What Moved The Markets This Week 📈
OpenAI Launches SearchGPT To Compete With Google, US GDP Growth Accelerates To 2.8%, Median Home Prices Hit Record High Of $427K, China And Canada Cut Rates, and TSLA + GOOG + SPOT Earnings
Sunday Morning Markets
Trading Week 30, covering Monday, Jul 22 through Friday, Jul 26. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.
The Week In Review ⏪
GDP growth accelerated to 2.8% in Q2
Home prices hit a record high of $427K
OpenAI to launch SearchGPT
Uber & Lyft win major ruling in California
Nvidia to sell Blackwell AI chips in China
China and Canada both cut interest rates
Earnings from Tesla, Google, Spotify
US Markets 🇺🇸
US economy grew 2.8% in the second quarter, surpassing expectations. The acceleration in growth was driven by resilient consumer spending and strong business investment. Inflation eased to 2.6% during the quarter.
June's PCE inflation cooled to 2.5%, down from 2.6% in May, bolstering expectations for a Fed rate cut in September. Personal income rose just 0.2%, while the average savings rate decreased to 3.4%.
Home prices jump to a new record high of $426,900 in June, up 4.1% from the year earlier, despite inventory surging 23%. Sales volume dropped 5.4% during the month due to higher mortgage rates.
S&P composite PMI hits 27-month high of 55%, marking an acceleration in growth. The service sector represented all of the gains, with the Services PMI jumping to 56% while the Manufacturing PMI slumped to 49.5%.
Uber and Lyft win major ruling in California, allowing them to continue treating drivers as independent contractors. California’s Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 22 was constitutional.
Lineage begins trading in the biggest IPO of 2024 under the ticker “LINE.” The company is the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT and raised at an implied valuation of $18 billion.
Global Markets 🌏
China’s central bank unexpectedly cuts interest rates for the first time since last summer. The PBOC hopes lower rates will help bolster its struggling property sector and strengthen consumer demand.
The Bank of Canada cut its key policy rate by 25 basis points for the second month in a row, bringing it down to 4.5%. The central bank said more cuts were likely if inflation continued to cool.
Nvidia is working on a Blackwell AI chip for China that will be compatible with U.S. export controls. Nvidia will work with Inspur, one of its major distribution partners in China, on this new chip named the “B20”.
Eurozone economic growth grinds to a halt as the S&P Composite PMI fell to 50.1 in July. The shortfall can be attributed to Germany and France, whose output unexpectedly declined during the month.
Apple cuts iPhone prices in India after the country slashed smartphone import duties to 15%. In China, iPhone sales dropped 7% in the second quarter while Huawei's smartphone shipments surged 41%.
Biogen, Eisai's Alzheimer's drug, rejected by EU regulators due to concerns about serious side effects like brain swelling and bleeding. Shares of Biogen fell nearly 8% following the news.
Tech ⚡
OpenAI to launch a search engine called SearchGPT which will summarize the information found on websites, including news sites, and let users ask follow-up questions. Shares of GOOG 0.00%↑ fell 8% this week.
Meta releases its largest AI model yet, boasting over 400 billion parameters. Llama 3.1 is designed to handle multilingual and multimodal tasks, and has enhanced reasoning, coding, and data comprehension skills.
Wiz turns down $23 billion offer from Google and will pursue an IPO instead. The cyber security company hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months and reached $350 million last year.
Alphabet to invest another $5 billion into Waymo, its self-driving car subsidiary. Waymo currently provides over 50,000 weekly paid trips, primarily in San Francisco and Phoenix.
Google reverses decision to kill cookies in Chrome after four years of battling advertisers and regulators. Users will now decide whether to enable cookies, a move aimed at addressing pushback and antitrust issues.
Musk wants Tesla to invest $5 billion into xAI, his AI startup, according to a poll he posted on his X account. The poll has nearly one million votes, with over two-thirds supporting the idea.
Earnings Reports 💰
See other breakdowns on our Twitter page.
Weekly Poll 🗳️
SMM Product Hunt 🧠
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Week Ahead 📅
Monday
UK - BOE Consumer Credit 🇬🇧
DE - Retail Sales 🇩🇪
AU - Building Approvals 🇦🇺
Earnings: Mcdonalds, On Semi💰
Tuesday
US - CB Consumer Confidence 🇺🇸
US - JOLTs Job Openings 🇺🇸
DE - CPI Inflation 🇩🇪
EU - GDP Growth 🇪🇺
CN - Composite PMI 🇨🇳
JP - BOJ Interest Rate Decision 🇯🇵
AU - CPI Inflation 🇦🇺
Earnings: Microsoft, AMD, Starbucks, PayPal, SoFi, Jetblue, Pinterest, Pfizer💰
Wednesday
US - Fed Interest Rate Decision 🇺🇸
US - ADP Employment Report 🇺🇸
US - Pending Home Sales 🇺🇸
US - Chicago PMI 🇺🇸
EU - CPI Inflation 🇪🇺
CN - Caixin Manf. PMI 🇨🇳
Earnings: Meta, Qualcomm, Arm, T-Mobile, Boeing, Mastercard, Carvana, Etsy💰
Thursday
US - Jobless Claims 🇺🇸
US - ISM Manf. PMI 🇺🇸
UK - BOE Interest Rate Decision 🇬🇧
Earnings: Apple, Amazon, Booking, Intel, DoorDash, Atlassian, Coinbase, Snapchat, Draftkings, Block, Roku, Twilio, Cloudflare, Opendoor, MercardoLibre💰
Friday
US - Nonfarm Payrolls 🇺🇸
US - Average Hourly Earnings 🇺🇸
Earnings: Exxon, Chevron💰
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