🎯 The 6 news stories of the week
Conservative American influencer shot dead
Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, a close associate of Donald Trump, was shot dead on Wednesday. He was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, the country's largest conservative youth organization. A sniper on a rooftop shot him while he was attending an event at a university in Utah. According to Reuters, the United States is currently experiencing its most sustained period of political violence since the 1970s.
Who's next?
As expected, François Bayrou lost the confidence vote on Monday, leading to the fall of his government. This time, Emmanuel Macron was quick to react, almost immediately appointing Sébastien Lecornu to replace him. Fundamentally, the issue remains the same: passing a budget that reduces the deficit in an assembly divided into three blocs. All this at a time when rating agencies are preparing to reassess France's credit rating.
A new AI champion
$244bn. That's the market capitalization gained by Oracle on Wednesday, after a 36% increase. This is an unprecedented one-day movement for a stock of this size. The reason for this surge? Quarterly results that served as a wake-up call for Wall Street: Oracle is one of the big winners in AI, despite having previously been seen as a somewhat devalued tech stock.
Is this the end of rate cuts for the ECB?
Unsurprisingly, the ECB left its rates unchanged for the second consecutive meeting. With a deposit rate of 2%, the ECB believes it is well positioned. The markets are no longer anticipating further rate cuts, unless data proves that the ECB needs to be more accommodative.
Data to be deciphered
A sharp downward revision in job creation (-911,000), producer prices well below expectations, and consumer prices continuing to rise. It is difficult to know where the US economy stands with these three statistics. Jerome Powell will give us his answer on Wednesday, following the Fed meeting. For the markets, there is only one conclusion: the Fed will cut rates three times between now and the end of the year.
Apple no longer inspires dreams
It's a regular feature of the fall season: Apple unveiled its new products this week. The main new feature is the iPhone Air, the thinnest smartphone on the market. Will this be enough to rekindle consumer enthusiasm? The market seems to doubt it, given the negative reaction to the stock. Especially since no major new developments were unveiled in the field of AI.
Best of the rest
US stockmarkets are hitting record highs, driven by AI stocks. The rally is concentrated on a few stocks and a single theme. But AI is not just a bubble that is exciting Wall Street. The hundreds of billions of dollars of investment deployed are driving GDP growth. They also have negative side effects.
+39% since the beginning of the year. Gold is one of the best-performing assets in 2025. While there are plenty of reasons to buy gold, the yellow metal has never been so expensive.
