On 31 July, Microsoft’s value on the NASDAQ exchange touched $4.01 trillion, making it the second company after chipmaker Nvidia to achieve that milestone. Nvidia passed $4 trillion in market value on 9 July.
Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT – Aug 5 2025
SPOTLIGHT: HOUSING MARKET UPDATE
Tracking trends is the understanding of where we are and how we got here to see where we are going. On the housing market front, let’s take a look at how we got here.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS ERASING ENTRY-LEVEL JOBS
New graduates with their college diplomas in hand are finding fewer ways to enter the job market. Artificial intelligence (AI) got there before they did.
U.S. FACTORY ACTIVITY CONTRACTED DRAMATICALLY IN JULY
U.S. manufacturing activity shrank for the fifth consecutive month in July at the fastest clip since November, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers index (PMI).
U.S. INFLATION ROSE AGAIN IN JUNE
In June, consumer prices ticked up 0.3 percent from May and rose at a 2.6-percent annual rate, according to the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation.
U.S. ECONOMY GREW MODESTLY IN THIS YEAR’S FIRST HALF
Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. GDP grew by 1.25 percent during the first six months of this year, initial government data indicates.
WHERE THE JOBS ARE—AND AREN’T
Of the 73,000 jobs the U.S. economy birthed in July, 55,000 were in healthcare, a traditionally low-paying industry that has led job creation in most months this year.
JOB MARKET BUST: ONLY 73,000 NEW JOBS ADDED IN JULY
The U.S. economy added a net 73,000 nonfarm jobs last month, well below economists’ modest expectation of 100,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
ECONOMIC UPDATE—MARKET OVERVIEW
Again, again, and again, week-after-week, month-after-month, as we have detailed, another Wild Card and another Trump Card are played, and where it goes, nobody knows.
POOR JOBS REPORT HALTS U.S. DOLLAR’S COMEBACK
The dollar’s value increased 1.5 percent against a collection of other major currencies last week, the London Stock Exchange Group reported, marking the buck’s best week since last November’s presidential election.









