🚀 Trump tackling food inflation

Market Overview
Read time 1.4 minutes

Year To Date Performances:

1. Driven by an alignment of macroeconomic shifts and political developments, Bitcoin surged over six percent to near $77,000 on Friday, positioning the world’s leading cryptocurrency for a weekly gain of roughly 23 percent. The dramatic turnaround—marking its strongest weekly performance since 2023—was initially ignited on Wednesday when a Treasury bond buyback intervention triggered a drop in yields, which in turn sparked a massive short squeeze that liquidated roughly $2.7 billion in bearish bets. Optimism was further bolstered by renewed political momentum surrounding the Clarity Act, though industry analysts caution that despite the short-term rally and price gains in crypto-linked equities like Coinbase and MicroStrategy, Bitcoin remains significantly below its record highs and may still face structural volatility before fully emerging from its broader cyclical downturn.

2. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day waiver of out-of-quota tariffs on up to 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef, claiming he secured a commitment for the product to be sold at 25 percent below market prices to curb soaring food inflation. While the administration framed the temporary relief as a way to ease grocery costs ahead of the midterm elections while providing space for the historic low U.S. cattle herd to recover, domestic agricultural groups and lawmakers sharply condemned the intervention. Organizations like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association argued that flooding the market with discounted foreign beef destabilizes prices for domestic producers and directly undermines long-term incentive to rebuild the American herd.

3. In a detailed Friday letter to clients, Citadel founder Ken Griffin announced that his firm has dismantled over 80% of the aggregate risk tied to the portfolio it recently acquired from Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund, Situational Awareness. To neutralize exposure from the distressed asset purchase, Citadel executed more than 100 block trades exceeding $4 billion in market value after stepping in when Situational Awareness faced mandatory liquidations due to steep losses on its concentrated artificial intelligence bets. Griffin expressed gratitude to prime brokerages for facilitating the swift transfer and confirmed that Citadel’s flagship Wellington multi-strategy fund surged 5.94% in July—marking its strongest single-month gain since 2022—as the firm successfully absorbed and rebalanced the distressed holdings near the bottom of the summer tech sell-off.

   Headlines

   1. The materials sector is among the best in the S&P 500 this year up 17% so far.

   2. Premier League teams have removed gambling companies from their jerseys this season.