Please see the below article from Tatton Investment Management discussing improving market sentiment driven by lower oil prices and strong tech performance, despite ongoing global risks, received this morning – 01/06/2026.
Calmer markets
Global stocks pushed up last week and have continued to move higher as this week starts, powered by semiconductor companies. News of a 60-day US-Iran ceasefire extension saw oil prices fall to $90pb, calming nerves and lowering bond yields. May turned out to be another strong month for markets, with falling volatility.
A US-Iran deal has been “imminent” for weeks, but Trump seems to want it wrapped up before the midterms at least. Even without one, energy markets have been surprisingly resilient, with the Middle Eastern oil shortfall ameliorated by other sources and falling demand. Western countries have muddled through, though other regions have felt real pain. The sense of crisis has abated, but longer-term oil prices still suggest traders expect tight supply into the winter. We would certainly feel the effects then (Europe’s gas storage is low, seasonally-adjusted) but, for now, markets have fared better than many expected.
Chinese oil demand has fallen and the government has tightened liquidity (bond issuance has increased as Beijing has ordered companies to pay suppliers quicker). The oil shock is directly hampering Chinese growth, rather than indirectly through inflation. That’s now reflected in weaker Chinese stocks. Beijing could spur growth by pressuring Tehran to accept a US deal. Rumour has it that’s already happening, but China’s malaise isn’t bad enough for Beijing to really lean on Tehran.
US Q1 growth figures disappointed, particularly personal income. The resilience of retail sales therefore means Americans are running down their savings. AI infrastructure investment is raising chip prices – buoying semiconductor stocks – and industrial metals. Iron prices are curiously low, however, reflecting weak construction. That tells us AI companies are stockpiling datacentre components but not actually building them yet.
Construction should start soon, but the delay means weaker growth right now. That should help with inflation at least, reinforcing the helpful drop in bond yields. It reverses the inflation worries from a few weeks ago. We have some gloom, but no doom.
SpaceX: rocket ship to the moon or rapid disassembly?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is gearing up for the biggest IPO in history – a reported $70bn fundraising target for about 4% of shares, implying a $1.75tn valuation. That would instantly make it one of the world’s most valuable companies, despite its estimated $19bn revenue barely cracking the top 500.
The investor prospectus reads like science fiction – Moon flights, asteroid mining, orbital datacentres and a reward for Musk building a million-strong colony on Mars. SpaceX’s actual business is a little more down to earth. It’s a tech conglomerate covering satellites (Starlink broadband, which generates 60% of SpaceX revenue), AI and rocket launches.
Martin Peers of The Briefing suggests SpaceX should be worth about $700bn if valued like those in its sectors. The remaining $1tn is essentially the ‘Musk factor’ – investors’ belief that Musk’s companies will take humanity’s next giant leap. That’s not to be scoffed at; Tesla shareholders have been consistently rewarded by the Musk factor.
In what feels like a major scoop for Musk, Nasdaq has changed its inclusion rules and weighting methodology in preparation for SpaceX, with a just 15-day fast-track inclusion post-IPO and a new 3x free-float weighting rule for companies with free-floats less than 1/3 of valuation. Passive funds tracking the Nasdaq could therefore be forced to buy more SpaceX shares than are available – squeezing up prices. Active investors can front-run this, but passive investors can’t.
After that initial squeeze, the balance could reverse. SpaceX is just one of several trillion-dollar listings expected this year, including OpenAI and Anthropic. That’s expected to add a record $210bn of fresh US equity supply to the market. More supply than the market can comfortably absorb tends to weigh on prices. We could therefore see a sharp rally at launch followed by considerable volatility. SpaceX might be a rocket ship to the moon; it risks “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
Commodity nationalism
Guinea’s plans to cap bauxite exports (the ore refined into aluminium) are a problem for China.
Guinea is the world’s largest bauxite exporter, and the vast majority of its ore ships to China. China depends on Guinean ore for a refining industry far larger than its own domestic mining output. The interdependence used to benefit the West African nation but Chinese import prices fell 50% from January 2025 to March 2026, despite surging volumes. The Guinean government now feels like it’s in a one-sided relationship. That’s why Mines and Geology Minister Bouna Sylla declared export controls from June to “raise prices back to reasonable levels”.
This is the latest in a string of interventions from commodity-rich nations. DR Congo has capped cobalt exports, Zimbabwe has banned raw lithium exports, and Indonesia is setting up a state body to control coal and ferroalloy sales. China itself restricted rare earth exports last year. The motivations vary: some nations want to support prices, others want to encourage development and move up the value chain, and China’s rare earth ban was a geopolitical flex against the US. The common thread, though, is producers recognising their pricing power. They saw China’s rare earth ban and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz closure and realised how effective cutting off the tap can be.
Export controls were less effective during the growth of globalisation from the 1990s-2000s. Interchangeable supply chains meant commodity buyers could just switch providers. A decade of deglobalisation and several supply chain shocks have made switching harder. This is a particular problem for China, with its network of bilateral relations (rather than the multilateral market system dominated by the US) that often sour over time as partners feel short-changed.
For the global economy, the implication is straightforward: commodity nationalism adds another layer of inflation risk.
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Marcus Blenkinsop
1st June 2026