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The Polaris Financial Monday Espresso is your essential five-minute investment briefing, equipping you with everything you need to know for the week ahead. Marlborough's Multi-Asset Solutions Investment Team summarise market events over the past seven days and preview the key events in the week ahead, while also sharing their expert insights.
Monday Espresso Podcast - 15th June 2026
[00:00:00] Rory Dowie: Good morning. Today is Monday the 15th of June. I'm Rory Dowie, Portfolio Manager here at Marlborough. And joining me today again is Andrew Shaw, one of our Senior Investment Analysts. So Andrew, thanks for being back, and good morning.
[00:00:13] Andrew Shaw: Morning, Rory.
[00:00:14] Rory Dowie: Lots to get through. The dominant story is Iran. An interim deal was announced last night to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:00:21] Rory Dowie: We had hot inflation data. The ECB hiked rates for the first time in three years, and we have a Fed meeting later this week under new leadership. The SpaceX IPO happened on Friday as well, and we also had an interesting development in the AI world with the US government stepping in to ban Anthropic's latest AI model.
[00:00:41] Rory Dowie: First things first though, Andrew, markets last week, how did they get on?
[00:00:45] Andrew Shaw: Yeah, it was volatile but positive, Rory. The S&P 500 finished the week up about 0.4%, which is now up 8.5% for the year. The Dow Jones gained 0.7%. It was choppy. A semiconductor sell-off early on and fresh Iran tensions on Tuesday did rattle sentiment, but markets recovered into Friday on SpaceX's strong debut and growing optimism around a peace deal in Iran.
[00:01:12] Andrew Shaw: Regionally, Japan was the standout again, up over 4%. The UK was up about 1%. Europe was mixed. The DAX was down half a percent after the ECB rate hike, whilst France and Italy were higher. Oil came off sharply with Brent falling below $87 on Friday and down from around $95 at the start of the week.
[00:01:35] Rory Dowie: Okay, so markets in a positive place then.
[00:01:37] Rory Dowie: You mentioned the DAX there. That is the German market in Europe. But then I guess really over the weekend, we saw updates over Iran and the US and potential news of a peace deal. Andrew, what's the latest on that front?
[00:01:50] Andrew Shaw: So last night, both President Trump and Pakistani mediators confirmed that a deal had been reached between the US and Iran to end the war.
[00:01:58] Andrew Shaw: Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Trump said the deal is complete and that the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway through which 20% of the world's oil passes, will reopen upon signing. That signing is expected this Friday in Geneva with a 60-day window of nuclear talks to follow.
[00:02:21] Rory Dowie: Okay, so clearly positive news there, Andrew. There are caveats, though. Israel did launch strikes on Beirut just yesterday before the deal was announced, and Trump has threatened to resume attacks if nuclear talks fail. So cautious optimism is really the right framing probably for now. But if it holds, that would really be the single most positive thing that could happen for the global economy and for UK households right now.
[00:02:45] Rory Dowie: Moving on, we had economic data and interest rates. Really was a busy week. Andrew, I guess let's start with US inflation first. That's probably the most important.
[00:02:54] Andrew Shaw: Yeah. The May CPI data on Tuesday was not great. Headline inflation hit 4.2% year on year, which is a three-year high, and that's up from 3.8% in April.
[00:03:06] Andrew Shaw: Energy prices rose nearly 4% in the month alone. Core inflation was more contained at 2.8%, so the Iran-driven energy shock is clearly still feeding through to broader prices.
[00:03:17] Rory Dowie: Okay, so energy really filtering through to the headline numbers, but most importantly, that core inflation was still, you know, remaining fairly steady, and that's what central banks kind of keep an eye on when they're thinking about interest rates, et cetera.
[00:03:29] Rory Dowie: We did see the European Central Bank respond on Thursday, Andrew. What happened there?
[00:03:33] Andrew Shaw: They did. ECB hiked rates by 25 basis points, taking the deposit rate to 2.25%, and that's the first hike since September 2023. They cited the energy shock explicitly, raised inflation forecasts, and cut the growth outlook.
[00:03:50] Andrew Shaw: The Eurozone economy actually contracted in Q1 this year, so you've got rising prices and falling growth. Interestingly, if the Iran deal holds and energy prices normalise, that single hike might actually be enough.
[00:04:03] Rory Dowie: Now, we've got the big one this week, the Federal Reserve meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.
[00:04:08] Rory Dowie: What is to be expected there, Andrew?
[00:04:11] Andrew Shaw: Yeah. This is Kevin Warsh's first meeting of Fed chair after replacing Jerome Powell. No change to rates is expected, a 97% probability they hold at 3.5 to 3.75%. But the market is watching Warsh's communication closely. He's more hawkish, more concerned about inflation than Powell, and has signaled a move away from detailed forward guidance.
[00:04:35] Andrew Shaw: And of course, the Iran deal now changes the energy and inflation outlook, so the question is whether the Fed acknowledges that in the statement.
[00:04:42] Rory Dowie: Okay. So we've had rates go up in Europe, on hold in the US it looks like, but we'll see on Tuesday and Wednesday and, and look for that forward guidance from Powell.
[00:04:52] Rory Dowie: That's the central bank update and inflation update. Right, moving on then. SpaceX, they IPO'd on Friday, Andrew. We spoke about it on the pod last week. How did they get on?
[00:05:02] Andrew Shaw: It was record-breaking, Rory. SpaceX priced at $135 a share, raised roughly $75 billion, selling 555 million shares, which is the largest IPO in history by some mile, and that's surpassing Saudi Aramco's $29 billion listing.
[00:05:21] Andrew Shaw: The stock opened at $150 a share, jumped as high as 176 intraday and closed at around $161, which is up 19.2% on the day, and that puts the company at roughly a $2.1 trillion market cap. That's about the seventh largest company in the world at this point.
[00:05:42] Rory Dowie: So I guess it played out as expected, and we mentioned that on the pod last week.
[00:05:45] Rory Dowie: Huge retail demand, a small free float, and a, a pretty solid first day pop. So again, a lot of excitement around that. As we mentioned last week, just cautioning on the fundamentals. The stock is, in our view, quite overvalued. But as I say, they've been quite clever about how they've come to market with it, given the way they've managed the demand.
[00:06:04] Rory Dowie: Finally, Andrew, we had quite an interesting story in the AI space on Friday and actually somewhat missed given all the, the major headlines going on. The US government actually stepped in and effectively banned Anthropic's most advanced AI models. So what, what was the latest there?
[00:06:19] Andrew Shaw: Yeah. The US Commerce Department issued an export control directive on Friday evening ordering Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies, to suspend all access to its latest models, called Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for any foreign national.
[00:06:35] Andrew Shaw: That's whether inside or outside the United States. So that includes even Anthropic's own non-US employees. And given how broad this directive is, Anthropic had to disable the models entirely for all users to comply, and the government cited national security concerns.
[00:06:53] Rory Dowie: Yeah, quite a significant step then by the US government there really just to control access to those powerful AI models, and really just speaks to how seriously governments are taking, you know, these new capabilities, particularly around cybersecurity.
[00:07:05] Rory Dowie: And the broader question, I guess, is what that may mean for the speed of AI capital expenditure broadly. You know, we still expect big growth rates in capital expenditure. Does the US government getting in the way perhaps reduce the speed of that CapEx? Anyway, that's one for us to watch. Finishing off, Andrew, keeping an eye on time, what have our listeners got to look out for this week?
[00:07:26] Andrew Shaw: Two big ones this week, the Iran deal signing expected on Friday in Geneva, and the Fed meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Chair Walsh's first press conference on Wednesday will be very closely watched. And outside that, the US sales data later in the week, and there is also a Bank of England meeting on Thursday.
[00:07:45] Rory Dowie: Great. Thanks for joining me, Andrew. Busy morning this morning. To our listeners, hope you found that useful. As always, reach out with any questions. I'm wishing you all a great week ahead.