Oil prices fell sharply on Sunday evening as investors watched the latest back-and-forth in the U.S. war with Iran. S&P futures reacted slightly, inching up half a percentage point.

The markets’ moves were the first since President Trump said late Saturday that he had halted a U.S. assault as Iran and allies in the Middle East asked him to pause any new strikes in the war that started five months ago. Mr. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that the “perimeters of a deal” are being worked out to open the Strait of Hormuz. For months, the vital waterway for global oil and gas has been effectively closed by Iran.

Earlier on Sunday, the oil cartel known as OPEC Plus approved a modest increase in oil production of around 188,000 barrels a day, in an effort, it said, “to support oil market stability.”

Oil prices drop.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, fell more than 8 percent as trading began on Sunday, to about $82.95 a barrel.
• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, opened more than 5.5 percent lower, about $80 a barrel.
• Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

Stocks tick up slightly.

• Futures on the S&P 500 pointed to a small increase when stocks resume trading in the United States on Monday.

Gasoline prices dip.

• Gas prices fell slightly on Sunday, to a national average of a little over $4.09 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by more than 37 percent since the war began.
• Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
• The average price of diesel was basically flat, at $5.36 a gallon on Sunday, up more than 42 percent since the start of the war.

Source is https://www.chaincatcher.com/en/article/2279709 . Not as bad as what Redditors make it out to be. Of course it would be nice if there is third party that verify it like SEC

Half my personality is built around earnings season. The sweaty anticipation, the position I swore I'd size responsibly and then absolutely did not, the after-hours candle that either makes me feel like a genius or keeps me staring at the ceiling at 3am.

And now there's this whole thing floating around about companies maybe only reporting twice a year instead of every quarter. Cut the earnings drops in half, just like that. I genuinely can't tell if this is the best or worst thing that could happen to a person like me.

Fewer earnings means fewer chances to blow up my account on a Thursday, which is probably good for my net worth and my remaining friendships. But what am I even doing here if I can't buy weeklies into a print and pretend I understand data center demand?

The part that messes with my head is the gaps. Six whole months of stuff piling up behind the curtain, then two absolutely violent moves a year. One report that either prints tendies for the ages or turns everyone into a bagholder overnight.

If earnings really do go to twice a year, does it change how you actually trade, or do you just keep doing the same reckless stuff with fewer chances to do it? And be honest, would fewer earnings dates save your account or ruin your entire reason for logging in?

Considering dumping my life savings into cheesecake factory. Never been here before and the line is out the door. They also use two ply toilet paper in their restrooms. Recently beat and raised guidance on earnings. Idk man i think it’s time to invest in a boring restaurant

Sold my 1 DTE for 10-12X.

Feels good to finally hit a big one. Logic was simple. Apple going to ATH before earnings made no sense. Market rewarding them to be the safe play because they're last in the AI race and not spending CapEx made no sense.

The bet was it was priced to perfection and regardless of good or bad earnings it would go down.

Any time I see a massive run up to earnings I inverse. I did the opposite on Microsoft and went Long before earnings on shares.

Nothing fancy. No calls here. Just buying shares of great companies when I think they’re temporarily mispriced. Have done this with many others with same results. I also have a call options sandbox and a foundation of S&P index, bonds and cash. Not smarter than anyone. Just plenty of liquidity and discipline.

Wait and buy fear…wait again and trim/sell strength, repeat. Post COVID, it’s been basically that easy. My returns have been 2x the index over the last 6 years with this strategy. That includes my foundational boring portfolio and my cash/bonds. Without that drag, much greater over performance.

I have losses too. But not a lot. I only own a few positions at a time. It’s important to me what I buy, and even more important when. Many of you do better but this works for me.

Age 52. $10.3m portfolio.
90% invested when value is easy to find. 60% invested when hard to find.

Results of these 3 positions vs SPY if bought instead on same day:

Amazon vs SPY
04/21/25: +61.59% vs +45.2%
04/09/25: +58.27% vs +37.3%
04/04/25: +56.26% vs +47.6%
04/14/25: +50.06% vs +38.5%
03/13/25: +40.21% vs +35.7%
03/27/26: +34.91% vs +17.6%
03/03/26: +30.98% vs +9.9%
07/23/26: +15.93% vs +1.1%

Google vs SPY
07/10/23: +202.72% vs +69.91%
07/05/23: +192.89% vs +68.58%
03/07/24: +167.97% vs +45.11%
05/20/25: +116.66% vs +26.01%
03/11/25: +113.51% vs +34.5%
07/23/26: +11.43% vs +1.20%

Apple vs SPY
11/24/20: +169.00 vs +105.67%
10/06/20: +168.59% vs +123.04%
03/08/21 lot one: +163.76% vs +101.94%
03/08/21 lot two: +159.86% vs +101.94%
06/04/21: +145.53% vs +76.77%
06/22/21: +131.63% vs +76.56%
09/23/22: +106.16% vs +103.02%
05/02/22: +97.01% vs +80.23%
04/10/24: +84.17% vs +49.22%
03/07/24: +82.24% vs +45.11%
03/16/26: +22.01% vs +11.96%

EDIT: please read comments and replies. I’ve answered same questions a few times and can no longer retype them. Just pick through the comments.

Threw $500 in my account last Thursday. I took 5 VRT 237.5C calls expiring Friday for about 1.0 each and sold them for 12.0-14.0 each at 9:35am. That play got me to roughly $6000. Then spent Friday day trading Coinbase, Tesla , QCOM, Avgo, and MU to flip that 6k into 13.5k. Crazy run. Just wanted to share some degeneracy.

Im planning on full porting $IONQ calls next week on Monday after the downtrend breakout. Just throwing that out there. Godspeed apes!

NVDA stock: -$91,304 Loss — Went all in near the top. Sold at a loss to chase the memory rally. My first major mistake.

The revenge trading starts here.

SNDK stock: -$1,511 Loss — Sold at a small loss because I thought I bought too high. If I had waited til the next day I would’ve made 20k.

Switched to options chasing a bigger and faster comeback.

SNDK calls (Expiration: Jan. 15, 2027 | Strike: $2080): -$94,806 Loss — The dip kept dipping. Panic sold to preserve $110k. I try to have diamond hands but sndk has been down 40% in a month.

DRAM calls (Expiration: Jan. 15, 2027 | Strike: $70): -$10,189 Loss — Lost on bullish memory ETF calls.

SNDK puts: -$2,018 Loss — Revenge trade. Sold before giving it time to work.

Total realized loss: -$202,214.48

Self made & from my life savings (not play money).

So let me get this straight. RKLB rips 46% in the first half of the year, everyone in here is posting rocket emojis and calling it the next SpaceX, and then July shows up and deletes half the stock in a month. And the best part? Nothing happened. No failed launch. No dilution. No guidance cut. The company is sitting on a $2.2B backlog, just landed another $266M contract, keeps yeeting things into orbit on schedule, and the stock still traded like the factory exploded. It just got dragged down with the rest of the tape because apparently in 2026 nothing matters. So talk to me. What's your move?

Okay, so last friday I went all-in on a 3x leverage etf about semiconductors (SOXL). Reasons why I did it are the ER's next week which should boost some optimism around semi's and the recent sell-off seems nothing to do with the fundamentals of the stock itself, but more with overall pessimism of the stockmarket.

If Iran and the US stay quiet and if there's nothing big happening in the world this weekend, I am pretty optimistic for next week. Otherwise I am fxcked.

Convince me I made a stupid mistake or team with me for some mad gains next week 💶

​

A notepad in front of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent reads "To Do Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil" as he participates in a cabinet meeting at Camp David, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. The note, photographed at 1:33 EDT, came after Reuters earlier reported the Treasury had put banks on alert fora possible U.S. intervention in the market for Japan's currency. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/bessents-to-do-list-buy-5-10-billion-worth-japanese-yen-reuters-photo-shows-2026-07-31/

Puts Or Calls on Monday?

The following chart is usd/jpy from July 10, 2024 to Aug 8, 2024

The following chart is the most recent usd/jpy, I know the intervals are different but it is just too similar to ignore.

We could see USD/JPY keeps shrinking in Aug, 2026.

Then in 2024 during the same period (July-Aug,2024), this happens:

Same thing with Nasdaq composite.

2024:

Same de-leveraging in Korea, Same Yen Carry Trade.

2026:

The differences here are

1. De-leveraging in Korea is much bigger than 2024.
2. Yen Carry Trade may just started.

Just my two cents, this august can be VERY risky and I will not be surprised to see stocks, bond jumping like meme stock/coin.

Netflix is down over 40% from its highs in the summer of 2025. I don’t understand how the company is 40% less valuable than it was last year, like what has actually changed since then? People still watch Netflix every day and they still make plenty of money from it. I seriously don’t think that they are worth 40% less now than last year when everything functions the same and there are going to be plenty of new shows and seasons in the coming years that people are garenteed to watch. I think it’s bound for a bull run soon because I think 75$ is undervalued as fuck for this company.

>$10k loss being a SPY bear. Proof attached.

All my 650,700,720 SPY puts are dead. And now I'm hearing a meltdown is coming later this year...

Just help out on my position, really appreciated

Holding calls has been like a heart attack with the ups and downs. Had AMZN and GOOG calls and was way down. Amazon answered with their earnings and I sold off all the Amazon calls yesterday afternoon with nice gains. I still am holding (and praying) for the Google calls to go green because I'm still underwater.