11 July 2025 Market Close & Major Financial Headlines: Markets Cool After S&P, NASDAQ Records & Trump’s Tariff Threats
Summary Of the Markets Today:
The Dow closed down 279 points or 0.63%,
Nasdaq closed down 45 points or 0.22%,
S&P 500 closed down 21 points or 0.33%,
Gold $3,374 up $48.00 or 1.44%,
WTI crude oil settled at $69 up $2.00 or 3.00%,
10-year U.S. Treasury 4.423 up 0.077 points or 1.772%,
USD index $97.87 up $0.21 or 0.21%,
Bitcoin $117,838 up $1,943 or 1.68%, (24 Hours),
Baker Hughes Rig Count down 2 to 537
*Stock data, cryptocurrency, and commodity prices at the market closing
Today’s Highlights – Market Summary
On July 11, 2025, stock markets pulled back, as late yesterday, President Donald Trump escalated tariff threats, announcing a 35% tariff on Canadian imports effective August 1 and signaling similar or higher tariffs for other major trading partners, including Europe and Brazil. At this point, the talking heads are blaming any market pullback on President Trump, and I suggest the market is taking a rest after the S&P 500 and NASDAQ reached all-time highs the day before. In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields edged higher. Meanwhile, Bitcoin surged to a new record above $118,000, boosting crypto-related stocks ahead of a potential stablecoin bill in Congress.
Read the June 2025 Economic Forecast: Recession Winds - Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full
Today’s Economic Releases Compiled by Steven Hansen, Publisher:
For decades, the bedrock promise of American homeownership was stability—a fixed mortgage meant a predictable monthly payment, offering families a rare sense of financial security even as rents and jobs fluctuated. That promise is unraveling as rising property taxes and soaring insurance premiums have made the true cost of owning a home increasingly volatile and, for many, unaffordable. Across the U.S., mortgage delinquencies are creeping upward—not because people bought homes beyond their means or took on risky loans, but because the costs that follow the purchase, especially taxes and insurance, are surging at unprecedented rates. In states like Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia, where natural disasters have driven up insurance costs, delinquencies have climbed sharply. Florida, for example, has seen property taxes jump nearly 50% over five years, and average escrow payments—covering taxes and insurance—have soared 62% in the same period, straining household budgets beyond the mortgage itself. In South Carolina, the collapse of multiple insurers has left homeowners facing higher premiums, while Georgia’s average property tax bill has risen by more than $700 in five years, alongside a 65% spike in home prices since 2019. These escalating costs are squeezing both new buyers and existing homeowners, with government-backed FHA and VA loans—designed to help those with modest incomes—now exhibiting delinquency rates several times higher than conventional mortgages, reflecting how little margin these borrowers have for unexpected expenses. The situation is compounded by broader economic headwinds: property taxes are up over 15% since before the pandemic, unemployment is ticking up, and extreme weather events—hailstorms, wildfires, hurricanes—are inflating insurance premiums nationwide. In the first quarter of 2025, property tax delinquency rates reached their highest point since 2018, with more than half the states with the worst delinquency rates also suffering above-average unemployment. Areas hit hardest by natural disasters, like Mississippi and parts of North Carolina, are seeing mortgage delinquencies rise as insurance costs spike and incomes lag. The myth of the stable mortgage payment is fading; as taxes and insurance climb unpredictably, the very feature that once made homeownership a safe investment—payment stability—has eroded. For many, the risk of losing their home is no longer tied to the original mortgage, but to the mounting, variable costs that follow, turning what was once a path to wealth into a source of financial insecurity.
In 2024, foreign direct investors spent $151.0 billion to acquire, establish, or expand U.S. businesses, reflecting a 14.2% decrease from the $176.0 billion recorded in 2023 and falling below the annual average of $277.2 billion for 2014–2023. The majority of these expenditures—$143.0 billion—were directed toward acquiring existing U.S. businesses, while $6.3 billion went to establishing new businesses and $1.8 billion to expanding current foreign-owned operations. Planned total expenditures, including both immediate and future commitments, reached $157.0 billion. Newly acquired, established, or expanded foreign-owned businesses in the U.S. employed 204,200 people in 2024.
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The headlines we are reading:
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It's A Smart Move For Russia To Strike Ukrainian Draft Centers
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
The Financial Times (FT) reported that “Russia attacks Ukraine’s draft offices in effort to undermine armed forces”, which drew attention to its latest strategy nearly three and a half years into the conflict.
What began as a special operation quickly transformed into a proxy war that’s since become a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition”.
Accordingly, without ...
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"It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, using a hilarious nickname for MSNBC.
Trump added: "Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement."
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Via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
Jerome Powell has made it clear that tariffs could induce higher inflation.
Accordingly, the Fed has resisted cutting interest rates.
Despite his concerns, fears of tariff-based inflation, as judged by individual and business surveys, are fading. Moreover, even some Fed members are backing away from their prior outlook that inflation would be transitory due to the effects of tariffs.
As tariff fears subside, is immigration the new inflation concern for the Fed?
To help us better appreciate how President Trump is impacting immigration and the labor market, we share the insight of Greg Valliere, a long-time Washington, DC insider.
The following are quotes from his daily newsletter:
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR:
The White House has been demanding the deportation of immigrants, ASAP - but that may backfire as hundreds of thousands of workers flee, leaving crops rotting in the fields and hotels without enough employees.
THE LABOR MARKET HAS BEEN TIGHT for the past few years, but not like this.
The epicenter is in California, where workers are scarce as they leave the state in droves.
THE IMMIGRATION SHORTAGE HAS AFFECTED FIRMS like Disney and Walmart as their workers’ temporary legal status has been revoked.
This has prompted firms to hike their salarie ...
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He went on to preview that once the weapons are purchased by NATO allies, "then NATO is going to be giving those weapons" to Ukraine. He described that the deal was struck in June at the NATO summit in the Netherlands:
"We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%. So what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and NATO is paying for those weapons," Trump said.
Another very interesting part of the interview came when he teased a major Russia-related announcement planned for Monday.
Could it be new sanctions, which Ukraine's Zelensky and others have been aggressive ...
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