It's July in America, and the markets are sweating. Nvidia, the silicon behemoth of our algorithmic age, has crossed the once-unimaginable threshold of a $4 trillion valuation. Four trillion—an abstract figure that sounds more like the GDP of an industrialized nation than a measure of private corporate heft. That a company making semiconductors—chips, essentially—should rise to such celestial heights is not only a testament to the speculative gravity of the artificial intelligence craze but also an emblem of our collective economic imagination, which now sees more promise in machine learning than in, say, actual machines.

Wall Street responded in kind. The Nasdaq soared to record highs, carried aloft on Nvidia's wings, while the S&P 500 and Dow crept upward in cautious sympathy. But as is often the case with euphoria, the morning after brought with it a quiet hangover. Futures hovered near zero, perhaps signaling that the market had become jittery.

Hovering on the periphery of this performance, however, is a more familiar ghost: tariffs. On Wednesday, Donald Trump, whose economic policy tends to function as unpredictably as a weather system, announced a 50% levy on copper imports, effective August 1. He also threatened to slap identical tariffs on Brazilian exports. This time, it's not about trade imbalances since the US actually has a surplus with Brazil, but the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, his political kindred spirit, as justification. Unlike past tariffs veiled in economic rationale, this latest salvo is unapologetically personal: a rebuke of Brazil's judiciary, particularly its Supreme Court, which Trump accuses of conducting a “witch hunt” akin to his own legal woes. It's a bizarre and worrying conflation of foreign policy and personal vendetta.

The Federal Reserve, for its part, is trying to strike a tone somewhere between deliberative and Delphic. Minutes from June's meeting suggest that the Fed regards the inflationary impacts of these tariffs as "temporary or modest". The markets think there's a 67% chance of a rate cut in September. 

Meanwhile, there are stories at the margins that, in a less breathless financial moment, might have merited more attention. WK Kellogg surged more than 50% on rumors that Ferrero, the Italian purveyor of hazelnut confections, might scoop it up for a cool $3 billion. And the airlines—often cast as canaries in the economic coal mine—have found their wings again. Delta forecasted profits above even Wall Street's ambitious expectations, and its competitors rose with the thermal. Travel, it appears, is not merely back but booming.

Donald Trump's latest spasms of tariff enthusiasm, dispatching punitive levies like postcards to uncooperative capitals, have done little to dislodge Wall Street from its current posture of serene indifference. Markets seem to have moved on from the panics of spring to a more tranquil delusion: that everything, in the end, will be fine. Why fret over geopolitical tremors or muscular posturing when the Nasdaq is setting new records and Bitcoin has sauntered past $112,000 like it's on a casual morning jog?

The dissonance is striking. While Trump hammers out trade war dispatches from his digital pulpit, the investor class, earbuds firmly in, is nodding along to the soothing rhythms of bullish momentum. The much-heralded economic downturn has yet to cast its shadow. And so the rally continues, insulated for now by faith, momentum, and selective memory.

But detachment has its limits. However fashionable it may be to dismiss Trump's tariff tantrums as performative bluster—as yet another rerun of the ‘TACO Trade' logic, where the president's bark never quite matches the economic bite—the risk calculus is beginning to shift. The tariffs are no longer theoretical. They are material, multiplying, and increasingly harder to shrug off. Betting on endless backpedaling may prove a risky form of magical thinking. 

The Asia-Pacific region continues to show mixed trends from one market to another, as has been the case since the beginning of the week. Japan and India are down, but other markets are gaining ground. South Korea, for example, where the KOSPI is up for the fourth consecutive day. The lack of a trade agreement with the United States is more than offset by the strength of technology stocks, which are slavishly following the Nasdaq's lead. Leading indicators are bullish in Europe, with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.45%.

Today's Economic Highlights:

On today's agenda: the producer price index in Germany; in the United States, new unemployment claims will be released. See the full calendar here.

  • Dollar index: 97,600
  • Gold: $3,319
  • Crude Oil (BRENT): $69.56 (WTI) $66.85
  • United States 10 years: 4.34%
  • BITCOIN: $110,980

In corporate news:

  • Moderna received full U.S. FDA approval for its COVID-19 vaccine, Spikevax, for children aged 6 months to 11 years at increased risk.
  • Delta Air Lines restored its annual financial targets, raised its dividend by 25%, and forecast strong profits driven by cost controls and premium travel demand.
  • Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie signed an exclusive licensing deal for IGI’s cancer drug ISB 2001, with up to $1.925 billion in payments to Glenmark.
  • Ulta Beauty entered the UK market through the acquisition of high-end retailer Space NK, marking a step in its international expansion.
  • Google was fined approximately $8.9 million by Turkey's competition authority for non-compliance with design regulations.
  • Conagra Brands forecast lower-than-expected annual profits due to U.S. tariffs raising ingredient and packaging costs and increasing competition from private-label products.
  • Nvidia reached a record $4 trillion valuation, boosting overall market optimism despite tariff worries that hit Brazil’s real and affected currency markets.
  • Jazz Pharmaceuticals appointed Reneé Gala as CEO, succeeding Bruce Cozadd who will remain chairman.
  • iCapital raised over $820 million in funding, led by T. Rowe Price and SurgoCap Partners, bringing its valuation to over $7.5 billion.
  • Pfizer and BioNTech appealed a UK court ruling that their COVID-19 vaccine infringed on Moderna’s patent, continuing a global legal dispute.
  • Tesla scheduled its annual shareholder meeting for November 6 and will integrate its xAI-developed chatbot Grok into its vehicles next week.
  • Meta Platforms lost a preliminary EU court opinion in a copyright dispute with Italy, which supports national measures to ensure fair publisher compensation.
  • Merck announced that the FDA accepted its application for a new two-drug HIV-1 treatment, setting a decision deadline for April 2026.
  • Blackstone raised its bid for Warehouse REIT, topping rival Tritax’s offer to solidify the acquisition.
  • WK Kellogg shares surged on news that Ferrero is nearing a $3 billion acquisition of the cereal maker.
  • GE Aerospace secured an engine supply agreement with SkyWest Airlines for 60 new Embraer jets, reinforcing their longstanding partnership.
  • TCS missed revenue estimates for the quarter amid continued demand weakness due to global economic uncertainties.
  • European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen survived a no-confidence vote, amid scrutiny over vaccine-related dealings with Pfizer.
  • Deloitte forecast a decline in back-to-school spending in the U.S. as economic pressure and tariffs curb household budgets.
  • Air India crash investigators confirmed that the aircraft’s black boxes were intact and had yielded usable data for analysis.
  • Hims & Hers announced plans to launch in Canada, offering generic versions of blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
  • Rhythm Pharmaceuticals priced an upsized public stock offering at $85 per share to raise $175 million.

Analyst Recommendations:

  • Centene Corporation: Morgan Stanley downgrades to equalwt from overwt with a target price reduced from USD 70 to USD 33.
  • Frontier Communications Parent, Inc.: Morgan Stanley upgrades to equalwt from not rated with a target price of USD 38.50.
  • Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc.: Goldman Sachs drops coverage and downgrades to neutral from no rating with a target price of USD 55.
  • Mcdonald's Corporation: Goldman Sachs upgrades to buy from neutral with a target price of USD 345.
  • Nike, Inc.: DZ Bank AG Research downgrades to hold from buy with a target price of USD 76.
  • Oracle Corporation: Piper Sandler & Co upgrades to overweight from neutral with a price target raised from USD 190 to USD 270.
  • Roivant Sciences Ltd.: Goldman Sachs upgrades to buy from dropped coverage with a target price of USD 19.
  • Roku, Inc.: KeyBanc Capital Markets upgrades to overweight from sector weight with a target price of USD 115.
  • Trex Company, Inc.: Baird upgrades to outperform from neutral with a price target raised from USD 65 to USD 75.
  • Uwm Holdings Corporation: Keefe Bruyette & Woods downgrades to market perform from outperform with a target price reduced from USD 6.50 to USD 4.50.
  • Verizon Communications, Inc.: Morgan Stanley initiates coverage at equal weight with a target price of USD 47.
  • Workday Inc.: Piper Sandler & Co downgrades to underweight from neutral with a target price reduced from USD 255 to USD 235.
  • Zebra Technologies Corporation: - BNP Paribas Exane upgrades to outperform from neutral with a price target raised from USD 279 to USD 408.