The Rundown - Samsung Profits Crushed by U.S. Chip Controls, Waymo to Test AVs in Philly

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Stock market update for July 8, 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 Tuesday, July 9th. In today's episode, we'll tell you which countries just got slapped with tariffs and why the markets aren't freaking out quite yet. We'll also discuss Samsung's struggles and Waymo's plans to expand to the Northeast. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much money the ESports World Cup is expected to hand out.

We get a great show for you today. Let's go. The stock market got off to a bumpy start this week as President Trump is bringing back tariffs. Markets didn't love that. The S&P 500 was down 0.8% and the NASDAQ was down 0.9%. President Trump yesterday sent out letters

to multiple countries outlining new tariff rates that are pretty similar to the rates from the infamous Liberation Day poster. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia are now facing a 25% rate and a number of other countries are getting hit with even more. Trump actually posted the letters that he sent to these countries on his truth social account. So you can actually go on there and read it yourself. Now, there was some good news when it comes to tariffs.

Trump did extend the tariff pause from July 9th to August 1st. And he left the door open for negotiation and for these tariffs rates to come down. And look, we've seen this playbook before. Trump did the same thing back in April. He shocks the system with high rates, hoping that this creates a sense of urgency and pushes countries towards a favorable trade deal with the U.S. Now, we'll see if it works out this time. I mean, the initial 90-day pause didn't really result in many deals, and now there's even less time for trade deals. So I wouldn't be surprised if that August 1st deadline ends up getting kicked down the road again.

Now, all that being said, markets don't love the drama and the uncertainty, so it's going to be interesting to see how the markets react this time as all this plays out again. But I doubt we're going to have a full-on meltdown like we did back in April. I think investors are quick to buy the dip these days. But as always, we're going to keep an eye on the markets for you guys all summer and let you know of the latest tariff developments. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. I'm taking a trip to Florida with the family next week. So it's going to be tariffs and tans for me over the next week. Let's run through some headlines.

Starting with Samsung. Samsung is feeling the pain from U.S. chip export restrictions to China and tariffs. Samsung posted its first profit dropped since 2023 with operating income dropping by 56% in the June quarter. Now, the company is blaming multiple factors here. For one, the U.S. chip export restrictions to China means that Samsung can't sell their top AI chips to China, which is taking a bite out of Samsung's foundry business, especially since the company leans more heavily on China demand. On top of that, Samsung's advanced memory business is trailing rivals like SK Hynix and Micron because Samsung had delays in getting certifications from Nvidia.

And then on top of that, you had tariffs in the U.S., which has impacted Samsung's consumer electronic business. So you add all that up, and Samsung is facing a ton of challenges and disappearing profits. So we'll see if Samsung can bounce back here. They did sign a deal with AMD recently to supply them with high bandwidth memory for their AI chips. But then again, Trump just threatened South Korea with 25% tariffs, so that probably doesn't help. Let's shift gears and talk about Waymo. The Google-owned company is sending its self-driving cars to New York City and Philadelphia.

Now, during this road trip, the Waymo cars won't be driving autonomously. There's going to be a human driver behind the wheel as they cruise around the city. Waymo is taking the step to map out the streets and collect data and figure out a future potential launch. This is part of Waymo's playbook. They did the same thing in LA a couple years ago, and that eventually led to a full commercial launch. So this could be step one for an eventual robotaxie rollout in the Northeast. The tricky situation is regulation, because each state and city has its own rules. Like right now, New York City still requires a human to be in the driver's seat even for autonomous testing.

They've already applied for self-driving permit in New York City. Fingers crossed, that goes through pretty soon because the last time I was in Manhattan, I think I paid 30 bucks to go five blocks in an Uber. And zooming out, big picture here, Waymo continues to have big expansion plans. This year alone, the company is planning to road trip to Houston, Orlando, Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. So if you live in one of those cities like I do, keep an eye out for a Waymo car zooming around the streets. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of AMD are getting a bump this morning after Citibank raised its price target to $145 a share.

The investment bank said that chip demand is slowly picking back up and that rising inventory levels suggest that growth is trending in the right direction. As a result, AMD shares are up more than 1% this morning. Now, on the flip side, green energy names are in the red after President Trump dropped a new executive order yesterday calling for the removal of federal subsidies for clean energy companies. Now, just to clarify here, executive orders aren't law. It's more of a direction for the administration to follow. It's like telling your sales team to reach a quarterly goal. But the markets are reacting because the direction is pretty clear from the Trump administration. He wants less government subsidies for solar and win. As a result, shares of

Sun Run are down more than 8% and end phase energy is down over 4% on this news. I got to say, man, these solar stocks have been pretty volatile lately. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. The e-sports World Cup just kicked off in Saudi Arabia and the prize pool is $70 million. Now, this event is pretty huge. It has over 2,000 players competing from over 100 countries spanning 25 titles like League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Fortnite. Last year was the first ever East Sports World Cup. It was also hosted in Saudi Arabia. And that attracted over 500 million viewers and over 2 million people visited in person. I mean, that's when you know someone is a true fan. Visiting Riyadh in the summertime is dedication right there. Now, this is all part of Saudi Arabia's

plan to diversify away from oil by investing in sports and entertainment. And I got to say gaming is a pretty solid bet because the video game industry is big business. Video games brought in nearly $200 billion in revenue in 2024, which is more than movies and music combined. So, you know, e-sports might get clowned on by some people, but the numbers are pretty big. See, I'm still deciding on whether I want to put my six-year-old daughter in golf or a Fortnite. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did and you have like eight extra seconds,

consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you do listen on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. I want to apologize for getting the episode up late yesterday

where we're having some technical issues here in the background. where we're going to clean that up, so hopefully we can get these out as early as possible. We have actually made this podcast into a full-on video podcast, so if you want to watch these episodes, you can on Spotify or YouTube. Thank you guys again for listening and watching. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes, and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.