Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

Billionaire investor and Omega Advisors CEO Leon Cooperman warned this week that the U.S. economy could enter a recession within the next year, dragging down the stock market. He noted the current market resembles the collapse of the "Nifty Fifty" in the 1970s and expressed concern over cooling optimism around AI. In an interview with CNBC, Cooperman said, "I think we will have a recession sometime next year, which could cause the market to fall." He also pointed out that the market’s profit growth expectations for the S&P 500 are off the mark (FactSet data shows this quarter’s year-over-year increase is projected to exceed 50%). Currently, he is clearly deviating from Wall Street’s mainstream bullish views—particularly avoiding tech stocks—and holds a negative outlook on the overall market. He reminded investors not to underestimate the risk of a rebound in inflation. Brent crude remains at a high level (around $90 per barrel, more than 20% higher than pre-Iran-conflict levels), while July retail sales fell 0.6% month-over-month, far below the expected 0.1% growth. Higher inflation could hit stock valuations, mirroring the sharp decline in growth stocks after 1970s oil price surges. "The most dangerous phrase in investing is: ‘This time is different,’" Cooperman said. The current market is almost universally bullish, and once a negative catalyst emerges, investors could sell off quickly. Meanwhile, bond market volatility is adding pressure: the yield on the U.S. 30-year Treasury bond hit 5.33% on Tuesday, the highest since June 2007, breaking through a three-year trading range. Analysts warn that if yields rise rapidly toward 6%, the stock market could face further valuation pressure. Historically, after a similar trend in 1999, the S&P 500 subsequently entered a correction amid the dot-com bubble burst.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield has disclosed that two wallet addresses—0xfdea...447a7BF and 0x4388...C919dd7—each minted roughly 463 million MemeCore (M) tokens, totaling approximately 1 billion tokens. The tokens were subsequently transferred and merged into the address 0x69cB...F6FF4681, which currently holds the assets valued at around $1 million.

AI chip design company Velaura AI has secured $110 million in Series A funding, pushing its valuation above $1 billion. The round was led by Seligman Ventures, with new investor Capricorn Investment Group joining, while existing backers Samsung Catalyst Fund, StepStone Group, and Maverick Silicon also participated. Velaura AI specializes in developing low-power chips and software technologies, primarily serving data centers and physical AI sectors including robotics and autonomous driving systems. The company stated the funds will be used to accelerate AI product R&D and deployment, as well as expand its engineering and customer teams. Earlier this year, it launched its self-developed chip design platform Titan Core, designed to improve the energy efficiency and power performance of data center workloads. It is reported that Velaura has entered potential client collaborations with three of the world’s four major cloud service providers (specific names undisclosed), and its technology has been deployed in over 30 million chips. The company adopts a business model combining upfront licensing fees and revenue sharing based on customers’ power savings, similar to Arm’s early chip licensing approach.

According to Reuters, sources said that Samsung has raised its chip manufacturing prices by 15% due to surging demand.

According to data from Binance's market page, the US stock SNDK (SanDisk) perpetual contract has recorded a trading volume of approximately $6.37 billion, surpassing the $5.96 billion volume of Bitcoin's USDT perpetual contract, ranking among the highest-volume contract products on the Binance platform. Notably, TradFi (Traditional Finance) assets are becoming a key part of Binance's high-volume contracts. Data shows that 10 of the top 15 contracts by trading volume on Binance are TradFi-related assets. The trading activity of the single US stock SNDK contract has outpaced Bitcoin, a core crypto market asset, reflecting that traditional stock assets are rapidly entering crypto-native trading scenarios, enabling global users to trade US stocks and other global core assets with lower barriers.

According to Xinhua News Agency, Iran's Fars News Agency cited sources as saying on the 19th that Iran has not held any direct talks with the U.S. after the U.S. violated the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding. A source close to the negotiation team told Fars that Iran's talks with the U.S. have been suspended following the U.S.'s violation of the memorandum. Separately, Iran's talks with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz are unrelated to the U.S. Meanwhile, in a CNN report on the 18th, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered his negotiation team to cease contact with Iran. The report cited U.S. officials as saying that Trump is dissatisfied with Iran's unwillingness to meet his demands, and hopes to resume contacts after Iranian leaders demonstrate renewed willingness to strike the deal he is seeking.