At Marketing Wiz, our team monitors global financial markets to help advisors contextualize the latest trends for their clients. This June, here are three themes that can serve as the foundation for a custom long-form article on behalf of your firm:
Whack-a-Mole: Trump Revives Tariffs Through a New Legal Door
- This month, the Trump administration proposed new tariffs on 60 trading partners, citing an investigation into forced labor practices. The proposed levies are tiered: a 10% rate would apply to economies that prohibit forced-labor imports (including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union) while a 12.5% rate would apply to those that don’t (including China, India, and Japan).
- After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency-powers tariffs in February, the administration has turned to other legal avenues to rebuild America’s tariff wall. The pattern has become familiar, and shows that tariffs are likely here to stay: each time one door closes, the administration tries another.
- For now, the tariffs remain proposals, with a public comment period running through early July. Still, a long list of exceptions means that the impacts will likely be modest. According to a Bloomberg Economics analysis, the new levies are expected to raise effective US tariff rates by 0.5 percentage points.
Raising the Stakes: Alphabet’s $80 Billion Equity Bet
- This month, Alphabet announced it would raise roughly $80 billion in equity to support its AI spending plans. The package includes shares sold directly into the market, underwritten offerings, and a $10 billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway. It ranks among the largest equity raises on record, an unusual step for one of the world’s most cash-rich companies.
- In part, the raise reflects Alphabet’s unique position in the AI race. Unlike rivals that depend on Nvidia’s processors, Google designs its own AI chips, known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Analysts suggest growing demand for TPUs helps justify the company’s enormous capital commitments.
- Notably, hyperscalers have often leaned on debt to finance expansion. Alphabet’s decision to raise equity instead could signal a growing wariness toward overleveraging, even as AI spending accelerates. In February, Oracle also opted to raise a portion of new capital as equity.
A Tale of Two Indexes: Mega-IPOs Highlight a Growing Rulebook Divide
- This month, S&P Dow Jones Indices declined to change its rule requiring companies to post positive net income before joining the S&P 500. The decision will keep SpaceX out of the benchmark, despite the rocket maker being larger than all but a handful of current index members.
- Other index providers have moved in the opposite direction. Both Nasdaq and FTSE Russell recently shortened their waiting periods for newly public companies, meaning SpaceX could join their indexes within weeks.
- For index investors, rules that were once an afterthought could meaningfully influence the composition of a passive portfolio. With other trillion-dollar candidates weighing public listings (including OpenAI and Anthropic), the choice of which index to track could determine exposure to the market’s most prominent new entrants.
Interested in building out long-form collateral relating to any of these themes? We invite you to reach out to our team today for a discussion of our custom content capabilities.