The S&P 500 parked half a percent from an all-time high last night, because nothing says confidence like ignoring a war. KOSPI didn't get the memo: down 6.4% after the Bank of Korea yanked rates higher, and Nasdaq futures are following its lead, off 0.8% pre-market. Wall Street is celebrating cooling inflation while the rest of the world prices in the Strait of Hormuz, and one of them is about to be wrong.

U.S. equities closed higher across the board Tuesday, because two soft inflation prints in a row is apparently all it takes to forget the Fed exists. The S&P 500 gained 0.38% to 7,572, the Nasdaq led at +0.62% to 26,269, the Dow added 0.29% to 52,659, and the Russell 2000 tagged along at +0.39%. 10-year yields dropped 4 basis points to 4.545%, a rounding error dressed up as a rally. Gold sat flat at $4,044, refusing to pick a side, oil ticked up to $79.72 like it knows something equities don't, and the USD Index barely blinked at 100.53.

The twin engines were cooler-than-expected PPI data, on the heels of Tuesday's CPI surprise of 3.5% year-on-year against a 3.8% forecast, and a clean earnings beat from the big banks. Think of the bond market as a smoke detector: two soft inflation prints in a row and it stopped beeping, so equities took that as the all-clear to push toward record highs. Fed Chair Warsh didn't get the same signal. He kept his hawkish posture intact, insisted the Fed answers to no one while confirming he meets often with the Trump administration, and traders still price 70-73% odds of a September hike. The rally has a chaperone standing in the corner.

For positioning, the disinflation trade is alive, but it's on a leash. Falling yields favor rate-sensitive ETFs (TLT, XLRE, XLU), except Warsh is still holding the leash and hasn't decided whether to let go. Financials (XLF) got a clean earnings catalyst from BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, proof that printing money on other people's money never goes out of style. Tech (QQQ) takes the direct hit today: the Strait of Hormuz escalation means energy costs bleed into airline and industrial margins, and Iran's threat to shut the corridor entirely is a supply shock that oil bulls (XLE, USO) are already frontrunning. TSMC's $100 billion Arizona investment is a genuine tailwind for domestic chip exposure (SOXX), but the KOSPI's 6.4% collapse on the Bank of Korea's surprise hike is a reminder that the rest of Asia's tech supply chain didn't get invited to the party.

Going into today, Nasdaq futures are off 0.83% and S&P futures are down 0.24%, a soft open that's about geopolitics, not a macro reversal. The KOSPI's crash is the sharpest overnight signal, a tightening surprise that mugged export-heavy Korean tech and auto names on its way out the door. There's no scheduled U.S. data today, so the Strait of Hormuz headline is the only thing that matters. Watch WTI: a break above $80.50 on any escalation would accelerate the energy rotation and lean on Nasdaq. The S&P's technical level is 7,500, old resistance playing a new role as support. Hold it through the first hour and the bull trend survives another day.