Iran: No vessel can safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz without prior approval.

2027 FOMC voting member and Richmond Federal Reserve President Barkin delivered a speech on the economic outlook. Barkin did not explicitly state whether he believes interest rates need to be raised, but he pointed out that "many" at the Federal Reserve consider the current interest rate level sufficiently restrictive to curb inflation. Barkin also noted that there are reasons to view price pressures as entrenched, and achieving the Fed’s goals may require weaker demand or further interest rate hikes.

US July PPI year-on-year rate came in at 4.7%, the lowest since March, below the expected 4.9% and the prior reading of 5.50%.

US July PPI month-on-month rate came in at 0%, falling short of the consensus expectation of 0.20%, with the prior figure revised from -0.30% to -0.1%.

Citrini analyst Jukan pointed out in a post that a noteworthy phenomenon emerged for Intel in the server CPU market in Q2 2026: its shipment share declined, while its revenue share rose. That quarter, AMD’s server CPU shipment share increased by around 0.9 percentage points, Intel’s dropped by approximately 1.4 percentage points, and ARM also began appearing in the share charts. However, in terms of revenue share, Intel bucked the trend by growing roughly 1.7 percentage points. Jukan believes that Intel’s ability to generate higher profits while selling fewer chips indicates an improvement in its product mix or pricing power—likely driven by a higher proportion of high-end server chips with a high average selling price (ASP). While Intel has long been losing ground to AMD in the server market, this quarter’s counter-trend rise in revenue share may signal that its high-end product strategy is starting to pay off. Some bullish voices on Intel have emerged in the community.

Federal Reserve’s Harker Reaffirms Need for Immediate Rate Hikes. Inflation has risen amid recent shocks, and excessive growth could exert additional pressure on prices. It is critical that the Fed is accountable for inflation data. Whether the central bank needs to raise rates to return inflation to its 2% target, or if inflation is already on a downward trajectory, remains an open question.

According to HTX market data, Base ecosystem token BNKR plunged around 18% in a single day, with its market capitalization falling to $25 million. In related development, Bankr founder deployer stated today that token launch platform Pools.fun will roll out its official protocol token. The platform’s plan allocates 30% of all protocol fees to buybacks and burns, alongside planned airdrops and a points system—where both users’ trading volume and volume from tokens they deploy on the platform will be factored in. Pools.fun is a token launch platform jointly launched by Bankr and Sushi, built to compete against Uniswap’s pools.trade on the Robinhood chain.