Wild Week Incoming

The economic calendar is packed this week, including CPI, PPI, and Initial Jobless Claims.

Author

Ankit Sinha
August 11, 2025

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🎯 In this issue:

  • Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter

  • Market Recap: What happened this weekend

  • What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks 

  • Technical Trip: Interview Q&A from Lazard

  • Deal News: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions 

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

Market Recap

How High Can We Go

The market is hitting record highs again, with the S&P and NASDAQ up 2.4% and 3.9% respectively last week. This happened despite broad-based tariffs going into effect. 

We mostly have Apple to thank, which jumped 13% on the week after announcing $600 billion in planned domestic investments over the next few years. 

Excellent timing, coinciding with the proposed 100% tariff on semiconductors that Trump mentioned would have exemptions for countries “building in the United States. The markets interpreted that as another TACO trade moment and kept markets pumping.

But, with indices at record highs, the obvious question is, where do we go from here? 

None of us has a crystal ball, and we’re not in the business of giving you financial advice that potentially blows up your portfolio and ruins your life :) 

But the market will definitely be tested this week with a ton of economic data throughout and a massive geopolitical meeting to finish it off.

  • Tuesday, we’ll get CPI for July, which is expected to increase 0.2% month-over-month (versus 0.3% for June) and 2.8% year-over-year (versus 2.7% for June).

  • Wednesday, we’ll get a bunch of Fedspeak, with the Richmond, Chicago, and Atlanta Fed Presidents set to give their opinions on the economy and rates.

  • Thursday, we’ll get PPI and Initial Jobless Claims for July, which is very important in light of last week’s terrible jobs numbers.

  • Friday tops it all off with a big meeting between Trump and Putin. 

All in all, it could be a wild ride. If inflation comes in much lower than expected, we could see rate cut odds significantly increase for September. If it comes in hotter than expected or the Trump/Putin meeting goes sideways, who knows what could happen!

What's Ripe

Gilead Sciences (GILD) 8.3%  

  • The biopharma company posted flat revenue growth ($7.08 billion for Q2), but EPS of $2.01 beat estimates. They also raised FY guidance for the year.

  • The raised guidance is a result of strong HIV drug sales and disciplined expense management.

Apple (AAPL) 4.2%  

  • Apple’s stock jumped as it provided some Trump-appeasing headlines. The company announced it would invest $600 billion over the next few years in domestic manufacturing.

  • The announcement was timely, as the administration is targeting tech and semiconductor companies with tariffs but making exceptions for companies that build in America.

What's Rotten

Trade Desk (TTD) 38.6% 

  • Trade Desk reported revenue of $685 million, which was a 19% year-over-year increase but just matched the Street’s forecast. No beat.

  • Investors were more focused on intensifying competition in the advertisement space, particularly from Amazon, which could lower TTD’s yearly outlook.

Pinterest (PINS) 10.3%  

  • Pinterest reported Q2 EPS of $0.33 per share, missing analyst expectations of $0.35. Despite this, revenue rose 17% to nearly $998 million, and monthly users grew 11% to 578 million.

  • The stock fell after the earnings miss and because of concerns over reduced U.S. ad spending, particularly among Asia‑based e‑commerce firms affected by the removal of the "de minimis" duty‑free import exemption.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Lazard

👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from Lazard bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy

🦈 Deal News

IPOs are So Back 

IPO performance is pretty lit right now. After a few dead market years, companies are finally going public again and seeing significant first-day pops. 

It started with Coreweave a few months ago, the company that resells Nvidia’s old chips. After trading flat on day 1, the company surged 40% the next day. Coreweave came into the IPO with a ~$19 billion valuation, which has surged to a market cap of almost $65 billion today. 

Ever heard of Circle Internet Group? The stablecoin company popped nearly 860% above its IPO price in the first few days. And no, that's not an extra “0.” Most recently, Figma’s shares launched 250% after the IPO, and Firefly jumped about 51%—total hype mode. 

For context, IPOs had a really slow 2022–2024 stretch. For those who were living under a rock, once all the fearful investors were shaken out in March 2020, the second half of 2020 and all of 2021 were absolutely insane. 

Investors were drunk off of crazy market gains and record-breaking IPO numbers with crazy day-1 pops. 2022-2024 was the prolonged hangover from that period. But 2025 has seen tons of IPO activity not just in tech, but space, AI, fintech, health, etc.  

Across the board, listings are popping hard, showing that institutional investors are ready to start throwing money at these things again.

📊The Daily Poll

Biggest market driver this week?

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Previous Poll:

Are investors underestimating the tariff impact?

Yep, big risk: 41.2% // Nah, all priced in: 19.6% // Too early to tell: 35.3% // Don’t care: 3.9%

Student Success Corner

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

If m^(-1) = -(1/3), then m^(-2) = ?

Answer: 1/9

Today

A fruit salad mixture consists of apples, peaches, and grapes in the ratio 6:5:2, respectively, by weight. If 39 pounds of mixture is prepared, how many more pounds of apples than grapes does the mixture include?

❝

The four most dangerous words in investing are, it’s different this time.

Sir John Templeton

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Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mithun, Colin & Patrick