☕️ US inflation cools to 3.4% in July

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

📌 US inflation cools to 3.4% in July

🚀 SpaceX wins $8.1B in Space Force deals

📊 Oracle stock plunges 26% on AI-driven layoffs

🤖 Anthropic buys Decart AI for $6B

🇺🇸 US launches program to speed AI trade with allies

Plus: 🌍 11 macro news, 🏢 11 corporate news, 💰 9 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• US consumer prices rose 3.4% in the year through July, a slight cooldown from June's 3.5%, offering incremental relief on the inflation front even as prices ticked up 0.1% month-on-month.
• Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, eased to 2.5% annually from 2.6%, though shelter costs alone drove roughly two-thirds of July's monthly rise and medical care climbed 0.4%.
• Energy prices fell 1.5% in July as gasoline dropped 2.9%, but over the full year energy is still up 14.7% and airline fares have surged 25.5%, showing where cost pressure remains.

• SpaceX has won roughly $8.1 billion in recent Space Force contracts spanning military communications, airborne target tracking, and national security launches, deepening its role in the Pentagon's evolving missile defense buildout even as its shares fell 3.93% to $133.29.
• The awards break down into a $2.29 billion deal to build the backbone of a low-Earth-orbit military data network, a $4.16 billion contract for a satellite constellation tracking airborne targets, and $1.6 billion for 18 Falcon 9 launches through 2027.
• The contracts sit within SpaceX's Starshield defense unit, which now holds more than $6 billion in multiyear government awards, though the Space Force is spreading bets by adding $615 million in smaller contracts to Rocket Lab and others.

• Oracle has rebounded to $147 after touching a 52-week low of $114 last month, but still trades 57% below its prior peak, with the slide tied to a broad sell-off in AI infrastructure stocks rather than company results.
• Fourth-quarter revenue rose nearly 21% to $19.2 billion, cloud infrastructure sales jumped 93%, and the order backlog surged 363% to $638 billion, of which 12% is expected to convert to revenue within the next year.
• The catch is cost: Oracle plans $70 billion in capital spending in fiscal 2027, which pushed free cash flow negative, while total debt of $164 billion leaves the stock a leveraged bet that could fall further if AI demand cools.

• Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, is in talks to buy chip-optimization startup Decart AI for roughly $6 billion, in what would be its largest-ever acquisition, though people familiar say the deal could still fall apart.
• Decart's technology squeezes more work out of the same chips, reportedly running models at about 8 times the industry-average speed, letting Anthropic meet surging demand without proportionally expanding costly computing hardware.
• The $6 billion price tops Decart's roughly $4 billion valuation from a $300 million May round backed by Nvidia and Sequoia, and lands as Anthropic prepares a stock market listing while spending heavily on data centers.

• The US State Department has launched the Pax Silica AI Assistance Project, seeking up to $50 million in foreign aid to speed shipments of AI-related goods such as chips and critical minerals to allied nations.
• The program plans to build a credentialing and tracking platform that verifies where AI supply-chain goods come from, aiming to expedite trade in semiconductors, AI infrastructure and critical minerals across participating partner countries.
• It begins as a pilot with Panama's ports and customs bodies, chosen partly for the country's interest and its canal handling roughly 3% of all global maritime trade, with expansion to other countries planned if successful.

🌍 Macro News

• Bank of England tests digital pound and stablecoin interoperability for cross-border payments. LINK
• US regulators let Franklin Templeton funds invest in its blockchain money market fund. LINK
• IEA sees oil supply deficit widening to 1.8 million barrels daily this quarter. LINK
• Saudi Arabia doubled Sumed pipeline oil exports to avoid Red Sea attacks. LINK
• Singapore's central bank wants banks to verify AI agents before transactions execute. LINK
• UK economic growth slowed to 0.4% in the second quarter. LINK
• South Korea's Kospi entered a bull market, up 20% since July. LINK
• US budget deficit jumped 48% to $432.3 billion in July. LINK
• Japan's wholesale inflation eased slightly to 7.2% in July. LINK
• Ukrainian strikes on Novorossiysk halted Russian grain export terminal operations. LINK
• China's YMTC became world's third-largest NAND flash chip shipper, passing Micron. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Bank of America launched a $250 billion infrastructure financing initiative. LINK
• New York City Council probes prediction-market platforms over marketing practices. LINK
• Cisco shares fell after hours despite record fourth-quarter results. LINK
• Trump sued over Truth Social's paid early-access posting service. LINK
• Cerebras shares dropped 14% despite raising its full-year revenue forecast. LINK
• Google's Gemini app reached 1 billion monthly users, fastest ever. LINK
• AI servers became over half of Foxconn's quarterly revenue. LINK
• Tesla plans $10.1 billion Texas solar panel factory, Project Crystal Sun. LINK
• Wintermute to spend $1 billion expanding into stocks and AI infrastructure. LINK
• Canva cut revenue growth forecast after AI feature costs rose. LINK
• Maersk shares jumped 7% after raising its 2026 profit outlook. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Companies now cap AI tool usage as costs outpace returns. LINK
• US expects Iran war to cut oil supply through 2027. LINK
• New York Fed studied how Fed rate surprises affect stock pricing. LINK
• Goldman Sachs says Japan has ample reserves to defend the yen. LINK
• Bitwise CIO says crypto is shifting toward revenue-based valuation. LINK
• BNY strategist's Katsu Curry Index shows yen weaker than official rate. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• Lovable raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation. LINK
• Bank of America to buy up to 49.9% of Jio Credit. LINK
• CodeRabbit raised $143 million, valuing the AI startup at $1.5 billion. LINK
• Form Energy raised $750 million to expand grid battery production. LINK
• Lightspeed seeks $600 million to retain stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic. LINK
• Team8 raised $365 million to back early-stage AI-native startups. LINK
• Goldman Sachs to pay $2.25 billion for NEOS Investments' Bitcoin ETFs. LINK
• Iger and Kushner to buy Lakers stake at $12.5 billion valuation. LINK
• Blackstone, Canadian pensions buy 25% of Air Canada's Aeroplan for C$2.5 billion. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

📚 Finance Resources

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