If I told you at the beginning of the year that the U.S. would bomb key nuclear sites in Iran, would you have guessed that Middle East stability would follow—and that global financial markets would soar to record highs? Personally, I wouldn’t have bet on that outcome. But that’s exactly what happened last month. While geopolitical dynamics remain fluid, markets shrugged off the chaos. The S&P 500 rallied +5.0%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed +4.3%, and the NASDAQ catapulted +6.6%, powered largely by artificial intelligence stocks like NVIDIA Corp., which surged +16.9% for the month to a market value of $3.9 trillion (more on AI below). This is an important reminder that trading off of news headlines is a fool’s errand.

Economy Resilient Despite Tariffs and Geopolitical Turmoil

Source: Calafia Beach Pundit

Credit Default Swaps (CDS) act as insurance contracts that protect investors against corporate debt defaults. During financial stress—like the 2008 crisis or the COVID crash in 2020—CDS prices surge as investors seek protection. Today, however, CDS prices are falling across both high-yield (junk bonds) and investment-grade (Blue Chip) debt. As seen in the chart above, the cost to insure corporate bonds has declined steadily over the past two years. This signals bond investors aren’t worried about a recession or a wave of defaults, despite tariff policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk, and modest GDP growth.

Inflation Tame as Tariffs Loom

President Trump has repeatedly criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates, calling him everything from a “dummy” to a “major loser” and a “stupid person” to a “numbskull”. While the name-calling is colorful, the economic pressure is real: U.S. GDP contracted -0.5% in Q1 2025. Powell, however, wants to see the full impact of upcoming tariffs before making a move. . A new tariff deadline looms on July 9^th, and the market is anxiously awaiting clarity. But even if tariffs are implemented, many economists believe the inflationary impact will be temporary—what’s known as a one-time price shock.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Source: Calafia Beach Pundit

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge—the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index—has been easing and is now near the 2% target (see chart above). With inflation cooling, Trump’s case for rate cuts gains credibility. Still, the Fed appears in no rush. It will take time to understand the lasting effects of the tariff rollout.

AI Wave Fueling Markets

For a generation, the semiconductor revolution has quietly powered innovation, guided by Moore’s Law—the principle that chip performance doubles roughly every two years (see my article The Traitorous 8). Sixty years after Gordon Moore wrote his seminal article, “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits”, the power of software is catching up. NVIDIA’s Grace Blackwell GB200 chip contains an astronomical 208 billion transistors, supercharging AI software models like ChatGPT.

The AI revolution is fueling trillions in global investment and rapidly transforming industries – from data centers and self-driving cars to robotics and drug discovery. It’s important to realize that this AI arms race is not just occurring in the United States. AI investment spending extends way beyond Silicon Valley to countries like Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and China.

The AI boom is not a U.S.-only phenomenon. Countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore are pouring capital into AI, creating a global arms race in tech. In the U.S., the four biggest hyperscalers—Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta—are projected to spend over $300 billion on capital expenditures in 2025 alone (see chart below).

To illustrate the scale: Amazon is forecasted to spend more than $100 billion in CapEx this year. For context, that’s 40% more than the company spent over the entire 2000–2020 period combined.

Source: The Financial Times

The Stargate Initiative: AI Infrastructure on a Galactic Scale

A prime example of the AI gold rush is the $500 billion Stargate initiative, with Phase 1 already underway in Abilene, Texas (see rendering below). The initial construction includes two buildings totaling 1,000,000 square feet. Ultimately, the full project will cove about 1,000 acres and be powered by an on-site natural gas facility generating 360 megawatts—enough to support 300,000 homes.

A huge portion of the project costs are dedicated to the budget for NVIDIA super chips. Oracle Corp. has committed $40 billion to purchase 400,000 of NVIDIA’s GB200 chips, making this project a centerpiece of the global AI infrastructure boom. Just this week, Oracle also announced a new $30 billion cloud deal, which will soak up a good chunk of the data center supply created by the database and enterprise software company.

Source: CoStar

The Big Picture: Volatility and Opportunity

There’s no shortage of risk—geopolitics, inflation, Fed uncertainty, tariffs. But the economy is showing surprising resilience. If tariff clarity improves, interest rate cuts materialize, and AI capital spending accelerates, a “boring” market could rapidly turn into a soaring one.

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