Oil slides 4.6% even as Washington widens Iran sanctions

With crude weaker, U.S. stocks closed higher across all three major indexes on the 25th (local time) — S&P 500 +0.3%, Nasdaq +0.7%, Dow +0.3%. Energy led the sector declines.

• Markets priced little supply disruption from the sanctions; the volatility index eased 2.5% to 15.45 and the sentiment gauge flipped from Neutral to Greed

• Single names told a different story, though — Moderna (MRNA) +14.4% at the top, with the steepest declines at Zscaler (ZS) -4.3%, Target (TGT) -3.8%, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) -3.1%, Nike (NKE) -3.1%

• The declines split between security software and consumer names, and even with the index up, just 45.0% of S&P 500 members advanced — fewer than half

• A softer dollar and a firmer bitcoin added to the risk appetite; GDP and PCE on the 26th are the week's first test

The Treasury buyback card Wall Street still doubts

A plan to fund Treasury bond buybacks out of the department's cash account drew attention on the 24th, marking a watershed for bond-market confidence

• Stanley Druckenmiller and other Wall Street voices expect Bessent's bond fixes to fail

• Yields fell anyway as traders waited on more data — Treasury yields to 4.6%, long-term yields to 5.2%, with short-term yields flat at 3.7%

• On the 24th Ed Yardeni called Treasury yields simply back to normal; Jobless Claims on the 27th is the next gate for the rate path

Nvidia earnings D-1, and the swing the options priced

With results due after the close on the 26th, options markets are pricing a post-earnings move worth $280 billion in market value

• Large-cap chip stocks rose in tandem — the sector +1.6%, AMD +4.9%, Marvell (MRVL) +4.8%

• Bank of America (BofA), on top of that, flagged enhanced buying opportunities across chip names

• In Taiwan on the 24th, though, an Nvidia employee was indicted on AI chip smuggling charges — noise landing alongside the print