The Rundown - Congress Votes on Critical Crypto Bills, Goldman Sachs Posts Best Stock-Trading Quarter Ever

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Stock market update for July 16, 2025. This video is for informational purposes only and reflects the views of the host and guest, not Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. Mentions of assets are not recommendations. Investing involves risk, including loss. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For full disclosures, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Public.com/disclosures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, July 16th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the latest inflation report and why it's a sign that tariffs might be starting to bite. We'll also tell you why crypto prices are rallying right now and a new law working its way through Congress that might add fuel to the fire. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out about the latest milestone from, Waymo. We get a great show for you today. Let's go. Markets had a mixed day on Tuesday with the S&P 500 dropping by 0.4%, while the NASDAQ was able to

squeeze out a gain of 0.2%, which was good enough for its eighth record closed this year. InVitia was the big winner yesterday, jumping 4% thanks to the Trump administration easing chip export restrictions to China. We talked more about that on yesterday's episode, so go check that if you missed it. Now, here's a wild stat about Nvidia. Their market cap is now nearly $4.2 trillion, which makes them bigger than Apple and Tesla combined. I mean, let that sink in for a second, because that's crazy. Now, zooming out a bit, let's talk about inflation, because we got the June CPI report yesterday, and it showed some signs that tariffs might be starting to have an impact on prices. According to this report, inflation in June was up 2.7% year over year. Now, that was in line

with expectations, but it's still the highest reading we've had since February. And just digging into the numbers, prices for categories like appliances, toys, and home furniture saw their biggest price jump since 2022. And those are the kind of items that are likely to be impacted from the tariffs that went into effect back in April. Now, the heavy hitting reciprocal tariffs are still on pause until August 1st, but if trade deals don't get worked out by the end of the month, we might see tariffs continue to go up, which could have an even bigger impact on inflation. Now, maybe this season, PPI jump is just a one-off report because the PPI wholesale inflation report dropped this morning and it showed that prices were flat in June.

So we've got some mixed signals here. It might take a couple more reports to really know what direction inflation is headed and what impact that tariffs are having on it. But if future inflation reports keep trending higher, that's going to be a problem, especially for the Federal Reserve. Remember, the Fed has a 2% inflation target and we're moving away from that right now, not towards it. And that's why investors have pretty much given up any hope.

of a July rate cut. According to the CME Fed Watch tool markets are pricing in just a 2% chance of a rate cut at the end of this month and only a 50% chance of a rate cut at the September meeting. Now that's significant because just a few weeks ago, markets were expecting a 90% chance of a rate cut at the September meeting. So the odds of a rate cut happening in the next few months is starting to go lower, despite President Trump putting daily pressures on Jerome Powell to cut rates. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the markets react to all this stuff over the next few weeks. We're going to be tracking it closely and keeping you guys in the loop. here on the rundown. So make sure you guys are subscribed for the podcast and tuning in every day.

Let's run through some headlines. Starting with crypto. It's crypto week in Washington, D.C., and crypto prices are climbing as the House gears up to vote on multiple major bills. Now, the game-changing bill that could be signed into law this week is the Genius Act. This bill has already passed the Senate and it would create the first official regulatory framework for stable coins here in the U.S. If this bill gets a new, it's a bill. signed into law. We might see banks, fintech companies, and even retailers like Amazon and Walmart start issuing their own stable coins to improve their payment networks and also so they don't have to pay fees to Visa and MasterCard. Along with the Genius Bill, the other bills up for vote this

week include the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would clarify what part of crypto gets regulated by the SEC and what falls to the CFTC. Again, it's more regulatory clarity, which is always good. And finally, there's also the anti-CBDC surveillance. State Act, which would ban the government and the Federal Reserve from ever creating a U.S. digital dollar. I didn't realize that was a pressing issue. But yeah, big week for Capitol Hill when it comes to crypto. If these bills do pass the house, they'll land on President Trump's desk and he is expected

to sign them. The markets fully anticipate this happening. Crypto prices are rallying. Bitcoin is hovering near record highs. And other crypto names like Ethereum and XRP are up more than 20% over the last week. Let's shift gears from crypto to talk about traditional finance. because we had more big banks report earnings this morning. Let's start with Goldman Sachs because they had a record-breaking quarter posting the most stock

trading revenue in a quarter in Wall Street history. Goldman's equity trading revenue came in at $4.3 billion, which was $600 million more than what analysts were expecting and $100 million more than last quarter. Now that $4.3 billion number is more money than any firm has ever made on Wall Street when it comes to trading. It looks like Goldman traders seem to thrive on the market volatility conditions last quarter created by Trump's chaotic approach to tariffs. Now, don't get me wrong, other Wall Street banks also did well when it comes to trading, but Goldman has outdone the competition, at least for Q2. But it wasn't just their trading desk that had a good quarter. Goldman's investment

bankers also showed up increasing revenues by 26% in Q2 compared to a year ago. That blew past the 10% growth that analysts were expecting. So that combo helped the firm beat profit estimates for the quarter. Now, the same can't be said for Bank of America. They also reported earnings this morning, and they had more of a mixed bag. The bank beat on earnings per share, but they missed on revenue, making it the only major bank to miss sales estimate. Now, that being said, their traders still had a strong Q2. So the takeaway here is that when market conditions get volatile, Wall Street banks tend to thrive and make a lot of money in the process. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. The alcohol,

giant Diageo shares are up this morning after their CEO Debbie Cruz stepped down, leaving the firm's CFO to take the reins. Diageo owns a huge chunk of alcohol brands that we know today, including Gennis, Johnny Walker, Captain Morgan, and more. Sales have been on the decline over at Diageo, with revenues falling 0.6% for the first half of 2025, and last year, Diageo sales were down by 1% for the full year. So investors are hoping that this new CEO will work to boost the business and cut the company's debt. Shares of Diageo are up nearly 2% this morning on this news. On a side note, it probably

doesn't feel great when you find out that a stock pops after you step down. Now on the flip side, shares of Pop Mart are down this morning after the company behind the viral Labibu toys released their guidance for 2025. The company is projecting a 200% jump in revenue and a 350% jump in profits, which is a sign of incredible growth, but some analysts think that the Labubu height may have already peaked. As a result, shares of Pop Mart are down 5% this morning. Now, if you guys want to learn more about Pop Mart's interesting business model and the history behind Labubu's, go check out our deep dive episode that we did about that topic a couple weeks ago. And finally, shares of ASML are down this morning after the company said that it couldn't confirm the 2026 growth expectations due to

tariff uncertainty. ASML is a pretty important company in the AI supply chain. They make the advanced machinery required to make semiconductor chips. Their machines are used by AI foundries like TSMC to help produce chips for Nvidia and other clients. So as a result, shares of ASML are down more than 8% this morning at the time of this recording. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. The self-driving company Waymo has hit 100 million fully autonomous miles driven as they expand their service to multiple cities across the country. The Google-owned company has seen their growth go parabolic over the last couple of years. You have to check out this graph showing how many fully autonomous miles Waymo's have driven. I mean, the chart looks like a hockey stick.

If you want to see the chart, I'll include it in the video version of this podcast on Spotify or YouTube. You know, maybe I'm just overhyping the whole thing, but I feel like Waymo's progress still isn't talked about enough. I mean, they already operate in five cities, San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. And they're expanding to more cities like Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York pretty soon. I wonder if Waymo would have more hype if it wasn't under the Google umbrella? Here's an interesting question. How much do you guys think that Waymo would be worth today as its own separate company if it wasn't under the Google umbrella? I mean, would it be at least a hundred billion dollar company? So yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments on

Spotify or YouTube. The Tesla fans are about to come after me, aren't they? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Now, if you're watching the video version of this podcast, you guys can see that I'm back in my normal recording studio. I'm going to miss the views of Florida, but I'm glad to be back home here in Houston and lock in for the next few weeks as we get into the thick of earning season and get close to that tariff deadline on August 1st. So it's a great time to be subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day if you don't already. If you are a longtime listener and want to support the show and have like eight extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

And while you're at it, don't forget the vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. All of that engagement really does help us. and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.