US stock markets rally to record highs<\/p>\n
United States (US) stock markets<\/a> finished last week on a high note, with the US 500 (S&P 500)<\/a> and\u00a0US Tech 100 (Nasdaq 100)<\/a> reaching new record highs on Friday night as the summer melt-up continued.<\/p>\n Gains were supported by trade deal optimism, resilient economic data, and stronger-than-expected corporate earnings. For the week, the US 500 added 1.46%, the US Tech 100 climbed 0.90%, and\u00a0Wall Street (Dow Jones)<\/a> rose by 559 points (1.26%).<\/p>\n Trade developments boost market sentiment<\/p>\n Starting with trade developments, last week\u2019s US trade deal with Japan was followed over the weekend by a similar agreement with the European Union (EU). The deal with the EU includes $600 billion of EU investment in the US, with a focus on energy and defence spending. It also includes a 15% tariff rate on most goods, including cars, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors, while metals are excluded from the agreement.<\/p>\n The positive news on the EU front, agreeing to a 15% tariff rate, half the previously threatened 30% rate, was supplemented by a report in the South China Morning Post that the US and China will extend their tariff pause for 90 days during talks in Stockholm this week.<\/p>\n With the risk<\/a> of a prolonged trade war and the importance of the August tariff deadlines being steadily defused, markets have responded positively, with US 500 equity<\/a> futures<\/a> trading about 0.4% higher at 6450 after their reopening.<\/p>\n Federal Reserve and economic data outlook<\/p>\n Looking ahead, the Federal Reserve (Fed)<\/a> is widely expected to keep interest rates<\/a> on hold at its meeting on Thursday morning, with Governors Waller and Bowman expected to dissent in favour of a 25 basis point (bp)<\/a> rate cut. Fed Chair Powell is likely to reiterate a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, highlighting that monetary policy remains ‘well positioned’ to assess how the economy evolves and responds to tariffs.<\/p>\n Friday night\u2019s non-farm payroll<\/a> report will likely carry more importance than Thursday\u2019s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)<\/a> meeting.<\/p>\n For July, the market expects an increase of 106,000 jobs and is looking for the unemployment rate to rise slightly to 4.2% from 4.1% prior. A print of 4.3% or higher would increase the probability of a Fed rate cut in September from about 63% to above 80%.<\/p>\n Busy earnings week for major firms<\/p>\n In the stock space, this week\u2019s earnings schedule is the busiest of the second quarter (Q2) 2025. Notable firms set to report include four of the ‘Magnificent Seven’: Microsoft<\/a>, Amazon<\/a>, Meta<\/a>, and Apple<\/a>.<\/p>\n With about 31% of US 500 companies having reported so far, earnings growth is tracking around 6% year-on-year (YoY), with sales growth near 5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US stock markets rally to record highs United States (US) stock markets finished last week on a high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84,467,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-27909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}