ETF Edge on momentum, AI and Bitcoin
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
CEOs globally brace for tariff turmoil with a new game plan
Trade tensions are rising, forcing top executives to rewrite the rulebook on how their companies operate, where they invest and what customers buy. In interviews with CNBC this earnings season, CEOs across industries — from aluminum and aerospace to chocolate, banking, telecoms, and energy — sent a clear message: tariffs are no longer just a political tactic. As trade rules grow more uncertain and tariffs resurface in policy discussions, business leaders say they're rethinking everything from where factories are located to how products are priced. The old 'just in time' model is giving way to something more cautious: make goods closer to the buyer, ask for exemptions where possible, and stay alert to shifting consumer habits. This earnings season has been marked by currency swings, inflation, and political uncertainty. And in that environment, tariffs are no longer background noise. They're front and center in how companies are managing risk. For many in the C-suite, the threat isn't just about short-term costs — it's about staying competitive for the long haul. Build local, think political 'We are concerned about the competitiveness of aluminum compared to other materials,' Hydro Chief Financial Officer Trond Olaf Christophersen told CNBC earlier this week. The company is already passing U.S. tariff costs onto customers. But the deeper worry is how, 'some customers in packaging are already testing steel and plastic alternatives. That's the long game we're watching.' For Christophersen, it's not just a quarterly issue — it's a warning sign. And Hydro's concern reflects a broader shift: tariffs are speeding up lasting changes in how companies do business. One of the most common responses is moving production closer to customers. Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm told CNBC the company's North American factory, opened in 2020, was a forward-looking move. 'We've had that 'Made in America' stamp for some time,' he said. The facility now helps protect the company from shifting global politics. Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson is also focused on the U.S. 'We want to fill our factory in South Carolina,' he told CNBC, noting that the company is breaking operations into more independent regions so local teams can respond quickly to new trade policies. Pharma giant AstraZeneca is also pivoting its footprint, rapidly shifting manufacturing to the U.S. and planning a $50 billion investment in local operations. 'We have lots of reasons to be here,' CEO Pascal Soriot said on the company's earnings call. For others, localization is as much about sovereignty as it is about logistics. 'We are building data centers for American hyperscalers in Europe, but also for Europeans in the U.S. It's a conscious decoupling,' Skanska CEO Anders Danielsson told CNBC. 'Sovereign tech is a real priority.' Not every company can shift where things are made. Some are relying on diplomacy. Rolls-Royce CFO Helen McCabe told CNBC the aerospace firm worked with U.K. and U.S. governments to win exemptions for key parts. 'It's not just about tariffs,' she said. 'It's about aligning our industrial footprint to minimize any friction.' That kind of behind-the-scenes outreach points to a bigger change: trade policy has become a key part of business planning. More companies are factoring in government relations and political risk when making decisions. Price hikes, policy risk and volatility Even the most proactive companies can't prepare for everything. Some are eating the higher costs. Others are raising prices — carefully. Lindt & Sprüngli, the premium chocolate maker, raised prices by 15.8% this year to offset soaring cocoa costs, driven partly by export restrictions in West Africa. 'We saw only a 4.6% decline in volume mix,' CEO Adalbert Lechner told CNBC. But he admitted that U.S. consumers are becoming more price-sensitive. Givaudan CEO Gilles Andrier shared a similar view. 'Some of our natural ingredients come from Africa and Latin America,' he told CNBC. 'So we're exposed to some tariffs there.' Even companies with local factories can't avoid all trade impacts when raw materials come from abroad. For companies tied to commodities, the trade duties are just one piece of a bigger puzzle: unpredictability. 'The tricky thing was, it was non-fundamentals-based volatility,' Shell CEO Wael Sawan told CNBC, describing recent swings in the oil market. 'This wasn't a change to physical commodity flows. This was really sort of paper-induced volatility.' That, he said, makes it harder to plan investments or manage price risk. Even in banking, where the direct impact of tariffs might seem small, the consequences are showing up. 'When you price risk now, you can't just look at credit or liquidity. You have to model policy unpredictability,' UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel told CNBC. That includes trade tensions, regulatory surprises, and election-related gridlock. This quarter makes one thing clear: policy is now a core business risk, not background noise. With elections ahead and industrial policy shifting, companies are localizing, diversifying, lobbying, and repricing faster than ever. Tariffs aren't just a cost — they're reshaping industries. When customers trade aluminum for steel or chocolate for cheaper treats, the threat isn't just margins. It's market share. So yes, leaders are building closer to home, pricing smarter, negotiating harder as they scramble to stay ahead of the next curveball.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
BlackRock's red-hot ETF drew 1M investors, 75% new clients
BlackRock's red-hot ETF drew 1M investors, 75% new clients originally appeared on TheStreet. BlackRock's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), has quickly become a huge client acquisition machine. BlackRock's ETF IBIT drew nearly 1 million investors since it launched on NASDAQ in January. About 75% of them are new clients, said Jessica Tan, the Head of Americas for Global Product Solutions at BlackRock, during an event earlier in to Bloomberg analysts, the IBIT fund has amassed $87 billion in assets — the biggest ETF launch in BlackRock's history — and it is the fastest-ever fund to reach $50 billion in net inflows. Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said: "75% of the investors who bought $IBIT ($87b via one million people) were first-time customers of BlackRock. And 27% of them went on to buy another iShares ETF—just a total coup for BLK all around," on X. On a lighter note, he also pointed out that had BlackRock's Bitcoin ETFs not existed, its Ethereum ETF iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA), "would be the fastest ETF in history to hit the $10b[illion] mark by about 2x," implying that investors are keen towards investing in Bitcoin than Ether. As of July 31, IBIT has realized $57.6 billion in cumulative net inflows, with net assets of $86.79 billion, according to SoSoValue. The ETF now accounts for almost 70% of all spot Bitcoin ETF trading in 2025, and ranks first in assets, flows, and trading volume within the segment. While BlackRock's IBIT leads spot Bitcoin ETFs, Reserve's Decentralized Token Folios (DTFs) are stealthily changing how crypto-native investors diversify. DTFs provide tailored on-chain exposure without financial intermediaries by combining ETF accessibility and DeFi composability. BlackRock's red-hot ETF drew 1M investors, 75% new clients first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ethena's USDe Outpaces BlackRock's Bitcoin, Ether ETFs With $3.1B Inflow Surge
Ethena's synthetic stablecoin, USDe, has crossed $8.4 billion in supply, adding more than $3.14 billion over 20 days in a surge that outpaced flows into BlackRock's (BLK) flagship bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds. According to on-chain data curated by the Ethena community, the supply increase since July 17 is the fastest period of growth since the protocol's inception in February 2024. Inflow into the yield-bearing stablecoin exceeds the $2.75 billion added to BlackRock's ether ETF (ETHA) and the $1.60 billion into its bitcoin ETF (IBIT) in the same period, making the DeFi-native stablecoin the biggest magnet for capital across both on- and off-chain markets in recent weeks. The rally has spilled over into Ethena's governance token ENA, which more than doubled in the past month, though it is down 12% in the past 24 hours as traders hope the long-awaited fee switch will soon activate. The protocol has already surpassed most of the thresholds required to distribute revenue to staked ENA holders, with the final benchmark, a favorable yield spread versus rivals, expected to be met soon. USDe's reflexive loop USDe's recent growth reflects a powerful reflexive loop built into its core design, as Nansen explained in a recent research report on the Ethena ecosystem. As bitcoin and ether prices rally, perpetual funding rates in turn increasingly positive. Ethena captures this funding via delta-neutral hedges, and distributes it as real-time yield to sUSDe holders. That higher yield then draws in more users, leading to greater USDe issuance, more hedging, and more protocol revenue. In the last month, Ethena has brought in nearly $50 million in feed and $10 million in revenue, according to DeFiLlama data. This makes it the sixth best-performing protocol for monthly fee revenue according to the data aggregator. ENA is currently trading for $0.58. Error al recuperar los datos Inicia sesión para acceder a tu cartera de valores Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos
