A $300 Billion Bomb Is About to Land on the Fed, and Nobody Agrees What Happens Next
Core PCE at its 90th percentile and a $300 billion fiscal package arriving in September threaten to break the Fed's 200-day rate pause. The backdrop makes the stakes obvious. The Fed has held the upper bound of the funds rate at 3.75% since December 11, 2025, a pause that has now stretched past 200 consecutive days. Core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, keeps grinding higher, with the index climbing every single month for the past year and sitting in the 90.9th percentile of its 12-month range. Treyz told CNBC that "there's about to be a big fiscal spend package that passes at the end of September, and it could easily be in the $300 billion and up range," and that the Fed and rates will "have to digest" it. Fiscal spending of that size lands on an economy not starving for stimulus. Real GDP grew 2.1% in the first quarter of 2026, with gross private investment rebounding to 7.9%.
Trump’s War on the Fed Isn’t Over, and Wall Street Is Still Betting on a Rate Hike
Markets now price a 64% chance of a rate hike by year-end, with Core PCE and CPI both at 12-month highs and unemployment at 4%. Removing Cook would hand Trump a decisive board majority, but a politicized Fed cutting into inflation would likely drive the 30-year yield above 4.98%.
US futures edge lower as investors assess Samsung results and Fed outlook: Dow Jones, S&P, Nasdaq, Wall Street
Samsung Electronics delivered another indication of continued strength in demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, reporting preliminary second-quarter operating profit that was almost 20 times higher than a year earlier. The South Korean technology group expects operating profit of 89.4 trillion won, or roughly US$58 billion, for the quarter ended June, compared with 4.7 trillion won during the same period last year. The figure also exceeded the company’s combined earnings for 2024 and 2025. With inflation remaining well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target and concerns growing that higher memory chip prices and rising energy costs linked to tensions with Iran could add further inflationary pressure, Waller said the policy landscape has changed significantly.
Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix just dragged memory stocks into a bear market
Micron (MU), Samsung (005930.KS), SK Hynix (000660.KS) and the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) are all down more than 20% from recent closing highs, turning one of 2026's hottest trades into a bear market just as Samsung's record profit failed to impress investors. Semiconductor stocks in Yahoo Finance's basket have lost roughly $1.5 trillion in market value since June 25, based on Tuesday intraday prices. Micron alone is down nearly $350 billion over that stretch. SanDisk (SNDK), Intel (INTC), Applied Materials (AMAT) and Lam Research (LRCX) have each lost more than $100 billion. The bigger chip basket is not there yet. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) would need to fall another 9% from Monday's close to enter a bear market, making the memory-stock break the sharper stress point for now.
Factbox-Tech companies tap debt, equity to fund AI and cloud expansion
Tech giants' combined spending is now set to exceed $700 billion this year, up from about $600 billion previously. The AI boom has entered a "more dangerous phase," marked by exponentially rising investments in physical infrastructure and growing reliance on outside capital, according to an analysis by Bridgewater Associates in February.
CoreWeave stock sinks as mag 7 move rattles investors
According to Reuters, Meta is one of CoreWeave's largest customers, with a total contract commitment of around $35 billion, including a $21 billion deal that runs through December 2032. Analysts tracking CoreWeave stock forecast revenue to increase from $5.13 billion in 2025 to $82 billion in 2030, representing a 74% CAGR. CoreWeave is part of the neocloud market, which is growing rapidly. A research report from Mordor Intelligence projects the total addressable market to expand from $24 billion in 205 to $236.5 billion in 2031, indicating a compounded annual growth rate of over 45%.
SpaceX Borrowed $25 Billion and Is Buying Up AI Companies. Here's What That Means for Every Tech Stock in Your Portfolio.
$25 billion worth of debt. The race is on for leadership positions in the artificial intelligence era. Achieving one will be no small task, as SpaceX's recent moves indicate. Its acquisition of Cursor demonstrates that it recognizes the importance of creating a robust AI platform -- but it also shows the high costs involved. Cursor is a software development solution built on artificial intelligence that allows users to significantly accelerate programming tasks. It's proven popular, producing over $1 billion in annualized sales last year. We must incur significant capital and operating expenditures to increase our existing data center capacity. To fund its AI infrastructure build-out, Google parent Alphabet recently announced a massive $84.75 billion equity capital raise. Tech giant Meta Platforms increased its 2026 capital expenditure projection to a range between $125 billion and $145 billion. Last year, its capex to boost its AI capabilities was $72 billion. Uber blew through its annual AI budget in four months, and management is questioning whether the outcomes are worth the expense.
Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: Walmart Turns Up Discounts
Walmart (WMT) cuts prices. The price reductions will be at Walmart and Sam's Club. At Walmart the most significant discounts are for corn on the cob, which dropped to $0.25 from $0.68 each, and 2.25-pound bags of red cherries to $5.63 from $11.18. Ground beef dropped to $5.94 from $6.74, which is a 12% reduction. If you have a Sam’s Club membership, you’ll see lower prices on more than 250 items. That includes Member's Mark Bone-In Chicken Wings ($2.00/lb., was $2.88/lb.), Member's Mark Beef Hot Dogs ($10.86, was $12.96), Member's Mark 88/12 Ground Beef ($5.97/lb., was $6.17/lb.), and Member's Mark Whole Bone-In Pork Back Ribs ($3.18/lb., was $3.48/lb.), making it easier for members to fuel up, fire up the grill and save. Meta Platforms (META) said four U.S. states are seeking about $1.4T in civil penalties in a lawsuit accusing the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict young users and misleading the public about the platforms' safety. Shares fell even though the company projected a 19-fold surge in second-quarter operating profit to 89.4T won ($58.4B), as one-off labor expenses and profit-taking overshadowed AI chip demand. Operating profit from the same period a year earlier was 4.7 trillion won. Samsung's (SSNLF) revenue for the April-to-June period meanwhile came in at 171T won, up from 133.9T won in the previous quarter, according to a statement.
Walmart cuts prices on thousands of items, including beef and soda
Walmart is lowering prices on thousands of items, including beef, soda and household goods. Walmart is lowering prices on thousands of products, including beef, Coca-Cola and laundry detergent, saying the cuts are aimed at reducing the costs of seasonal summer items. The largest U.S. retailer on Monday said the price cuts will be available in its stores and in Sam's Club locations, on Walmart.com, SamsClub.com, and through the Walmart and Sam's Club apps. Walmart declined to comment on Mr. Trump's post. Its announcement about the price reductions did not mention the president. The Consumer Price Index in May reached its highest level in more than three years, driven higher by soaring energy prices caused by the Iran war. "It's a win/win for both sides — Trump needs to improve his messaging around affordability ahead of the midterms, and Walmart loves to occupy the low-price spotlight," Crisafulli wrote.
As prices fall, crack spread signals a split in oil markets
The Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration average weekly retail diesel price declined 9 cents/gallon to $4.578/g, effective Monday and published Tuesday. That price decline in those 13 weeks would have been consecutive except for a one-week big jump in early May. But the more stark "split decision" in the oil market is more clearly evident in what are known as "crack spreads" between the price of crude and the price of the products produced from that crude. That crack spread in recent days has been 70% to 75% of the value of a barrel of crude. At the start of June it was about 45%. When 2026 began, it was about 27%. Crude on the CME commodity exchange June 23 settled at $77.08/barrel. Monday, the settlement was $71.99/b. Meanwhile, ultra low sulfur diesel on the CMD settled $3.1762/g on June 23, and $3.2984/b Monday. The crack spread numbers are so unprecedented that it is leaving analysts few words to describe how bizarre it is. But it has also led to a general consensus that something needs to give. Either the price of crude needs to fall to bring the spread toward some form of normalcy, or product prices need to decline toward a more normal spread against crude. Dan Pickering of Pickering Energy Partners said in a recent online commentary that there were several reasons for the downward trend in crude prices, which have seen the price of global crude benchmark Brent drop from about $93/barrel a month ago to a settlement Monday on the CME commodity exchange of about $72/b. He cited four key factors: "The US appears unwilling to return to sustained kinetic actions against Iran; more supply IS moving through the Strait of Hormuz; China has not yet returned to importing crude; the International Energy Agency is warning of a supply glut in 2027." But Pickering expressed caution as well, describing the current period as a "honeymoon phase. "The physical side of the oil market remains tight…and eventually supply/demand/inventory dynamics drive the bus," he wrote. Pickering said his firm believes that the crude market should be more bullish. "The conundrum is that investors won't care until prices go up, but prices won't go up until investors care," he wrote. In an interview on CNBC, Citigroup's Francisco Martoccia said his company's forecast is that Brent next year can drop to $60/b "because the geopolitical premium has eroded, while fundamentals remain weak," he said. The risk to that model, Martoccia said, would be China coming back into the market as a supplier, and the ending of U.S. supply of oil into the market as it dials back its release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Germany Plans $1.7 Billion Strategic Natural Gas Reserve
Germany is moving to create a state-owned strategic emergency reserve of natural gas to boost its energy security, the Economy Ministry of Europe's biggest economy said on Tuesday. Earlier today, Reuters reported that the strategic government-owned reserve would require up to $1.7 billion (1.5 billion euros) to build the reserve and buy the gas to inject into the storage in 2027 and 2028. The emergency gas reserve would hold volumes of gas equivalent to nearly 10% of all the gas storage capacity in Germany. The funding for the reserve will come from a levy on gas consumers, the German Economy Ministry said today. Germany and Europe are currently racing to rebuild gas reserves in existing commercial storage after the winter left sites depleted, with gas levels at their lowest in years. As of July 6, Germany's gas storage sites were 42.88% full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. The share of LNG imports of Germany's total gas supply rose to 12% in the first half of the year, up from 10% a year earlier, despite the shock supply loss from the Middle East due to the closed Strait of Hormuz, according to data by the German regulator.
Rivian Shares Drop After News Of 75 Million Share Public Offering
Rivian stock dropped around 10% after it announced the public offering. The proceeds from the stock sale will go toward paying off a government loan.