A roaring rebound — with a split finish.

For all the week’s volatility, the AI-capex question that has driven the market got its clearest answer yet — and it was encouraging. Microsoft and Amazon both showed cloud growth accelerating, hard proof the build-out is converting into revenue, which is why the market roared back even a day after a hawkish Fed. Apple’s stumble was company-specific — a soft services and guidance read, not an AI-spend verdict. That leaves two clouds over the tape into month-end: a genuinely divided Fed, and a Gulf pause that keeps fraying. The reassuring read is a market that found its footing on earnings; the caution is that neither the rate nor the geopolitical risk is resolved.

• Microsoft drove the bounce — a record one-day value gain snapped the Nasdaq’s six-day skid and lifted the whole tape.
• Amazon extended it — a 37% jump in AWS, the fastest in 18 quarters, sent the stock up after the close.
• Apple was the exception — a soft revenue guide overshadowed an iPhone-led beat and sent the shares lower.

Index figures are Thursday 30 Jul’s close; Amazon and Apple moves are after-hours; rates, FX and commodity levels are the latest available and approximate. Single names appear as news, not recommendations. Times GST.

This week’s de-escalation showed its limits overnight. The US struck about a dozen Iranian targets and President Trump threatened to “hit Iran hard,” unsettling the pause that had pulled oil down from around $102, and crude firmed again. The signals are genuinely mixed: even as the strikes landed, some reports pointed to continued optimism that the ceasefire and Oman’s strait proposal could hold. That contradiction is the story — a conflict oscillating between escalation and negotiation, with no durable settlement yet to anchor either. For the Gulf, the month closes with oil off its highs but the underlying risk intact: the strait’s throughput remains below normal, and the premium can return quickly on any decisive breakdown.

Vault Wealth’s house view: the overnight strikes justify the caution we adopted midweek. We hold a balanced book with residual energy and gold hedges, and will not add risk until the de-escalation is clearly durable. A confirmed, lasting settlement — or oil holding below $85 — would let us lean back into risk; a return toward $95 or a broadening of the strikes would send us defensive again.