1. ECB: the hiking begins.

The ECB raised its policy rate by 25bp to 2.25%, as was universally expected. In terms of forward guidance, the combination of President Lagarde’s comments and the accompanying staff forecasts are clearly pointing to further hikes.

But, it's also causing activity to stutter, threatening the long hoped for recovery for the euro zone economy.
Lagarde argued that the ECB was simply doing its job on inflation and that governments could do a lot to support growth by pushing on with EU policy initiatives and doing structural reforms. Hence, for the ECB, today's decision appears to have been an easy one….growth is not their responsability.
That has some questioning whether a rate hike in this environment could be a potential policy error and weigh on European stocks, like the rate hike before the 2011 sovereign debt crisis.

2. Meanwhile, the U.S. Economic Surprise Index has risen to its highest since October 2023.

3. The U.S. has become the world's leading oil exporter.

U.S. exports of crude and fuel climbed to a record on the back of high output and the release of strategic reserves, data from ship tracking services Vortexa showed, making the U.S. the top global exporter for the third month in a row.
The new U.S. dominance could weaken the pricing power that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have historically held over oil markets. U.S. President Donald Trump has long criticized OPEC for manipulating the markets.
European countries have leaned heavily on the United States in the years since the Ukraine war began in 2022. The European continent took about 47% of U.S. oil exports so far this year, compared with 37% in 2021.
Asian countries, which used to buy the bulk of their crude from the Middle East, are also now increasingly relying on the U.S. for supplies. Asia accounted for about 46% of U.S. oil exports in May, compared with around 37% last year.

4. Global profit growth comes from just 1% of stocks.

"2027 earnings have been revised up by roughly $580 billion this year, with 75% of that coming from the top 1% of stocks in MSCI AC World, who have been upgraded 33% this year. The remaining 99% of stocks have been upgraded by just 3%."

5. Thematic investing is massively beating passive index copying.

In 2025, thematic stock categories on average outperformed the S&P 500 by 27%.
Year-to-Date, thematic stock categories have outperformed the S&P 500 and MSCI World by 11% and 12%, respectively.

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