📰On The Record – 15th July 2026

Nvidia has started shipping its H200 AI chips to Chinese firms after months of Washington hand-wringing, with a US Commerce official confirming to Congress that deliveries — while still small — have genuinely begun. This matters because it's the clearest signal yet that America's approach to China isn't a wall, it's a very carefully monitored gate. The bigger story here is a superpower trying to sell its rival just enough rope to stay competitive, without handing over enough to swing free.

JPMorgan booked $21.2 billion in quarterly profit, the largest ever posted by a US bank, as dealmaking fees jumped 30% and equities trading revenue nearly doubled. It matters because this wasn't steady, boring banking — it was a bet on volatility paying off spectacularly, with Jamie Dimon raising guidance while still warning that geopolitical risk hasn't gone anywhere. When banks make their money from chaos rather than stability, it's worth asking what that says about the ground beneath everyone else's feet.

Twenty-six former Meta employees are suing, alleging internal AI tools flagged disabled and medical-leave staff for layoffs. Meta says humans made every call, not machines. If the claim holds up, it could become the defining case for how far companies can hide behind software when a decision looks discriminatory.

Warren Buffett has ended two decades of giving to the Gates Foundation, redirecting roughly $6 billion to his children's charities instead, following renewed scrutiny of Bill Gates' past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. It's a reminder that reputational risk doesn't stay contained to one person — it ripples straight into where billions in future giving actually land.

Uber is deep in talks to buy Germany's Delivery Hero, a deal that could expand Uber Eats' reach across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Delivery Hero shares jumped on the news while Uber's dipped, as investors weighed global scale against the bill that comes with it.

IBM shares sank around 25% after the company said AI infrastructure spending is eating into software budgets, dragging its own forecast down with it. It's a warning shot for the entire software sector: the AI boom is minting winners in chips and data centres, and quietly squeezing everyone selling something less tangible.

A daily score of business conditions (scored out of 100), with a breakdown of what’s driving it.

The Daily Business Index rose to 50.3 today, up from 47.9, as Wall Street rebounded despite a fourth day of US-Iran clashes near the Strait of Hormuz that pushed oil to a one-month high near $86 a barrel. The lift came from a cooler-than-expected US inflation report, blowout bank earnings from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, and a surprise jump in small business optimism — though IBM's steep share slide and rising fuel costs from the Gulf standoff are reminders that the recovery is far from universal.

If IBM's warning tells us anything, it's that the money isn't flowing to software right now — it's flowing to the physical stuff underneath AI: chips, servers, memory, data centre capacity. That's the theme worth watching, not any single stock. The risk is obvious: infrastructure spending sprees have a habit of overshooting, and today's essential hardware is tomorrow's oversupplied warehouse.

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A year ago today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported June CPI had risen 2.7% annually, with clothing prices jumping 1% in a month as tariff costs finally began reaching store shelves. It was the first report where economists could point to specific line items — imported apparel especially — and say "there, that's the tariff." The Fed held rates steady anyway, unconvinced one month made a trend. Turns out reading tariff pain in the data takes longer than announcing the tariffs themselves.

What it means: This is the money a bank makes from the gap between what it pays savers and what it charges borrowers. It sounds dull, but it's the steady engine underneath the flashy stuff — and it's exactly what JPMorgan just raised its forecast for, on top of an already record quarter.