Market Reactions: U.S. Airstrikes and the Impact on Wall Street

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

While US stock futures are eking out a small gain and digging out from overnight lows.

US air strikes on Iran marking a direct military intervention, deepening Washington's role in Israel's war with Tehran, and raising fears of potential retaliation.

Market reaction has been fairly muted since Israel's initial assault this month.

The S&P 500, despite two weeks of losses, is still just 3% below its all-time high from February.

Well joining me on this. morning is Peter Tuchman, senior floor trader of Trademoss.

Peter, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining me on this.

Absolutely not.

And outside the New York Stock Exchange, it is very hot as we have a heat wave here in New York.

But of course all focuses on the Middle East, especially after the military action from the US this weekend.

So given what we're seeing in terms of futures prices, do you think this is a case of hoping for the best and bracing for the worst?

You know what I find it The curious, you know, normally, as we say, there's an old adage on Wall Street that when the bombs start to fall or when there's blood in the streets, then it's time to buy the market.

We did not really see the reaction by the market in anticipation of whatever was happening in the Middle East.

It's been muted all along, and I find it curious, you know, we have had a small little bit of a negative posture over the last couple of weeks and, you know, I mean taking into account what's happening in the Middle East until the actual, you know, post the attack by Israel and Uh, but it's fun.

It's kind of a curious one, you know, I would have thought, especially, you know, having oil as a factor and as a component of this being that our markets are sensitive to the price of oil and how it relates to inflation and all that stuff.

So I'm a little bit perturbed by it, but not a bad thing.

I mean we could be really selling off rather hard, right, because look, if you're if you're looking at something that's a fully global confrontation like a world.

War, you know, where you have, you know, hopefully, you know, a shorter answer to your question is yes, best case scenario is we did, it was a one hit where hopefully we've made the point that we wanted to make, and this is not my endorsement of what happened or not.

It's not a political statement, but you know Mr.

Trump is the one who makes these decisions.

But you know, the decision was made, they did it and hopefully we move on from here and that there's some kind of a settlement.

And Peter, as you mentioned, geopolitics have been taking center stage, but we can't forget the fact that tariffs do still loom in terms of the deadline since July 4th is coming up and of course that July 8th, July 9th deadline is incoming.

Now, Trump will be in Europe this week, especially given the NATO meeting and a lot of discussions are expected to take place.

So what do you focused on this week in addition to what's happening in the Middle East?

Well, look, I'm hoping that this is the Middle Eastern thing.

It's not a distraction because at the end of the day, as significant as is obviously to the people of Iran, to the people in the United States, everyone through the Middle East is tariffs, right?

And I don't want to divert our attention from that at all because at the end of the day that's the most important thing for our market, for our. and for for for for for the United States, right?

I mean these are deals that need to be done.

We need to refocus once we're done with going on, we should be able to multitask the situation and you know at the end of the day our focus primary purpose is to get some kind of clarity around markets.

And so my hope is that Ge Summit well, obviously it will be. focused on its summit is that, exactly.

So we'll be focused on on what's happening in the Middle East.

I would hope that the conversation is tar because that in a grander scale that's so much more important for us here at the market and for the economy in general.

And so I think we focus on that, we focus on on Jay Powell's interview with Congress here on Tuesday and start to get some clarity because you know we Our attention has been diverted by what's happening in the Middle East and at the end of the day the tariffs are the most important thing and getting a deal.

July 9th is a looming date where we're going to have that postponement of the deal that we're supposed to have with the EU, right?

It's the expiration of that 90 day pause that we had and so there's a lot going on, a lot incoming around those days, yeah, and that NATO summit taking place in The Hague will be front and.

Center tomorrow as well as Wednesday, but we'll keep a close eye on what unfolds in terms of geopolitics.

So finally, before I let you go, we're looking at crude oil WTI below $75 a barrel on this Monday morning.

The S&P 500 futures are eking higher.

So in terms of specific levels, what are you watching as we head into today?

Look, I'm hoping that we start inching our way back.

We've broken above the 6000 level on the spy.

That's a good thing.

We did have a rather large option expiration on Friday and a S&P rebalance.

Look, we've got the end of the quarter, the end of the half, and the big Russell rebound here at the end of this week.

So there's going to be a lot of volatility and a lot of volume coming into the market.

My gut is that what I've never seen before, what happened on Friday, which is that we traded, traded 3.2 billion shares on Friday and the advances versus the decline.

Lines on Friday on a day of 3 to 4 times the normal volume was exactly 1 to 1.

That meant for everybody buying shares, there was somebody selling shares and that I've never seen before, especially around these rebalanced times.

So for me, and you know what, there are people who are very confident that some people are underinvested in the market.

Those people are looking for the right spot.

They're buying.

People who are confident that it's time to make a sale on this market because of whatever is going.

Down the line as far as tariffs go, they're making a sale and we're just kind of running down the and it's reflected in the market.

The markets with all that's going on this weekend and a lot, a lot is going on.

We're trading flat.

We're just like throwing the ball right down the middle of the bowling alley and more to be revealed.

OK, Peter, as always, thank you so much for joining me.

You'll be here bright and early on Friday morning, so we'll see where we are.

Thanks for joining me.