This week, copper—a metal that carries our electrons and headlines alike—took again the spotlight. No longer the humble plumbing supply of yesteryear, copper now rivals rare earths in strategic clout, its value high enough to inspire cable theft and global bidding wars. Yesterday, Donald Trump vowed a 50% levy on every ingot that dares cross an American border—news that sent copper futures traded in New York up 13%.

Physical traders reacted instantly: inventories sprinted toward U.S. ports ahead of the August 1 deadline, while analysts at Goldman and Citi warned the measure could all but erase American demand for imported refined metal through year-end.

However, the market overall kept its cool. Investors now treat these flash-bang announcements like bond auctions—scheduled, familiar, and rarely surprising. Wall Street futures were up between 0.2% and 0.3% this morning, as traders await the Fed minutes that might hint at a September rate cut.

Waiting in the wings are pharmaceuticals. Trump floated duties "as high as 200 percent", giving trading partners a year to repent. Australia, whose drug exports to America top A$2 billion, is already pleading for clarity. 

This is meant to be negotiation, a high-stakes game meant to wring concessions. But tariffs are not poker chips; they are taxes that gum up supply chains and invite retaliation. Brussels says it is "ready for all scenarios", diplomatic code for mirrored counter-measures. 

That corrosion is measured not in headlines but in boardrooms. Manufacturers that spent the last decade rewiring supply chains, from Wuhan to Guadalajara, now budget for perpetual tariff roulette. Redundancies, buffer inventories, "friend-shoring", and other euphemisms for higher cost creep silently into price tags. Copper today, cortisone tomorrow: the list of negotiable essentials lengthens, and with it the sense that rules are provisional.

Financial markets, for now, are holding steady—not because they trust the White House's tariff threats, but because they suspect the final outcome will land somewhere below the bombast. Several trade agreements are in the pipeline and Trump struck a rare conciliatory tone toward Europe, hinting at an agreement resembling the UK's, though reportedly less generous. A 10% import tariff on U.S. goods is said to be on the table, and if a deal is reached, some of the market's nervous energy could ease.

Today's session will be dominated by the release of the minutes of the Fed's latest meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET. This morning, China reported slightly higher-than-expected inflation in June, but producer prices remained sluggish. The Asia-Pacific markets are a little uncertain, as they were yesterday. Japan closed up 0.3%, while Hong Kong fell 1%. Australia (-0.5%) is struggling to digest the central bank's tough stance, which yesterday announced that it would keep interest rates unchanged, despite the market being almost unanimous in favor of easing. European indices are in the green.

Today's economic highlights:

On today's agenda: the consumer price index in Switzerland; in the United States, wholesale inventories, DOE crude oil inventories, and the consumer confidence index. See the full calendar here.

  • Dollar index: 97,400
  • Gold: $3,285
  • Crude Oil (BRENT): $69.61 (WTI) $67.61
  • United States 10 years: 4.41%
  • BITCOIN: $109,000

In corporate news:

  • Tesla, Ford, Rivian and other automakers are urging shoppers to buy electric vehicles before the U.S. $7,500 tax credit expires on 30 September, warning sales may slump once the subsidy ends.
  • Merck will buy Verona Pharma for about $10 billion, adding COPD drug Ohtuvayre and shoring up revenue ahead of Keytruda's 2028 patent cliff.
  • Gilead Sciences and the Global Fund struck a deal to supply long-acting HIV-prevention shot lenacapavir at cost to up to 2 million people in low-income countries over three years.
  • JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told Handelsblatt the bank plans further investment in Germany, targeting large firms, Mittelstand clients and eventually retail customers via its online bank.
  • The U.S. Justice Department is questioning ex-employees of UnitedHealth Group over Medicare Advantage billing practices that allegedly boosted federal payments.
  • Apple is in talks to snag U.S. Formula 1 broadcast rights after the success of its film “F1: The Movie,” challenging ESPN and rival bidders such as Netflix.
  • EssilorLuxottica shares leapt after reports that Meta Platforms bought nearly a 3 % stake (worth about €3 billion) to deepen their smart-glasses partnership.
  • Exact Sciences won Medicare coverage for its Oncodetect molecular residual-disease test in colorectal cancer, expanding U.S. reimbursement.
  • The FDA approved a gradual-titration dosing schedule for Eli Lilly Alzheimer's drug Kisunla, cutting brain-swelling (ARIA-E) rates without reducing efficacy.
  • Cirsa, owned by Blackstone, rose on its Madrid market debut after pricing its IPO at €15 a share for a €2.5 billion valuation.
  • Starbucks' China arm has drawn bids from nearly 30 private-equity firms that value the unit at up to $10 billion, with the company likely to keep about a 30 % stake.
  • Trimble and South Korea's KT Corp. will bundle telecom connectivity with Trimble RTX Fast corrections to offer centimeter-level positioning for automotive and IoT customers.
  • A planned $1.3 billion U.S. Army buy of Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles will boost orders for suppliers Lockheed Martin and L3Harris Technologies.
  • Palantir Technologies partnered with weather-modeling firm Tomorrow.io to embed automated, high-resolution forecasts into Palantir platforms for defense, government and enterprise users.
  • A California bill would require big-model AI developers such as Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI and others to publicly disclose safety and security risk assessments.
  • Google Cloud (part of Alphabet) will work with the U.K. government to modernize public services, including the National Health Service, potentially saving up to £45 billion.
  • KKR and other lenders are lining up a £1.75 billion debt package to finance the private-equity firm's planned takeover of precision-testing group Spectris.
  • A U.S. judge ordered CVS Health's Omnicare to pay about $949 million for submitting millions of false prescription claims to Medicare and Medicaid.

Analyst recommendations:

  • Illumina. – Citi cut its rating to Sell from Neutral; PT $80, implying -19% downside.
  • Charles River Laboratories International – Citi raised its rating to Buy from Neutral; PT $200, implying +26% upside.
  • Freeport-McMoRan. – Stifel Canada initiated coverage with a Buy rating; PT $56, implying +21% upside.
  • Newmont – Stifel Canada initiated coverage with a Buy rating; PT $73, implying +27% upside.
  • Hologic – Citi raised its rating to Buy from Neutral; PT $80, implying +23% upside.
  • XPO – Citi cut its rating to Neutral from Buy; PT $140, implying +5.9% upside.
  • Altria Group – Jefferies reinstated coverage at Underperform; PT $50, implying -16% downside.
  • Philip Morris International Inc. – Jefferies reinstated coverage at Buy; PT $220, implying +24% upside.
  • EOG Resources  – Roth Capital Partners cut its rating to Neutral from Buy; PT $134, implying +8.1% upside.
  • T-Mobile US – KeyBanc Capital Markets cut its rating to Underweight from Sector Weight; PT $200, implying -15% downside.
  • Hanover Insurance Group – Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised its rating to Outperform from Market Perform; price target (PT) $188, implying +15% upside.