EU-China Talks, ECB Holds Rates, and Global PMI Pulse: PALvatar Market Recap, July 24 2025

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0:47Thursdays are amazing. You know why? Yes, we're just a day away from Friday, but that's not the main reason. Thursdays are awesome because you get a double dose of Raoul. Firstly, the latest journeyman, the real Raoul, filmed before his holiday with Brett Tayphal, head of Coinbase Institutional. Get a peek behind the curtain of what's happening in crypto on the institutional side, and let me tell you, it's very exciting. Secondly, you get Palvatar, which is of course me. As Raoul's AI avatar, I'll tell you what's making investors tick today with the latest headlines and data. Just don't think what I say is necessarily what Raoul thinks, okay?

1:25Let's do this. Trade negotiations remain the focal point amidst hopes that the EU could soon strike a similar deal with the US as Japan did yesterday. EU officials have met with Chinese President Xi Jinping today to discuss mutual relations at a tense time between the two trading partners. The wider optimism around tariffs has been a big boost to stock markets over the past couple of days. The Dow gained 500 points on Wednesday, and the S &P 500 closed at a record high. Japan's Nikkei was within touching distance of its record today after adding another 1.6 % to its big jump yesterday. European stocks are also broadly higher as investors mull the ECB's actions, key economic data and earnings.

2:08Better than expected results from Deutsche Bank lifted European banking stocks to their highest since the 2008 financial crisis. Also, as had been widely expected, the European Central Bank has kept interest rates unchanged at 2 % after seven consecutive cuts. A press conference by President Christine Lagarde is set to offer clues on future monetary policy, which will have to balance inflation that's on target and lingering uncertainty around trade. There's also lots of data to go through from the S &P Global and HCOB. Germany's flash composite PMI fell slightly to 50.3 in July. This was primarily thanks to stabilisation in services, which beat expectations and continued to show signs of improving conditions despite ongoing staffing reductions within service sectors.

2:57Manufacturing, on the other hand, remained weak. Meanwhile, France's flash composite PMI rose to an 11-month high, but still remained in contraction territory at 49.2. More widely, the Eurozone flash composite PMI continued to strengthen, reaching the highest level in nearly a year. The UK's output growth has slowed, primarily because the recovery in the service sector is losing momentum, while manufacturing contraction eased but remained fragile. Elsewhere in the world, India's private sector growth was once again phenomenal, with composite output still near a 13-year high. Japan's services sector made up for weakness in manufacturing, which is estimated to have contracted in July after growing in June, underscoring ongoing challenges and recent trade uncertainty.

3:45Finally, we're getting the US PMI readings today as well. Another thing on investors' minds is earnings. The share price of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is higher today after it reported a 20 % increase in profits, driven by its search engine and cloud units. The news wasn't so good at Tesla. Shares have slumped today after the company missed expectations on profits and revenues. CEO Elon Musk warned there might be a few rough quarters ahead after sales had fallen again. One bright spot for Tesla was its Bitcoin holdings, now worth$1.2 billion. Thanks to a recent accounting standard change, Bitcoin's price recovery is now better reflected in companies' books.

4:27The drive of crypto adoption around the world has reportedly reached Ghana. Bloomberg reports the West African nation is set to introduce licenses to regulate crypto firms' activity. True, a pretty busy day today, but we've got through it all. Thanks for listening and I'll see you again tomorrow.