The infoshot to help kick-start your week
Coming up this week:
Trump to meet AI leaders to discuss government stakes
US President Donald Trump is set to meet leaders of major AI companies this week to discuss the US government investing and becoming a stakeholder. Former Democratic leadership candidate, Bernie Sanders, has been on the road in the last few weeks proposing a government run wealth fund which would take a 50% stake in major AI companies, and Trump didn’t completely dismiss Sanders’ plan when asked, “Where economics are concerned, we have things that aren’t that far apart.” Trump’s comments come as Elon Musk’s SpaceX kick off the AI-IPOs on Friday. SpaceX has set a valuation target of $1.75tn. The company is trying to raise $75bn, nearly three times the amount raised by Saudi Aramco in 2019. On Monday, Anthropic, the owners of Claude AI, filed for their IPO valuing the company at more than $1tn.
OPEC monthly report
The latest OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) is due this weekend. It’ll shed more light on oil demand and supplies now the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for 100 days. With the world burning through 8.7 million barrels of oil a day from global stockpiles, last week, various senior oil executives issued warnings about oil prices and inventories, with ExxonMobil’s Senior Vice President Niel Chapman stating, “We’re approaching unheard of [low] inventory levels.” US crude oil inventories sat at 1.57 billion barrels at the end of May, their lowest level in 22 years.
Last week:
Tech stocks have worst day since Liberation Day
The US tech index fell by more than 4% on Friday as it suffered its worst sell-off since Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement in April 2025. Surprisingly strong US jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics kick started the fall. The latest report from the Bureau showed the US economy added 172,000 jobs in May, well ahead of the initial 80,000 estimate. They also revised April’s number upwards from 115,000 to 179,000. The positive numbers mean it’s more likely the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year, which might have encouraged investors to flee from AI and tech to safer investments. Healthcare, utilities and consumer staples all saw a boost but with AI-related stocks now accounting for nearly half of the US’s leading index, it wasn’t enough to counter the overall decline.
The sell-off hit leading markets in Asia today. South Korea’s leading index was forced to halt trading for 20 minutes after it plunged 9% when it opened.
UN and OECD issue warnings
On Wednesday, the UN released a new report on the environmental cost of AI energy use. The report estimates that data centres consumed 448 terawatts-hours of electricity in 2025 with AI-related workloads accounting for 20% of this demand. They estimate this is set to skyrocket to 945 terawatt-hours by 2030. To put this in perspective, the world’s fifth largest electricity consumer, Japan, uses 913 terawatt-hours annually. Data centre water usage is estimated to reach 9.3 trillion litres a year by 2030, enough to meet the drinking needs of everyone on the planet for roughly 1.6 years.
In their latest quarterly update, the OECD cut its 2026 global economic growth forecast down from 2.9% to 2.8%, warning that rising energy prices, geopolitical tensions and inflation will hit the developing world particularly hard and could push several countries into recession.
Trade Department announces new tariffs
The US Trade Department announced new tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners, including the UK, EU, Canada and China. They’re attempting to use alleged forced labour failures in the latest attempt to revive Trump’s tariff policy. US trade representative, Jamieson Greer said, “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods with forced labour is unacceptable” and creates an “unlevel playing field” which these tariffs would supposedly rectify.
The new tariffs can’t be blocked by Congress and could be implemented in July, subject to comments and review, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Notice:
For regulated financial advisers and investment professionals only, Copia does not provide financial advice, and the contents of this document should not be taken as such.
The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.
