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• Wall Street indices climbed in early trading on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 487 points (0.9%), the S&P 500 rising 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite increasing by 0.3%. • This surge extends a record-setting momentum from Tuesday, when both the S&P 500 and the Dow closed at all-time highs. • The rally is driven by robust financial performance from companies as the latest earnings season nears its conclusion, providing a strong start to August.

Obama-appointed judge seemed unmoved by Trump attorneys’ arguments in case also naming MurdochA federal judge in Florida seemed skeptical of arguments from Donald Trump’s legal team on Wednesday over whether the court should allow a $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal to move forward.Trump sued the Journal and News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch over a July 2025 article about a “bawdy” letter reportedly from Trump that was included in a 2003 birthday book for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has denied authoring or signing the letter, and his attorneys have argued that the Journal published the story despite having been told it was false. Continue reading...

Filing by attorney general Raúl Torrez comes after DoJ appears to have ignored deadline for key Epstein ranch filesNew Mexico filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice and acting attorney general Todd Blanche on Wednesday for “stonewalling” its criminal investigation into the activities of the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at a remote ranch in the state.Raúl Torrez, the New Mexico attorney general, had said he was mulling the possibility of legal action if the justice department (DoJ) did not share with him by 31 July information about the alleged historical abuse of girls and young women at Epstein’s Zorro ranch about 30 miles south of Santa Fe. Continue reading...

• Asian stock markets rallied following gains on Wall Street, with South Korea’s KOSPI jumping over 3% and the Australian ASX hitting a record high. • Tech stocks led the rebound, featuring significant gains for SK Hynix (over 6%), Samsung Electronics (nearly 4%), and Foxconn Industrial Internet (nearly 9%). • Chinese and Hong Kong markets also advanced, with the CSI 300 rising about 2% and the Hang Seng climbing 1.6%, bolstered by Alibaba's release of its Qwen3.8-Max AI model.

• Asian stock markets rose on Wednesday, driven by a surge in tech stocks following strong second-quarter results and an increased revenue forecast from Palantir. • The market rally occurred as investors reacted to easing concerns regarding artificial intelligence trends and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. • Global financial focus shifted toward central bank policy decisions, specifically those from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan.

• In late July 2026, the AI trade faced a severe stress test involving Situational Awareness, a levered fund established by a former OpenAI employee. • Michael Watson argues that AI has become the new "market beta," meaning traditional Wall Street risk models are currently ill-equipped to handle the volatility and systemic shifts it creates. • The shift is exemplified by Microsoft, which captures spending on database units and Azure Kubernetes as AI lowers the engineering barrier for small-to-mid-sized funds to adopt complex infrastructure.

• Wall Street indices approached new record highs on Tuesday, driven by a surge in investor sentiment. • The rally was primarily fueled by a fresh round of strong corporate earnings reports and a decline in crude oil prices. • These factors combined to lift market confidence, pushing major US stocks toward peak valuations.