Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on July 15, 2025. <\/p>\n
NYSE<\/p>\n
Despite the noise around tariffs and inflation fears, the U.S. economy seems to be holding its ground \u2014 for now. June\u00a0retail sales came in\u00a0stronger than expected<\/a>, and\u00a0weekly\u00a0jobless claims\u00a0dropped below forecasts<\/a>. <\/p>\n Add to that a solid start to earnings season, and you’ve got a recipe for record highs: both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched fresh peaks.<\/p>\n So, is the economy truly resilient in the face of the Trump administration’s shifting trade winds? Or are we simply in the eye of the storm, with August 1 \u2014 the Trump tariff deadline \u2014 looming on the horizon?<\/p>\n Remember, economic data is always a step behind. The real impact of tariffs may not show up for months, especially if businesses and consumers are stockpiling ahead of time\u00a0and\u00a0foreign exporters are cutting their prices<\/a>. <\/p>\n Even when the new tariffs hit, the effects might be muted at first as inventories clear.<\/p>\n Still, for now, investors can take comfort in the fact that markets are being lifted by fundamentals \u2014 not\u00a0just\u00a0fear or speculation.<\/p>\n And yes, to borrow a line from Starship: the U.S. economy is still built on rock-solid data\u2026 not on rock and roll.<\/p>\n \u2014 Lim Hui Jie<\/p>\n What you need to know today<\/p>\n Netflix posts earnings beat. Revenue for the streaming giant<\/a>\u00a0grew 16% during the second quarter of 2025. The company also updated its full-year revenue forecast, noting that it expects revenue to be between $44.8 billion and $45.2 billion, up from a range of $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion, reflecting the weakening of the U.S. dollar, “healthy” member growth and ad sales, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n S&P and Nasdaq storm to new records. U.S. stocks climbed Thursday<\/a> due to solid earnings and economic data, with the S&P 500<\/a> up 0.54% for a record close of 6,297.36 \u2014 its ninth this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite<\/a> advanced 0.75% for its tenth record close of 2025, ending at 20,885.65.\u00a0The pan-European Stoxx 600<\/a> gained 0.96% after<\/a> a raft of earnings reports.<\/p>\n Trump takes aim at solar and wind projects.\u00a0U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will now have the final say<\/a> on whether those projects can proceed on U.S.-owned lands, as a way of “levelling the playing field” for coal and natural gas “after years of assault” by Biden administration, according to an Interior Department’s internal memo Thursday.<\/p>\n Layoffs at Amazon continue. The company confirmed layoffs<\/a> in its cloud computing division Thursday. The company declined to say which units within Amazon Web Services were impacted, or how many employees will be let go as a result of the job cuts, but AWS’ training and certification unit was one of the groups to see cuts, according to a memo viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n [PRO] The U.S. consumer pushes back on recession fears. U.S. consumers appear to prove economic pessimists<\/a> wrong this summer as they flex their spending muscle, according to June’s retail sales report. But some alternative data suggests that the consumer is hanging in there.\u00a0<\/p>\n