Meta, the parent company of Facebook, faced a crisis as it could be fined over 18 trillion won by the European Union. The reason is that the Commission plans to impose a fine of up to $13.4 billion, about 18.5 trillion won, on Meta for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the classified ad market. The Commission raised concerns about Meta linking its social networking service Facebook and online advertising service Facebook Marketplace. This provided an unfair advantage that competitors of Facebook Marketplace could not follow, forcing users to use the Marketplace. Furthermore, the Commission concluded that Meta abused its market dominance by unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on competing online classified ad services that advertise on its own services such as Facebook or Instagram. Earlier in June 2021, on the same charges, the Commission had...

The investigation began and announced the preliminary investigation results in December 2022. Accordingly, the executive committee has initiated the investigation, which allows for a maximum fine of up to $13.4 billion, equivalent to 10% of the global sales of the previous year, to be imposed. The executive is preparing to force Facebook to stop using competitors' advertising platform data to compete with them. Currently, it is still in a confidential stage. The tech sector is expected to face another turning point based on the performance of other magnificent seven companies such as Microsoft and Apple, which will be disclosed next week. Ford, the automotive company, experienced the largest drop of 18% in stock price since November 2008. This is due to the second-quarter earnings per share of $0.47, significantly lower than the analysts' average estimate of $0.7. The poor performance is attributed to warranty repair costs for older vehicles, caused by recurring quality issues.

The repair cost has increased, but this time it surged by 800 million won compared to the first quarter. Barclays explains that they sometimes pull off their performance without warning, causing frustration for investors. Ford recorded an operating loss of over 1.5 trillion won in just the second quarter, leading to a sell-off. Today's sharp drop erased all of Ford's stock price gains for the year, resulting in a more than 88% decline since the beginning of the year. Besides Ford, other major car manufacturers have also experienced significant stock price declines recently. General Motors and Stellantis both dropped by around 6% to 7% after their earnings announcements. Tesla, too, plummeted significantly yesterday due to disappointment over poor performance. The overall investment sentiment in the automotive sector is deteriorating, especially with GM plummeting by 88.6% just this week. This company is in line with Wall Street's expectations for the second quarter.

We have exceeded expectations and adjusted this year's guidance upwards. While Wall Street viewed this positively, investors had a different perspective. Concerns over the slowdown in the growth of the core business and the weakening profitability of automotive suppliers led to a selling trend. BMO Capital Markets forecasted that Amazon's stock would continue to rise due to its cloud business. Brian Fitz, an analyst at BMO, raised the target price of Amazon's stock from $220 to $230 and maintained a market outperformance rating for the tech and e-commerce giant. He evaluated that Amazon Web Services is on a sustainable profit growth trajectory at least until 2025 as companies invest to maintain competitiveness. Additionally, Prime Day sales are reported to have increased by 20% compared to the previous year. Prime Day targets Eurozone members of Amazon Prime.

This is the ongoing biggest discount event of the year. Prices have risen by 20% this year, but in July, they are experiencing a decrease of over 88%. The U.S. economy's growth rate in the second quarter of this year turned out to be much better than expected. Despite concerns of economic slowdown due to recent labor market cooling, a robust growth trend is still being confirmed thanks to strong consumer spending. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the second quarter grew by 2.8% on an annual basis compared to the previous quarter. This preliminary figure will be followed by revised and final figures sequentially. The experts' forecast was 2.1%, significantly surpassed by the actual result, indicating that the U.S. economy did not decline significantly compared to the previous year. The growth rate in the second quarter doubled the first quarter's rate of 1.4%, far exceeding the Wall Street Journal experts' forecast of 2.1%. The economic growth rate significantly exceeded the forecast.

Smiling remains solid due to consumer spending. Consumer spending is essential, accounting for 2 of the US GDP. Both goods and services expenditures are included. In particular, personal consumption expenditure, which accounts for about 70% of the US economy, increased by 2.3%, rising to 0.8% compared to 1.5% in the first quarter. The personal consumption expenditure price index preferred by the Federal Reserve rose by 2.6% compared to the regular basis, slowing down to 3.4% in the first quarter. As a result, expectations for Goldilocks, meaning an ideal economic situation that is neither too hot nor too cold, are gradually increasing. Some are raising the need for an early rate cut in July due to concerns about an economic downturn, but as the US economy is still robust, the market is now anticipating the first rate cut in September. The GDP growth rate in the second quarter doubled compared to the 1.4% in the first quarter. Last year, there was a surprising growth of 4.9% in the third quarter.

In the following 4th quarter, the GDP growth rate, which had dropped to 1.4% in the 1st quarter, rebounded to 3.4%. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance attributed this rebound in the 2nd quarter GDP growth rate to the increase in private sector investment and expanding consumer spending. However, they mentioned that the growth rate partially faltered as housing fixed investment slowed down. Recently, concerns have grown about the U.S. economy entering a downturn phase due to signs of cooling in the labor market and accumulated intense tightening. The unemployment rate steadily rose to a record high of 4.1% as of June, the highest in two and a half years. Nevertheless, with the GDP growth rate in this quarter surpassing expectations by a large margin, it has been confirmed that the U.S. economy is still in an expansion phase. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance pointed out that the personal savings rate decreased to 3.5% in the 2nd quarter compared to 3.8% in the 1st quarter. It is analyzed that the decline in the savings rate is due to the rise in the Philadelphia Fed price index.

According to recent reports, credit card balances have reached an all-time high since 2012. Americans not reducing their spending signifies the vibrancy of the economy, but a significant portion is using credit to spend. The continuous increase in retail sales figures also proves that consumer behavior remains unchanged. Despite high-interest rates, the slow decline in prices highlights issues in the housing market. While sales are decreasing, housing prices continue to rise. It is noted that this causes stress for first-time homebuyers. It is expected that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting scheduled for next week will maintain the current interest rates. However, market experts anticipate that the Federal Reserve will cut rates for the first time at the September meeting. Last week, the number of new jobless claims in the United States fell below market expectations. The Department of Labor reported that new jobless claims for the week ending July 20th

The number of claims was recorded at 235,000, showing a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week. Experts' expectations of 237,000 and the revised figure from the previous week of 245,000 are both lower. This indicates a more robust GDP inflation than expected in the second quarter, boosting confidence in the U.S. economic landing in September and supporting the forecast of a rate cut. In the market, there is a 100% chance that the Fed may lower rates by more than 0.25% at the September FOMC meeting. The T Group forecasts that the Fed will start lowering rates in September and continue to do so at each subsequent meeting.

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