Three Headlines, One Quarter: How Peace in the Gulf, a New Fed Chair and a $2 Trillion IPO Closed Wall Street’s Best Run in Six Years

When the last article was written in March, oil was above $80, the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and global stock markets had cracked. Three months on, the picture has been turned on its head. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are closing their best quarter in six years.¹ Three developments have made the difference: the end of the Iran war, a change of leadership at the Fed, and the largest IPO in history.

On Sunday 14 June, President Trump announced he had concluded a “deal” with Iran, authorising the toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.² Asian markets surged: Japan’s Nikkei rose 5.5%, South Korea’s Kospi 5.7%.² Brent crude, which touched $83 in March, has drifted back below $70 — though U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright cautions that “many months” will be needed for flows to normalise.²

Two days earlier, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had completed the largest IPO ever recorded, raising about $75 billion at a starting value of $1.77 trillion — more than three times Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record.³ The stock opened at $160.95, closing up 19% and briefly pushing the company above $2 trillion.⁴ Sceptics flag a $4.2 billion operating loss in 2025; CFRA has a “Sell” rating and a $115 target.⁴ NewStreet’s James Ratzer said the business is sound but “you have to be looking out over a 20 to 25-year time frame.”⁴

Quieter but no less important has been a change at the Federal Reserve. On 22 May, Kevin Warsh was sworn in as Chair, replacing Jerome Powell, who remains a Governor. Warsh’s first meeting on 17 June held rates at 3.50–3.75% but removed guidance pointing to further cuts; the updated dot plot now shows a possible hike before year-end.⁵ U.S. inflation hit 4% in May, the first time in three years.⁶ Warsh told reporters: “This committee will deliver price stability.”⁶

The quarter saw other shifts. Alphabet has replaced Verizon in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. South Korea’s SK Hynix is preparing a Nasdaq listing as soon as 10 July, expected to raise around $29 billion. Anthropic has filed its own confidential IPO prospectus, with OpenAI expected to follow.⁷

For ordinary investors, the lesson of this quarter mirrors the last — in reverse. Three months ago, the temptation was to sell into a war-driven slump. Investors who did missed a more than 12% rebound from the March lows.¹ Markets tend to recover most violently when the news still feels worst. The risks ahead are real — rising inflation, a hawkish Fed, SpaceX sceptics — but the discipline of staying invested rather than reacting has, again, been the most useful.