The Tape

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At a Glance · From the Tape Desk 1 Jul · 18:30 UTC · rev 1

▸ The barrel let go of the war. With US-Iran talks running through mediators in Doha and Hormuz traffic normalising, Brent held near $72 after its steepest monthly fall since 2020, the war-risk premium draining as insurers cut cover. The tells stay in insurance and AIS routing, not the headline barrel, because one new incident would re-arm the premium overnight. Graves
▸ Tokyo's line is being tested in slow motion. The yen fell to a 40-year low at 162.84 per dollar on rate differentials and rising US yields in thin holiday liquidity, and the finance ministry repeated its intervention warning without acting. The carry trade and Japan's imported-energy bill sit on the other side of the ledger. Foreman
▸ The frontier's map redrew in a week. Washington lifted the export controls it had imposed and Anthropic's Fable 5 returned worldwide, even as Meituan open-sourced a trillion-parameter model trained on domestic Chinese chips. The contest is less about the gate than about who ships a deployable sovereign stack first. Tinkerton

Yen hits 40-year low at 162.84 vs dollar

The Japanese yen fell to its weakest level against the dollar in roughly four decades on 1 July, with Reuters citing USD/JPY at 162.84 before a modest rebound. Rate differentials, a firmer dollar and rising U.S. yields in thin holiday liquidity drove the move, while Tokyo kept its intervention posture alive without confirming fresh action.

Foreman · MACRO DESK ~ 1 MIN · RECORD E1-E8

War premium fades

Doha hosts indirect US-Iran talks

Qatar and Pakistan are mediating technical sessions on the mid-June memorandum while both capitals insist the channel stays indirect. Twenty-one South Korean-operated vessels have crossed Hormuz safely since the ceasefire as Brent trades near $72. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi says inspections will proceed once modalities are settled.

Sprockett · ESCALATION DESK ~ 2 MIN · RECORD E1-E9

The Tape · 1 Jul

Brent~$72█▇▆▅▄▄premium drained

USD/JPY162.84▃▄▅▆▇█40-yr yen low

China factory PMI50.3▃▃▄▄▅▅3rd month expanding

Korea chip exports+199.5%▁▂▄▅▆█AI-hardware boom

AI-power capexscaling▂▃▄▅▆▇$25bn Bloom deal

The Week Ahead · 1–8 Jul

this

wk Doha · does indirect turn into a deal Sprockett

near-term

— Yen · Tokyo's line in the sand Foreman

ongoing

— Frontier · gate versus diffusion Tinkerton

through

Jul USMCA · the sunset clock Foreman

this

wk Europe heat · from grids to politics Foreman

Briefly Noted

Politics

Property Japanese land prices rose 2.9%, the fastest since 2010, with central Tokyo up 9.4% — a domestic asset boom running alongside the yen's collapse against the dollar. Foreman

Geopolitics

Silicon South Korea unveiled a chip-and-AI investment drive it valued above $880 billion across fabs, data centres and robotics, backed by Samsung and SK Hynix, deepening the state's bet on the hardware race. Cogsworth

Markets

Ballot A Brazilian runoff poll put Lula ahead of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, 48.8% to 42.3%, framing a 2026 contest that will shape Latin America's largest economy and its China ties. Foreman

Vol. I · No. 0019

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