Highlights of the week: Israel-Iran conflict, Dreamliner crash, footage for Meta

On Friday morning, June 13, Israel launched large-scale airstrikes against Iran's nuclear and military facilities. Iran responded by attacking the Jewish state's territory with drones and ballistic missiles. In the same week, the first crash of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner occurred. It also became known that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is hiring a special team for an AI breakthrough. Read about the main news from June 9 to June 13 in our review;

On the morning of Friday, June 13, Israel announced airstrikes on Iran. The official targets of the operation were the country's nuclear and military facilities, including the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and the Fordow underground facility in Isfahan. During the Israeli attack, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Major General Hosein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and one of the chief negotiators on Iran's nuclear program, were killed. At least 6 Iranian nuclear scientists were also killed;

In response, Tehran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, targeting the Jewish state's military and air bases. As of 23:00 CET Friday, Israel said at least 17 people had been wounded in the Iranian attack. According to data from Iranian state media, the Israeli strikes killed 78 people and wounded 329.

What was happening in the markets

Markets fell everywhere from Asia to America. The S&P 500 index lost more than 1% on the day, wiping out this week's gains, write Bloomberg. Airlines were the leaders of the fall - the skies over Israel are closed. EasyJet shares fell by 2.72%, IAG (owner of British Airways) - by 3.68%, Lufthansa - by 2.77%. About 5% during the day, the quotes of cruise Carnival and Norwegian Cruise decreased, the share price of Royal Caribbean Cruises fell by 2.9%. 

After the announcement of the start of strikes on Iran, the cost of oil soared by more than 13% in a moment. Iran controls part of the Strait of Hormuz, through which oil is delivered to the Gulf countries. Significant supply disruptions could push the price of Brent crude up to $120 a barrel, and if the disruptions persist through the end of the year, oil could hit an all-time high of more than $150 a barrel in 2008, accounts Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Groep NV. On Friday night, August Brent futures were trading at $74.4. 

Protective assets rose in price. Gold on the COMEX rose 1.5 percent to $3452.6 an ounce, its highest in nearly two months. «Traders are rushing to find safe havens,» said Carl Chamotte, chief market strategist at Corpay in Toronto, told Reuters. 

Who stands to gain from conflict? 

MarketWatch names the securities of three defense companies - Archer Aviation, Rocket Lab and Axon Enterprise. The publication writes that they are able to benefit from the escalating situation in the Middle East. These companies have the highest earnings growth rates in the iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF.

Securities of other defense companies were also growing on Friday. Shares of Lockheed Martin added 3.66% during the trading session, RTX - 3.34%, L3Harris - 2.64%. Shares of the Swedish concern Saab grew by 2.82%, German Rheinmetall - by 2.72%.

- Orientalist Ruslan Suleymanov wrote in material  «Undeclared War: What will Israel's full-scale attack on Iran lead to?» that a new round of conflict between the two warring countries could have far-reaching consequences, and not only for Israel and Iran;

- After the fifth round of negotiations between the United States and Iran, Orientalist Nikita Smagin wrote a piece for Oninvest titled «Uranium Diplomacy: Why Iran is winning over the United States in negotiations on the nuclear deal». In it, he described what major issues the sides have failed to resolve so far. Among them is whether Iran can enrich uranium and what sanctions the US is ready to lift from the country.

- Oninvest journalists conducted online  «Stocks fall, gas gets more expensive: the escalation between Iran and Israel has spooked the markets», in which they described in detail the development of the conflict and the markets' reaction to it;

On June 12, just after departure, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner on an Ahmedabad-London flight crashed. The plane crashed into a hostel of a medical college. There were 242 people on board. One passenger survived. The total death toll was 290, and there are casualties on the ground;

It was the first major Dreamliner crash since the model's launch, reports Bloomberg. Following the crash, Boeing shares fell 5.9 percent at the open of trading in New York, the biggest decline in two months. Losses for the day totaled 4.8%. Over the week, the company's securities lost about 5% in price;

The Dreamliner is a critical source of revenue for Boeing, wrote Bloomberg. There are currently 1,148 Boeing 787 airplanes in service worldwide, with an average age of 7.5 years, according to data from Cirium. The largest operator is Japan's ANA Holdings Inc. with 86 planes, followed by United Airlines and American Airlines. Qatar Airways ordered 130 more Boeing 787s during U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East in May. 

Oninvest correspondent Vladislav Osipov in his material «The Dreamliner has its first crash with casualties. What can it mean for Boeing's flagship?» wrote about how the crash could affect investors' perception of Boeing. The plane crash occurred days before the start of the Paris Air Show. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg had already canceled his attendance, wrote WSJ.

The U.S. and China negotiated a trade deal in London this week. The parties agreed that China would restore supplies of rare earth metals and neodymium magnets, and the US would lift restrictions on student visas for Chinese students. The final duties on Chinese goods in the U.S. will be 55%, and 10% for U.S. goods in China.   

After the talks, Trump wrote in Truth Social that the deal is done, but it still needs to be approved by himself and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

China's exports to the U.S. fell 34% in May.  Xi Jinping achieved a low-key but strategically important victory: a negotiating process that buys time for China and helps reduce the threat of new duties and restrictions on technology, reports Bloomberg. 

Arkady Volozh's Nebius will deploy a large cluster of GPUs based on Nvidia's Blackwell Ultra platform in the UK. This makes the UK the seventh location of Nebius' artificial intelligence cluster, it also has sites in Europe, the US and the Middle East, making it one of the largest independent AI infrastructure developers in the world.

The government of Keir Starmer earlier this year announced a plan to increase the country's computing power 20-fold by 2030. 

«I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.» This message by billionaire Ilon Musk on the X network. 

He apologized for his attacks on Trump over a «big beautiful» bill involving increased line-item spending and tax cuts. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and White House Chief of Staff Suzy Wiles called Musk on Friday to urge him to end his conflict with Trump, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

«I think it was very dignified of him,» commented Trump on Musk's apology in a brief interview with the New York Post, without specifying whether he was ready to put the conflict behind him.

Tesla shares are down 19.5% since the beginning of the year, as Musk's political activism has caused sales of its electric cars to plummet worldwide. JPMorgan this week advised investors to sell Tesla shares and instead buy the more favorable securities of auto parts suppliers. In addition, Tesla received two downgrades at once, and Wells Fargo prevented the company's shares from falling. JPMorgan this week advised investors to sell Tesla shares and instead buy more favorable securities of auto parts suppliers;

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally engaged in forming a team to develop general artificial intelligence (AGI), a system capable of performing a wide range of human-level tasks. Zuckerberg is overseeing the recruitment of participants in an informal group called the Superintelligence group, which will include about 50 specialists, Bloomberg reported. Meta plans to integrate AGI not only into its social networks and other platforms, but also into a wider range of products, including a chatbot and smart glasses. Zuckerberg's interest in the project intensified after being disappointed by the quality of the Llama 4 language model, which failed to meet his expectations and drew criticism both internally and from outside developers.

Alexander Wang, founder of Scale AI, may join the Superintelligence group, Bloomberg writes. The startup is engaged in the preparation of training data for AI. Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49-percent stake in Scale AI, which is the largest external investment in Meta's history.  

Wang became the world's youngest billionaire (of those who made money on their own) in 2021, when he was 24 years old. Forbes estimates his fortune at $3.6 billion;