News and analysis

U.S. stock indices are still practicing a world-class poker face, staying close to their historically record levels in response to all tariff-related verbal attacks. Most investors are probably considering those threats to cross-border trade as rather test-driving sound bites.

On the weekend, U.S. president Donald Trump intensified his recent trade war activity by warning of slapping 30% tariffs on all goods imported from Europe. “We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, Trade Deficits," he wrote in his social media account. Hot on the trail of Trump's announcement, French president Emmanuel Macron said the EU bloc should be ready for a trade war to “defend European interests resolutely” but most other EU leaders, including in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, called for more calm. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he has talked directly to Trump: “We want to use this time now, the two and half weeks until August 1 to find a solution. I am really committed to this”. Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, shared her trust in “a fair agreement” as “It would make no sense to trigger a trade war between the two sides of the Atlantic”. The Dutch Prime Minister, Dick Schoof, mentioned an aim to reach a “mutually beneficial” deal with the U.S.

The head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen calls for mutual conditions to dispute, pausing any trade retaliation against the US. “We have always been clear that we prefer a negotiated solution with the US. This remains the case,” she said. Previously, the EU shared its plans to hit the US with various levies up to €21 billion of annual exports to Europe, due to come into effect since July 15, but these measures now would be suspended. This finally reassured the markets, which had no time enough to become too nervous. The futures for the S&P 500 broad barometer opened well above 6,200 points on July 14. Though, the index may test some depth below this psychological mark in the next couple of days, but is unlikely to go into a wider pullback. As a positive driver the corporate earnings season on Wall Street will start on July 15 with quarterly reports from the banking segment.

And for the largest banks, such as JPMorgan, Citigroup, The Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Wells Fargo and others, the balance and profit indications are expected to grow. Banking institutions may owe this to their good profits from growing price of equity portfolios as well as to growing chances for lower interest rates, since more efforts by the US Federal Reserve to reduce borrowing costs are likely in the second half of the year. Just about a week ago, there appeared a reason to figure that the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues were almost ready to give up.

A paper released by New York and San Francisco Federal Reserve banks and counted New York Fed president John Williams as a co-author mentioned the prospect of setting US short-term interest rate target at "near zero levels" at some point in coming years as real, even though "the risk" of returning to super low levels was estimated as being "currently at the lower end of the range observed over the past fifteen years”. Yet, the authors added that the chance of a return to near-zero rates “remains significant over the medium to long term…due to recent elevated uncertainty”. Of course, a near-zero federal funds rate target is closely associated with periods of economic crisis since 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic time since March 2020. It would seem this does not apply to today at all, but such articles are unlikely to appear without any reason. Market got this sign, or hidden hint, that the U.S. central bankers could be inclined to move at least two or three steps down in terms of interest rates, since the situation of moderate uncertainty is already a given.

Recalling the tariff issue once again, Trump has fired off more than 20 letters to partner countries in early July, containing his allegedly final warning on imposing higher levies for import, yet with deadlines for making new deals to be replaced by August 1. Thus, all trading partners still can avoid increased tariff troubles if they manage to settle all terms of agreements with the White House before the date. Markets are clearly hoping for a positive outcome, that proper deals will be struck, or maybe the crowds perceive the potential impact of tariffs on their investments as quite limited against the bullish momentum in leading tech assets. We feel, the quarterly earnings season, which is just getting underway, could provide additional bullish momentum for the S&P 500 toward 6,400-6,450 even before the end of this summer, if some of the trade tensions at least are successfully resolved by August 1, or the deadlines are pushed back again. It's also clear that interest rates in America will not be changed in July or August, but the fact of growing interest rate cut expectations may already contribute to the rally upwards.

With Wall Street being at record levels once again, the Technology Select Sector ETF (XLK) climbed another 12.5% from 230 in early June to 258.70 at the intraday peak on July 10. The world's most valuable companies are reaching new milestones, including Microsoft breaking its long-time psychological $500 barrier, with now $3.75 billion of market caps and Nvidia's $4 billion absolute achievement. Tesla, with its "only" $1 trillion, currently looks like the most undervalued super unicorn, although it is arguably a much more AI-innovative and diversified company. Tesla's apparently temporary slide from its recent top range between $350 and $370 over the last couple of months to its lower end below $300 appears to be very politicised amid its founding father Elon Musk's verbal activity in X that should have little bearing on his actual business.

This opinion is supported by a sudden 5% surge in Tesla share price within one trading session in sync with even the slightest appropriate news coming. Tesla jumped from $295 to a bit above $310 before the end of the week, with the investing crowd whooping like a bee sting each of them, when Reuters said Tesla was seeking approval to launch its promising robotaxi services in Arizona. Despite the clearly experimental scale of this service so far in Austin, Texas, where they launched a limited robotaxi test program, not to mention other U.S. states or China, an enthusiastic sentiment of investors cannot be hidden any more. After the initial process of debugging in details, numerous Tesla sceptics are going to become confused.

It all sounds like the last call to buy Tesla stocks while they are still trading around $300 per share, and not somewhere between $420 and $480 as we expect. The ultimate profit margin for Tesla shareholders over the rest of 2025, using buy strategies after retracements, could be several times higher than the residual income from extra investments into NVIDIA or Microsoft, since at least two-thirds of their potential ways up for this year are probably left behind.

As for Arizona, Tesla CEOs reportedly approached the state authorities in late October to initiate certification for an autonomous vehicle ride-sharing service. An approval is expected by the month-end or before the end of the summer, with Reuters citing the state’s transportation department. "They have expressed interest in operating within the Phoenix Metro area," Arizona’s authorities told Reuters. The application was to test and operate EVs both with and without human drivers. Besides, Musk said that Tesla plans to extend the robotaxi service to a larger area in Austin as soon as this weekend and then launch it in the San Francisco Bay Area within the next couple of months.

The electric cars themselves, the network of electric filling stations, including its use by rivals, then robots, a completely innovative AI recognition system, and now extending full self-drive (FSD) technologies on robotaxis - all these are components of rising payback. If Tesla market value had to pay some fleeting price for Elon Musk’s political style, his new America Party project will turn the page soon, as we feel. The America Party has no presidential ambitions of its own, as Musk has confirmed that he is not going to nominate his alternative candidate for the White House chair, Musk himself cannot run there under any circumstances, even theoretically, as he was born outside America. The struggle for a small share of Congressional seats with opportunities to bargain with both Republicans and Democrats for crucial votes on important bills does not threaten the system so much that Musk or his business suffer significantly.

Those who refused to buy Tesla cars because of Musk's political views when he supported Trump, whether in the U.S. or Europe, do not make up a large proportion of Tesla's customer force. This is more of an anti-PR campaign than something strongly related to business reality. Again, the America Party project may free Elon Musk from the baggage surrounding president Trump. Trump haters would stop being Musk's haters, in simple words. And this may even improve the base for Tesla branding loyalty. As to robotaxis effectiveness, not single cases, but statistics will determine the robotaxi’s error rate soon. This error rate will become lower due to FSD’s reliance on machine learning for the algorithm's self-education. Then public trust in FSD will grow to transform it into the major trump card in Elon Musk's pack.

Basic Attention Token (BAT) is adding 13.4% to $0.1441 this week, outperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) is rising by 8.1% to $117,938. Altcoins are rallying across the board after Bitcoin broke through the key resistance at $108,000–110,000 and surged toward the $118,000–120,000 range. This rally appears to be largely driven by technical factors, with momentum alone fueling further gains.

BAT is benefiting from this broad upswing, pushing toward the resistance at $0.1500. If positive sentiment continues and the market sustains its current trajectory, the token could move even higher, with the next target set around $0.2000.

A fast and even accelerating way up of the chief AI chip supplier NVIDIA to become the world's first $4 trillion company is not only satisfying to me. Being a major part of my broader vision of the whole tech segment, Nvidia's new and now absolute record in market caps really helped me to meet some of my target levels for previously lagging chip-related companies. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is reportedly planning his Beijing visit next week ahead of the official launching of its new and cutting-edge AI chip tailored especially for the Chinese market. On July 8, Financial Times described a modified version of Blackwell RTX Pro 6000 model, freshly redesigned to comply with all those scrutinized U.S. export controls measures. The additional news that NVIDIA’s Huang was going to meet US president Trump just a day before leaving for China trip should cement its pioneer AI chip status. Previously, Huang criticized new export restrictions under Trump as those barriers threatened to stop Nvidia from selling its H20 chip in the China market. A timely heart-to-heart talk could be the key to resolving the contradictions for Nvidia and a wider range of interested parties. Riding this wave, Nvidia shares not only climbed to their all-time highs around $164.50, but took the Nasdaq Composite index skyward as well to make it setting a second-straight daily closing record, now at 20,630 points. In turn, this immediately triggered a vigorous continuation of the bull rally in Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Applied Materials (AMAT) and other global manufacturers involved in doing GPUs (graphics processing units), APIs (application programming interfaces and other parts for big data and high-performance computing).

AMD occupies almost a seven times smaller niche of the global market compared to Nvidia. However, growth based on the elimination of barriers for the segment is growth for everyone. I’ve introduced you to more investment rating updates for AMD about a month ago, sharing my personal view after the first ten days of June that a breakthrough above $120 would lead AMD stock price very soon to its nearest technical target at $150 per share. During the trading session on July 10, AMD gained 4.16%, five times faster than NVIDIA on the same date, and has already been at $145.80. This marks a more than 20% gain in 30 days. So, I'm one small step away from my first goal of $150, also keeping in mind a return to $180 as my next goal.

Some analysts, however, go even further in their AMD optimism. HSBC upgraded its target price to $200, citing "a stronger-than-expected pricing power" in AMD's AI GPU lineup and "growing confidence" in the company’s "data center roadmap". What's most important, HSBC was a brokerage, which had suddenly downgraded AMD in January to nearly $100 per share, and now admits AMD’s new MI350 chips may "command higher prices than initially assumed" to perform on par with Nvidia’s Blackwell-based B200. HSBC lifted its 2026 AI revenue forecast for AMD to $15.1 billion, 57% above Wall Street consensus, as average selling prices may reach $25,000 per unit against their prior estimate of $15,000. When someone very big like HSBC is waiting for $200 and is unlikely to leave this boat before then, $180 looks like an almost guaranteed easy ride.

Meanwhile, I wrote about AMAT that as soon as it rises to $180, its further horizon would open immediately to the next nearest target price of at least $200. Just look at the charts to witness that AMAT's intraday high on July 10 was already at $199.42, with a closing price being above $198, i.e. less than $2 away from my $200 per share. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs initiated its coverage on AMAT the same day with a Buy rating and its inner price target of $225. Am I now also expecting new price records from this semiconductor equipment maker? Yes, I am, as it is very well-diversified in gadget producers and world regions. And NVIDIA's current example of successful barrier removal is even more inspiring for AMAT and some others.