S&P 500 futures were up 50 points shortly before the open, but that’s faded to just +5 shortly after the open.

The drop in stocks has come as oil prices have ticked back higher. WTI crude is up $2.96 to $102.56 and that’s now just 80-cents from the session high.

Given the threats from Trump, there is the threat of the destruction of Iran’s oil industry, and the corresponding attacks by Iran on its neighbour’s facilities. That would plunge the world into crisis as there is no way to bring those barrels back or replace them.

Despite rising oil, the bond market is increasingly seeing a flight to safety. US 10-year yields are now down 9 bps and near a session low at 4.35%. There is an argument for looking beyond the oil shock towards the growth shock from energy.

Admittedly, I was puzzled by the optimism in stock markets and some of it was clearly driven by tech stocks. Those are unfortunately facing their own questions about the impacts of AI and huge capex spending. The Nasdaq is trading just above flat now with memory names as the laggard.

A report late last week emphasized that the huge ‘orders’ that OpenAI made for memory were not firm and might be declined. The prices of memory have loosened notably lately and the laggard today is Western Digital, down 4.6% and trading at the lowest since March 12. Memory has been the best-performing trade this year and its weakening is a worrisome sign that there’s nowhere to hide.

There is also some pressure on chipmakers while some of the cybersecurity names have rebounded. There is some real concern about a leaked blog post from Anthropic that says a new model is a huge risk to security. That saw names like Palo Alto Networks plunge on Friday but the same name is up 6.1% today, in part because the CEO bought $10m in shares in a weekend filing.