📈Turbulence Gave Banks a Boost: Market swings from Trump’s shifting tariff plans have sent investors scrambling to adjust. As such, banks are cashing in. Goldman Sachs led the pack with a record-breaking $4.3B in trading revenue, $600M above Q2 expectations.

📈Crypto Week Win #1: Crypto Week is off to a good start as Congress has passed the GENIUS Act. This bill allows non-banks to issue stablecoins (crypto pegged to the U.S. dollar) and introduces a few new transperancy rules. Look out for more crypto wins as Crypto Week unfolds.

📈Silver Shines in Gold’s Shadow: Gold’s up 28.5% in 2025 (no surprises here), but silver’s quietly outpaced it rising 32% to a 14-year high. Silver has industrial uses so it is more sensitive to economic conditions compared to gold. The gold-silver ratio is 87.4 (higher than usual), hinting that silver could still have room to run.

📈LaDooDoo: Shares in Pop Mart International fell 6% on Wednesday, a day after the elf toymaker issued an extremely bullish first-half earnings forecast. Pop Mart expects profits to jump 350% year-to-date for the first half of 2025, but Wall Street seems to think the hype has peaked.

🌎 Epstein Files: Unsealed? In response to several claims that Trump had numerous and deep connections with Jeffery Epstein he ordered his Attorney-General to unseal the grand-jury transcripts (the receipts), however, only time will tell if the courts are willing to do so.

🌎 Natural Consequences are Consequenc-ing: US CPI increased 0.3% in June, making a 2.7% year-on-year increase (2.9% for core CPI) - analysts are warning it is almost entirely due to the inflationary impact of tariffs. Some of which are as high as 54% (RIP China).

🌎 Carney is Steeling Trump’s Playbook: PM of Canada, Mark Carney, recently announced a 50% tariff on steel imports that exceed 2024 quantities. The only exempted country: the good ol’ USA.

🌎 One Big Beautiful Tax: Although the bill sailed through the US Congress, one provision has already sparked opposition: gamblers would lose their tax exemption on losses by paying a 10% levy on those losses. Wins we understand, but losses is rough.

👔Unbanning Chips: The U.S. is letting Nvidia resume AI chip sales to China under the rare earths trade deal inked in April. CEO Jensen Huang warned the ban risks boosting China’s own tech. With licenses now approved, Nvidia’s back in a market that made up 13% of its 2024 sales.

👔Half a Million Reasons to Fix the System: Former Treasury boss Ken Henry says poor policies have cost the average Aussie worker ~$500k in missed wage growth over 25 years. He blames broken tax rules, red tape, and delays in environmental approvals for the slowing down of the economy.

👔Consulting Confusion: The Australian government has slashed the amount it spends on KPMG by two-thirds over the last year (A$300M → A$106M). While this aligns with the Albanese govt. efforts to curb consultant use, Accenture’s government contracts almost doubled.

👔 Back To The Cubicle Buddy: Hope you enjoyed that WFH era, because, the back-to-office comeback is officially corporate canon. According to Bloomberg, over 50% of Fortune 100 companies now require full-time office attendance, a massive leap from just 5% of companies in 2023.

🤪 Goats to get some R&R: A pregnant goat stranded on a Hawaii cliff for nearly a week and was rescued by climbers. The goat was first spotted on July 7 but she did not want to go, resisting early attempts at capture.

🤪 UNESCO World Heritage +1: The Murujuga Cultural Landscape in WA, Australia (an area with over 1 million rock carvings and some dating back to 50,000 years ago) has been granted UNESCO World Heritage status.

🤪 Saving Metropolis and Your Local Shelter Stray: James Gunn’s Superman was a box office success, taking in $220m in its opening weekend globally but it also led to an increase of 500% for google searches of “adopt a dog near me”.

🤪 Chinese Maglev > Shinkansen: On Monday, China’s Donghu Laboratory tested its newest maglev train. It accelerated to 650km/hr in under 7 seconds - a clear win for China, placing it far in the lead of the maglev race.