Railroad company acquisition, Waymo partners with rental cars, Spotify, Boeing, and Novo Nordisk earnings report

Business news update for Wednesday, July 30th

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Welcome to Capital Currents—where the flow of business news and market trends keeps you ahead of the tide. I am your watchdog and today is Wednesday, July 30th.

In today’s episode: a huge railroad merger, Waymo teams with Avis, and earnings from Spotify, Boeing, and Novo Nordisk. One of these companies is in deep trouble—and it's not who you think.

We’re just days from the August 1st deadline when the tariff pause expires. President Trump said Monday he plans to move ahead with a 15–20% reciprocal tariff on imports from countries without a deal. That reassured markets a bit since those rates match recent U.S. deals with the EU and Japan.

The wild card? China. A deal is still being finalized. The two sides are meeting in Sweden this week and are expected to extend the tariff truce another 90 days. So yeah, between tariffs and the TikTok ban, expect a lot of extensions. At least markets now have clarity. Yes, rates are higher than earlier this year, but still far below the April “liberation day” shock.

Let’s run through some headlines—starting with the railroads. Union Pacific is going full speed ahead with its \$85B acquisition of rival Norfolk Southern. This would be the largest rail merger ever, creating the first U.S. coast-to-coast freight rail operator across 43 states.

Union Pacific rules the West and Norfolk owns the East. Combined, they control 40% of U.S. freight rail. Normally, this would get derailed by antitrust concerns, but the rail industry now faces growing competition from trucking. And the Trump administration is more merger-friendly than the last one. So this could be their window to consolidate.

The new company would be worth around \$200B, putting pressure on rivals like Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF. We might see more rail deals soon. The last major one was Canadian Pacific’s \$31B takeover of Kansas City Southern, which linked Canada to Mexico. This one’s all about U.S. dominance.

Now to self-driving cars. Google’s Waymo is expanding its robo-taxi service to Dallas and teaming up with a surprising partner—Avis. Avis will handle charging, maintenance, and depot operations for the robot car fleet.

It’s Waymo’s first rental car partnership, and both companies say Dallas is just the beginning. Seems like a smart move: Waymo can focus on tech, and Avis does what it does best—manage cars.

That’s all the business headlines. Let’s check on some stocks.

Boeing is up this morning after posting a smaller-than-expected loss and ramping up plane deliveries, which rose 63% year-over-year. 737 MAX production is still capped at 38 per month after that terrifying Alaskan Airlines incident, but Boeing plans to request an increase to 42 per month later this year. Stock’s up nearly 2%.

On the flip side, Novo Nordisk is in freefall—down 20% after cutting its full-year guidance and naming a new CEO. They now expect revenue growth of 8–14%, down from 13–21%, mostly due to a slowdown in U.S. sales of Ozempic.

And finally, Spotify. We love Spotify here at Capital Currents, but shares are sliding after they missed revenue estimates and posted an 86M euro loss—compared to a 225M profit a year ago. They blamed higher social charges tied to their rising stock price. On the bright side, subscriber growth beat expectations: 700M monthly active users, 275M premium subscribers. Still, shares are down 7%.

That’s all for today’s show. Keep navigating those waters—and see you tomorrow.