Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets leaned to the upside. China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines did well; Hong Kong and New Zealand were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently doing well. The UK, Poland, Turkey, the UAE, Greece, Norway, Hungary, Israel, Austria, Sweden, and Saudi Arabia are leading. Futures in the States point to a positive open for the cash market.
————— Housing Stocks are Now in Play —————
The dollar is up. Oil is flat; copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down. Bitcoin is up.
Stories/News from Seeking Alpha…
Minting new products
Seeking Alpha wishes our subscribers a Happy Fourth of July! Wall Street Breakfast won’t be published with markets closed on Friday, but tune back in over the weekend.
Robinhood (HOOD) is at it again, looking to transform another part of the financial world. The rise of stock tokenization, and the tokenization of other underlying assets, has sent the company’s shares on a blistering rally, climbing 18% over the past three sessions to hit the $100 level for the first time (+163% YTD). It’s perfect timing as well, with SEC Chair Paul Atkins hailing tokenization as an “innovation”, and vowing to put an end to “regulation through enforcement” by making “clearer rules.”
Backdrop: Robinhood’s initial success was the introduction of commission-free trading, which disrupted traditional brokerages and saw nearly all competitors drop their fees to zero. It didn’t stop there. The success of fractional share trading and becoming one of the first mainstream brokerages to offer crypto trading saw Robinhood ride the pandemic-driven trading boom to an IPO in the summer of 2021. The company has since expanded into other financial products like credit cards and banking, prediction markets, and investment advisory, but its latest endeavor is going directly to the rails of the entire industry.
“The long-term arc is building the No. 1 global financial ecosystem,” CEO Vlad Tenev said on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast. “It involves expanding Robinhood from U.S.-only to fully global and from retail-only to business and institutional. That’s where we get into really interesting platform aspects like tokenization.”
Why tokens? According to Tenev, this can make it easier to expand equity trading from a 24/5 schedule to 24/7, as well as introduce DeFi aspects like collateralized lending and borrowing, swapping, staking, and self-custody. While Robinhood is using Arbitrum for now, it’s planning on building a custom Ethereum-based L2 to power the tokenized stocks, which users across the globe can transact with via stablecoins. Meanwhile, the trading of private company shares is another area that can be accessible to the masses via tokenization. It could even mirror the advertised giveaways Robinhood just ran for tokens of SpaceX and OpenAI, though there has been some drama there following a statement by the latter on X.
What else is happening…
Wall Street ends at record high after U.S.-Vietnam trade deal.
Nonfarm payrolls expected to continue gradual cooling path.
Landmark deal: Oracle (ORCL) expands Stargate project with OpenAI.
Leaked memo shows biotech lobby group’s opposition to RFK Jr.
Is AI coming for your white-collar job? Ford’s (F) CEO thinks so.
Microsoft (MSFT) plans to lay off 9,000 employees across teams.
Pentagon: U.S. strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by two years.
Record number of Americans expected to travel over July 4th week.
Boeing (BA) may dodge criminal charges in 737 Max crash case.
SA Asks: Will Xiaomi (OTCPK:XIACF) overtake Tesla (TSLA) in China?
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Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets were mixed. Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand did well; Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Malaysia were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently doing well. Denmark, France, Turkey, Finland, Norway, Israel, Austria, and Sweden are up; South Africa is down. Futures in the States point to a down open for the cash market.
————— June Archives —————
The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down. Bitcoin is up.
Stories/News from Seeking Alpha…
Crunching numbers
Who benefits from stock market gains? Shareholders and investors, of course. Those that have done well are celebrating the market comeback over the past quarter as stock picking continues in earnest for the second half of the year. Everyone is welcome to do their own investment research and join the party, though there has been some renewed discussion over how much wealth is concentrated at the top.
Quote: “I don’t think we should have billionaires,” said Zohran Mamdani, who just clinched the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. “Frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality. There has to be a better distribution of wealth.” The Big Apple not only houses the New York Stock Exchange (ICE) and Nasdaq (NDAQ) but is also the financial capital of the world, where the top 1% of the city’s earners pay nearly half of all of its taxes, according to the NYC Independent Budget Office.
Turning to the stock market, the wealthiest Americans also control a majority of shares. In fact, the top 1% own half of all corporate equities and mutual funds in the U.S., per data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. When factoring in the top 10% of Americans by wealth, ownership of the group rises to close to 90% of all stock market holdings (see the graphic above). However, this number has not changed meaningfully over time, with the percentage oscillating between 80% and 90% in data that goes back to the end of the 1980s.
Outlook: Much of the wealth, employment and services generated in society today have been facilitated by billionaires. Shop on Jeff Bezos-founded Amazon (AMZN)? Promote your business on Mark Zuckerberg-owned Instagram (META)? Wear a pair of Phil Knight-founded Nike (NKE)? The list goes on. While there are legitimate concerns over the effects of concentrated economic power, a better measurement might be how accessible it is to climb the income ladder, or to start a competitive business. The same holds true with regard to public equity markets, and whether it has become easier or harder to trade and invest in recent decades.
What else is happening…
Senate passes ‘BBB’ without tax on wind and solar projects.
Design platform Figma files for IPO, to trade under FIG ticker.
Intel’s (INTC) new CEO weighs big shift in marketing strategy.
Paramount to pay $16M to settle Trump’s 60 Minutes lawsuit.
Banks are upping their dividends after latest stress tests.
Modelo owner Constellation Brands (STZ) logs softer demand.
Fed’s Powell: Waiting to cut rates is the prudent thing to do.
Nasdaq’s (NDAQ) first-half U.S. IPO listings soar past NYSE.
Amazon-backed Anthropic reaches $4B in annualized revenue.
Trump won’t extend pause on tariffs as July 9 deadline nears.
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Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets did well today. Japan was weak, but South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines were strong. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the downside. Turkey, Germany, South Africa, Portugal, and Israel are up; Denmark, France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria and Sweden are down. Futures in the States point to a down open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. Bitcoin is down.
Stories/News from Seeking Alpha…
How times have changed
Stocks just wrapped up the first half of 2025 at fresh all-time highs, a stark difference from the investing landscape seen at the beginning of the most recent quarter. Similar to the COVID crash and correction in September 2023, the recovery time for markets is speeding up to a span of weeks versus what used to take months. Buying the dip and a shift in sentiment even saw the S&P 500 (SP500) breach the 6,200 level on Monday, while the Nasdaq Composite (COMP:IND) closed the session at record levels.
Making sense of it all: Wall Street is forward looking and things immediately started to rebound in the weeks following “Liberation Day” as it became clear that President Trump was using extreme tariff rates for negotiating leverage. Trade deals have already been inked with the U.K. and China, while more are likely to be announced in the coming days before a deadline of July 9. Meanwhile, a surge in tariff-induced inflation never took hold, while the “Big Beautiful Bill” set to be passed by Congress is poised to shower the U.S. economy and Corporate America with billions of dollars (don’t forget consumer cash in the form of tax deductions).
Other forward-looking catalysts are also in the making. A hefty decline in the dollar (DXY) is setting up an earnings season with big beats for Big Tech, while a coming rate cut cycle is likely to take shape with President Trump handpicking a replacement for Fed Chair Jay Powell. As the administration wraps up efforts on tax and trade, it’ll free up time in the latter half of the year to focus on deregulation, which should also be a boon for the markets.
Getting frothy or new horizons? With a lot of enthusiasm going around, more financial products are coming online to capture the money coming off the sidelines. Stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) reheated the dormant IPO market with a resounding success and is now looking at a national bank charter to establish the “First National Digital Currency Bank.” Shares of Robinhood (HOOD) also hit an all-time high after introducing tokenized securities for private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, as well as crypto perpetual futures and reintroducing staking.
What else is happening…
Results from the latest Seeking Alpha Sentiment Survey.
Texas authorizes use of gold and silver as legal tender.
Home Depot (HD) shells out $5.5B in major contractor play.
‘Superintelligence Labs’ from META; AAPL to use OpenAI?
Netflix (NFLX) boosts live programming slate with NASA feed.
Trump sends Powell a handwritten note about interest rates.
Amazon robots may soon outnumber humans in warehouses.
General Mills (GIS) closes on sale of U.S. yogurt business.
Hershey (HSY) to drop artificial food dyes from products.
AI bank workers already have company logins, direct managers.
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Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets were split. Japan, China, South Korea, and Thailand did well; Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently doing well. Poland, Turkey, the UAE, South Africa, Norway, Portugal, and the Czech Republic are up; Hungary is down. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil is flat; copper is down. Gold is up; silver is down. Bonds are up. Bitcoin is up.
Stories/News from Seeking Alpha…
Next stop
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed a key procedural hurdle in the Senate over the weekend, opening the legislation for final debate in the chamber. Given the slim Republican majority there, everyone in the party has been viewed as a critical vote, though there still appears to be enough senators to get it over the line. Tensions over the bill prompted North Carolina’s Thom Tillis to announce he wouldn’t run for re-election, and with Kentucky’s Rand Paul the only other GOP member to break ranks, the legislation could pass the Senate as early as today.
Why it matters: Key pieces of the legislation will influence business and investment in the world’s largest economy. Defense spending will receive a boost in areas like shipbuilding, munitions and the Golden Dome missile defense system, along with a conditional moratorium on state AI laws, but new requirements and cuts will impact the Medicaid industry. There were also clauses that will end electric vehicle tax credits, as well as others that limit the incentives for wind, solar and hydrogen projects.
Tax policy is also on watch and how much cash will ultimately end up in consumer pockets. The bill would extend most of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, but there will be deductions for tips, overtime and social security. However, a “revenge tax” proposal – that would have imposed levies on countries that impose “discriminatory” taxes on U.S. businesses – was eliminated from the latest draft following a deal with G7 countries.
CBO estimates the bill would add at least $3.3T to federal deficits
How The U.S. Clean Energy Industry Can Navigate The Policy Void
The Dividend Investor’s Quick-And-Dirty Guide To The Senate Budget Bill
Elon Musk slams Senate tax and spending bill, warns of economic fallout
Timeline: The “Big Beautiful Bill” runs nearly 1,000 pages and remains subject to revisions. Once it passes, it will have to go back to the House, where Republicans also have a slim majority. President Trump has set a deadline of July 4, but there’s no rush if it doesn’t pass by then (2017 tax cuts expire at the end of the year and concerns over debt limit capacity would only come in August). Take the latest Seeking Alpha Sentiment Survey.
What else is happening…
Canada drops digital services tax to resume U.S. trade talks.
No stress! All 22 big banks pass the Fed’s annual tests.
Trump: Group of wealthy investors ready to acquire TikTok.
Meta (META) continues to recruit more talent from OpenAI.
AI-fueled rally: Nvidia (NVDA) insiders unload $1B in stock.
F-35 dispute with Turkey may be resolved soon – U.S. envoy.
Klarna’s (KLAR) neobank pivot: Another IPO attempt in sight?
Meet the autonomous trucking tech startup going public via SPAC.
Trade deal? Indonesia to ease curbs, pitches minerals to U.S.
Newsom sues Fox (FOX) for $787M over alleged defamation.
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