What moved
US stocks ended Wednesday firmly higher — the S&P 500 closed up 0.46% at 7,666.60, the Nasdaq Composite up 0.45% at 26,217.83 and the Dow up 0.56% at 53,061.95. Futures have given little of that back and little more: S&P 500 futures are trading 0.19% higher and Nasdaq 100 futures are effectively unchanged, so the pre-market is not extending the rally so much as waiting on it.
Europe is mid-session and split: the FTSE 100 is up 0.63%, the DAX 0.18% firmer, while the CAC 40 is 0.36% lower and the Euro Stoxx 50 down 0.13%. Asia finished soft, with the Nikkei 225 down 0.17%, the Hang Seng off 0.39% and the Shanghai Composite flat at 0.02% higher.
Why
The dominant move is in currencies, not equities. The yen has surged, taking USD/JPY down 2.97% to 155.44 — a scale of move that belongs to policy, not flow. Hawkish Bank of Japan commentary has revived bets on back-to-back rate rises, and Japanese officials have kept the threat of further intervention explicit after the record yen-buying campaign of late July and August. The dollar index is 0.52% weaker as a result, and a softer dollar is doing much of the work elsewhere: gold is up 3.38% at $4,513.90, and dollar-priced commodities are broadly bid.
Underneath sits the Strait of Hormuz. US and Iranian strikes around the waterway have put a supply premium back into crude — Brent is 1.06% higher at $96.64 and WTI 1.62% higher at $92.48, leaving them 8.2% and 10.9% up over five sessions. That is the awkward part of today's setup, because an energy shock is now feeding directly into the Fed debate: futures pricing puts the odds of a quarter-point September hike at roughly 65%, with the funds target at 3.50–3.75%. Governor Waller has said his vote turns on next week's August CPI.
So the fall in yields today is a data response, not a regime change. Ten-year Treasury yields are down 4.2 basis points at 4.754%, five-years down 5.2bp and thirty-years down 2.7bp after a jobless claims print that was as close to neutral as they come.
Sentiment & risk appetite
Equity vol is not worried: the VIX is 0.59% lower at 15.11, well below its 52-week high. Rates vol is the tell — the MOVE index closed Wednesday 2.35% higher at 79.71 and is up 14.1% over five sessions, which is where an inflation-and-Fed argument shows up first. Wednesday's US tape was genuinely broad on PrimerIQ's own universe, with 3,638 advancers against 2,148 decliners, and the leadership was cyclical rather than technological: materials rose 1.69% and financials 0.80%, while technology was flat at -0.02% and real estate fell 0.70%. Gold's move and a weaker dollar alongside advancing equities is not classic risk-off; it is a market hedging inflation and policy, not growth.
Economic calendar
Initial jobless claims for the week to 29 August printed at 206,000 at 08:30 ET against a 205,000 consensus and 204,000 the week before — close enough to unchanged to leave the labour-market read intact, and the trigger for this morning's small rally in Treasuries. The July trade balance landed alongside it, and Fed Governor Christopher Waller is speaking on the same 08:30 slot.
Still to come: the final S&P Global services PMI for August at 09:45 ET, then the ISM services index at 10:00 ET, expected at 54.2 against 54.1. The week's real test is tomorrow's 08:30 ET employment report, which sits directly in front of the September FOMC and the CPI print Waller has flagged as decisive.
Earnings
Ciena reported before the bell with adjusted EPS of $2.11 against a $1.46 consensus, a 44.5% beat, and Toro edged ahead at $1.33 versus $1.30. The bigger overhang is Broadcom's post-close numbers from Wednesday: record results and sharply higher AI semiconductor revenue, but current-quarter guidance a shade below what the sell side wanted, and the reaction has been notably muted for a print of that size. Wednesday's session also delivered a violent split within tech hardware and software — Dell closed 15.81% higher, while Credo fell 20.04%, MongoDB 13.54% and Palo Alto Networks 9.28%.