It’s been a good run for global stocks this week, with MSCI’s world benchmark up 2% in its best performance since June, as growing bets that the US Federal Reserve will cut borrowing costs offset investor concern over tariffs. 

Japanese stocks rallied on Friday after Japan’s trade negotiator said the US agreed to end so-called stacking on universal tariffs and cut car levies. SoftBank shares surged to a record after it swung to a quarterly profit, helped by Masayoshi Son’s bets on artificial intelligence players such as Nvidia.  

Gold futures in New York surged following a Financial Times report that said bullion bars face US levies. Oil headed for the biggest weekly loss since June, while the Bloomberg Dollar Index is down 0.6% this week. Next week will see a raft of data that may help shape the outlook for US monetary policy, including inflation figures and retail sales. —Richard Frost

What You Need to Know Today

The US has put tariffs on imports of one-kilogram gold bars, according to the FT, threatening more turmoil in the global bullion market and dealing a fresh trade blow to Switzerland. The move, which the FT said was detailed in a July 31 ruling from the US Customs and Border Protection agency, is the latest surprise from US President Donald Trump’s campaign to reshape global trade.  Traders and analysts are scrambling to understand the situation — whether the tariffs are already in force, if they apply to all countries, or even how they might be avoided.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said he’s got the full backing of the company’s board, responding for the first time to Trump’s call for his resignation over conflicts of interest. Tan has reached out to the White House to clear up what he called “misinformation” about his track record, he said in a letter to staff posted on Intel’s website. On Thursday, Trump called for Tan to resign over what he called conflicts of interest, injecting fresh turmoil at a company already struggling to stem losses and eke out relevance in the artificial intelligence age.

Lip-Bu Tan Photographer: Annabelle Chih/Bloomberg

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured cabinet approval for a military takeover of Gaza City, which he described as part of a final push to topple Hamas after 22 months of fighting and recover its last 50 hostages, dead or alive. The decision to step up operations in the Gaza Strip’s biggest city marks an escalation in a conflict that’s already devastated the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations World Food Programme has warned half a million people are starving. 

New World Development is in talks with several potential investors including Blackstone and CapitaLand as the cash-strapped Hong Kong developer seeks to dispose of assets to improve liquidity, according to people familiar with the matter. Blackstone has been in discussions with New World to buy some of its assets, said the people. The world’s largest alternative asset manager could be open to the option of taking the developer private, though there is no concrete proposal for this on the table, the people said.

New World's 11 Skies mall in Hong Kong. Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to take further criticism from his own party in a plenary meeting that began Friday, following a dismal result in an upper house election last month that has weakened his mandate and triggered some internal momentum to replace him as leader. So far Ishiba has held firm and repeatedly expressed his intention to stay despite calls for his head. The meeting will see party members venting frustrations, but has no protocols to force Ishiba to resign, leaving it up to him to judge whether his mandate has weakened.

Singapore Exchange has a pipeline of about 30 companies looking to go public, according to one of the bourse’s top executives, signaling that the city-state’s moribund market for new equity listings is about to turn a leaf. These firms “have already paid for advisers” to get going on their IPOs, SGX executive Michael Syn, who is responsible for the bourse’s platforms across assets and is the CEO for SGX’s stock market, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. That’s an improvement over the rate from five, 10 or 15 years ago, he added.

Meta Platforms has selected Pacific Investment Management and Blue Owl Capital to lead a $29 billion financing for its data center expansion in rural Louisiana as the race for artificial intelligence infrastructure heats up, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The social media company has been working with Morgan Stanley to raise funds in a competitive process that pitted some of the largest names in private credit against each other.

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

For Your Commute

In the realm of global geopolitics, it’s hard to get a warmer welcome than Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave Donald Trump back in February 2020. More than 100,000 Indians — many wearing white hats emblazoned with “Namaste, Trump” — packed into a cricket stadium in Gujarat, Modi’s home state in western India. They roared as he greeted Trump along with his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

More than five years later, the Trump-Modi relationship is deteriorating at spectacular speed. With tensions already brewing over trade and Modi’s refusal to credit Trump for helping to broker a ceasefire with Pakistan, the US president is now taking aim at India for its purchases of Russian oil — part of his effort to pressure Vladimir Putin into reaching a truce with Ukraine. Read more here.

US President Donald Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ‘Namaste Trump’ rally in February 2020. Photographer: Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images

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