🧠 Microsoft reaches All-Time-Highs / Stablecoins enter the chat as GENIUS Act passes

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🏛️ Financial News

• Administration 🏛️ US may target Samsung, Hynix, TSMC operations in China – Reuters: The US Dept. of Commerce is considering revoking authorizations granted to global chipmakers Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC to receive US goods and technology at their plants in China. The move would make it more make it more difficult for foreign chipmakers to operate in China, where they produce semi-conductors used in a wide range of industries.·

• Fed Rate 💵 Fed Governor Waller says central bank could cut rates as early as July – CNBC: Fed Governor Christopher Waller said that he doesn’t expect tariffs to boost inflation significantly so policymakers should be looking to lower interest rates as early as next month.

• Retail Investors 🙃 US households to keep buying stocks this year, Goldman Sachs says – Yahoo! Finance: According to Goldman Sachs, US households are expected to remain major buyers of equities in 2025, which they estimate will purchase $425B in stocks this year, second only to corporates at $675B.

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🌎 Global Markets

• S&P 500 $SPY ( ▲ 0.61% ) 📊 S&P 500, Nasdaq finish lower; investors uneasy about Middle East conflict – Yahoo! Finance: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended the week lower, with investors on edge over the Iran-Israel conflict heading into the weekend, as the U.S. considers whether to get involved.

• United Kingdom $FTSE ( 0.0% ) 💂 UK's FTSE 100 sees first weekly fall in six; Middle East tensions in focus – Reuters: Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 snapped a five-week winning streak, closing out a week marred by a wave of global risk aversion amid the conflict between Israel and Iran, while a slew of interest rate verdicts were also assessed.

• Europe Tariffs 🏰 German and French industry united on EU tariff retaliation on aircraft sector – euronews: The German aerospace industry has told Euronews it is aligning with its French counterpart in supporting EU retaliatory measures that target US finished aircraft rather than spare parts, citing the interdependence of transatlantic production lines.

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📊 Stock Market

• Social Media $RDDT ( ▼ 2.41% ) 😈 Reddit unveils AI-driven ad tools to help brands tap into user discussions – Rueters: Reddit launched two new AI-powered advertising features aimed at helping brands drive greater engagement by tapping user conversations on the platform with real-time insights for marketers.

• Restaurants : Casual $DRI ( ▲ 0.09% ) 🍝 Olive Garden parent company Darden rises on cheery earnings report – Sherwood by Robinhood: The parent company of Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, rose 5% in premarket trading after it reported sales and profit that beat estimates. Darden has been able to grow its sales even amid fears of consumer pullback, as it also revamped its portfolio in recent years, selling Red Lobster and acquiring Chuy’s Tex Mex restaurants.

• Restaurants : Fast Casual $YUM ( ▲ 0.43% ) 🌯 Yum! Brands names CFO Chris Turner as its next CEO – CNBC: Yum! Brands named Chief Financial and Franchise Officer Chris Turner as its next CEO, effective October 1. He will replace David Gibbs, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Turner joined the fast food company in 2019. Before that, he held senior roles at PepsiCo and spent over a decade at McKinsey.

• Autos : Retailers $KMX ( ▲ 0.55% ) 🚗 CarMax shares hit the gas as strong demand for used autos powers earnings beat – CNBC: CarMax logged its biggest jump in used vehicle sales since late 2021, selling 230,000 used retail vehicles on the quarter, a 9% YoY increase.

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🏦 Banking & Crypto

• Administration 🏛️ Senate passes GENIUS stablecoin bill, giving crypto industry first major legislative win – CNBC: US senate passes the first federal framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins, granting sweeping authority to the Department of Treasury and opening the door to banks, fintechs, and retailers.

• Crypto : Stablecoin $CRCL ( ▲ 4.19% ) 💱 Circle stock extends stunning rally amid high hopes for crypto 'disruptor' – Yahoo! Finance: The massive post-IPO rally for the issuer of USDC stablecoins (USDC-USD) showed no signs of cooling, as Wall Street bets big on the crypto player benefiting from an improving regulatory climate in the US.

• Banks : Stablecoin $JPM ( ▲ 1.43% ) 🏦 JPMorgan Chase partners with Coinbase to launch deposit token for institutional clients – Yahoo! Finance: The largest commercial bank in the US is doubling down on its bet on the crypto space by launching JPMD, a deposit token on blockchain technology.

• Retailers $WMT ( ▼ 0.06% ) 🛒 Walmart and Amazon consider issuing US dollar-backed stablecoins – CNBC: Walmart and Amazon are exploring plans to issue their own US dollar-backed stablecoins to reduce payment friction, speed up settlement, and lower costs tied to traditional financial rails. Both companies are among a growing number of multi-nationals eyeing stablecoin issuance, as payment networks brace for disruption.

🌐 Magnificent 7 & Technology

• Semi-Conductors $INTC ( ▲ 1.49% ) 🧇 Intel Foundry layoffs could impact 'more than 10,000' factory workers, one fifth of employees affected by 'enormous cutback' – Tom’s Hardware: OregonLive reports the chipmaker's plans to eliminate between 15% to 20% of its Intel Foundry personnel, over 8,170-10,890 people globally, in its manufacturing division starting mid-July.

• Semi-Conductors $NVDA ( ▲ 0.33% ) 🧇 Exclusive: Nvidia, Foxconn in talks to deploy humanoid robots at Houston AI server making plant – Reuters: This would be the first time that an Nvidia product will be made with the assistance of humanoid robots and would be Foxconn's first AI server factory to use them on a production line.

• Technology $AAPL ( ▲ 0.2% ) 📲 Bloomberg reports: Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity – Reuters: The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management.

• Technology $MSFT ( ▼ 0.03% )💻 Year 50: Microsoft shares hit all-time high – Sherwood by Robinhood: Microsoft shares hit their highest mark in the company’s 39 years of trading as a public company and 50^th overall. On March 13, 1986, Microsoft went public at $21 per share, raising $61M. Nine stock splits later, the company has transcended from selling shrink-wrapped boxes of Windows OS floppy disks into a consumer software, gaming, B2B social media, dev tools, cloud computing and artificial intelligence giant.

• Autos : EV $TSLA ( ▼ 0.7% ) 🔌 Tesla stock slips after report EV maker is pausing Cybertruck and Model Y production – CNBC: The EV automaker is tentatively launching the robotaxi in Austin on June 22, using Model Y vehicles equipped with a new version of the company’s “Full Self-Driving” technology.

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• Manufacturing 🌐 SoftBank’s Son reportedly looking to launch $1 trillion Arizona AI and robotics industrial complex, Bloomberg News reports – TechCrunch: SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son is seeking to team up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co for the project, which is aimed at bringing back high-end tech manufacturing of robots and artificial intelligence to the US and to create a version of China's vast manufacturing hub of Shenzhen.

• Frontier LLMs ▶️ Midjourney launches its much-anticipated AI image-to-video generation model, V1 – TechCrunch: Midjourney, one of the most popular AI image generation startups, announced the launch of it’s image-to-video model, where users can upload an image (or take an image generated by one of Midjourney’s other models) and V1 will produce a 4-5 second video.

• Frontier LLMs 🤖 OpenAI announces 80% price drop for o3, it’s most powerful reasoning model – VentureBeat: OpenAI is making substantial price cut on o3, its flagship reasoning large language model (LMM), slashing costs by a whopping 80% for both input and output recall tokens, the individual numeric strings that LLMs use to represent words, phrases, mathematical and coding strings, and other content.

• Administration 🏛️ OpenAI wins $200M US Dept. of Defense contract – CNBC: The DoD has awarded a one-year $200M contract to OpenAI for the use of its AI models in the Washington, D.C. area. In December, OpenAI announced a partnership with defense tech startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”

• Banking : Buy Now, Pay Later 💱 Klarna CEO wants to turn the platform into a ‘super app’ with help from AI – CNBC: ceo Sebastian Siemiatkowski wants to make the platform more of an all-encompassing financial “super app” that’s personalized and can offer non-financial services: “With AI, you can abstract and adopt the experience much more to the specific user you’re dealing with”.

🦾 Jobs Report

• Technology $AMZN🛒 AI will shrink Amazon’s workforce in the coming years, CEO Jassy says – CNBC: Andy Jassy said the company’s corporate workforce will adopts more gen AI tools and agents, adding that employees should learn how to use AI tools and experiment and figure out “how to get more done with scrappier teams.” The online retailer and technology provider has made big investments in AI, launching a flurry of its own products and rapidly building out data centers to meet surging demand for the technology.

• Jobs Report 👨‍💻 ‘White collar’ jobs are down – but don’t blame AI yet, Indeed economist say – CNBC: Professional and business services, the industry that represents “white collar” and middle and upper-class, educated workers, hasn’t experienced much hiring activity lately. However, economists have said that the decline in white-collar job openings is more driven by structural issues in the economy rather than AI taking people’s jobs.

• IT Jobs 👨‍💻 Unemployment is spiking for US IT pros - unless you want to babysit bots – VentureBeat: The IT job market in the US is being hit from two sides at once: companies are grappling with fears of a recession stemming from the Trump administration's erratic tariff policy, while AI is increasingly mopping up entry-level jobs.

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• Networth 🤑 UBS Global Wealth Report says the US added over 1,000 new millionaires a day in 2024 – Reuters: Over 379,000 people became new US millionaires. The US accounted for 40% of global millionaires, as private individuals' net worth rose 4.6% worldwide, and by over 11% in the US, driven by a stable US dollar and upbeat financial markets.

• Networth 💰 Will your family’s wealth last or disappear? – Worth: For many families, the ability to pass on money to the next generation is both a point of pride and a sign of success. However, that wealth rarely lasts, as 70% disappears by the 2^nd generation, and nearly all by the 3^rd.

• Retirement : 401(k) 🏖️ How much money should have in their 401(k)s by your 40s? – CNBC: Based on Fidelity’s latest report that analyzed more than 24M 401(k) account, even with a rocky start to the year in the market, workers in their 40’s appear to be sticking with retirement contributions.

• Social Security 🏛️ US Social Security, Medicare to run short of funds to pay full benefits in 2033, trustees say – Rueters: The reports, released by the U.S. Treasury Department, showed that the worsening of Medicare's finances was due to higher-than-forecast near-term expenditures for hospitalizations of Americans over 65 years old.

• Consumer Debt 💳 How retail credit cards could bankrupt consumers with record high interest rates – CNBC: More and more people who are filing for bankruptcy have retail credit card debt, and those bills are getting harder to pay off with record-high interest rates.

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✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
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