Finance

EVER SINCE President Donald Trump unveiled his Liberation Day tariffs in April, the world’s biggest trading relationship had been on the rocks. The European Union swung from trying to sweet-talk America into making a deal, to threatening retaliation. On July 27th dealmaking won out. At his golf course in Scotland the president and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, unveiled the outline of a preliminary trade agreement. The bloc has pulled off a tricky balancing act: making enough concessions to keep Mr Trump happy, while limiting the economic damage. More

Fast Money Live Event | June 5

The market may be trading around record highs, but the Verdence Capital Advisors CIO is worried trouble is lurking.
Megan Horneman, who oversees $4.1 billion in assets under management, thinks there’s too much complacency around the Aug. 1 U.S. trade deadline.

“This market is pricing in the perfect situation,” she told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday.
In addition to tariff concerns, she lists uncertainty regarding Federal Reserve policy and overbought conditions from a technical perspective as potential issues.
“Once we see that [rate cuts] might be priced off the table, coinciding with the fact that we’re not quite sure what’s going to happen with the tariff perspective, I think you can see a bit of a valuation correction,” said Horneman, who’s a former Deutsche Bank senior investment strategist.
Horneman is particularly concerned that technical levels are signaling overbought conditions in growth stocks — including Big Tech.
“These are things that we think might upset the rally that we’re seeing here,” she said.

Despite her short-term caution, Horneman considers herself a long-term bull and views pullbacks as opportunities. She lists international stocks among her top plays on market weakness.
“I’d warn that right now, they’re expensive from a valuation perspective [but] cheap compared to the U.S.,” she said. “They’ve been underloved for way too long, and I think you’re seeing some of that rotation just begin. I think that can continue.”
To navigate the uncertainty, her key advice to investors right now: Make sure you’re allocated appropriately.
“Fast Money” trader Guy Adami also sees concerns, citing the number of retail investors driving recent market gains.”Just in terms of valuation, things have gotten a tad frothy here,” he said on Monday’s show.
The S&P 500 closed at record highs every day last week. As of Friday’s close, the index is 16% higher over the past three months while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 21% over the same period.
— CNBC’s Natalie Zhang contributed to this article.
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LAST YEAR America charged levies averaging 2% on its imports of goods. Following the launch of President Donald Trump’s trade war, it now has an “effective” tariff of over 16%, the highest since the 1930s (see chart 1). And rates could go even higher. Mr Trump has written strongly worded letters to many of America’s biggest trading partners threatening further levies on August 1st. More

Fast Money Live Event | June 5

Former NBC Cable President Tom Rogers is dialing back his bullishness on Netflix.
The media trailblazer, who was a self-proclaimed “raging bull” on Netflix, told CNBC’s “Fast Money” this week he’s starting to worry — and listed competition with free content on YouTube as a headwind.

“[Netflix] still [has] more hit shows than all the other streaming services combined, but when you look at the growth of their sub[scriber] base and look at the amount of total engagement time from all viewers they get, the amount of viewing per viewer has gone down some,” said Rogers, who’s now executive chairman of AI company Claigrid.
Netflix saw the largest monthly viewership increase versus its peers in June, according to Nielsen. However, YouTube accounted for 13% of total monthly TV viewership, while Netflix had 8%. 
Rogers’ latest take comes after Netflix delivered a positive quarterly report on July 17.
“There was nothing wrong with its earnings at all,” said Rogers, who is also a CNBC contributor. “But engagement is what drives everything here. The amount of viewing it gets, it drives price increases, which drive programming budget, which drives more great programming.”
Netflix beat second-quarter top- and bottom-line estimates and raised its full-year guidance. However, since its earnings report, the streamer’s stock has declined by about 6% and is now down almost 11% since reaching a record high on June 30.

Rogers also predicts artificial intelligence will be a “double-edged sword” for Netflix in the near-term. On the one hand, he said it will aid the streamer’s targeted advertising and help cut programming costs. But it also allows independent content creators a leg up, which benefits YouTube.
“The line between professional and amateur content is going to get more and more blurry as AI tools in the hands of amateurs allow them to produce things that look incredibly professional,” he said. “I think AI in the hands of the creative community of YouTube could create a level of professional programming for YouTube which drives its viewership even further.”
YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, is up 2% year-to-date. 
Yet, Rogers still sees Netflix maintaining its status as the most valuable media company in the world. However, he said a lag is “something to watch for sure.”
Netflix spokesperson Emily Goldstein deferred comment to the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

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China on Saturday released a global action plan for artificial intelligence that called for international cooperation on tech development and regulation.
Premier Li Qiang announced China has proposed the establishment of a global AI cooperation organization, according to an official readout.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt met with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining on Thursday in the city ahead of the AI conference, according to a city announcement.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang spoke at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Saturday, July 26, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SHANGHAI — The tech race between the world’s two largest economies just intensified.
China on Saturday released a global action plan for artificial intelligence, calling for international cooperation on tech development and regulation.

The news came as the annual state-organized World Artificial Intelligence Conference kicked off in Shanghai with an opening speech by Premier Li Qiang, who announced that the Chinese government has proposed the establishment of a global AI cooperation organization, according to an official readout.
Days earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an American action plan for AI that included calls to reduce alleged “woke” bias in AI models and support the deployment of U.S. tech overseas.
“The two camps are now being formed,” said George Chen, partner at the Asia Group and co-chair of the digital practice.

“China clearly wants to stick to the multilateral approach while the U.S. wants to build its own camp, very much targeting the rise of China in the field of AI,” Chen said.
He noted how China may attract participants from its Belt and Road Initiative, while the U.S. will likely have the support of its allies, such as Japan and Australia.

In his speech, Premier Li emphasized China’s “AI plus” plan for integrating the tech across industries and said the country was willing to help other nations with the technology, especially in the Global South. The category loosely refers to less developed economies, especially countries outside the U.S. and European orbits.
Since 2022, the U.S. has sought to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors for training AI models. Earlier this month, U.S. chipmaker Nvidia said the U.S. was allowing it to resume shipments of a less advanced H20 chip to China after a roughly three-month pause.
However, China has been developing homegrown alternatives, which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang both praised and described as “formidable” during his third trip to China this month.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt met with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining on Thursday in the city ahead of the AI conference, according to a city announcement. Schmidt did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment. More

Chongqing’s mountainous, cyberpunk panoramas and sticky summer heat seem worlds away from flat and dry Detroit. But carmakers in the Chinese metropolis cannot stop drawing parallels with the American city. Standing outside one of Chongqing’s sprawling car-assembly plants, a boss at Changan, a state-owned auto giant, notes with pleasure that the sheer number of cars being produced in the city—some 2.5m last year—has earned it the moniker “Motown of China”. More

Deutsche Bank’s net profit reached 1.485 billion euros ($1.748 billion) in the second quarter, compared with a 1.2 billion forecast from Reuters.
The firm’s core investment banking unit reported a 3% year-on-year hike in revenue to 2.687 billion euros in the June quarter.

Illustration shows the logo of Deutsche Bank Brussels, Saturday 25 March 2023.
Nicolas Maeterlinck | Afp | Getty Images

Deutsche Bank on Thursday beat expectations on the bottom line and said it was on track to meet full-year targets, despite mixed results within its key investment banking unit and euro gains against the U.S. dollar.
Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 1.485 billion euros ($1.748 billion) in the second quarter, versus a 1.2 billion forecast from Reuters. It compares with a loss of 143 million euros in the June quarter of 2024, when earnings were hit by legal provisions linked to Deutsche Bank’s takeover of Postbank.

The lender’s revenues over the period came in at 7.804 billion euros, in line with a mean analyst forecast of  7.76 billion euros produced by LSEG.

Deutsche Bank Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach in a Thursday interview: “The setup in terms of momentum, discipline around costs, momentum in the businesses, looks to us very encouraging, and therefore we’re confident that we’re on track to achieve our targets.”
Across the board, the bank noted an impact from the relative strength of the euro against the U.S. dollar, with von Moltke describing it as the “big thing that’s kind of flowing through our numbers.”
Deutsche Bank shares were up 5.76% at 09:15 a.m. London time (04:15 a.m. E.T.), nearing 10-year highs.
Other second-quarter highlights included:

Profit before tax of 2.4 billion euros, up 34% year-on-year, excluding the impact of the Postbank litigation.
CET 1 capital ratio, a measure of bank solvency, was 14.2%, compared with 13.8% in the March quarter.
Post-tax return on tangible equity (ROTE) rate of 10.1%, from 11.9% in the previous quarter.

The firm’s core investment banking unit reported a 3% year-on-year uptick in revenue to 2.7 billion euros in the June quarter, but reported mixed results at its subdivisions.
In fixed income and currencies, the bank posted a “strong” 11% revenue bump driven by higher net interest income in financing and increased volatility and client activity in foreign exchange. But Deutsche Bank’s origination and advisory division — which deals with relationships with major corporates and sovereign institutions — logged a second-quarter revenue decline of 29% to 416 million euros, citing “market uncertainty” and noting an overall “postponement of some material transactions into the second half of 2025.”
Corporate banking revenues, meanwhile, dipped by 1% on the year to 1.896 billion euros in the second quarter, with von Moltke noting “a bit of a chill” in corporate activity and decision-making.
“Loan growth has been more sluggish than we’d like to have seen,” he said, flagging the effect of foreign exchange translations from the parts of the business accounted in the U.S. dollar. “Otherwise, as I say, it’s been a normalization of deposit margins, a little bit of effects. That’s … held the business back in the quarter.”

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Euro/dollar

European banks overall are facing the challenge of navigating a lower interest rate environment, with the European Central Bank most recently bringing its key interest rate down to 2% in June and expected to hold that monetary policy during its meeting later in the Thursday session. 
A recent German and broader European defense spending push has been supporting gains within the industry and offering new investment opportunities for European lenders. Speaking to CNBC’s Annette Weisbach in late June, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said that “we have clearly, in particular on the European side, been underinvesting” and stressed the lender has sized up both its portfolio appetite and resourcing to advise clients on defense ventures.  
Domestically, the tumult that gripped German politics at the end of last year has quietened after snap elections awarded stewardship to a new ruling coalition under Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The renewed stability has been reflected in investor and client sentiment and is also beginning to reverberate in business volumes, according to von Moltke.
“That’s a real change from the past several years that where that hasn’t been the case,” he said.
But the European Union’s largest economy — and the third largest exporter globally — is now mired in trade uncertainty as the 27-nation bloc races to agree a tariff deal with U.S. President Donald Trump by an Aug. 1 deadline.
“If tariffs materialise in August, a recession in Germany in 2025 cannot be ruled out,” Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said last week, according to Reuters.
Von Moltke likewise recognized that U.S. tariffs could pose a “relatively steep” increase in currency translations and an ultimate “headwind” for European exporters, but said the impact will be “very varied” for each corporate business. More

European investing app Lightyear is set to announce that it’s raised $23 million in a funding round led by NordicNinja.
A host of Estonia’s top tech entrepreneurs — including ride-hailing unicorn Bolt’s CEO Markus Villig — also invested in the company.
Lightyear also debuted several AI features, including one that lets users see what caused a jump or fall in a stock’s price on any given day.

The Lightyear app.

Some of the biggest names of Estonia’s tech scene are backing Lightyear, a startup looking to become Europe’s answer to commission-free trading pioneer Robinhood.
Based in London, Lightyear develops an app that lets users invest in a range of over 5,000 stocks, exchange-traded funds and money market funds. It was founded by two former Wise employees, Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, in 2021.

The company is set to announce later on Thursday that it has raised $23 million in a new round of funding led by NordicNinja, a Japanese-backed venture capital fund based in Europe. Estonian tech entrepreneur Markus Villig, who co-founded ride-hailing unicorn Bolt has also invested.
Lightyear CEO Sokk told CNBC that the firm didn’t necessarily need to raise more cash for the business but chose to do so because of the caliber of investors involved.
“People like Markus have been building massive companies in many, many markets, and this is something that’s really exciting for us because it’s so hard to go into all the markets and understand their local dynamics and what people need,” he said.
Lightyear currently operates in 25 countries. However, with help from angel investors like Bolt’s Villig, the firm will be able to launch in another five markets “pretty quickly,” Sokk said.
Villig told CNBC that it can be “challenging to scale a business across multiple countries in a heavily regulated sector,” adding that Europe’s less developed retail investing market provides ample opportunities for disruption.

Other Estonian angel investors who have previously backed Lightyear also participated in the funding round, including Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Checkout.com’s former Chief Technology Officer Ott Kaukver and Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn.
Estonia is widely considered a prominent tech hub in Europe. The country is home to the highest number of unicorns per capita in Europe, according to the Estonian Investment Agency. Meanwhile, Estonia’s e-residency scheme has also enabled foreigners to become digital residents and launch their companies in the country.
The new round values five-year-old Lightyear at between $200 million and $300 million, significantly higher than its valuation in 2022 when it raised $25 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who preferred to remain anonymous as the information has not been made public.

Pushing into AI, crypto

Alongside the additional funding, Lightyear is also launching new artificial intelligence features. AI has been a hot area of investment for startups following the explosive popularity of generative AI services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
One of the features, called “Why Did It Move,” allows users to select a point in time on a stock chart and see what happened that day to cause a jump or fall in a company’s share price. The firm is also using AI to provide “bull” and “bear” theses on stocks as well as short updates on assets in their own portfolios.
“In the end, you’re going to have two models” when it comes to investing, according to Sokk: “Self-driving money,” where you ask an AI to achieve certain investment goals, and a “manual gearbox” approach of figuring out different strategies and approaches on your own.
Still, the market for online investment products is heavily competitive. Lightyear faces some hefty competition from both incumbent brokerage services as well as more modern tech players such as Robinhood, Revolut and Trade Republic.
However, Sokk insists Lightyear is building a differentiated enough product to stand out from the crowd. While competitors like Robinhood profit from offering risky products like crypto and margin trading, Lightyear is focused on serving long-term investors, he told CNBC.
To that end, Sokk said Lightyear is planning on rolling out a crypto product of its own in two months’ time — one that’s “more focused on a long-term view.” More