News and analysis

Binance Coin (BNB) is up 7.4% this week to $861.00, outperforming the broader crypto market where Bitcoin (BTC) has added 2.6% to $121,836. BNB broke above the $800 resistance in late July and successfully retested this level in August, with prices now targeting the $900 mark and potentially the trend resistance at $1,000, which may serve as a temporary pause point. The steady uptrend reflects the coin’s growing popularity, supported by a broadly positive crypto backdrop. Bitcoin has finally cleared the $117,000–$120,000 resistance zone, setting a new all-time high at $124,544. If BTC holds above $120,000, its rally could accelerate toward $155,000–$165,000, while BNB may continue climbing toward $1,000.

Amazon stock price is gradually gaining momentum again. The bullish rebound from its lows at nearly $211.50 ten days ago up to the closing price at nearly $224.50 on Wednesday is a clear confirmation of resuming the positive stance by the crowd after a plop down from the direct vicinity of historical peaks around $235 hot on the trail of the e-commerce giant's quarterly report released on July 31. It seems that every adequate investor already realised at that moment that an excuse behind the sharp markdown was not worth a straw from the very beginning. Not only were the Q2 figures solid, but Amazon also projected its current quarter's revenue well above consensus expectations. Meanwhile, a hard-to-discover weakness in the non-core cloud segment of Amazon's business was rather well-fingered and thus overplayed. Now when those temporary lower have been properly bought out by all interested parties, market price justice is being restored.

The new driver for this was the announcement of adding perishable foods to same-day delivery yesterday, on August 13. This gave the asset price an extra 1.4% gain within the last trading session to let it almost touch $225, while consistently growing price lows have been drawn on the charts since August 4. Looks like a good technical sign for the next crowded purchase very soon! Amazon's online sales could grow even more after this, as it allowed Amazon Prime's loyalty program members to order for free even more items like milk, strawberries or frozen dinners alongside electronics to the doorstep of a consumer to challenge the same kind of services by Walmart, Instacart or Uber Eats, as the three most popular rival examples in the US. Shares of Instacart, were down 11.5% over the same day.

Amazon plans to occupy 2,300 cities with this new service by the end of 2025. They are reportedly investing as much as $4 billion to bring same-day and next-day deliveries to 4,000 rural communities. Those who pay $14.99 monthly or $139 annually for being part of Amazon Prime will not pay an extra fee for the new service, while ordinary shoppers without a Prime membership can also use this new offer if paying $12.99 regardless of their order size. On the old Amazon Prime conditions, its members had to pay an additional $9.99 per month to receive perishable grocery orders if the sum of the order was above $35. Walmart+ now costs $98 per year, but Amazon is collecting its own client base and having its own advantages. So the competition will continue, of course, but Amazon also lowered its minimum order threshold to just $25 to threaten rivals in the field of one-off purchases.

Going back to the story with recent quarterly figures, Amazon's major business of delivering goods is literally thriving. The company posted its online store sales of $61.5 billion, an 11% annual gain. Pushing suppliers to pull forward inventories to ensure vast supply on cheaper prices contributed to fresh absolute records for the spring and summer season, with equity per share soaring to $1.68 this time against $1.25 on August 1,2024 and $1.32 in preliminary consensus estimates for the last quarter of 2025. Because of Amazon's focus on making its prices for consumers as low as possible, and its delivery time as small as they can, with Amazon's variety of products they are holding a number one position as the globally most popular e-retailer. Amazon's advertising earnings are also growing faster than expected, up 23% to reach $15.7 billion. For Q3 2025, Amazon expects its net sales between $174.0 billion and $179.5 billion vs Wall Street's preliminary consensus of $173 billion. A great progress in their forward guidance for the public!

As to its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS profit margins contracted to 32.9% from as much as 39.5% in Q1 and 35.5% in Q2 2024. But that was probably the result of enhancing investments into the AI infrastructure to earn even more money later. I don’t see any tragedy in this fact, therefore and I could mention launching Amazon's AI-based products like Alexa+, DeepFleet and Bedrock AgentCore here. Now, it seems, the market majority agrees with such an opinion of mine. And that just means we'll go step by step together to $250 for starters. And for the main course we'll eat $275, I bet. AWS still offered a 17.5% surplus in its sales to $30.9 billion, which was close to $30.77 billion, widely expected. Well, sales for Microsoft’s Azure competing cloud service rose 39%, while Google Cloud added 32% YoY, but for me, this is the reason to buy and hold all those three advancing stocks. Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy noted in his post-earnings speech that Amazon’s cloud business will "get better each quarter," as demand is outpacing capacity and the AI efforts are only starting to "play out" as soon as it improves customers' experiences and cloud products' efficiency. I also strongly believe in this.

Litecoin (LTC) is up 6.6% this week to $132, outperforming the broader crypto market where Bitcoin (BTC) has gained just 0.7% to $119,693. The rally is fuelled by a 12% monthly surge in active addresses on the Litecoin network and a growing share of long-term holders, which adds to the coin’s stability. Open interest in LTC futures has also peaked at $1.2 billion, providing additional support. Prices broke above the $120 resistance in early August and are now approaching the key $140 level. A breakout here could pave the way for a move toward $160, although strong pullbacks are likely at that point.

The Federal Reserve can now clearly burn itself the looming victory over inflation into an asset. The recent data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ on CPI (consumer price index) contains its annual indication at 2.7% on August 12, which matches its level in June exactly. Wall Street expert estimates suggested some faster pace of 2.8%. On a monthly basis, the CPI only rose by a modest 0.2%, which was slower than 0.3% in June. Thus, month-on-month inflationary pressure for the end consumer, if we multiply this 0.2% rate by 12 months, does not go beyond 2.4% in total. This level of 2.4% already corresponds to the annual figure shown during a three-month period from April to June, and apparently, the CPI statistics will return to this 2.4% station soon.

The S&P 500 immediately soared by 0.85% to touch and retest its historical highs' area above 6,430 to keep the mid-term rally stage in play. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite already surpassed its all-time high by 150 points in the first half hour to follow the CPI release. It is now set above 21,600, and is unlikely to be stopped somewhere on the way to its first power point of 22,000. That corresponds to 23,775 for the USTech100, a select index for a group of largest companies on Nasdaq, keeping 25,000 and then 27,500 further in mind. The U.S. Dollar Index against a basket of other reserve currencies has acquired a very distinct negative momentum, so far limited within a 0.5% slide, but more speculative deals until the end of August may promise more profit in the bearish bet here for the Greenback short-term. A test of at least 95.50 support for USD seems inevitable over time as well as the continuing Wall Street climb. The extension of no extra tariff trade pass for China by U.S. president Trump for another 90 days will add much to the bullish pattern for stocks.

A 73,000 jobs in the Nonfarm payroll report on August 1, with as much as 258,000 downward revision to June and July numbers already led to a nearly 80% bets for the Fed's rate cut two times in a row, in September and December. If we take into consideration today's weak CPI data, then the coming Fed's gathering on September 17. CME FedWatch tool shows this chance is approaching 95%. The market also estimates the chance of a bold 0.5% reduction in borrowing costs by December at only 40%, while more than 50% of traders expect a 0.75% rate cut. In fact, this means either two cuts of 0.25%, or one of 0.25% plus one of 0.5%. The second scenario sounds extreme, however. Anyway, the Fed has nowhere else to go. They will simply have to bite the bullet and cut rates, otherwise they will be the ones to blame for the slowdown in the economy or for the stock market fall which could be provoked if the regulator's steps would not match at all the crowd's expectations which are clearly formed. Again, any future heads of the Fed to replace Jerome Powell are unlikely to want to ruin their odds by voting against rate cuts while waiting for a possible appointment next spring.

Fed's chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues will, of course, say that they achieved this by keeping interest rates high to keep price pressure in check, even though inflation has been more likely restricted due to natural economic causes as well as slowing consumer spending. The Fed will now have a harder time in terms of further insisting on elevated rates drug for the imaginary economic stability, since the central bankers' endlessly vocal worries that Trump's tariff wars might fuel inflation have proven unfounded. While they won't admit it, they will stand there in anti-inflation victory laps whether they are its architects or not. In the end, the reason for Fed's future actions is not so important. What actually matters is only that the already stagnating or probably even cooling labour market, now combined with declining consumer price indicators, give them reason to launch the rate cut cycle with their heads held high. The Fed's new dovish stance could be carved in granite as early as the Jackson Hole policy symposium, scheduled on August 21-23.