Weekly Market Performance — June 12, 2026

LPL Research provides its Weekly Market Performance for the week of June 8, 2026. U.S. equities rebounded modestly from last week’s late-week slide, navigating volatile trading continually shaped by the artificial intelligence (AI) theme and ongoing geopolitical developments. Globally, European stocks advanced on easing energy prices amid a key central bank decision, while Asian markets ended broadly lower. Meanwhile, fixed income markets gained ground with corporate markets slightly outperforming, and commodities declined with a drop in oil in the driver's seat.

Stock Index Performance

S&P 500 Index Sectors

Fixed Income and Commodities

Source: LPL Research, Bloomberg 6/12/26 @3:15 p.m. ET
Disclosures: Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.

U.S. and International Equities

U.S. Equities: After last Friday’s tech-led selloff, major averages gained ground after persevering through another five days of choppy trading across Wall Street. Market narratives remained broadly unchanged, with the largest directional drivers still leading back to AI and geopolitical developments out of Washington and the Middle East. Chipmakers began the week with a healthy rebound, supporting the S&P 500, after chipmaking giant NVIDIA (NVDA) made headlines for its multi-year agreement with Korea’s SK Hynix for new artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips, and reports of Intel (INTC) producing over 3 million chips for Google-parent company Alphabet (GOOG/L). However, the bounce briefly faded until later in the week as still stretched positioning and a ramp in geopolitical rhetoric and kinetic action in the Middle East led investors to rotate toward more economically sensitive pockets of the market.

Markets ended the week with a flurry of headlines, although the broader atmosphere was risk-on despite volatile Friday trading as oil prices fell in response to in hopes of a fresh truce to extend the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz potentially arriving as soon as this weekend. Simultaneously, market participants monitored the much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX (SPCX), which began trading late Friday morning. 

International Equities: European equities also advanced this week, measured by a healthy gain for the STOXX 600 regional benchmark. Easing crude oil prices and bolstered hopes of a U.S.-Iran agreement were flagged as supportive, but the week’s biggest story came from the European Central Bank’s (ECB) first rate hike since 2023. Citing an uncertain outlook around inflation and economic growth, the rate increase was widely expected by markets — but upward revisions to inflation forecasts and slight reductions to growth projections drew attention, leaving the door open to further hikes this year. Banking shares rose following the decision, but consumer discretionary names broadly led weekly moves on strong earnings from German designer Hugo Boss and a lower-oil price driven rally in travel and leisure names.

Meanwhile, Asian markets faced downside pressure as semiconductor names posted wild swings and gold related names dropped alongside bullion prices. South Korea remained in the spotlight as index-heavyweight chipmakers drove volatile price action in reaction to their U.S. peers, leaving the KOSPI just below the flatline. Japanese stocks faced market chatter around concentration risks in the Nikkei and hotter wholesale inflation data, but trimmed losses on Friday’s tech-led bounce and easing supply chain concerns as oil prices dropped. Greater China was a relative outperformer, with key themes surrounding data suggesting that soft demand kept war-driven producer price increases from passing through to consumers, while tech stocks rose ahead of the SPCX IPO.

Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodity Markets

Fixed Income: Core bonds, as measured by the Bloomberg Aggregate Index, traded higher this week with investment grade (IG) and high-yield (HY) bond markets slightly outperforming. Despite recent volatility in the equity markets, corporate bond markets have remained relatively placid. Corporate credit spreads within both the IG and HY bond markets have barely moved and remain at very low levels. The lack of movement in corporate bond spreads reflects the improved overall quality in both markets in recent years and the fact that, despite increased issuance by technology hyperscalers, the tech sector still represents only about 10% of the IG corporate bond market.

Regarding credit quality, the share of BBB-rated companies (the lowest-rated cohort within the investment-grade universe) continues to decline and now stands at roughly 44%, down from 52% in 2021. Meanwhile, within the HY bond market, BB-rated companies (the highest-rated cohort in the non-investment-grade universe) account for about 56% of the market, up from 46% in 2024. Additionally, there were no payment defaults or distressed exchanges in the HY market during May, which is the first occurrence since August 2018. HY default rates remain very low at 2.02%.

That said, given the higher-quality backdrop and still-elevated yields in both markets, spreads appear unattractive from a tactical perspective (although both markets remain fairly priced relative to our valuation models). However, they remain attractive for income-oriented investors, particularly in the 1–5 year segment of the IG corporate bond market.

Commodities and Currencies: The broader commodity complex traded lower amid fairly steady declines over the last five days. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil continued to dominate focus across the complex as prices tumbled over 6% to below $90 per barrel (near recent lows) on bolstered hopes that the U.S. and Iran could be close to an interim peace deal. However, prices bounced off the weekly low-water mark as traders remain cautious given significant obstacles will likely linger before oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz normalize. Elsewhere, among metals prices, copper led gains as the potential for a U.S.-Iran deal eased worries around global growth and industrial metals demand. Its precious metal counterparts, gold and silver, struggled to gain traction as the yellow metal fell over 2% while silver edged higher. In currencies, the U.S. Dollar Index dropped as the euro strengthened in response to Thursday’s ECB rate hike, while expectations for a U.S. rate increase ebbed.

Economic Weekly Roundup

Highlights from May CPI Release:

• Core inflation rose 0.2% month over month, keeping the annual rate below the psychological level of 3%.
• The rise in gasoline and other energy commodities pushed headline annual inflation to 4.2%, the highest since mid-2023. Core annual inflation accelerated to 2.9% in May.
• Other than the obvious impact from energy prices, the rise in medical care services is also impacting consumer prices and that’s concerning. But on an encouraging note, health insurance costs have declined year over year for the last 6 months.
• Given the demand for travel, we shouldn’t be surprised by the rising costs of transportation. In addition to demand factors, high fuel costs have also impacted this sector.

Bottom Line: Now that the Iran crisis has extended into June, we have begun to see broader impacts across several categories of consumer prices. If the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted through the Labor Day weekend, we would expect the energy shock to affect additional sectors and heighten uncertainty about the future path of monetary policy. Rate expectations could be further upended if this crisis lasts throughout the summer. For next week, expect the Fed to remain on hold while removing any bias toward additional easing.

The Week Ahead

The following economic data is slated for the week ahead:   

• Monday: Empire Manufacturing (Jun), Industrial and Manufacturing Production (May), Capacity Utilization (May), NAHB Housing Market Index (Jun)
• Tuesday: ADP Weekly Employment Change (May 30), Import and Export Price Indexes (May), New York Fed Services Business Activity (Jun), Housing Starts (May), Building Permits (May preliminary)
• Wednesday: MBA Mortgage Applications (Jun 12), Retail Sales (May), Business Inventories (Apr), Pending Home Sales (May), FOMC Rate Decision
• Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims (Jun 13), Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook (Jun), Continuing Claims (Jun 6), Leading Index (May), Total Net TIC Flows (Apr), Net Long-term TIC Flows (Apr)
• Friday: Juneteenth holiday, no economic releases scheduled