Man, this summer is flying by… feels like just last month I was panic-buying the dip because the market didn’t know what to do with itself after Trump started flinging tariff threats like frisbees. Fast forward a few poolside margaritas and boom… Target’s stocked with school supplies again, and the Dow’s back to disappointing dividend investors. (Ah yes, the comforting smell of seasonal whiplash and economic instability. Feels like home.)
Shockingly (kidding), the Dow slipped 0.3% after news broke that Trump wants to crank up tariffs on EU imports… reportedly pushing for a minimum 15–20% hit. The S&P 500 didn’t do much of anything… hovering just below flat. And the Nasdaq tiptoed higher into another record, because tech apparently didn’t get the memo from Apollo that we’re supposed to be nervous right now (more on that in a second).
A bit of calm came from the latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment report, where inflation expectations actually fell… one-year forecasts dropped from 5% to 4.4%. (We’re only terrified now, not fully panicked. Progress!) But overall sentiment still reads like consumers are bracing for impact. (Because between trade wars, AI hype, and Netflix being Netflix… we’re all just waiting to get kicked in the balls again.)
Speaking of Netflix, they reported strong earnings, beat expectations, raised guidance… and still got punished with a 4% stock drop. Turns out “better than expected” doesn’t cut it when your P/E is pushing 40 and your shareholders are expecting divine intervention. (God forbid a tech company behaves like a normal business instead of a unicorn that prints money on command.) Meanwhile, CRISPR Therapeutics surged 17% after a board director bought $51 million worth of stock. Makes you wonder what he knows, or if he’s just trying to win the company Christmas party early.
Circle had a big day too, rallying after the Genius Act passed (not to be confused with it’s friend, “The Big Beautiful Bill”). It gives stablecoins the regulatory thumbs-up they’ve been begging for. (Finally, something called “stablecoin” might actually be… you know, stable.) Circle’s stock is now up more than 600% since June, which is exactly the kind of quiet, rational price movement you expect from a newly IPO’d crypto-adjacent company. Totally normal stuff.
Not to be left out, Bitcoin took a breather after the crypto market hit a $4 trillion milestone. It fell under $118K this afternoon (maybe investors realized they can’t spend BTC at Trader Joe’s just yet.)
And then there’s Chevron, who just closed the deal of the decade. After nearly two years of legal mud-wrestling, they finally won approval to buy Hess for $53 billion… grabbing a chunk of Guyana’s oil fields, aka a “once-in-a-generation” energy jackpot. Exxon, who spent the last two years swinging for the same prize, ended up empty-handed… and is probably wondering if they can return those legal fees for store credit.
Also worth noting: Apollo’s chief economist through a big soggy blanketed on the AI hype this week, saying valuations are now worse than during the 1999 dot-com bubble. (In other words, yes… AI might change the world, but maybe don't pay nosebleed prices for companies that haven’t changed a profit margin.)
If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.
At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Netflix and Exxon as mentioned in the article.
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