WS #13849

The dominant US-Iran/Hormuz narrative is ESCALATING. Oil prices remain elevated near one-week highs (Brent ~$87.62, WTI ~$82.08) after a >5% surge Monday, as Trump's demand for Iranian compensation and Iran's six conditions (including US reparations) push a deal further out. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed to just 6 vessels vs 130-140 pre-war, and Saudi Aramco postponed restart of its 400k bpd Jazan refinery to Aug 30 after Houthi attacks, tightening supply. This sustains bullish energy (XOM, CVX), bearish airlines (DAL, UAL), and raises inflation/Fed-hike risk ahead of Wednesday's CPI. Separately, the Nvidia $500B AI infrastructure financing story is corroborated across multiple sources (Reuters, Bloomberg, ANSA, GDELT, multiple international outlets), confirming partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, KKR, with Nvidia backstopping up to $125B (25%). This is a high-significance positive for NVDA and the AI supply chain, carried forward. Intel is seeking to upsize its share sale to ~$20B (from $15B), pricing around $95/share, drawing over $100B in demand—a significant capital raise signaling strong investor appetite for AI-linked semiconductor names. Anthropic signed a $9.1B, 20-year AI cloud deal with Riot Platforms for 191 MW of Texas data center capacity, sending RIOT shares up ~23.5% premarket—a notable AI infrastructure deal. Fed rate hike bets remain elevated ahead of Wednesday's CPI, with Polymarket pricing a coin toss on a September hike; the July CPI is expected to show 0.1% MoM headline and 0.2% core, but risks are skewed to a hot print given rising oil prices. This is a stable continuation of the rate-hike narrative.