Consumer confidence is looking up. The University of Michigan’s final June sentiment reading came in at 49.5, climbing from May’s 44.8 and nudging above the preliminary June figure of 48.9, a trajectory that suggests households are growing incrementally more optimistic. Long-term inflation expectations also edged in the right direction, slipping to 3.3% from the preliminary 3.4%.
Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari delivered a pointed shift in his rate outlook Friday, saying he now expects one interest rate increase this year rather than the cut he had been projecting as recently as March. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Kashkari tied the reversal directly to the inflation surge stemming from the Middle East conflict. “In March, I had penciled in one rate cut by the end of the year. In June, I’ve changed that to one rate hike by the end of the year,” he said. “It’s a pencil, and so we’re going to have to see how the data comes in.” The comments arrive just over a week after the FOMC voted to hold rates steady, adding another hawkish voice to a Fed that is increasingly signaling its next move may be up rather than down.
The U.S. goods trade deficit widened sharply in May, hitting $105.8 billion against a forecast of $85 billion as imports jumped 3.6% and exports fell 5.4%. Catalysts were a combination of weakening external demand at a time when the domestic economy is already navigating elevated inflation and rising rate uncertainty. On the supply side, wholesale inventories rose a modest 0.3%, coming in below forecasts, while retail inventories edged up 0.6%, slightly ahead of expectations.
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The Nasdaq Composite is winding up the week under fresh pressure, with Nasdaq 100 futures sliding 1.3%. A report that OpenAI might delay its IPO until next year rattled an already fragile AI trade. S&P 500 futures are off 0.5% and Dow futures are shedding 94 points, or 0.2%, as concerns over the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending move back to the forefront of investor thinking. Over the past five trading sessions, the Nasdaq Composite is currently down about 5.2%.
The OpenAI news, reported by the New York Times, points to SpaceX’s underwhelming post-IPO performance and broader volatility in AI-related shares as factors behind the potential delay. The ripple effects landed quickly on chip stocks, with JPMorgan traders capturing the market’s anxiety in a note to clients, flagging concerns about the “sustainability of their infrastructure spending given the delay in funding from the capital markets.”
Here’s a look at where things stand as of pre-morning trading:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 51,703 Down 0.42%
Nasdaq Composite: 25,099 Down 1.01%
S&P 500: 7,310 Down 0.64%
SK Hynix and Samsung are preparing to drop a pair of landmark investment announcements that highlight just how aggressively South Korea’s memory giants are racing to meet AI-driven demand. Samsung Group is poised to unveil a $646 billion spending package spanning the next decade, according to Bloomberg, a commitment that would rank among the largest corporate investment pledges.
As expected, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) is passing rising costs along to consumers, hiking prices on its iPad and MacBook lineups after the company said it could no longer absorb the surging cost of memory and storage chips being driven higher by the AI industry’s insatiable appetite for data center capacity.
Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Day is showing some cracks this year, with household spending down 16% according to Bloomberg, a notable pullback that suggests cost-conscious consumers may be pulling back on discretionary purchases even during one of the retail calendar’s biggest promotional events.
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Gerelyn Terzo is the author of dividend investing handbook "Dividend Investing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too." A veteran financial journalist, she covers agri-finance for outlets like Global AgInvesting and the broader stock market and personal finance for 24/7 Wall Street. She began at CNBC and later helped launch Fox Business in New York. Gerelyn currently resides in Woodland Park, Colorado and dabbles in nature photography as a hobby.
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