News Recap • Week 35 2025

Check the news below and make sure to visit my latest Market Recap as well.

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Macro

• Mon The US and South Korea have finalized their new trade deal after a meeting between the two countries’ presidents on Monday. (DeepNewz)
• Tue Donald Trump fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook for alleged mortgage fraud, stating in the process that his administration and the Republican party will soon have a majority in the Federal Reserve. This majority would enable them to achieve their goal of significantly lower interest rates. Lisa Cook sued the administration but her request for Trump to temporarily be barred from firing her ended without a ruling on Friday. (CNBC)
• Thu The US economy grew by 3.3% in Q2, outpacing both the initial 3.0% estimate and the 3.1% Dow Jones consensus forecast. Growth in consumer spending was revised up from 1.4% to 1.6%. (CNBC)
• Thu Japan’s top trade negotiator cancelled a trip to the US when it became apparent that certain points in the two countries’ trade agreement required further technical discussion, which will now continue at the administrative level. Investors didn’t seem too bothered by the setback though. (CNBC)
• Fri The US Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index increased at an annual rate of 2.6% in July. The core inflation rate came in at 2.9%. Both were in line with expectations but highlight the challenge of getting inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target. Consumer spending increased 0.5% on the month, pointing to continued resilience despite the higher prices. (CNBC)
• Fri A federal appeals court ruled on Friday in a 7-4 vote that most of President Trump’s recently-implemented global tariffs are illegal. It was the second federal court to do so in this case. Unsurprisingly, Trump quickly responded by calling the court “highly partisan” and saying it would be a “total disaster for the country” if the tariffs ever went away. The administration will without a doubt continue to fight for its tariffs so the case appears to be far from over. (CNBC)
• Fri The annual inflation rate in Germany hit 2.1% in August, slightly higher than the 2.0% forecast. The core inflation rate was unchanged from the previous month at 2.7%. At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 6.4%. CNBC)
• Fri India’s economy grew at an annual rate of 7.8% in the second quarter of 2025 (its fiscal Q1 of 2026), faster than the 6.7% forecast. The growth was boosted by the manufacturing, construction, and service sectors. Nominal GDP, on the other hand, showed a significant slowdown to 8.8% from 10.8% in the prior quarter. Nominal GDP does not account for inflation, which made the real GDP look overly impressive this quarter. (CNBC)
• Fri Global central banks now hold more of their official reserves in gold than in US treasuries for the first time since 1996. This data point points to both a diversification away from the US and into other treasuries, as well as an increased demand for gold as a hedge against geopolitical risk and currency debasement. (DeepNewz)

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Other

• Mon Danish Ørsted was ordered to halt development of the wind energy project Revolution Wind outside of Rhode Island which was scheduled to be completed next year. This was just the latest blow to the troubled company which has (Euroinvestor)
• Mon xAI sued Apple and OpenAI over an alleged anticompetitive scheme that favors ChatGPT over other apps like xAI’s Grok and X. (CNBC)
• Tue Apple announced its next launch event on September 9 where it’s expected to present the new iPhone 17. We’ll probably need some significant hardware upgrades and/or AI functionality for the event to live up to its tagline, “Awe dropping”. (CNBC)
• Tue In more Apple news, the company has reportedly considered acquiring AI startups Mistral and Perplexity. Many analysts have speculated that Apple might need to acquire a company like this in order to stay competitive in the AI space. So far, nothing concrete seems to have come out of the considerations. (Reuters)
• Tue Eli Lilly’s weight loss pill Orforglipron cleared its latest trial and now has the full clinical trial data required for the company to begin filing for approvals of the drug for chronic weight management with global regulators. (CNBC)
• Tue Spotify is leaning into social with a new messaging feature, enabling users to chat and share music with each other. The company tested a similar feature back in the day but disabled it in 2017 due to low engagement. It’ll be interesting to see if it gains traction this time around. The stock didn’t seem to react to the news this week. (Reuters)
• Tue Klarna is reportedly restarting its US IPO process next month at a valuation of $13 to $14 billion. (Yahoo Finance)
• Tue Canada Goose’s controlling shareholder Bain Capital has reportedly drawn interest from multiple parties looking to take the company private at a $1.35 billion valuation. (CNBC)
• Tue There are now more ETFs than individual stocks listed in the US. (The Kobeissi Letter)
• Wed Nvidia revealed in a financial filing on Wednesday that 39% of its revenue last quarter came from only two customers. We don’t know who the customers are, but the numbers raise concerns about concentration risk for Nvidia. (CNBC)
• Wed A Google executive told employees last week that the company has gotten rid of a third of its managers overseeing small teams over the past year. This move has been part of a general focus on efficiency and keeping the organization as lean as possible as it scales up and invests more heavily in AI. Alphabet shares hit a new all-time high this week. (CNBC)
• Thu Tesla recorded its seventh straight month of declining sales in Europe after a 40% year-over-year drop in July. Meanwhile, Chinese competitor BYD saw its sales more than triple from a year ago to 13,500 new vehicle registration in July. Tesla only recorded 8,800 new registrations. (CNBC)
• Thu TikTok parent company ByteDance will set its valuation at more than $330 billion in a new share buyback program. (Reuters)
• Thu American Bitcoin, a bitcoin miner backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., is set to go public on the Nasdaq this September. (Bitcoin Archive)
• Fri India’s largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio, is planning to go public in early 2026. The IPO could become the largest ever on the Indian stock market. (CNBC)

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Earnings

• Mon Temu owner PDD beat expectations with 7% revenue growth. Net profit fell as the company fights to stay competitive. (Reuters)
• Wed Nvidia delivered a small beat on both the top and bottom lines. Revenue came in at $46.74 billion vs $46.06 billion expected while EPS landed at $1.05 adjusted vs a $1.01 forecast. The company now expects revenue in the current quarter to come in at $54 billion while analysts were expecting just $53.1 billion. Nvidia’s estimate doesn’t even assume any H20 shipments to China. All in all, it was a super strong report, although it failed to impress the market. Shares declined 0.79% on Thursday after the report and dropped more than 3% on Friday. (CNBC)
• Wed CrowdStrike reported a 21% year-over-year increase in revenue to a total of $1.17 billion. The stock jumped 4.69% on Thursday after the report but gave back most of it on Friday. (Yahoo Finance)
• Wed MongoDB reported a massive earnings beat with EPS of $1.00 adjusted vs 66 cents expected. Revenue also came in well above expectations after increasing 24% from a year ago. The stock surged almost 38% on Wednesday after the report and added another 7.58% on Thursday. (CNBC)
• Wed Abercrombie & Fitch narrowly beat estimates when it reported revenue of $1.21 billion and $2.32 in adjusted earnings per share. Analysts had expected $1.20 billion and $2.30. Revenue was up 7% from a year ago. Shares declined 1.43% on Wednesday after a volatile trading day. (CNBC)
• Thu Gap’s revenue came in slightly below estimates while its EPS of 57 cents was a slight beat. Shares rose 1.52% on Friday after the report but are still down 6.86% for the year. (CNBC)
• Thu Parken Sport & Entertainment raised its guidance significantly after FC Copenhagen beat Basel and qualified for Champions League. (Euroinvestor)
• Fri Alibaba reported revenue of 247.65 billion yuan ($34.6 billion), falling short of analysts’ expectations. However, net income came in at 43.11 billion yuan, well above the 28.5 billion yuan forecast. Cloud computing growth accelerated while the company’s AI-related revenue maintained triple-digit year-over-year growth. The stock surged 12.9% on Friday after the report. (CNBC)