A Day I Watched From the Sidelines: Hormuz Jitters Lift Gold While Nasdaq Waits on Nvidia

Wall Street closed quietly today, with the S&P 500 up 0.22% and the Nasdaq up 0.47% — not so much a lack of reasons to move as everyone holding their positions ahead of the bigger events on deck. With Nvidia's earnings and the next inflation print just around the corner, it felt less like conviction buying and more like everyone parking in place, while rising Treasury yields kept a lid on how far the indexes could climb. News that a tanker got attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran vowing to push back against sanctions, stirred up worries about oil supply, and that's probably what sent money flowing into gold and copper-related names. Cybersecurity stocks went the other way and slipped, which tracks — on days like this, money tends to drift toward hard assets and safety, leaving growth-flavored sectors a bit out in the cold. The won sliding to a 13-month low against the dollar reads the same way, basically the dollar flexing on the back of higher U.S. yields. Rate and credit conditions still look friendly and the overall mood stayed calm, so today felt more like a ripple while everyone waits for the big catalysts than the start of anything new — and I just watched it happen, didn't add a single position today.