Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Congratulations are due to Alphabet for joining the $3 trillion valuation club, to which only Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia have memberships. The Google parent has artificial intelligence —what else? — to thank for its inclusion in that rarefied space.
Ironically, it isn’t because Google’s AI offerings have been blowing investors away. (I heard Gemini can teach me how to take better photos on Google’s Pixel smartphone.) It’s the fact that Google has been falling behind AI companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity — which allowed it to escape divesting its Chrome browser in a recent antitrust ruling — that gave its shares a nice bump this month
If AI isn’t having the desired effect on stocks, there’s nothing that good old cash won’t solve. Tesla shares jumped Monday after its CEO Elon Musk disclosed a $1 billion purchase of the stock, erasing the company’s losses for the year. Elsewhere, shares of CoreWeave popped 7.6% after the cloud infrastructure provider announced an order of at least $6.3 billion from Nvidia.
Buoyed by those gains, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite secured new closing highs, with the former exceeding the 6,600 level for the first time. Hey Alexa, create an image of traders popping champagne in the New York Stock Exchange.
What you need to know today
Trump cannot fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Monday that the president’s request to remove Cook before the Fed’s meeting cannot proceed. Separately, Stephen Miran, Trump’s pick to join the central bank, was narrowly confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board.
New York Times faces $15 billion lawsuit from Trump. In a Monday post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that the paper was “a virtual ‘mouthpiece'” for the Democratic Party, and accused it of making false statements about him, without elaborating on the allegations.
OpenAI hires xAI’s former CFO. Mike Liberatore left his role as the finance chief at Elon Musk’s firm in July, after just three months on the job. He will start at Sam Altman’s OpenAI on Tuesday, a company spokesperson told CNBC. It’s the latest development in the feud between Musk and Altman.
The S&P 500 closes above 6,600 for the first time. On Monday, the Nasdaq Composite also closed at a fresh record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 surpassed the 45,000 mark to hit a new all-time high Tuesday.
[PRO] A rate cut might not be unambiguously good for stocks. According to Evercore ISI, historical data from 1970 showed that the nature of the cut — “because they can” or “because they have to” — affects how stocks perform the year ahead.
And finally…
YINAN, CHINA – DECEMBER 26 2024: A worker counts RMB banknotes during a gathering to distribute the yearly dividend to members of an agricultural co-operative in Yinan county in east China’s Shandong province Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024.
Wang Yanbing | Future Publishing | Getty Images
What’s driving the divergence in the Chinese yuan’s strength?
The offshore yuan has gained about 3% against the dollar this year, as the U.S. dollar tumbled against all major currencies. The U.S. dollar index has declined over 10% so far this year, on track for its worst year in more than two decades, according to LSEG data.
Meanwhile, the yuan has weakened markedly against other currencies, including the euro, British pound and Japanese yen, making Chinese exports more competitive in these markets as its trade tensions with Washington curb shipments to the U.S.
— Anniek Bao
