{"id":10931,"date":"2026-07-07T03:09:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=10931"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:09:42","slug":"wall-street-sees-nothing-of-real-substance-in-trumps-china-trade-deal-and-stocks-are-selling-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=10931","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street sees \u2018nothing of real substance\u2019 in Trump\u2019s China trade deal\u2014and stocks are selling off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick note: <\/strong>Subscribe to the forthcoming <strong>Fortune Gulf Brief<\/strong>. Every Tuesday, this new newsletter will deliver clear-eyed, authoritative intelligence on the deals, decisions, policies, and power shifts shaping one of the world\u2019s most consequential regions, written for the people who need to act on it. Sign up here.<\/p>\n<div>\n<h3>THE MARKETS<\/h3>\n<h2><b>Wall Street unimpressed by Trump\u2019s \u2018fantastic trade deals\u2019 with China<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><b>S&amp;P 500 futures<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> were down 1% this morning. The index was up 0.77% yesterday.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><b>In Europe,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> the Stoxx 600 was down 1.28% in early trading and the U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100 was down 1.42% before lunch.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><b>Asia: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\">South Korea\u2019s KOSPI down 6.12%. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 was down 1.99%. India\u2019s Nifty 50 was down 0.13%. China\u2019s CSI 300 was down 1.12%.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><b>Brent crude<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was up to $109 per barrel this morning.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><b>Bitcoin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was at $80.5K.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Stocks are selling off globally this morning<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> after President Trump returned from his summit with China\u2019s Xi Jinping but gave few specifics about what was achieved. Every major index in Asia and Europe was solidly down. The volatile South Korea KOSPI lost more than 6%; China\u2019s CSI 300 was down 1.12%. In the U.S., S&amp;P 500 futures were off 1% before the opening bell in New York.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cOnly\u201d 200 jets. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Boeing stock lost 4.73% yesterday and a further 1.38% in overnight trading <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">after Trump announced<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> that China agreed to order 200 planes from the company. On Trump\u2019s previous trip to China in 2017, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">300 aircraft were sold<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">. Prior to this trip, White House sources had suggested 500 planes might be sold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The Wall Street Journal\u2019s live coverage <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">summed it up best<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cTrump told reporters that both he and Xi want the conflict in Iran to end and for Iran to not have a nuclear weapon. He said that the two leaders had made \u201cfantastic trade deals,\u201d without providing details. China&#8217;s government said it had reached \u201ca series of new common understandings\u201d with the U.S., but didn\u2019t say what those entailed.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Investment bank analysts were largely disappointed<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cMuch increasingly scarce jet fuel has been burned to produce nothing of real substance. China\u2019s President Xi declared an agreement to keep trade ties stable. The two sides were unlikely to agree to anything different (no one would announce unstable trade ties). Stability is not a word that is normally associated with U.S. trade policy over the past 15 months, lessening the statement\u2019s value,\u201d UBS\u2019s Paul Donovan told clients this morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">At Deutsche Bank, Jim Reid and his folks noted that the hope that China might somehow intervene in a way that ends the Iran war did not materialize: \u201cAs we go to press this morning, markets have lost momentum after President Trump said the U.S. doesn\u2019t need the Strait of Hormuz open \u2018at all\u2019. So that\u2019s added to fears that the Strait will remain blocked for some time, leading to a more protracted energy shock for the global economy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">With no progress on the Strait, the price of oil is likely to remain high. Brent crude hit $109 per barrel this morning, up from a low of $103 yesterday. Oil is traded in dollars, and that\u2019s keeping the value of the greenback high versus foreign currencies. It\u2019s also fuelling inflation, making the Fed more hawkish, and the bond markets are selling off too. (The risk premium for holding the 30-year Treasury is now over 5% and heading upward.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cWe had speculated yesterday that the Trump-Xi meeting could have yielded some positive headlines (perhaps also on Iran) that would have &#8230; lifted sentiment. It\u2019s been too little so far,\u201d ING\u2019s Francesco Pesole said in a note today, seen by <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Fortune<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight:400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"830\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486235 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1024 830'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-103547.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<h2><b>Retail traders are beating the market, Goldman says<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The volume of retail trading\u2014individual stock buyers as opposed to institutions\u2014has risen 28% since April, according to Daniel Chavez et al at Goldman Sachs. And retail buyers\u2019 favorite stocks have beaten the equal-weight S&amp;P 500. Retail traders hold $12 trillion of equities, Chavez writes: \u201cRetail trading activity has recently accounted for roughly 20% of total U.S. equity trading volumes. This is up from 15% a decade ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Goldman created an index called \u201cGSXURFAV\u201d (Goldman Sachs\u2019 index of your faves, geddit?!) and it looks like this:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"722\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486236 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1024 722'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-105148.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<h3>MORE FROM FORTUNE<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Peter Thiel is leading investment in an ocean data center powered by waves\u2014and the startup is reportedly worth $1 billion<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Sasha Rogelberg<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Meta\u2019s $10 billion Louisiana data center is getting $3.3 billion in tax breaks\u2014more than seven years of the state\u2019s entire police budget<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Jake Angelo<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Cerebras CEO says AI chip demand is \u2018not speculative\u2019 as shares double in blockbuster IPO debut<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Beatrice Nolan and Sharon Goldman<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Scott Bessent made a fortune spotting currency manipulation. He says Beijing\u2019s $2.5 trillion black hole is \u2018a problem for the Europeans\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Eva Roytburg<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>ONE BIG THING<\/h3>\n<h2><b>Anthropic\u2019s Claude keeps telling people to go to sleep and no one knows why<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Anthropic\u2019s Claude is telling people to go back to bed and users are baffled, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Fortune<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u2019s Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez reports<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">. Hundreds of people have received varied and quirky variations of the same message. To one user it may write a simple \u201cget some rest,\u201d but for others its messages are more personalized and empathetic. Often, Claude will repeat the message multiple times. \u201cNow go to sleep again. Again. For the THIRD time tonight\u2026\u201d it told a person on Reddit with the username angie_akhila. Some users have said they find Claude\u2019s late night rest reminders \u201cthoughtful,\u201d while others have said they\u2019re annoying, given Claude often gets the time wrong, anyway. \u201cIt often does it at like 8:30 in the morning,\u201d one user said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Sam McAllister, a member of staff at Anthropic, wrote in a post on X that the behavior is a \u201cBit of a character tic.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re aware of this and hoping to fix it in future models,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>AMERICA\u2019S ADDICTION TO CRUISES<\/h3>\n<h2><b>Your K-shaped vacation plans<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Most Americans are determined to press ahead with their vacation plans this summer, despite looming shortages of jet fuel and high gasoline prices, according to Bank of America credit and debit card data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Inevitably, the rich are less deterred by the uncertainty than the poor. For middle- and high-income households, travel spending is up this year. Low-income folks, however, are spending less on all types of travel\u2014with the notable exception of cruises. No one ever reduces their cruise-ship spending, apparently:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"487\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486237 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1024 487'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-104709.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<h3>CHART OF THE DAY<\/h3>\n<h2><b>Don\u2019t hold your breath waiting for all the jobs in AI data center construction<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"655\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486238 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1024 655'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-112231.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">A huge tide of money is flooding into AI data center construction\u2014as much as $700 billion this year by some estimates\u2014but little of that is showing up in the construction sector, according to Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen of Pantheon Macroeconomics. \u201cReal investment in data center structures rose by 24% year-over-year in Q1, but from a very low base. Meanwhile, for all the talk of AI requiring a big expansion of the power grid, real spending in this component of structures investment was less than 1% higher than a year ago,\u201d they said in a note to clients. Most of the money is being spent on the tech inside the data centers, not the sheds themselves. That\u2019s why \u201cthe uplift to construction payrolls also looks tiny,\u201d the pair say.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>NUMBER OF THE DAY<\/h3>\n<h2>18<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">If you are 18 years old right now, enjoy your demographic dominance! (It\u2019s all downhil from here.) There are more 18-year-olds in the U.S. right now (4.7 million) than there have been since 2009. \u201cAmerica is at peak 18, and the number of 18-year-olds will fall 14% over the coming decade,\u201d Apollo Global Management\u2019s <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Torsten Sl\u00f8k says<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486239 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1024 576'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dailyspark-2026-05-10.jpg?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<h3>THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Anthropic agrees terms of $30bn funding deal at $900bn valuation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; FT<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">CIA chief makes historic trip to Cuba as US blockade chokes island\u2019s energy supplies<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; CNBC<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Supreme Court keeps freeze on abortion pill restrictions<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Axios<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The World Is Burning Through Its Oil Safety Net<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; WSJ<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Xi Says China and US Agree to Stabilize Trade Relations<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; Bloomberg<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Why has only 1 insider trading case been filed in prediction markets? Feds just getting started<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> &#8211; NY Post<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>ONE MORE THING<\/h3>\n<h2><b>The U.K. may be miscalculating its GDP<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The U.K. reported its GDP increased 1.4% year-on-year for Q1, but ING\u2019s James Smith doesn\u2019t believe it. There must be some mistake, he told clients in a note yesterday. From 2015 to 2019, British GDP growth was relatively evenly spread across the year. But since 2022, the growth is frontloaded into Q1 and then disappears during the rest of the year. That can\u2019t be right, Smith says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cWe just aren&#8217;t convinced by the U.K.&#8217;s first-quarter growth performance. GDP rose by 0.6% [sequentially], up from 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say exactly what\u2019s happening. But it seems that something\u2019s not quite right with the way the data is being seasonally-adjusted &#8230; To its credit, the Office for National Statistics has confirmed today it has made some changes to previous years and is keeping its methods under review.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">When you put that all into a chart, British GDP does indeed look pretty fishy:<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"block w-full\"><img alt=\"\" data-cy=\"article-image\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"412\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"transition-opacity duration-300 alignnone size-large wp-image-4486240 not-prose w-full\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 800 412'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR4nGNgYAAAAAMAASsJTYQAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 50vw, (max-width: 768px) 85vw, (max-width: 1024px) 50vw, (max-width: 1200px) 40vw, 33vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=128&amp;q=100 128w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=256&amp;q=100 256w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=320&amp;q=100 320w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=384&amp;q=100 384w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=480&amp;q=100 480w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=576&amp;q=100 576w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=768&amp;q=100 768w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=1024&amp;q=100 1024w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=1280&amp;q=100 1280w, https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100 1440w\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GDP_seasonality_UK_140526.png?format=webp&amp;w=1440&amp;q=100\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Wall #Street #sees #real #substance #Trumps #China #trade #dealand #stocks #selling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick note: Subscribe to the forthcoming Fortune Gulf Brief. Every Tuesday, this new newsletter will deliver clear-eyed, authoritative intelligence on the deals, decisions, policies, and power shifts shaping one of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[173,12619,816,12574,445,166,1222,62,1006,382,221,379,12618,220,2257,1152],"class_list":["post-10931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-china","tag-dealand","tag-economics","tag-fortune-500-digest-weekday","tag-iran","tag-markets","tag-news","tag-real","tag-sees","tag-selling","tag-stocks","tag-street","tag-substance","tag-trade","tag-trumps","tag-wall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}