🗞️ THE DAILY INDEX - 29th July 2026

Tokyo woke up to a bloodbath in chip stocks. South Korea's SK Hynix lost nearly 15% of its value in a single session, Samsung dropped 13%, and the Nikkei — Japan's benchmark stock index — fell almost 4%, its worst day in months, all triggered by a report that a Chinese firm has cracked a technology used to make advanced semiconductors, something Dutch giant ASML had long treated as its own turf. The Daily Business Index, our daily 0-to-100 reading of global business health where 50 is neutral, sits at 52.4 today, down from yesterday's 53.8. The drop is real but contained: American and European markets barely blinked, oil kept falling on hopes that the US-Iran standoff is easing, and the US labour market remains startlingly strong. The bigger story now is what the Federal Reserve — America's central bank — decides on interest rates this afternoon.