Trump Wields "Carrot and Stick" Against Iran, Oil Prices Surge, Korean Stocks Sell-off Spills Over to US Stocks, Bitcoin Dips Over 2%

BlockBeats News, July 14th. Last night and this morning, the US-Iran conflict once again escalated. The US military announced a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran and has begun to block Iranian ports, with multiple locations in Iran being attacked. As the conflict intensifies, allies of both sides have also been affected. The UAE reported that two of its oil tankers were hit by two Iranian cruise missiles in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthi rebels in Yemen also launched retaliatory attacks against Saudi Arabia last night. The US-Iran conflict appears to have descended into a chaotic situation.

Nevertheless, despite this, Trump, in a national address, held up the "carrot" of negotiation with Iran, stating that an agreement with Iran is possible, "Iran wants to make a deal and has reached out to the US again."

Market sentiment does not seem to buy into this, as risk aversion continues to rise. According to Bitget, oil prices surged nearly 10% in a single day, while gold briefly dropped below the key support level of $4000.

On the US stock market, on Monday, the Nasdaq fell by 1.55% to close at 25873.18 points, marking the worst performance among the three major US stock indexes and closing below the 50-day moving average. The Dow only dropped by 0.26%, and the S&P 500 fell by 0.79%.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, the semiconductor sector experienced a comprehensive sell-off. Chip stocks such as NVIDIA fell by 3.52% to $203.53, Broadcom dropped by 3.98% to $384.05, AMD fell by 4.21%, ARM fell by nearly 8%. Memory stocks like Micron fell by over 7%, SanDisk dropped by over 12%. SK Hynix ADR plummeted by over 9%. Apple, however, charted its own course, with its stock price rising by 0.71% to $316.91, reaching a new all-time high intraday.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin also couldn't escape the market correction, plummeting over 2% last night, briefly dropping below $62,000 and now priced at $62,316.

Finally, Federal Reserve Governor Waller delivered a speech in New York on Monday, adopting a more hawkish stance that exceeded market expectations. Waller explicitly stated that if this week's core inflation data once again overheats, the FOMC will consider tightening monetary policy in the near future.