Market Beats | Trump Expands Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 400+ Consumer Goods; Home Depot Sales Miss Signals Consumers Holding Back on Big Purchases; SoftBank Invests $2 Billion in Intel; US Housing Starts Hit Five-Month High in July; DeepSeek Launches V3.1 Model Update With Longer Context Window; Citadel: Retail Investors Likely to Ease Buying in September

—— Trump Expands Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 400+ Consumer Goods; Home Depot Sales Miss Signals Consumers Holding Back on Big Purchases; SoftBank Invests $2 Billion in Intel; US Housing Starts Hit Five-Month High in July; DeepSeek Launches V3.1 Model Update With Longer Context Window; Citadel: Retail Investors Likely to Ease Buying in September

1. Trump Expands Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 400+ Consumer Goods

President Donald Trump jolted the logistics industry on Friday by expanding steel and aluminum tariffs to cover more than 400 consumer items, including motorcycles and tableware. The new measures took effect Monday without exemptions for goods already in transit, leaving US customs brokers and importers scrambling.

The inclusion list, posted by Customs and Border Protection just before the weekend and published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, has created widespread confusion. Trade professionals say official guidance is unclear — particularly on whether the new tariffs stack on top of existing country-specific duties.

Having endured six months of Trump’s trade war and the pandemic’s supply disruptions, freight carriers and importers are no strangers to turmoil. Yet the speed and breadth of this notice caught many off guard. “Earlier announcements at least had some in-transit exemptions so importers could make reasonable decisions. This one was very much a ‘gotcha,’” said Shannon Bryant, president of trade compliance advisory firm Trade IQ.

The expanded list covers auto parts, chemicals, plastics, and furniture components — highlighting Trump’s sweeping use of sectoral tariffs, distinct from his executive authority on reciprocal tariffs.

“As a rule of thumb, if it’s shiny, metallic, or remotely tied to steel or aluminum, it’s probably on the list,” wrote Brian Baldwin, US vice president of customs at logistics giant Kuehne + Nagel, on LinkedIn. “This isn’t just another tariff — it’s a strategic shift in how steel and aluminum derivatives are regulated.”

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2. Home Depot Sales Miss Signals Consumers Holding Back on Big Purchases

Home Depot Inc., the world’s largest home-improvement retailer, reported weaker-than-expected sales growth in the latest quarter as US consumers continued to shy away from major purchases. Comparable sales rose just 1% in the fiscal second quarter, falling short of analyst forecasts, while the stock traded little changed early Tuesday. Shares have lagged the S&P 500 this year.

The company, along with peers, has seen demand cool over the past two years as Americans delay home purchases and large renovation projects that require financing. The Trump administration’s shifting tariffs have compounded the challenge by raising costs on a wide range of items and undermining consumer sentiment.

Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said shoppers are sticking to small projects while holding off on bigger ones. “Customers are telling us they’re putting projects on hold, not canceling them,” he said. Most of Home Depot’s 16 merchandising departments posted same-store sales growth, with US comparable sales accelerating throughout the quarter, including a more than 3% increase in July.

McPhail added that most imports arrived before the new tariffs, helping the retailer maintain stable prices for now, but some items will rise later in the year. Home Depot sources over 50% of its products in the US and plans to keep pricing competitive. The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance.

“Weakness in big-ticket discretionary categories like kitchen and bath remains a near-term headwind,” said Drew Reading, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “But investments in professionals, stores, online, and supply chain position Home Depot well for a market rebound.”

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3. SoftBank Invests $2 Billion in Intel

SoftBank Group Corp. has agreed to buy $2 billion worth of Intel Corp. stock, providing a surprise boost to the struggling US chipmaker while advancing its own ambitions in semiconductors and AI.

The Japanese conglomerate will purchase newly issued Intel shares at $23 apiece, a slight discount to the company’s last closing price. Intel shares surged more than 5% in after-hours trading, while SoftBank’s stock dropped as much as 5.4% in Tokyo, its steepest decline since April.

SoftBank, which owns Arm Holdings and has stakes in Nvidia Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., has long aspired to be a central player in AI but has largely remained on the sidelines of the global hardware boom. Progress has been slower than expected at Stargate — a $500 billion data center venture with OpenAI, Oracle Corp., and Abu Dhabi’s MGX — while Masayoshi Son’s “Izanagi” project to design an energy-efficient chip has yet to yield a marketable product. Analysts cautioned that the Intel investment may not deliver immediate value or earnings for SoftBank.

For Intel, SoftBank’s move represents a strong vote of confidence at a time when the storied US chipmaker is fighting to regain relevance in the AI sector. Intel has fallen behind TSMC in contract manufacturing and Nvidia in design.

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4. US Housing Starts Hit Five-Month High in July

US housing starts rose 5.2% in July to an annualized rate of 1.43 million homes, the highest in five months and above all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The gain was led by multifamily construction, which surged nearly 10% to an annualized 489,000 units — the strongest pace since mid-2023. Single-family starts also climbed 2.8% to 939,000.

Despite the July rebound, homebuilders have grown more cautious over the past two years as mortgage rates doubled, keeping many homeowners locked in place. This has dampened demand while leading to the largest supply of new homes since 2007. Builders have cut prices and offered incentives, but residential construction has weighed on the economy in four of the past five quarters.

Building permits, a leading indicator of future construction, fell 2.8% to an annual rate of 1.35 million — the weakest in five years. Single-family authorizations rose for the first time since February, while permits for new multifamily projects declined.

The data will help economists refine third-quarter GDP estimates, with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model previously penciling in virtually no contribution from residential investment.

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5. DeepSeek Launches V3.1 Model Update With Longer Context Window

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek announced on Tuesday that it has released an enhanced version of its V3 model, called V3.1, now available for testing. According to a post in its official WeChat group, the new version features a longer context window, enabling it to process larger amounts of information per query. This allows for more extended conversations with improved memory and recall.

The Hangzhou-based company shared little additional detail and has not yet published documentation on major platforms such as Hugging Face. DeepSeek’s rapid growth and popularity have challenged US players like OpenAI, highlighting how Chinese firms can advance AI development at a fraction of the cost. Its R1 model, unveiled earlier this year, outperformed several Western competitors on standardized benchmarks and drew global attention.

Fans are still awaiting the launch of the R1 successor, R2. Local media have reported that CEO Liang Wenfeng’s perfectionism and technical glitches have delayed the release.

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6. Citadel: Retail Investors Likely to Ease Buying in September

Princeton University is rolling out a new wave of cost-cutting measures in response to the Trump administration’s cuts to higher-education funding and broader economic challenges.

In a statement Thursday, the Ivy League school said departments will implement steps such as “less free food and merchandise” and shorter operating hours in some areas. The university will also eliminate programs during the final two weeks of winter break that had offered workshops and activities for students and staff. Princeton noted that these measures are designed to safeguard its core mission despite financial strain.

President Trump’s administration has frozen dozens of research grants from agencies including the Defense Department, the Energy Department, and NASA, citing universities’ failure to address antisemitism on campus, alleged liberal political bias, and diversity policies. While Columbia, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania have struck deals with the administration to restore funding, Princeton has not disclosed financial details about its reductions.

The university has already paused or canceled capital projects, slowed faculty hiring, and avoided staff expansion except in limited cases. Still, Princeton continues to boast Nobel Prize-winning faculty in physics and chemistry.

With an endowment of more than $34 billion as of June 2024, Princeton is among the wealthiest US universities and is subject to higher federal taxes on investment gains.

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7. Novo Nordisk Cuts Ozempic Cash Price to $499

Novo Nordisk is cutting the cost of its blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic for cash-paying patients, amid ongoing scrutiny of high US drug prices.

The Danish pharmaceutical giant said Monday that patients can now get Ozempic for $499 a month — roughly half of its US list price — through its NovoCare cash-pay pharmacy. In addition, the company is partnering with GoodRx to make both Ozempic and its weight-loss counterpart Wegovy available at the same price at pharmacies nationwide.

The move comes as President Donald Trump has been pressuring drugmakers, including sending letters to companies like Novo, to take action on pricing. Previous efforts by the Biden administration to push for lower prices were unsuccessful. Novo stressed that this offer is unrelated to its government discussions.

GoodRx CEO Wendy Barnes said the collaboration would give patients easier access to more affordable versions of the drugs: “We already have millions of consumers searching for these products, and this partnership puts the most affordable options in their hands.”

Shares of Novo Nordisk jumped as much as 7.8% following the news, while GoodRx stock soared 39% — its biggest one-day gain since September 2020.

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