss of 735 points over the past week. It made a weekly high of 26,345 at the opening of trading on Monday and closed near its low of the week.
In international news, Canada announced on Monday that its inflation was down 0.4 percent over the last month. The same day, New Zealand announced that inflation was up 1.5 percent over the last quarter. On Wednesday, Great Britain announced that its annual inflation rate was 2.6 percent, which was slightly lower than expected.
Australia announced on Wednesday night that its economy added 76,000 jobs in June and that its unemployment rate was at 4.4 percent. Finally, on Thursday, the European Union announced that its key interest rate would remain unchanged at 2.4 percent.
The upcoming week will see the Fed will make its July interest rate decision on Wednesday. Japan and Great Britain will also make interest rate decisions next week. The Core PCE Price Index for June as well as advance GDP data for the second quarter of 2026 will be released on Thursday.