Highlights for this morning: Senate passes Trump's 'beautiful' budget, Figma goes IPO

The U.S. Senate voted in favor of Trump's "Big and Beautiful" budget, which includes sweeping tax and budget changes, an increase in the national debt ceiling and cuts to clean energy support. Figma filed for an IPO after canceling its deal with Adobe. The euro continues to strengthen against the dollar amid expectations of a looser Fed policy. About these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of July 2.

The US Senate passed Donald Trump's tax and budget bill (One Big Beautiful Bill) on Tuesday. It now heads to the House of Representatives for possible final approval, writes Reuters. Trump is aiming to sign the bill into law by Independence Day on July 4, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he intends to meet that deadline.

In the Senate, the bill was approved by a minimal margin. All 47 Democrats and three Republicans voted against it and 50 Republicans voted in favor. The deciding vote in favor of the bill was cast by Vice President J.D. Vance.

The disagreements were mainly over provisions in the health care bill that are designed to save hundreds of billions of dollars for the budget but would result in the loss of insurance coverage for millions of Americans, and a proposal to raise the national debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

Health insurance and the debt ceiling are just part of a nearly 900-page document that promises to fundamentally change some sectors of the U.S. economy. Clean energy companies - especially electric car maker Tesla - have been watching the bill particularly closely. Government support for electric cars and solar power would be rolled back and tax credits phased out. However, the threat of a possible excise tax was dropped at the last minute.

Software developer Figma has filed for an IPO and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker FIG, wrote CNBC.

The going public is one of the most anticipated in recent years due to Figma's high growth rate and its valuation in the private market. Figma's first-quarter revenue rose 46% to $228.2 million, the company's prospectus shows. Net income was $44.9 million, compared with $13.5 million a year ago. Figma had about 450,000 customers as of March 31. Of those, more than 1,000 brought in at least $100,000 a year - a 47% increase over last year. Clients include Duolingo, Mercado Libre, Netflix, Pentagram, ServiceNow and Stripe. 

Figma has not yet disclosed the amount of shares it plans to float. Last year, the company was valued at $12.5 billion in a tender offer. Adobe was ready to acquire Figma for $20 billion in 2022. However, the companies failed to agree the deal with antitrust regulators in the U.K., and it was terminated a year later. Adobe paid Figma $1 billion in compensation for breaking the deal.

Wall Street banks were predicting a surge in IPOs after Trump won the presidential election in November. Although Trump's April announcement of sweeping duties shook markets and forced a number of companies to postpone offerings, activity is now resuming, CNBC writes.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sold more than 3.3 million shares of the company for $736.7 million, reports CNBC. The stock sale comes as part of a pre-approved plan Bezos adopted in March. Under that plan, he intends to sell up to 25 million Amazon shares by May 29, 2026.

Bezos, who will step down as Amazon's CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has regularly sold off shares in the company in recent years but remains the largest individual shareholder. Bezos has said he will sell roughly $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space company Blue Origin. He has also been transferring shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit organization that creates a network of Montessori-style kindergartens in various U.S. states.

The latest stock sale came shortly after Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez were married in a lavish ceremony in Venice. The three-day celebration, attended by a host of celebrities, sparked protests from locals and is estimated to have cost about $50 million.

According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Bezos' fortune is about $240 billion, making him the third richest person in the world after Ilon Musk ($363 billion) and Mark Zuckerberg ($260 billion), CNBC points out.

The euro has posted its longest streak of gains against the dollar since 2004 - and options traders are betting the rally isn't over, writes Bloomberg.

In Tuesday's trading, the euro reached its highest since September 2021, but then paused due to the strengthening of the dollar after the passage of Trump's tax-budget bill by the Senate and data on the state of the U.S. labor market, which gave no reason to expect a Fed rate cut soon. However, the dollar later corrected slightly downward. The euro rose by 0.2% to $1.9. 

The recent rapid rise of the euro has led to a strengthening of bullishness in the options market. So-called risk reversals - an important indicator of market sentiment - last week showed the third strongest bullish revaluation this year. According to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, nearly two out of three options over the past week were on the euro's rise.

Singapore stocks hit a record high amid mixed performance in other Asia-Pacific markets as investors digested recent statements from U.S. Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell, writes CNBC. Powell said on Tuesday that the central bank would have already started cutting interest rates if not for U.S. President Donald Trump's trade initiatives.

- Singapore's stock index rose 0.5 percent to a record high of 4,009 points.

- Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 1.3 percent and the Topix index was down 0.6 percent. 

- South Korea's Kospi index lost 0.4 percent, while the Kosdaq remained almost unchanged. 

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.5 percent.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.7%, while China's CSI 300 showed no change.

- Futures on US stock indices remained virtually unchanged in the morning hours of the Asian session. On the eve of the day in the U.S. three major indices closed multidirectional: S&P 500 decreased by 0.1%, Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8%, and the Dow Jones index rose by 0.9%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor