What moved this week and what it means for expats in SE Asia

The July inflation report, published on 12 August, put American consumer prices 3.4% higher than a year earlier, down from 3.5%. Prices rose 0.1% on the month. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, eased to 2.5%. Housing costs accounted for roughly two-thirds of the headline rise. This was the print that was supposed to show July's oil spike feeding through to the shops. It did not. Futures markets cut the odds of a September rate rise again, to somewhere between 36% and 42% depending on which day you read them. That spread is real, so both ends are given here.

Oil moved the other way, and that is the week's actual news. Brent rose 7.95% to $88.52, undoing the previous week's fall. Talks between Iran and Oman on reopening the Strait of Hormuz stalled. Iran says the strait stays shut until Washington meets its conditions. Washington said its naval blockade of Iranian ports could continue indefinitely, and President Trump claimed total control of the waterway. Attacks on shipping ran through the week. Last week this page called Hormuz a negotiation rather than a fix. It is now a stalemate.

Britain followed the oil, not the inflation. The 10-year gilt yield rose about 9 basis points to 5.04%, giving back the easing that followed Governor Bailey's pushback in late July. That is the second reversal in a month with oil as the swing factor each time. Bank Rate stays at 3.75%. If you are holding a defined benefit transfer decision, higher yields mean lower transfer values, so the direction of travel still runs against transferring out. The more useful point is the volatility itself. A yield that moves 13 basis points in a week on someone else's shipping dispute is not a number to time a once-only decision against. The Autumn Budget is 72 days away, on 28 October, and the window for formal representations to the Treasury closes on 9 September.

Equities drifted higher while the leadership changed underneath them. The S&P 500 added 0.36% to 7,785.76, a third straight weekly gain, touching a record midweek before easing back. The Nasdaq managed 0.14%. The Dow fell 0.56% to 53,732.41, breaking a two-week run on weakness in healthcare and industrials. The Russell 2000 closed at a record, up 3.15%: smaller American companies led everything. Asia split hard, with Japan's Nikkei up 4.76% to a fresh intraday record and Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 2.15% as offshore investors trimmed China exposure. Gold added 0.68% to $4,372.81. It bid the soft inflation print and ignored an 8% oil rally in the same seven days, a third consecutive week behaving as a rate asset rather than a crisis hedge. The volatility index closed at 14.25, its lowest of the year.

This week made the same point as last week, from the opposite direction. Seven days ago a weak jobs report was read as cheaper money and everything rallied together. This week a cool inflation print pointed the same way, and oil, British gilts and Hong Kong all went against it. A globally diversified core built through Irish-domiciled accumulating UCITS funds held no view on any of it. It did not need the Hormuz talks to succeed, and it did not need them to fail.

Gold has now done the same thing three weeks running. It rose 0.68% on a soft inflation print and ignored an 8% move in oil driven by a live naval blockade. If you hold gold as protection against this specific conflict, that conflict has escalated for three consecutive weeks and gold has shrugged each time. Held as structural ballast, sized to do an unremarkable job across a range of outcomes, it earns its place. Held as war insurance, it keeps failing an exam it was never sitting.

The Russell 2000 closed at a record and beat every large-cap index, while the Dow fell. Anyone whose equity exposure sits in a handful of large American technology names had a flat week in a market that rose. That is what concentration looks like when it is not working, and it is the argument for owning the market rather than a view about the market. One thing is already settled and worth acting on: the National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Act received Royal Assent on 29 April, and the £2,000 cap on salary-sacrifice relief lands on 6 April 2029.