A small replica of the Charging Bull statue is seen on a street vendor stall outside the New York Stock Exchange on July 11, 2025.<\/p>\n
Jeenah Moon | Reuters<\/p>\n
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed Wednesday, powered by tech shares after a federal court decision allowed Google to keep its Chrome browser.<\/p>\n
Optimism around a looming rate cut by the Federal Reserve also buoyed markets, with the CME Fedwatch tool indicating a 96.6% chance of a Fed rate cut in its September meeting later this month.<\/p>\n
However, weak economic data seems to hang like a dark cloud over investors. Job openings ticked down in July to levels rarely seen since the Covid-19 pandemic, bolstering fears of cooling in the labor market.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Job Openings and Labor Turnover<\/a>\u00a0report showed around 7.18 million listings in July, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday. That’s only the second reading under the 7.2 million level since the end of 2020.<\/p>\n Economists also expect Thursday’s ADP private payrolls report to show a softer print for August, and jobless claims data is expected to show a slight uptick. The unemployment report due Friday is forecast to show jobless rate inching up to 4.3% from 4.2%.<\/p>\n In short, the Fed may be ready to cut rates, but the job market’s cutting deeper.<\/p>\n What you need to know today<\/p>\n U.S. markets mostly climb. U.S. markets mostly rose<\/a> Wednesday, boosted by tech shares after a federal court decision in an\u00a0Alphabet<\/a>\u00a0antitrust case meant that Google would not have to sell its Chrome browser. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.03%, and the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0climbed 0.51%. However, the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0was marginally down. Across the Atlantic, Europe’s Stoxx 600 tumbled 1.47%<\/a>, marking its steepest loss since Aug. 1, dragged by tech and travel stocks.<\/p>\n Bonds under pressure. Long-dated bonds around the world are under pressure<\/a> again, mainly due to broad investor unease with fiscal as well as monetary policy paths of several major economies. Yields on 30-year bonds in the U.S., UK, Japan and Germany have surged, with Japanese bonds hitting a record high.<\/p>\n U.S. tightens chipmaker export rules. The U.S. has revoked a waiver that<\/a> allowed chipmaking giants such as TSMC, SK Hynix<\/a>, Samsung and\u00a0Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.<\/a>\u00a0to export key chipmaking equipment and technology to China. TSMC confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that a fast-track export privilege known as validated end user status will end on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n No more shared free shipping. Amazon<\/a>\u00a0is eliminating a program<\/a> that allows members of its Prime<\/a>\u00a0 subscription program to share free\u00a0shipping<\/a>\u00a0benefits with people outside their household. The company began notifying users in recent days that it plans to end the Prime Invitee Program on Oct. 1, according to a notice viewed by CNBC.<\/p>\n [PRO] Gold at fresh high. Bullion\u00a0hit fresh highs this week<\/a>, with spot values extending their record run above the $3,500 mark into the middle of the week. But analysts say that the yellow metal may still have more to run as demand continues to remain strong.<\/p>\n And finally…<\/p>\n WASHINGTON, DC August 6: US President Donald Trump shakes hands with CEO of Apple Tim Cook during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday August 6, 2025. <\/p>\n Demetrius Freeman | The Washington Post | Getty Images<\/p>\n Apple might raise iPhone prices even as it has so far weathered Trump’s tariffs<\/a><\/p>\n Wall Street\u00a0commentators said<\/a> Apple CEO Tim Cook had largely navigated the threat of tariffs on Apple’s business successfully by offering Trump an additional $100 billion U.S.\u00a0investment<\/a>.<\/p>\n But despite the 24-carat trophy Cook handed Trump during their meeting, the true costs of those tariffs may finally show up for Apple customers later this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some analysts are forecasting the company to raise prices on its devices even after all Cook has done to avoid the worst of the tariffs.<\/p>\n \u2014 Kif Leswing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small replica of the Charging Bull statue is seen on a street vendor stall outside the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[28,122,112,6990],"class_list":{"0":"post-131326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-business-news","10":"tag-markets","11":"tag-world-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}