☕️ Trump hits Canada with 50% tariffs

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🇨🇦 Trump hits Canada with 50% tariffs

🏦 ECB warns stablecoins could drain bank deposits

🇬🇧 London Stock Exchange plans overnight trading in 2027

⚖️ Judge pauses $110B Paramount-Warner merger

🔴 AMD unveils Helios AI system to rival Nvidia

📚 Anthropic's $1.5B settlement with authors just got approved

Plus: 🌍 5 macro news, 🏢 9 corporate news, 💰 3 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• President Trump imposed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian imports, using a rarely invoked 1930 trade law to punish what U.S. officials call Canada's discriminatory treatment of American cars, dairy and alcohol exports.
• The duties take effect in 30 days and, unlike past measures, apply even to goods normally shielded under the USMCA trade pact, though energy, potash, critical minerals, fish and steel and aluminum are exempted.
• The action threatens a corridor that saw $66.1 billion in two-way US-Canada trade in May, prompting Ontario's premier to call for "tariff for tariff" retaliation and adding uncertainty ahead of upcoming USMCA renegotiations.

• The European Central Bank warned that broad adoption of stablecoins could pull retail deposits out of traditional banks, eroding a cheap and stable funding source that lenders rely on to make loans to households and businesses.
• ECB board member Piero Cipollone said the roughly $300 billion stablecoin market, still mostly dollar-denominated, lets users hold and move money outside bank accounts, potentially raising banks' funding costs and shrinking available credit.
• The ECB's proposed digital euro is its counter, with a 12-month pilot involving 36 payment providers set for late 2027, though holding limits and no interest are planned to stop the public option from itself draining deposits.

• The London Stock Exchange plans to open a night-time trading venue in the first half of 2027, running 5:00 pm to 7:50 am London time, as it responds to crypto and tokenized-equity platforms offering round-the-clock trading.
• The overnight venue will operate separately from the main market, which keeps its standard 8:00 am to 4:30 pm hours, and will initially cover exchange-traded products tracking the UK or US stock market.
• LSE CEO Julia Hoggett cited rising demand from retail traders wanting to use London's timezone to trade both UK and global assets, positioning the exchange among peers building near-24-hour trading.

• A U.S. federal judge temporarily halted Paramount Skydance's roughly $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, siding for now with 12 state attorneys general who argue the tie-up would weaken competition across film and television.
• Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a 14-day pause after last week's hearing, and the coalition led by California's Rob Bonta could seek further delays, threatening CEO David Ellison's plan to close the deal by September.
• The merger would combine two major studios, streamers Paramount+ and HBO Max, and networks including CBS, MTV, CNN and HBO; the states say it would harm theaters, cable distributors and audiences, while Paramount calls the claims baseless.

• AMD is shipping its first data-center-scale AI system, Helios, later this year to challenge Nvidia, which controls more than 95% of the data center GPU market versus AMD's roughly 4.5%.
• Microsoft joined Meta, OpenAI and Oracle in committing to Helios, and AMD expects to book tens of billions in data center AI revenue from 2027, with most coming from the new system.
• Analysts at Futurum estimate Helios costs $5 million to $5.5 million versus $3.5 million to $4 million for Nvidia's Vera Rubin, though Nvidia's CUDA software ecosystem remains a key advantage for the market leader.

• A San Francisco federal judge gave final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors who accused the AI firm of using their books without permission to train its Claude chatbot, the largest known US copyright payout.
• The deal resolves a 2024 class action tied to more than 7 million pirated books Anthropic stored, sidestepping a trial where damages could have run into the hundreds of billions; more than 91% of covered authors and publishers have claimed their share.
• The judge overruled objections that the sum was too small, calling that view detached from trial risks, and cut the plaintiffs' lawyers' fees to over $101 million of the $187.5 million requested; some authors opted out to pursue separate suits.

🌍 Macro News

• Houthis declare naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, threatening key oil route. LINK
• ADNOC approves $6.2 billion investment to develop Umm Shaif gas field. LINK
• Bank of Korea to expand digital-currency pilot to 500,000 users. LINK
• European diesel inventories set to hit multi-year lows by year-end. LINK
• Kremlin blames Ukraine after drone strikes halt Caspian pipeline oil loadings. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Alphabet shares rise 3% on report of new AI server chip. LINK
• EU fines AliExpress record €550 million over counterfeit goods sales. LINK
• Samsung shares jump 6.76% after unveiling new robotics division RX. LINK
• Hut 8 shares surge 14% on $9.8 billion data-center lease deal. LINK
• Exodus Movement cuts 25% of staff to focus on stablecoin payments. LINK
• Paytm parent posts 79% profit jump, skips bonus share issuance. LINK
• Alibaba, Tencent shares surge as Chinese AI models rival US rivals. LINK
• Grayscale files for first US ETF tracking Worldcoin's WLD token. LINK
• Samsung launches Galaxy Card with Barclays, Visa to rival Apple Card. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Moonshot AI releases open-weight Kimi K3 model rivaling top systems. LINK
• ASML raises 2026 revenue forecast, eyeing trillion-dollar valuation milestone. LINK
• Prediction markets like Kalshi capture 27% of US World Cup betting. LINK
• Financial firms build infrastructure for AI-driven autonomous purchasing, or 'agentic commerce.' LINK
• Brazil's CVM forms group to draft rules for tokenized securities. LINK
• OpenAI's CFO urges firms to measure AI value per dollar spent. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• Tempus AI shares fall 8.8% after $1.5 billion Personalis acquisition. LINK
• Lakestar closes $300 million fund targeting defense and security tech. LINK
• Startup Natural raises $30 million to build payments for AI agents. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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