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Good morning. US stock futures dipped in Thursday morning trading as investors looked ahead to the release of key data and tried to recover after a tough session for Wall Street.

💰 Is a “Billionaire tax” coming?

📝 Our report: G20 finance leaders meeting in Brazil are crafting a joint statement supporting progressive taxation, but they’re stopping short of endorsing the hosts' idea for a global "billionaire tax," two G20 officials told Reuters. Brazil's presidency of the Group of 20 major economies this year has drummed up initial support from some countries for a joint effort to tax ultra-high-net-worth individuals, although debate has been preliminary.

 🔑 Key points:

• France, Spain, Colombia, Belgium and the African Union have backed the idea, along with South Africa, which will assume the G20 presidency next year. However, the idea has hit high-profile resistance, including from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

• One of the G20 officials familiar with talks, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said the joint statement is expected to include a call for cooperation to reduce tax evasion by the super-rich through greater exchange of information and best practices.

• At a seminar in Brasilia last month, officials discussed the proposal from the independent EU Tax Observatory to levy a 2% wealth tax on fortunes over $1 billion, raising estimated revenue of up to $250 billion annually from 3,000 individuals.

💡 So what: Implementing a "billionaire tax" could generate significant public revenue and help reduce income inequality, but it also presents challenges such as potential discouragement of investment and increased tax avoidance. It could necessitate international coordination to prevent wealthy individuals from relocating to lower-tax jurisdictions, while potentially enhancing public perception of tax fairness and sparking political debates on its merits. The overall impact would hinge on the tax's design and the broader economic and political landscape.

Thursday - U.S GDP

Friday - Consumer Sentiment

📈 9 investing lessons from legend Shelby Davis

🤔 Are you letting small decisions pile up? Here’s how they can cost you

🏡 So you want to own a home? Have you considered these hidden costs!

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🏢 US business activity shows expansion

WHAT: US business activity picked up in early July at its fastest pace in over two years thanks to booming services demand, while a gauge of prices received took a breather. The S&P Global flash July composite output index ticked up 0.2 point to 55, the highest since April 2022. Figures higher than 50 indicate expansion. While the measure of activity at service providers showed the fastest growth since March of that same year, manufacturing slipped back into contraction territory.

WHY: “The flash PMI data signal a ‘Goldilocks’ scenario at the start of the third quarter, with the economy growing at a robust pace while inflation moderates,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement.

🤖 VCs continue to pour billions into AI startups

WHAT: Investments in generative AI startups—those creating AI-powered tools to generate text, audio, video, and more—are still going full throttle. In the first half of 2024, from January to July 16, 225 startups raised $12.3 billion from VCs, according to Crunchbase data shared with TechCrunch. Should the trend maintain, generative AI companies are on track to match or exceed the roughly $21.8 billion they raised in 2023.

WHY: Generative AI models are typically trained on data like images and text sourced from public web pages, and companies assert that fair use shields them from legal challenges in cases where that data turns out to be copyrighted.

💳 US credit cards “past due” climb to 12-year high

WHAT: The share of overdue credit card balances hit a record high in Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia data going back to 2012, adding to a growing list of signs that the US economy might be developing some cracks. Some 2.6% of credit card balances were 60 days past due in the first quarter, according to the recently published data. That’s up from a low of 1.1% reached in 2021, when consumers were bolstered by pandemic-era support programs. Credit card balances 30 days and 90 days past due also climbed in the first three months of the year to the highest levels in data back to 2012.

WHY: Americans have now burned through the excess savings accumulated during the pandemic, a worrying sign that consumers — especially lower-income ones — may not be able to keep weathering high rates.

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