finance

Front-month gold futures plunged below $4,000/oz Monday after fresh strikes between the U.S. and Iran sent oil prices surging higher, reviving concerns about inflation and the potential for tighter monetary policy.

The latest escalation and President Trump’s declaration that the

Published on
13/07/2026 – 12:23 GMT+2

TSMC said on Monday that June revenue rose 67.9% year on year to NT$398.27 billion (€10.8bn), bringing the first-half of the year revenue to NT$2.4 trillion (€65.4bn), a 35.6% increase from the same period in 2025.

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Based on the company’s monthly revenue disclosures, second-quarter revenue amounted to roughly NT$1.27 trillion, ahead of the NT$1.264 trillion (€34.4bn) consensus forecast from 20 analysts surveyed by LSEG.

Monday’s release covers June revenue and cumulative first-half sales only.

TSMC will publish its full second-quarter earnings on Thursday, including net profit, gross margin, operating margin and updated financial guidance.

The road ahead

At its April earnings presentation, TSMC said it expects full-year 2026 revenue to grow by more than 30% in US dollar terms and projected capital expenditure of between $52 billion (€45.5bn) and $56 billion (€49bn) as it expands manufacturing capacity to meet AI-driven demand.

New fabrication plants are under construction or in preparation in Arizona, Japan and Germany, reflecting both the scale of customer demand and government efforts to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

Shares in TSMC rose about 1% following Monday’s revenue update.

Investors will now turn their attention to Thursday’s full earnings report for updates on profitability, margins, full-year guidance and the rollout of the company’s two-nanometre manufacturing technology, which is already attracting strong customer interest.

The AI engine

The company sits at the centre of one of the largest investment cycles in the semiconductor industry’s history.

Many of the world’s leading AI processors, including Nvidia’s GPUs and much of the custom AI silicon designed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft, are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan.

At the company’s April earnings presentation, CEO Che-Chia Wei described AI demand as “extremely robust”, driven by the shift from chatbots that answer questions to agentic AI systems capable of taking actions.

That transition requires significantly greater computing power, increasing demand for the advanced chips TSMC manufactures.

Advanced technologies, defined as chips produced using process technologies of seven nanometres or smaller, accounted for 74% of wafer revenue in the first quarter.

TSMC’s three-nanometre technology alone contributed 25% of wafer revenue.

Reports have indicated that Nvidia has reserved roughly 60% of TSMC’s advanced chip-packaging capacity for 2026, highlighting continued supply constraints across the AI semiconductor market.

Published on 13/07/2026 – 6:56 GMT+2•Updated
6:59

The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, gained 3.9% to $78.96 per barrel, while the US benchmark crude oil price rose 4% to $74.26 per barrel.

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Prices for both types of crude oil had recently slipped back to the levels seen before the war with Iran began, after the two sides reached an interim agreement to end the conflict and ships resumed transporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

However, the United States launched several waves of strikes on Iran early on Monday morning following an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set the vessel ablaze and left one crew member missing over the weekend. Iran retaliated by targeting countries across the Middle East.

US stock futures fell, with the contract for the S&P 500 down 0.4% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.3% lower. Nasdaq Composite futures lost 1%.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1.1% to 67,786.86, while in Seoul, the Kospi declined 5.6% to 7,060.69.

Shares in South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix, which soared 13% on their Wall Street debut on Friday, slumped 10.6% in Seoul. Its bigger rival, Samsung Electronics, fell 6.7%.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.1% higher to 24,202.41, and the Shanghai Composite index shed 1.2% to 3,947.34.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.3% to 8,777.00.

US stocks ticked higher on Friday after investors showed sustained appetite for winners of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.3%.

SK Hynix’s shares jumped after trading began at midday after it raised roughly $26.5 billion by selling American depositary shares at a price of $149 each.

SK Hynix’s stock in Seoul had already surged more than 600% over the past year thanks to enthusiasm for AI. The boom has translated into real profits, driven by soaring demand for computer memory. But it has also raised concerns that AI stock prices have climbed too high and that the world’s spending on chips and data centres will not generate enough productivity and profit growth to justify the investment.

That has led to sharp swings in AI stocks, which have become some of Wall Street’s most influential because of their enormous market values.

Nvidia was the single biggest force lifting the S&P 500 on Friday, rising 4%.

Beyond the uncertainty surrounding AI, investors are turning their attention to the upcoming corporate earnings season.

Companies across industries will need to deliver strong profit growth to justify their elevated share prices, which remain close to record highs. This week will bring earnings reports from many of the biggest US banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, with several reporting on Tuesday alone.

Concerns about how the continued fighting with Iran will affect the global flow of crude oil are clouding the outlook for both energy costs and overall inflation.

High bond yields have been weighing on financial markets worldwide because more expensive oil and persistently high inflation could prompt the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates.

Higher interest rates can help keep inflation under control, but they also slow economic growth and weigh on the prices of all kinds of investments.

Additional sources • AP

Tesla (TSLA) delivered a record 480,126 vehicles in Q2 2026, up 25% year-over-year, while producing about 452,000 vehicles during the quarter. Despite the strong delivery beat, shares slumped 8% following the report, with the stock now down more than 9% year

European shares were little changed on Friday but remained on track for their first weekly decline in five weeks as weakness in technology stocks and renewed tensions between the United States and Iran dampened investor sentiment.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index edged 0.1% lower to 640.28 points by 0849 GMT, with losses in technology companies offsetting gains in most other sectors.

The benchmark index is poised to end a four-week winning streak after investors reassessed lofty valuations in artificial intelligence-related stocks while monitoring escalating geopolitical risks in the Middle East.

Technology stocks remain under pressure

The technology sector fell 1.3% on Friday as investors continued taking profits following months of strong gains driven by enthusiasm for artificial intelligence.

The sector also remained focused on the closely watched U.S. stock market debut of South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix after its $26.5 billion share sale.

Among European chip-related stocks:

• Soitec fell 3.3%.
• BE Semiconductor Industries declined 1.6%.
• ASML dropped 2.3%.

“The large swings we’re seeing in technology stocks suggest investors remain under stress amid elevated valuations,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at Swissquote Bank.

“Attention is now turning to SK Hynix’s U.S. debut, which could help gauge broader appetite for AI-related stocks and influence sentiment across the sector.”

Iran tensions weigh on market sentiment

Investor caution also reflected renewed uncertainty in the Middle East after Iranian forces targeted U.S. military infrastructure in Gulf states following fresh U.S. strikes on Iran.

The latest escalation further weakened the fragile three-week-old ceasefire and renewed concerns over potential disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy trade routes.

Higher oil prices and possible supply disruptions have raised concerns about inflation, particularly in energy-importing Europe, where markets are closely watching the implications for economic growth and European Central Bank policy.

Telecoms and travel outperform

Despite weakness in technology, most sectors in the STOXX 600 traded higher.

Telecommunications stocks led gains, rising 1.4%, after Vodafone surged nearly 11%.

The rally followed an announcement by UAE telecoms group e& that it would sell its stake in Vodafone to the family investment group of French billionaire Xavier Niel.

Travel and leisure stocks gained 0.8%, supported by strength in airline shares.

British budget carrier EasyJet jumped 14% after agreeing in principle to a £5.7 billion ($7.65 billion) takeover approach from Apollo Global.

Steel stocks rally on broker upgrades

European steelmakers outperformed after J.P. Morgan adopted a more positive view of the sector.

The investment bank upgraded ArcelorMittal to “neutral” from “underweight,” lifting its shares 5%.

Austria’s Voestalpine climbed 6%, while Germany’s Salzgitter surged 10.3% after both companies received double upgrades to “overweight.”

Other movers

Wealth manager St. James’s Place was among the session’s biggest losers, falling 8.5% after reports that Sovereign Wealth, one of its largest partner firms, was in talks to join a Swedish wealth management group.

Future outlook

Markets are expected to remain focused on two key drivers in the coming days: whether the renewed U.S.-Iran hostilities escalate further and whether SK Hynix’s U.S. debut reinforces or weakens investor confidence in the AI-driven technology rally.

With geopolitical risks pushing oil prices higher and technology valuations facing increased scrutiny, analysts expect volatility across European equities to remain elevated in the near term.

With information from Reuters.

The first days after the earthquake were defined by what had been lost. Apartment blocks lay in ruins, entire neighborhoods disappeared beneath the rubble, hospitals overflowed, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans found themselves without a home. Yet as the emergency slowly gave way to recovery, another realization has emerged, one less dramatic but perhaps more consequential. 

Venezuela did not only lose buildings: it is now discovering that it has very little left with which to rebuild them.

Reconstruction is often described as something that begins after disaster strikes. In reality, it begins years earlier, with the reserves a country accumulates while times are good. Wealth matters, but so do things that rarely appear in economic statistics: functioning institutions, domestic industries, engineering firms, construction companies, reliable electricity, access to credit, insurance markets, emergency planning, skilled workers and the public trust needed to mobilize them all. These are the hidden reserves that allow societies to absorb shocks. The earthquake revealed that Venezuela had spent much of them long before the ground began to shake.

That depletion has become evident in almost every aspect of the response. Venezuela imports a significant share of the food it consumes and much of its medicine. The emergency quickly exhausted whatever inventories existed. Heavy machinery needed to clear debris had to be sought abroad. Medical supplies became scarce almost immediately. Temporary shelters proved insufficient, forcing thousands of survivors to remain in tents erected in parks and public spaces weeks after the disaster. The government is now considering housing many of them in schools, an understandable emergency measure made possible only because classes are suspended for the summer.

Temporary solutions, however, have a habit of becoming permanent in Venezuela. Families displaced by the Vargas Tragedy of 1999 and by the 2010 floods spent years, in some cases decades, living in shelters that were never meant to become homes. The earthquakes risk repeating a familiar pattern, not because Venezuelan authorities necessarily want it to, but because they have long lacked the capacity to offer anything else.

The Venezuelan diaspora contains an extraordinary concentration of precisely the human capital required to rebuild the country. Whether that expertise can be persuaded to return, even temporarily, remains an unlikely scenario.

Some will inevitably attribute this lack of preparedness primarily to sanctions. It is an understandable argument, but one that struggles to explain what the earthquakes actually exposed. The collapse of domestic industry, the deterioration of public infrastructure, chronic underinvestment in the electrical grid, the shrinking of Venezuela’s manufacturing base and the erosion of emergency response capacity all began years before oil sanctions were imposed.

Recent research has also challenged the idea that sanctions caused a discrete collapse in access to food and medicine, showing instead that essential imports had already fallen dramatically before sanctions and later stabilized as the government dismantled some of its own economic controls. The sanctions era itself demonstrated that Venezuela retained the ability to import consumer goods. Supermarkets gradually refilled for those able to pay. Construction cranes returned to Caracas’ wealthiest neighborhoods. Restaurants multiplied. Consumption recovered far more quickly than productive capacity.

The earthquake exposed the difference.

The destruction of resilience

Disasters ask questions that ordinary economic life does not. They care little about how many imported products sit on supermarket shelves or how many luxury apartments are being built in eastern Caracas. They ask whether a country can mobilize excavators, engineers, trauma surgeons, logistics networks, emergency housing, electricity, financing and public institutions at scale. They ask whether resilience has been accumulated or consumed. Venezuela’s answer has been painfully clear.

That is perhaps one of the least understood legacies of chavismo. Much has been written about the destruction of wealth, the collapse of oil production or the country’s prolonged recession. Less attention has been paid to the destruction of resilience itself. For years, the Venezuelan State approached institutions with the same extractive logic that governed its relationship with oil. Productive assets became sources of immediate political or fiscal returns rather than investments to be maintained and strengthened. Private companies were expropriated rather than incorporated into development. Public enterprises became instruments of patronage rather than production. Infrastructure was consumed faster than it was repaired. The country did not merely become poorer. It gradually spent the reserves that societies rely upon when catastrophe arrives.

Resources that may have financed future growth must now finance immediate recovery.

The consequences extend far beyond physical infrastructure. Reconstruction is ultimately carried out by people, and Venezuela has spent the last two decades exporting many of those it now needs most. Engineers who now design highways in Spain, petroleum specialists managing fields in Texas or Guyana, architects working across Latin America, doctors practicing in Colombia and Chile, electricians, project managers and construction supervisors who left because opportunities disappeared at home. The Venezuelan diaspora contains an extraordinary concentration of precisely the human capital required to rebuild the country. Whether that expertise can be persuaded to return, even temporarily, remains an unlikely scenario.

Money presents an equally daunting challenge. Before the earthquake, Venezuela’s slow economic reopening had begun to attract cautious international interest. Much of it remained exactly that, cautious. Memoranda of understanding outnumbered signed investment agreements, access to financing remained limited and investors continued to price Venezuela’s political risks accordingly. The expectation, however tentative, was that new investment would increasingly flow toward rebuilding the electrical grid, expanding oil production and modernizing neglected infrastructure. The earthquake has fundamentally altered those priorities. Resources that may have financed future growth must now finance immediate recovery. Every home rebuilt is a home that cannot wait. Every hospital repaired is indispensable. Every bridge reconstructed delays another project that might otherwise have expanded productive capacity. Reconstruction does not replace development. It postpones it.

Reconstruction-era uncertainty and challenges

The financing challenge has also become more complicated politically. Investors had already approached Venezuela with understandable caution. The humanitarian emergency has increased the country’s fiscal needs precisely as political uncertainty has deepened. The constitutional arrangements established after Nicolás Maduro’s removal were always presented as exceptional. As they become more prolonged and their legal basis increasingly contested, companies considering long-term reconstruction projects must ask whether contracts signed today will remain secure under whatever government eventually succeeds the current one. Investors do not need constitutional certainty, they simply need enough legal certainty to believe that agreements lasting ten or twenty years will survive political change. Venezuela offers remarkably little of it.

This is also why Delcy Rodríguez’s recent call for the lifting of sanctions misunderstands the country’s central problem. Whatever benefits further sanctions relief might provide, it cannot eliminate the uncertainty surrounding Venezuela’s legal and political environment. Investors deciding whether to finance ports, housing developments or power plants are unlikely to base their decisions on sanctions alone. They also ask whether contracts will survive a change of government, whether courts will enforce them and whether today’s authorities will still possess the legal authority to honor them tomorrow.

Reconstruction depends on trust, functioning institutions, access to capital, legal certainty and a productive economy capable of sustaining the effort long after international solidarity inevitably fades.

There is another irony hidden beneath the rubble. The Venezuelan insurance industry will likely survive this catastrophe better than many expected, not because losses have been modest, but because so much of what was lost was never insured. This was an under-insured disaster. Homes, businesses and families that lacked coverage will inevitably look toward the state for assistance. Yet the state that spent years hollowing out its own fiscal and institutional capacity now finds itself acting as insurer of last resort, precisely when it possesses the fewest resources to fulfill that role.

Natural disasters often become moments of national renewal. Reconstruction can modernize infrastructure, attract investment and accelerate reforms that politics alone struggles to produce. Those opportunities exist in Venezuela as well. Rebuilding cities will require new housing, new roads, new power systems, new telecommunications infrastructure and new industries capable of supplying them. But opportunities are only as valuable as a country’s ability to seize them. Reconstruction depends on trust, functioning institutions, access to capital, legal certainty and a productive economy capable of sustaining the effort long after international solidarity inevitably fades.

The earthquake destroyed thousands of buildings. Rebuilding them will take years. What it ultimately revealed, however, is something far more difficult to reconstruct. Over the last quarter century Venezuela has steadily depleted much of the industrial, institutional, financial, human and political capital that countries quietly accumulate before disasters occur. Those invisible reserves are what determine whether recovery becomes a matter of years or generations. They cannot be imported as easily as food or medicine. They have to be rebuilt, patiently, one institution at a time.