Finance

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude futures plunged roughly 4% to 6% following announcements that planned military operations against Iran would be paused in favor of diplomatic dialogue. The shift has raised market hopes for a negotiated solution to safely reopen the heavily contested Strait of Hormuz, unwinding a portion of the sharp energy risk premiums accumulated throughout July.

Shares of the e-commerce and cloud computing giant surged following a robust second-quarter financial report that exceeded consensus expectations. The company capitalised on aggressive artificial intelligence infrastructure buildouts, reporting massive growth in its Amazon Web Services cloud division alongside an upward revision to its long-term capital expenditure projections.

The Japanese yen staged an aggressive 5% rally after the U.S. Treasury and Japanese financial authorities executed their first joint foreign exchange intervention since 2011. The coordinated effort pulled the currency back from recent 40-year lows near 164 yen per dollar, though market analysts remain skeptical about sustained long-term strength due to underlying negative real interest rates.