Former Treasury Secretary Downplays Economic Recession Concerns, Calls Stock Market Pullback a Natural Phenomenon

Finance professor and CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor) Damir Tokic recently published a "Google Earnings Preview" on U.S. investment platform Seeking Alpha, sparking heated discussion among U.S. stock market investors. The article claims that Google’s parent company Alphabet may become the first large tech firm to cut AI-related capital expenditures. Alphabet will hold its Q2 2026 earnings call at 16:30 ET on July 22, corresponding to 04:30 Beijing Time on July 23. Per Alphabet’s investor relations announcement, relevant earnings materials will be released ahead of the call. The market expects AI infrastructure spending, Google Cloud growth, and free cash flow performance to be the core focuses of this report. Tokic points out in the article that Alphabet has been ramping up AI investments in recent years, including data centers, servers, and cloud infrastructure construction. However, this expansion has put pressure on cash flow. If AI-related revenue fails to quickly cover capital expenditures, the company may need to rely on debt or equity financing to support its investments in the future, triggering concerns about credit risk and shareholder dilution. The article also notes that while Google Cloud remains growing at a solid pace, its backlog order growth has shown signs of slowing, which could dampen market optimism about demand for AI cloud services. Meanwhile, new products like AI search, chatbots, and AI Overview are changing how users access information, which could impact Google’s core profit source—search ads—in the long run. Tokic argues that if the upcoming earnings report fails to demonstrate that AI investments are generating sufficient returns, Alphabet’s capital expenditure plan may face reassessment, and its stock price could come under pressure. For investors, this earnings report is not only relevant to Alphabet’s own performance but could also serve as an important signal for tracking the AI investment cycle among large tech companies.

Binance announced the official launch of its Quanto perpetual contracts for Hong Kong stocks: HK0700USDT (Tencent) and HK1810USDT (Xiaomi). Binance’s Quanto perpetual contracts allow users to trade non-USD denominated stocks using local currency, eliminating the need for foreign exchange conversion—lowering trading barriers while enhancing convenience. The exchange’s TradFi (Traditional Finance) products now support 140 trading pairs, with TradFi perpetual contracts logging nearly $100 billion in trading volume over the past week, as Binance continues to expand users’ one-stop trading experience for traditional financial assets.

BNB Chain official announced that blockchain explorer BscScan will undergo scheduled maintenance starting at 14:00 on July 22, with an estimated duration of 3 to 4 hours. Some web pages and API services may be temporarily unavailable during the maintenance period, and users can use BSC_Trace as an alternative query channel.

According to Bitget market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 49.75 points on Wednesday, July 22, with a 0.74% gain, finishing at 6,797.7 points. The index had surged over 6% in early trading. SK Hynix dropped 0.32%, while Samsung Electronics rose 0.57%.

According to Bitget's market data, WTI crude oil's intraday gain has expanded to 2%, currently trading at $86.73 per barrel.

Per an official announcement, Binance will open ten bStocks trading pairs on July 22, 2026, at 21:30 (UTC+8). The pairs include AXT (AXTIB), CoreWeave (CRWVB), GraniteShares 2X Long INTC ETF (INTWB), South Korea Bull 3X ETF (KORUB), Direxion MU Bull 2X ETF (MUUB), GraniteShares 2X Long MRVL ETF (MVLLB), Oracle (ORCLB), Quantinuum (QNTB), Tradr 2X Long SNDK ETF (SNXXB), and ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQB). Concurrent with the launch, the platform will also support spot algorithm trading bots and zero-fee Binance Convert transactions.