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Investors in the single-family housing market are increasingly concerned about interest rates, rising insurance and home costs, and the ongoing war with Iran. As a result, they are less confident in their businesses than they have been in at least three years.

Investor sentiment at the end of June fell for the second straight quarter to an all-time low on the quarterly RCN Capital/CJ Patrick Company Investor Sentiment Index, or ISI. The index surveys more than 300 investors in the fix-and-flip and rental businesses. 

Just 26% of respondents said they believe market conditions are better than they were a year ago, the lowest share since the survey began in 2023 and down from 35% in the first quarter. Fully 45% said the market has gotten worse, the highest in the survey’s history.

“In addition to the ongoing conflict in Iran, rising finance costs, limited inventory, escalating home and renovation costs and downward pressure on rental rates are all contributing factors for their increased pessimism,” said Jeffrey Tesch, CEO of RCN Capital, a private lender to real estate investors, in a release. 

The vast majority of investors surveyed in this report were small to mid-sized. That’s in contrast to large institutional investors covered by the recently enacted 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which will generally prohibit investors with at least 350 single-family homes from acquiring additional single-family homes. Small- to mid-sized investors tend to use bridge loans, special investor loans for rental properties and conventional loans that are typically 30-year and fixed rate. Of those surveyed, 28% reported paying cash in their recent purchases.

Mortgage rates hit a recent low at the end of February but rose sharply at the start of the war with Iran. They are now at their highest level in over a year. 

More than half of survey respondents said the high cost of financing is “one of the biggest problems in today’s market,” according to the report. Three-quarters of them said they do not expect to see any rate relief anytime soon, and some expect rates to rise. 

All of this is impacting investor purchase activity. 

“Real estate investors purchased 23% fewer homes in the first quarter of 2026 than they did in the previous quarter and in the first quarter of 2025. The…

China’s car market appears to be headed for its worst year since 2021, as consumer demand for passenger vehicles tumbles following record-high sales in 2025.

After passenger vehicle sales fell by 20.2% in the first half of the year, the China Passenger Car Association lowered its 2026 full-year retail sales projection to a decline of 14% from an earlier forecast of flat year-on-year sales.

It is forecasting a final delivery volume of 20.4 million units at the end of 2026, down from a record 23.7 million units last year. Cumulative sales for the first half of the year currently stand at 8.7 million units.

Xiao Feng, head of Hong Kong/China Industrials Research at Citic CLSA, expects a bleaker outlook than CPCA’s: he projects cumulative auto sales will fall 20% year-on-year, compared to the association’s full-year forecast decline of 14%. Feng remains slightly more optimistic for new energy vehicles (NEVs) such as electric and hybrid cars and vans, seeing NEV sales declining 5% to 6% year-on-year.

“This is going to continue to be a brutal year,” Sino Auto Insights founder Tu Le told CNBC, citing increased competition as original equipment manufacturers fight to seize faltering demand.

Rising fuel costs and a pullback in electric vehicle subsidies have contributed to the struggles of Chinese automakers’ as consumer demand slides.

Transportation energy costs soared 15.3% year-over-year in June, according to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, driving the collapse in demand for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Retail sales of ICE vehicles fell 39% year-on-year in June — with pure gasoline models down 42% — accounting for 78% of the total decline in passenger vehicle sales that month.

Beijing’s pullback of NEV subsidies, which had previously stimulated consumer appetite, has tempered demand for cars in 2026. “Policy only moves demand around,” Feng told CNBC, noting that the lackluster vehicle sales seen so far “could be paying back the frontloaded demand from last year.”

Chinese automakers are being squeezed by rising raw material and component costs, on the other end.

Battery-related input costs — including those for lithium and memory chips — are rising sharply, contributing to an industry-wide plunge in sales profit margins to 3.4% for the period between January and May 2026, while industry profits fell 20% year-on-year, according to CPCA Secretary General Cui Dongshu. Passenger vehicle prices fell by more than 1% year-on-year in June, further narrowing already-slim profit margins.

Feng expects the razor-thin margins to lead to a market…

The security situation in the Strait of Hormuz has returned to a “worse-case scenario” for oil tankers as Iran has repeatedly attacked ships over the past week, the CEO of a maritime risk services firm said.

“We see the reduction of the volume of transits through the Strait of Hormuz and right now crews of vessels are even more concerned than they were before,” said Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of Athens-headquartered Marisks, at a Lloyd’s List Intelligence briefing this week.

“Nobody is willing to move,” Maniatis said.

At least nine ships have come under attack since July 6 as Iran tries to force vessels to navigate Hormuz through its territorial waters rather than a route along Oman’s coast protected by the U.S. military, according to data from the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.

One seafarer was killed and three were injured in attack on the crude oil tanker Al Bahyah off Oman’s coast on Tuesday, according to the IMO. Eleven mariners were injured the same day in an attack on the Mombasa B, also a crude oil tanker navigating close to Oman.

The Iranian attacks have used anti-ship missiles, said Jakob Larsen, chief security officer at BIMCO, one of the world’s biggest shipping associations.

“All this resonates with crews and right now they’re just not very happy to go through no matter what is promised to them,” Maniatis said. “It’s not about money anymore. It’s not about any other higher calling. It’s purely about the fear that is governing the decision making right now.”

The U.S. military disabled an unladen oil tanker on Wednesday after reimposing its naval blockade against Iran this week, according to U.S. Central Command. The Curacao-flagged M/T Belma ignored multiple warnings as it transited international waters toward Iran’s Kharg Island, Centcom said.

The traditional route through the middle of Hormuz, known as the traffic separation scheme, remains too dangerous for ships to use due to the threat of mines, Larsen said.

“If a mine detonates, typically that happens under the ship,” he said. “The mine is a very powerful weapon, so it’s extremely dangerous for ships to run into a minefield.”

Hormuz traffic at a trickle

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Hormuz was open to all ships except those of Iran after the reimposition of the U.S. naval blockade.

“It’s open if people want to go through it,” Trump told Fox News in an interview. “We’re not opening it for Iran. That’s the only one it’s closed for. It’s closed for Iran, both in and out, but it’s open now.”

But ship tracking firms have observed a steep drop in traffic. Hormuz has largely closed again with just a trickle of ships crossing with their transponders turned off, according to Lloyd’s team of analysts monitoring the strait.

Traffic has fallen to a three week low, according data from to the trade intelligence firm Kpler. Ships transits fell to eight on Thursday down from 15 vessels the day prior, Kpler said. More than 100 ships transited Hormuz daily…

Oil prices fell on Wednesday as investors weighed signs of progress in indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, easing concerns about potential disruptions to crude supplies in the Middle East.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 1.33% to $67.67 a barrel, while global benchmark Brent crude declined 1.12% to $70.77.

Brent has fallen nearly 40% this quarter, marking its worst quarterly performance since 2020, according to LSEG data.

The decline also came after U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that negotiations with Iran in Qatar were “going well.”

“The denuclearization of Iran is moving along well,” Trump said. “They’ve had very good meetings and we’ll see.”

Indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran began in Doha on Tuesday, with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner holding talks through Qatari mediators rather than meeting Iranian officials face-to-face.

The renewed diplomatic push follows a flare-up in hostilities over the weekend that threatened a 60-day ceasefire between the two countries. Iran attacked two commercial vessels, prompting retaliatory U.S. strikes on targets inside Iran.

Investors are increasingly pricing in the possibility that tensions could ease if negotiations continue to make progress, reducing concerns over potential disruptions to Middle Eastern oil supplies.

ING said the market remains optimistic that oil supplies from the Persian Gulf will normalize despite recent military flare-ups, helping explain why Brent has suffered its worst quarter since early 2020.

Shipping activity through the Strait of Hormuz also appears to be gradually recovering. ING estimates total tanker crossings at around 11 on Tuesday, below last week’s peak of 24, but noted inbound traffic has started to pick up, suggesting shipowners are becoming more confident about returning vessels to the Persian Gulf.

Gold prices fell further on Wednesday, after the precious metal closed its worst quarter in 13 years in three months to the end of June.

Gold futures began the second half of 2026 on the backfoot, sliding 1.24% in early trade to $3,989.00. Spot prices were also lower, falling 0.82% at $3,974.51.

Having spiked at an all-time high of $5,586.20 on Jan. 29, bullion has since plunged as investors turn negative on the non-yielding asset’s prospects in a potentially higher rate environment.

About 16% was wiped off gold in the three-month period ended June 30 — its worst quarter since the second quarter of 2013. Gold has fallen 7.76% year-to-date.

Despite the slide, gold — traditionally a safe haven asset in times of turmoil — still has a key role to play in investors’ portfolios as traditional correlations break down, according to Amundi Investment Institute.

In its mid-year Global Investment Outlook, Amundi said the more challenging monetary policy backdrop — coupled with high public debt trajectories and central banks’ diversification away from dollar-based assets — should help support demand for gold and precious metals in the second half.

“Investors face a world in which the independence of central banks is being tested, inflation is more volatile, and concentration risks are growing,” said Monica Defend, head of Amundi Investment Institute.

“The best portfolios for this new regime can withstand different scenarios: they need to be diversified across currencies, invested in real assets and gold, and explore equity sectors and structural themes with discipline.”

The World Gold Council’s recent annual Central Bank Gold Reserves survey found that more global central banks are poised to increase their gold reserves over the next year.

Silver was also lower Wednesday as the sell-off spread to other precious metals.

Silver futures were last seen 3.34% lower at $57.49, and spot silver had shed 1.31% early Wednesday, trading at $57.80.

Oracle just wrapped up its worst week on Wall Street in 25 years as concerns continue to mount about the software company’s debt load and whether its bet-the-house investment on artificial intelligence will pay off.

The stock plummeted 19% this week, dropping at least 2.6% each of the past five days. It’s the steepest weekly drop since a 20% plunge in August 2001, during the depths of the dot-com bust.

The past nine months have been brutal for Oracle investors. After the company reached a peak market cap of $900 billion in September, on budding enthusiasm about Oracle’s AI customers, the stock has lost about 55% of its value. The crux of the problem is that for Oracle to fulfill its AI infrastructure commitment, primarily to OpenAI, it’s having to raise record amounts of debt, creating balance sheet risk while focusing on lower-margin offerings.

Oracle was sitting on about $130 billion in debt at the end of May, with capital expenditures rising 162% to nearly $56 billion in the 2026 fiscal year. It’s racing to open data centers alongside cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google, but without being able to sell a full technology stack like its rivals.

Oracle recorded negative free cash flow of almost $24 billion in the latest fiscal year. Earlier this month, Oracle said that, in fiscal 2027, it plans to raise $40 billion through debt and equity financing, including a $20 billion share sale announced earlier, after $43 billion in debt sales and $5 billion from equity issuance last fiscal year.

“We expect financing/leverage and the pace of equity issuance to remain the central investor debate near term, even as demand signals stay strong,” Evercore analysts, who recommend buying the stock, wrote in a note on Wednesday.

Like Evercore, most firms remain bullish on Oracle’s prospects despite investors’ growing concerns. According to FactSet, 71% of analysts recommend buying the stock, the highest percentage in 15 years.

Oracle didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Oracle is facing multiple market headwinds. In addition to its hefty capital requirements, the company is trading lower from the selloff in software names as investors worry that AI models will replace many of their products’ capabilities. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector Exchange-Traded Fund (IGV) is down 16% so far in 2026, while Oracle has fallen 24%.

In its annual report last week, Oracle disclosed that head count shrank 13% to 141,000 employees in fiscal 2026, with a notable pullback in sales and marketing.

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder, was absent from the earnings call this month, leaving dual CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia and recently appointed finance chief Hilary Maxson to answer questions.

“Hilary has a tough life,” Magouyrk said on the call.

Because of Oracle’s retreating stock price, Ellison has…

Google is on pace for its worst day on the stock market in a year, as artificial intelligence concerns have mounted and two high-profile researchers departed for rivals in recent days.

Shares of parent company Alphabet slid 7% on Monday morning, underperforming both the Nasdaq and the rest of their megacap peers.

The brain drain concerns began last week when Google’s vice president of engineering and a co-lead of its Gemini AI models, Noam Shazeer, announced Wednesday that he was leaving the company to join rival OpenAI. Shazeer’s departure came less than two years after he returned to Google.

In August 2024, Google brought back Shazeer and fellow researcher Daniel De Freitas to its DeepMind AI unit as part of a partnership with startup Character.AI, which the pair founded after leaving Google in 2021. 

The departure came weeks after Google unveiled new AI products, including its Gemini 3.5 Flash model and Gemini Spark AI agent, at its annual I/O developer conference.

Another exit came on Friday, when John Jumper, DeepMind vice president and engineering fellow, announced he was leaving the company after nine years for rival Anthropic.

Jumper, who won a Nobel Prize alongside Google’s Demis Hassabis in 2024, is best known as the co-creator of AlphaFold, a breakthrough AI that has predicted more than 200 million protein structures, cutting years off biological and medical research.

The share slide also came on the heels of a Sunday Wall Street Journal interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who called for less dependence on “AI Giants” and said the AI market was commoditized. 

Alphabet has been spending heavily on AI, including raising $141 billion in debt and equity since October. The company has been trying to prove that its vertically integrated AI stack can generate returns.

If models become cheaper and more interchangeable, as noted in Nadella’s interview, investors may question whether that spending is building a durable advantage or simply adding pressure to margins.

Google users on Monday also reported outages on Gmail and YouTube.

If the stock market is a report card, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh isn’t coming out of his first policy meeting with high marks.

The S&P 500 tumbled 1.2% in Wednesday’s session, with losses steepening during and after Warsh’s inaugural press conference as chairman.

That marks the worst performance for the broad index on the first “Fed day” under a new chair since 1994, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

To be sure, there have been only three other new Fed leaders named in that timespan: Ben Bernanke, Jerome Powell and Janet Yellen. While those chairs’ first Fed meeting days saw the S&P 500 close lower, none were of the magnitude seen on Wednesday.

Bespoke’s figures go back to 1994 because prior to that year, the central bank did not formally announce its rate target. Greenspan ushered in that practice as chair.

Some investors saw Warsh’s focus on delivering stable price growth as a sign that future interest rate cuts may not be as likely as previously anticipated. The Fed held interest rates steady as the market widely expected on Wednesday — despite the clear push for cuts from President Donald Trump, who nominated Warsh.

“He is absolutely telling you that he plans on delivering on price stability,” DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “That means… we’re not going to have such easy money policy as everybody thought maybe Chairman Warsh would do back in the first quarter of this year, when everyone was counting on rate cuts.”

In fact, traders are increasingly expecting the opposite scenario after several Fed officials signaled a possible rate hike this year. Fed funds futures indicate the central bank could raise rates as soon as October now.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 500 points on Wednesday, giving up a gain on the day from before the Fed decision.

Warsh’s Wednesday debut also offered a clear glimpse into how the “regime change” he’s promised for the central bank will look. He significantly pared down the closely followed Fed meeting statement and announced task forces focused on overhauling the central bank’s operations.

“Investors will ultimately need to stay tuned to see what the task forces deliver, but one thing is clear now,” said Josh Jamner, senior investment strategy analyst at ClearBridge Investments. “A new chapter at the Fed has begun.”

— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.