Published on 10/07/2025 06:46 PM
The Nasdaq Composite touched a fresh record on Thursday as traders tried to shake off the tariff tumult.
The tech-heavy benchmark hit an all-time high shortly after the open before easing slightly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 33 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 hovered around the flatline.
The US Food and Drug Administration is starting to publish letters the agency sent to pharmaceutical companies when their drugs were rejected, detailing information that until now has mostly been hidden from investors and the public.
To kick off the initiative, the FDA published more than 200 letters Thursday morning related to drug applications submitted years ago that were eventually approved. The letters were redacted to protect confidential business information.
“We had a long set of meetings with our lawyers to determine that we can do this,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin.
French authorities raided the local headquarters of Nestlé SA near Paris on Thursday, as the scandal into the Swiss company’s treatment of bottled mineral waters deepens.
The evidence-gathering inspections, first reported by Radio France, were confirmed by the country’s anti-fraud office, known as DGCCRF. The case concerns Nestlé’s use of prohibited filtering methods for natural mineral waters.
The inquiry followed a complaint lodged by consumer rights group Foodwatch against Nestlé and Nestlé Waters, the DGCCRF said. Nestle didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Applications for US unemployment benefits fell for a fourth week to the lowest in two months during a period that included the Independence Day holiday.
Initial claims decreased by 5,000 to 227,000 in the week ended July 5. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 235,000 applications.
Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.97 million in the previous week, still the highest since late 2021, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
US dollar volatility may have settled down in recent weeks, but analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. see plenty of reasons to think it may start trading as a “riskier” currency again.
Analysts Karen Reichgott Fishman and Lexi Kanter list elevated policy uncertainty related to trade tariffs and Federal Reserve independence, fiscal fears and diversification away from US assets as potential triggers.
Stock futures were little changed Thursday as traders continued to try to shake off the tariff tumult a day after Nvidia led the Nasdaq Composite to a fresh record.
S&P 500 futures traded 0.1% lower, while Nasdaq-100 futures were around flat. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 75 points, or 0.2%.
Brazil spent months flying under the radar as Donald Trump upended global trade. Now that it’s in the spotlight, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may stand to benefit from the attention.
Hours after the US president threatened to hit Brazil with 50% tariffs, the leader known universally as Lula announced that, rather than rush to appease Trump, his government would retaliate with measures of its own.
It’s a decision that sets Brazil on a path of escalation with its No. 2 trading partner at a time when Lula is already confronted with a slowing economy, a fragile fiscal outlook, limping voter approval going into an election year — and the prospect of another currency selloff after the real sank sharply on Wednesday’s news. The real fell another 0.8% against the dollar when markets opened Thursday.
Delta Air Lines Inc. reinstated a profit outlook for the year and said travelers are coming back, prompting its stock to surge amid a fresh sense of confidence in the beaten-down US consumer. The carrier expects an adjusted profit of $5.25 to $6.25 a share this year, according to a statement on Thursday as Delta reported better-than-expected second-quarter results.
Travel in the US is climbing back after approval of US President Donald Trump’s tax-cut and spending package and progress in tariff discussions, Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in an interview. Corporate travel is strengthening, and consumers have become “a little numb” to the ongoing trade disputes, choosing to book travel again in the latter part of the year.
Peso traders were expecting the Argentine currency to strengthen as soybean exporters exchanged record amounts of dollars after selling their harvest. Instead, the opposite happened: The peso, which has been weakening against the US currency since April, slid another 4%.
Three months after President Javier Milei lifted Argentina’s currency controls, early investor optimism has given way to growing caution. With midterm elections looming in October and mounting concerns over the country’s current account deficit, many are now hedging against a potential decline in the peso and other local assets, including JPMorgan, which started unwinding its position in Argentine peso-denominated Treasury notes.
Blackstone Inc. has raised its offer to buy UK landlord Warehouse REIT Plc, topping the one announced last month by Tritax Big Box REIT Plc.
The alternative asset manager has offered 113.4 pence a share in cash for the company, valuing Warehouse at £489 million ($666 million), according to a statement Thursday. Including a dividend due to be paid later this month, the revised offer represents a total consideration of 115 pence a share, Blackstone said in the statement.
The offer represents a 3.6% premium to the cash-and-share bid made by Tritax, a proposal that Warehouse’s board had recommended shareholders accept, it added.
Portugal plans to sell a 49.9% stake in TAP SA, kicking off another attempt to privatise Europe’s largest wholly state-owned airline. Of the stake being sold, 5% will be for TAP workers, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said at a press conference in Lisbon on Thursday.
Europe’s largest full-service airlines — Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and British Airways owner IAG SA — have all gone public with their interest in TAP.
TAP stands out among a small batch of state-owned carriers still up for grabs in Europe, a region now dominated by the three major airline groups. Lufthansa in January completed the acquisition of a minority stake in Italian carrier ITA Airways, while Air France-KLM last year purchased a stake in SAS AB.
Nigeria secured a $747 million syndicated loan for a controversial highway that will link the nation’s commercial capital to a key coastal city.
The funding, led by Deutsche Bank AG, will finance construction of the first phase of the Lagos-Calabar highway, a 700-kilometer (435-mile) project initiated by President Bola Tinubu, the finance ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The $10 billion project was criticised by opposition leaders when it was first awarded in 2023 to a company that belongs to Gilbert Chagoury, a close confidante of the president. The presidency defended the project as vital to providing economic opportunities to coastal communities in the southern part of the country.
Shares of Delta Air Lines jumped about 11% premarket after the company reinstated its 2025 profit outlook and CEO Ed Bastian said bookings have stabilised.
Delta had pulled its outlook for the year in April. The airline now expects adjusted earnings of between $5.25 and $6.25 a share in 2025, down from a January forecast of more than $7.35 a share.
The carrier’s outlook for summer travel beat Wall Street expectations, with Bastian saying bookings have stabilised albeit at a lower level than the start of the year.
European stocks powered higher for a fourth day as investors snapped up mining shares. US stock futures paused after the S&P 500 closed just shy of an all-time high.
Anglo American Plc, Rio Tinto Plc and Glencore Plc rallied more than 4%, buoyed by commodity prices and signs that China is taking steps to curb industrial overcapacity. The stocks led gains in Europe’s Stoxx 600, which added 0.5% and was on track for its longest winning streak in a month.
In the US, S&P 500 contracts were little changed. Treasuries and the dollar held steady. Bitcoin dipped to around $111,000. Nvidia Corp. rose 0.6% in premarket trading. Delta Air Lines Inc. jumped 11% after restoring its full-year guidance.
Treasuries edged lower, paring the biggest rally in five weeks ahead of a sale of 30-year bonds and jobs data that may provide clues on future interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
US 10-year yields were one basis point higher at 4.34%, trimming a decline of seven basis points on Wednesday that was driven by strong demand for an offering of notes. Longer maturities rose slightly as the Treasury prepared to sell $22 billion of 30-year debt.
The auction should be “digested smoothly,” according to JP Morgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Jay Barry, who cited supportive valuations and low volatility. The market’s ability to absorb relatively large orders has improved to levels seen prior to “Liberation Day,” they added.
Euro Bonds Offer Treasury-Beating Yields for Local and US Buyers.
Linda Yaccarino’s exit as chief executive officer of X follows a long and contentious effort to win over advertisers dismayed by the platform’s direction under Elon Musk’s ownership.
Her departure paves the way for X to lean harder into a new identity as a source of data for artificial intelligence training, supporting xAI’s chatbot Grok, and spend less time and attention on wooing advertisers who may be skittish about their messages appearing alongside potentially damaging content.
X, previously known as Twitter, has long been dependent on advertising for the majority of its revenue. Before Musk’s takeover in 2022, advertising made up roughly 92% of total revenue at the company. The main part of Yaccarino’s job since she was hired in 2023 has been to convince advertisers that X is a safe place to market their brand and spend their money.
Bank of America expects firmer inflation on the horizon. “We expect inflation to accelerate over the coming months in large part due to tariff-related price increases,” wrote economist Stephen Juneau. “But tariffs aren’t the only reason to expect firmer inflation in the coming months; the rebound in stock prices is another.”
More specifically, the economist pointed out that the recent rebound in equity prices means that portfolio management fees should turn into a driver of inflation in the upcoming months.
The highest-ranking military officer of the US visited Seoul for talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts as President Donald Trump ratchets up pressure on his Asian allies over defense spending and trade.
General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held talks with South Korea’s Admiral Kim Myung-soo in Seoul on Thursday, Kim’s office said. The two military leaders will be joined by Japan’s General Yoshihide Yoshida for a trilateral meeting on Friday.
“They will assess the implementation of security cooperation among the three nations and discuss ways to further development and maintain the momentum of collaboration,” the South Korean military said in a statement. Yoshida is the highest-ranking Japanese military officer to visit South Korea in 15 years, it added.
Indonesian telecommunications tower company PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi is considering reviving a merger with rival PT Tower Bersama Infrastructure, people familiar with the matter said, which would mark the second such attempt in a decade.
The companies, both listed in Jakarta, have held early talks with prospective advisers about the merits of a potential combination that could create an entity worth about 90 trillion rupiah ($5.5 billion), the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
Shares of Dayamitra, known as Mitratel, have fallen about 17% this year, giving it a market value of roughly 45 trillion rupiah. Tower Bersama’s stock has dropped about 4%, valuing it at 45.8 trillion rupiah.
Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS Group AG have begun early pricing discussions with investors for a $4.25 billion debt package to help finance Sycamore Partners’ buyout of UK pharmacy Boots, according to people familiar with the matter.
The package is now being pre-marketed in multiple parts, as Bloomberg News previously reported: $2.25 billion in term loans and $2 billion in secured bonds, across different denominations.
Bankers are pitching a $750 million term loan at 400 to 425 basis points over the Secured Overnight Financing Rate and a discounted price of 99 cents on the dollar, said the people who were not authorised to speak publicly.
The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) dropped more than 1.8% in the premarket after President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva responded by saying his country will respond with similar tariffs targeting US products going into Brazil.
Asia markets closed mostly mixed on Thursday.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.44% to close at 39,646.36, while the Topix declined 0.56% to end the trading day at 2,812.34.
South Korea’s Kospi added 1.58% to 3,183.23 and the small-cap Kosdaq closed 0.93% higher at 797.7.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.59% to end the day at 8,589.2.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 rose 0.47% to 4,010.02.
JPMorgan is turning more positive on Vietnam stocks after the country’s trade deal announcement with the US, upgrading its position to overweight. This comes after Vietnam became the first Southeast Asian nation to strike a tariff deal with the US at a 20% rate.
South Korea’s central bank held its policy rate at 2.5%, keeping it steady at an almost three-year low.
South Korea’s economy contracted by 0.2% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of this year due to weak construction activity and softening export growth, while it remained flat on an year on year basis.
A delegation from India is expected to visit the US soon for trade talks, according to a Reuters report. India is among the few countries that are still negotiating a trade deal with Washington, as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war with the threat of sharply higher tariffs from August 1.
Investors are awaiting more developments on the economic front, as jobless claims data for the week ending July 5 is due out Thursday morning. Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting an increase of 2,000 to 235,000 from the previous week.
European market sentiment is bright on Thursday morning, with the regional Stoxx 600 index up 0.5% and most sectors in the green.
It comes as investors digest a slew of US tariff updates — though not yet one for the European Union, as negotiators scramble to strike a framework trade agreement.
Mining stocks are leading gains on the Stoxx 600, with the sector up 3.4%, lifting the UK’s FTSE 100 above a record intraday high set in March.
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the 50% tariff on copper imports, which he had announced the previous day, will take effect on August 1.
The decision was made after he received a national security assessment, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I am announcing a 50% TARIFF on Copper, effective August 1, 2025, after receiving a robust NATIONAL SECURITY ASSESSMENT,” Trump wrote.
Futures on Wall Street slipped early Thursday. The Dow futures are down 107 points, whereas the S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are down 0.25% and 0.29%, respectively in trading.
US stock futures were relatively unchanged on Wednesday evening. S&P 500 futures hovered around the flatline just after 6 pm ET, as did Nasdaq 100 futures. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were likewise flat.NewsLive TVMarketPopular CategoriesCalculatorsTrending NowLet's Connect with CNBCTV 18Network 18 Group :©TV18 Broadcast Limited. All rights reserved.