CNBC Daily Open: Keeping a cool head paid off for investors
In the first six months, the world saw a (not so) new U.S. president in the Oval Office, said president upend the global trade landscape, and a president in South Korea removed from office.
Conflicts also broke out between India and Pakistan, as well as Israel and Iran (along with a U.S. airstrike thrown into the mix.)
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek made its debut, stealing ChatGPT's thunder for a while, and elections took place around the world, including in Germany, Australia, and even right here in sunny Singapore.
We might just have to call Billy Joel and get him to write a whole new version of "We Didn't Start the Fire."
Despite such a rollercoaster ride so far, market investors, in response to most developments, seem to have adopted the U.K.'s mantra as it prepared for war in 1939: Keep calm and carry on.
If we take a longer-term view, markets have delivered a respectable performance despite a volatile first half. Just a few stats: the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh all-time highs Monday and are up about 5% year to date.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 is up 6.7%, and in Asia, most major markets are in positive territory, with Hong Kong and South Korea posting a whopping 20% gain year to date.
Keep calm and carry on into the second half of the year, investors. S&P and Nasdaq touch fresh highs. On Monday, the S&P 500 gained 0.52% and posted another record close, ending at 6,204.95, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.47% and reached a fresh all-time high of 20,369.73. Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Tuesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 retreating from an 11-month high.
White House claims Canada 'caves' on trade. The White House said that Canada "caved" to President Donald Trump by hastily rescinding its digital services tax after the president threatened to shut down trade negotiations between the two major trading partners.
China's June factory activity unexpectedly expands. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers' index came in at 50.4, higher than the Reuters estimate of 49. It also diverged from China's official PMI report, which samples more companies, mostly in upstream sectors.
Elon Musk calls Trump bill "DEBT SLAVERY." The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is doubling down on his criticisms to kill Trump's signature megabill. Musk also called for a "new political party," and vowed that any fiscal conservative who votes for the bill will "lose their primary next year."
[PRO] Beneficiaries of NATO defense spending. With NATO members committing to a much higher defense spending target, certain companies are expected to see huge boosts to their bottom lines – particularly those headquartered in Europe.
As nations build 'sovereign AI,' open-source models and cloud computing can help
As artificial intelligence becomes more democratized, it is important for emerging economies to build their own "sovereign AI," panelists told CNBC's East Tech West conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday.
In general, sovereign AI refers to a nation's ability to control its own AI technologies, data and related infrastructure, ensuring strategic autonomy while meeting its unique priorities and security needs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
24 minutes ago
- CNN
Fact check: Trump lies again about gas prices, falsely claiming five states are at $1.99
The president's imaginary list keeps getting longer. In April, President Donald Trump claimed gas prices in 'a couple' unspecified states had just fallen to $1.98 per gallon. That wasn't even close to true. But the next day he said it was 'three states' that had just hit $1.98 per gallon, which also wasn't remotely accurate. Trump used the 'three' figure on multiple occasions in subsequent weeks, again with no factual basis. Then, during an immigration-focused visit to Florida on Tuesday, Trump made it five states with supposed sub-$2 gas. 'Gasoline just hit $1.99 today in five states – $1.99, isn't that a nice sound?' he said, adding moments later, 'We just hit, in five states, $1.99, $1.98.' Once more, this was a lie. The lowest state average price on Tuesday for a gallon of regular gas was about $2.71 in Mississippi, according to data published by AAA. The state with the fifth-cheapest Tuesday average, Louisiana, was at about $2.79 per gallon, per the AAA data. And the national average was about $3.18 per gallon, AAA reported. GasBuddy, a firm that tracks prices at tens of thousands of stations around the country, did not find a single station selling regular gas for below $2.26 per gallon on Tuesday. (There are sometimes individual drivers who get special discounts.) And GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, told CNN that the last time his data showed any state average below $2 per gallon was more than four years ago, in January 2021, when demand was unusually weak because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The White House did not respond to CNN's Tuesday request to explain Trump's claim. The president has a long history of using inaccurate statistics even when he could make a similar point using accurate statistics. His false Tuesday boast was especially needless given that he could have correctly said that – as CNN reported in an article earlier in the day – gas prices for this Fourth of July weekend are expected to be the lowest for the holiday since at least 2021, according to GasBuddy.
CNBC
30 minutes ago
- CNBC
What Wall Street has to say about the horrid June private payrolls report
ADP's latest surprise report was not on anyone's bingo card. Private payrolls fell by 33,000 in June , the company said Wednesday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected an increase of 100,000. The report marks the first time since March 2023 that ADP reported a contraction in private payrolls. The data took the wind out of the market's sails in early morning trading. S & P 500 futures gave up their slight gains and were slightly lower following the release. Nasdaq-100 futures were also down 0.3%. To be sure, ADP's track record for predicting the U.S. government's monthly jobs report isn't great — giving investors hope that Thursday's June nonfarm numbers payrolls from the Bureau of Labor Statistics won't be as bad as ADP's figures released Wednesday. The economy is expected to have added 110,000 nonfarm payrolls, according to economists polled by Dow Jones. Here's what some Wall Street investors and strategists had to say about Wednesday's ADP figures: Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates at BMO: "The negative print was a clear downside surprise versus the +98k consensus. This is the first negative print since March 2023, and second negative print since the early stages of the pandemic. Overall, it was a disappointing jobs proxy that sets up tomorrow's BLS release as a major wildcard." Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial: "I wasn't planning on writing this week but felt the need right now after seeing the ADP private sector jobs report … I'll say again, a blanket 10% tariff on all incoming imports of goods just loaded about $330b of fresh taxes on American importers (yes, some are absorbed by the exporter) which has the effective impact of raising the corporate income tax rate to 34% from 21%." Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab: "Ouch: June @ADP payrolls -33k vs. +98k est. & +29k prior (rev down from +37k) … first monthly decline since March 2023 ." Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research: "Remember: ADP is a bad predictor of nonfarm payrolls … mainly because nonfarm payrolls are a bad predictor of what is actually happening to payrolls." Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney: "Your monthly reminder: surprises in the ADP employment change are uncorrelated with surprises in NFPs. But this doesn't look great ." — CNBC's Alex Harring and Yun Li contributed reporting.
CNBC
40 minutes ago
- CNBC
Microsoft laying off about 9,000 employees in latest round of cuts
Microsoft said Wednesday that it will lay off about 9,000 employees. The move will affect less than 4% of its global workforce across different teams, geographies and levels of experience, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The announcement comes on the second day of Microsoft's 2026 fiscal year. Executives at the Redmond, Washington-based company typically unveil reorganizations at the time of the new fiscal year. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email. Microsoft has held several rounds of layoffs already this calendar year. In January, it cut less than 1% of headcount based on performance. The 50-year-old software company slashed over 6,000 jobs in May and then at least 300 more in June. As of June 2024 it employed 228,000 people. In 2023, it laid off 10,000. Perhaps the largest culling of Microsoft workers came in 2014, when the company eliminated 18,000 after acquiring Nokia's devices and services business. As was the case with the May layoffs, Microsoft is looking to reduce the number of layers of managers that stand between individual contributors and top executives, the person said. Microsoft reported nearly $26 billion in net income on $70 billion in revenue for the March quarter. The numbers were well ahead of Wall Street's consensus, keeping Microsoft ranked as one of the most profitable companies in the S&P 500 index, according to data compiled by FactSet. Executives called for about 14% year-over-year revenue growth in the June quarter, thanks to expected expansion in Azure cloud services and corporate productivity software subscriptions. Autodesk, Chegg and CrowdStrike are among the other software providers that have slimmed down in 2025. Earlier on Wednesday, Payroll processing company ADP said the U.S. private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June. Economists polled by Dow Jones had predicted an increase of 100,000.
