CNBC Daily Open: Markets are already looking past U.S.-EU trade deal and need another catalyst

Stock markets in the U.S. and Europe didn’t seem that delighted with the U.S.-European Union trade deal reached over the weekend.

The S&P 500 ticked up, but by the barest margin, while the Stoxx 600 Europe fell. Both indexes were trading higher during their respective sessions but had given up those gains as the day ended.

For those on the continent, perhaps it was a dawning realization that the agreement wasn’t too much in their favor. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and France’s minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, expressed a desire for more open trade.

With U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Monday that he would probably impose a blanket tariff of between 15% and 20% on countries without trade agreements, it’s starting to seem like most duties will settle around that level eventually, easing some uncertainty.

What’s more, economists appear to be revising downward their expectations of the impact tariffs will have on the U.S. economy — so any deals in the future might not trigger rallies, or strong ones at least, on Wall Street.

Tariff considerations, then, are on the backburner for now. Investors can turn their attention to Magnificent Seven earnings: Meta Platforms and Microsoft will be releasing results on Wednesday. If all goes well, they might give markets the cheer that was missing on Monday.

Global baseline tariff of between 15% and 20%. For countries that have not negotiated separate trade agreements with the U.S., Trump said he would likely impose that blanket tariff rate on their exports. But Wall Street doesn’t seem as frightened of tariffs anymore.

Less than two weeks for Russia to reach a peace deal with Ukraine. That’s the new deadline Trump issued to Moscow — if Russia fails to meet it, the U.S. president will implement massive ‘secondary tariffs” on the country’s trade partners, Trump said.

Europe isn’t that pleased with its U.S. trade deal. The agreement, which imposes a 15% tariff on most European Union goods exported to the U.S., has been criticized by European leaders and analysts as “asymmetric” and “unbalanced.”

Markets have a muted response to EU deal. On Monday, the S&P 500 closed near the flatline, down from a 0.2% increase during its session high. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index lost 0.22%, erasing earlier gains.

[PRO] Watch this index for signs of a new bull phase. This index, which is calculated differently from the price-weighted S&P 500, gives a better gauge of the health of the entire economy and stock market.

Where is Nvidia? Chinese rivals take the limelight at major AI event in Shanghai

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/28/nvidia-absent-at-major-china-ai-event-.html

Less than two weeks after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s high-profile visit to Beijing, the U.S. chipmaker was conspicuous by its absence at the World AI Conference, China’s biggest artificial intelligence event, that opened Saturday in Shanghai.

In contrast, Nvidia’s China rival, Huawei, had a large display — focused on its Ascend AI chips — near the venue entrance. Huang has called Huawei “one of the most formidable technology companies in the world,” while warning that it could replace Nvidia in China if U.S. sticks with its export curbs on Beijing.

— Evelyn Cheng