Bloomberg Television·2026-08-17 05:08Macroeconomic Trends & Central Bank Policies - U.S. budget deficit exceeded $400 billion, showing a 25% wider gap than expected [5] - U.S. underlying core inflation remained sticky under 2.5%, prompting market pricing for one interest rate hike this year [6] - Japan's second-quarter GDP grew by 1.1% on an annualized basis, missing the 2% consensus expectation [71][79] - Singapore's non-oil domestic exports rose by 22.4%, with electronics exports surging 112% year-on-year [117] Industry Dynamics & Corporate Performance - Anthropic surged above $11 billion ahead of a potential mega IPO, with revenue doubling last quarter [1][8] - Jane Street posted $15 billion of losses in July due to one-way bets in Asian equity markets and AI hedge fund investments [23] - Alibaba's Qwen AI models accumulated more than 3 billion global downloads in six months, surpassing Meta and Google [23][24] - Gina Rinehart's investment vehicle acquired a stake of just over $1 billion in SpaceX, making it her largest position [111]