Finance

Crude oil futures turned higher and breached the $100 per barrel mark, complicating the economic outlook for traders. The bounce in oil prices, combined with persistent geopolitical friction involving the U.S. and Iran, has reignited fears of a fresh consumer supply shock and long-term core inflation.

Despite broader macroeconomic headwinds and brief pullbacks across the sector, tech stocks have routinely driven major index record-highs. Semiconductor manufacturing giants such as AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm have achieved major market cap milestones and valuation upgrades, underscoring intense corporate capital expenditure on high-bandwidth memory and computing infrastructure.

Digital assets successfully bucked their historically weak seasonal performance trends for the month of September. Led by heavy short liquidations, Bitcoin surged past the $85,000 threshold to touch multi-month highs, showcasing a wide returns gap over traditional hedges like safe-haven bonds and gold.