Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
📉 US inflation cools to 3.5% as gas prices tumble
🇨🇳 China posts slowest growth since 2022 as investment slumps
🛢️ Oil tops $86 as US strikes Iran again
💳 Stripe and Advent bid $53B for PayPal
💻 IBM's profit and revenue miss expectations
Plus: 🌍 8 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, 💰 6 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.
📰 Top News
| 📉 US inflation cools to 3.5% as gas prices tumble LINK |
- US inflation slowed to 3.5% in June from May's 4.2%, as consumer prices fell 0.4% over the month — the steepest monthly drop since April 2020 — driven by tumbling gasoline prices, sending stock futures higher.
- Falling energy costs powered the cooldown, with the energy category dropping 5.7% and gasoline specifically down 9.7%, helped by a brief ceasefire in the Iran conflict that has since broken down, threatening to reverse the relief.
- Core inflation, stripping out food and energy, eased to 2.6% annually from 2.9%, below the 2.8% forecast, giving the Fed room to hold policy steady while it watches whether renewed Middle East tension pushes prices back up.
| 🇨🇳 China posts slowest growth since 2022 as investment slumps LINK |
- China's economy grew 4.3% in the second quarter, its weakest pace since late 2022, missing the 4.5% economists expected and slowing from 5% in the first quarter as investment slumped and consumer spending stayed weak.
- Urban fixed-asset investment, covering real estate and infrastructure, fell 5.7% in the first half from a year earlier, worse than the 4.9% drop forecast, as local governments diverted money to debt cleanup and ran short of viable projects.
- With growth below Beijing's 4.5%-to-5% target, economists at the Economist Intelligence Unit expect stronger stimulus in the third quarter, including an interest-rate cut, even as June industrial output rose 5.3% and retail sales edged up 1%.
| 🛢️ Oil tops $86 as US strikes Iran again LINK |
- Crude climbed after renewed U.S. military strikes on Iran, with Brent up 1.23% to $85.77 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate rising 1.01% to $80.14, as Washington reimposed a naval blockade near the Strait of Hormuz.
- The overnight seven-hour operation, involving aircraft, drones and warships, hit Iranian missile, drone and coastal defense sites, with U.S. Central Command saying the aim was to weaken Tehran's ability to threaten commercial shipping through the vital oil chokepoint.
- Analyst Saul Kavonic said hopes for a quick reopening of the Strait were premature, warning oil could retest $100 a barrel if the current intensity persists for weeks, or climb higher still if regional oil infrastructure is targeted.
| 💳 Stripe and Advent bid $53B for PayPal LINK |
- Payments company Stripe and private-equity firm Advent International have offered $60.50 a share to buy PayPal, valuing it above $53 billion and marking a 28% premium to the stock's Tuesday close of $47.37.
- The pair secured roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing and would each take an equal stake, but PayPal has not responded and people familiar with the talks cautioned that no deal is certain.
- PayPal, once worth about $360 billion in 2021, has lost ground to Apple Pay, Google Pay and others, though its first-quarter revenue still rose 7% to $8.35 billion on roughly $464 billion in payment volume.
| 💻 IBM's profit and revenue miss expectations LINK |
- IBM shares dropped more than 23% at Tuesday's open — shaping up to be its worst day in decades — after quarterly profit of $2.93 per share and $17.2 billion in revenue missed Wall Street's $3.01 and $17.86 billion forecasts.
- CEO Arvind Krishna blamed weakness in the Z mainframe business, saying clients in late June shifted spending toward servers, storage and memory to lock in supply ahead of expected price increases, denting sales of the associated software.
- The warning rippled across tech, dragging down software names including ServiceNow, Salesforce and Microsoft, and raising broader questions about whether companies are seeing enough near-term returns from their artificial intelligence spending.
🌍 Macro News
- OPEC cut its 2026 oil demand growth forecast again, citing the Iran war. LINK
- US and UK unveil joint plan to align tokenized finance regulations. LINK
- ECB picks 36 firms including Deutsche Bank to pilot digital euro. LINK
- USTR Greer rejects EU control over global tech regulation. LINK
- US refunded $81 billion in tariffs after Supreme Court ruling. LINK
- Senate bill targets China, India with tariffs over Russian oil purchases. LINK
- EU imported record LNG volumes from Russia's Yamal facility in H1 2026. LINK
- Bailey calls UK's 16-year growth stagnation a major structural problem. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- ASML again raises 2026 sales forecast on booming AI chip demand. LINK
- Uber shares fall on report of advanced Delivery Hero acquisition talks. LINK
- DeepSeek seeks new funding round targeting roughly $70 billion valuation. LINK
- Top five US banks post record $49 billion quarterly profit. LINK
- Paramount Skydance reaffirms plan to complete Warner Bros takeover. LINK
- CleanSpark signs $6.6 billion, 20-year data center lease deal. LINK
- Lucid shares crash on bankruptcy rumors, later denied by company. LINK
- Few Nvidia H200 chips have reached China despite new export licenses. LINK
- Meta sued by ex-employees over AI-driven, discriminatory layoff selections. LINK
- ChangXin Memory prices Shanghai IPO at $85.2 billion valuation. LINK
📈 Stocks
💰 Deal Flow
- Reflection AI signs $1 billion computing deal with Nebius. LINK
- Zuckerberg and Chan back Neko Health's $700 million funding round. LINK
- Flex doubles valuation to $1.2 billion on stablecoin banking growth. LINK
- Velocity raises $38 million to expand stablecoin payment platform. LINK
- Nous Research nears $1.5 billion valuation in new funding round. LINK
- Mitsubishi completes $7.5 billion Aethon Energy acquisition, its largest ever. LINK
📑 Research & Reports
- Goldman economist warns AI's economic payoff may take years to materialize. LINK
- Morgan Stanley warns local opposition threatens AI data center buildout. LINK
- Bank of America warns of possible stock market volatility shock. LINK
- Fed's Barr says AI's economic impact remains highly uncertain. LINK
- Fed's Bowman urges responsible bank innovation with AI, not strict rules. LINK
- Wall Street banks bet on AI-driven surge in dealmaking fees. LINK