US stocks continued to slide as rising yields pushed valuations lower

US 30Y yield rose 7 bps to 5.2% to the highest since 2007

US 10Y yield rose to the highest since January 2025

Home Depot beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates and re-affirmed FY guidance on a 5% sales rise as its core homeowner shopper remains resilient despite higher gas prices and falling consumer confidence (CNBC)

CAVA issued a Q1 beat-and-raise on 10% same-store sales growth driven by its value proposition for consumers seeking affordability (WSJ)

What we're watching this week:  

Full calendar here

Polymarket debuted prediction markets tied to private companies

Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market

Bank execs call employees 'human assembly line' and 'lower-value human capital' in dystopian AI predictions (BBG)

Lorna Hajdini sued Chirayu Rana for defamation (NYP)

Morgan Stanley issued China-only iPhones to Hong Kong bankers (FT)

US is in no hurry to extend China trade truce (RT)

Trump threatened Iran with 'big hit' it there's no deal soon (BBG)

Over one-third of distressed exchange deals end up in default (BBG)

Wall Street prepares for boom in tech IPOs after Cerebras' success (FT)

Fund managers boosted stock allocations by a record (BBG)

O&G dealmaking heats up with $20B in play (BBG)

Foreign firms eye Hong Kong IPOs as rebound broadens (RT)

Korea Exchange will launch weekly options on single stocks (BBG)

SEC floats cutting disclosure requirements to boost IPOs (BBG)

CFTC is investigating $800M of insider oil trading (WSJ)

Nvidia has spent $90B on deals since 2025 (FT)

LPs accused Marc Rowan of misusing Apollo resources for politics (FT)

OpenAI co-founder and ex-Tesla AI exec Karpathy joined Anthropic (CNBC)

Google debuted new AI models and tools to catch up to rivals (CNBC)

Big Four posts more job ads for AI specialists than auditors (FT)

Meta began cutting 8k jobs (BBG)

Putin met with Xi days after Trump's visit (BBG)

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SpaceX plans to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60B one month after its IPO

Germany will launch a privatization of bailed-out $23B-listed utility Uniper

European healthcare PE firm Global Healthcare Opportunities and Asian healthcare PE firm CBC Group will merge to form a $21B AUM firm

Arctos, the sports PE firm owned by KKR, will take a 10% stake in NFL's Cleveland Brown from the Haslam family at an over $9B valuation

Apollo co-founder Josh Harris will re-acquire Blue Owl co-founder Doug Ostrover's entire stake in NFL's Washington Commanders at a reported $9B valuation

KKR and Energy Capital Partners are considering an improved offer for UK energy provider DCC after a $6.7B bid was rejected as too low

Warburg Pincus and Kayne Anderson are seeking to sell Ford Basin operator Wildfire Energy at a $4B valuation

Hedge funds including Triton Partners and Varde Partners are exploring a $3.5B sale of French truck rental company Fraikin Group eights years after its bankruptcy

Quantum Capital Group is seeking to sell Denver-Julesburg Basin operator Bison Oil and Gas at an over $3B valuation 

Greenbelt Capital Partners is seeking to sell Permian Basin explorer TRP Energy at an over $3B valuation

O&G PE firm EnCap is seeking to sell Permian Basin explorer Ridge Runner for $2B

$1.6B-Swiss listed contract drugmaker PolyPeptide shortlisted PE firms EQT and IDG Capital in the next round of bidding for a takeover

Analog Devices agreed to acquire Empower Semiconductor for $1.5B cash

Google DeepMind will acqui-hire AI startup Contextual AI for $100M

Century Medical, a unit of Japanese trading house Itochu, will take over medtech SunMed's Japan sales operations

Aguassanta Participações, the family office of Brazilian conglomerate Cosan's chair Rubens Ometto, is considering acquiring part of the farmland portfolio held by Cosan's land management unit Radar

Niger secured a 45% stake in China-backed West African Oil Pipeline Co.

France's Mistral ​AI acquired Austrian physics AI startup Emmi AI

Portuguese soccer club Benfica is weighing stopping ex-Toronto Raptors CEO Tim Leiweke from acquiring a stake because of his holdings in other European teams

Armada, a modular AI infrastructure company, raised a $230M Series B at a $2B pre-money valuation co-led by Overmatch, BlackRock, and 8090 Industries

RADAR, an AI-powered retail intelligence platform, raised a $170M Series B at a $1B valuation co-led by Gideon Strategic Partners and Nimble Partners

Bootstrapped custom manufacturing startup SendCutSend raised a $110M debut round at a $1B valuation co-led by Sequoia, Paradigm and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison

Nourish, the largest dietitian-led metabolic health clinic, raised a $100M Series C led by Menlo Ventures

Commure, an AI platform for healthcare, raised a $70M round at a $7B post-money valuation led by General Catalyst

Viktor, an AI coworker services provider, raised a $75M Series A led by Accel

Unframe, a managed AI delivery platform, raised a $50M Series B led by Highland Europe

Relay, a small business banking and money management platform, raised a $50M growth investment led by General Catalyst

bunch, a German AI-native fund ops platform for private markets, raised a $35M Series B led by Portage

Eisen, an AI-enabled compliance operations infrastructure company for financial services, raised $18.5M across a seed and Series A led by MissionOG

Status AI, a gamified social app for immersive, user-generated character worlds, raised $17M in a combined seed and Series A led by General Catalyst

Hellbender, a physical AI infrastructure company, raised a $12.5M seed round co-led by Magarac Venture Partners and Veredas Partners

Checker, a global network for financial institutions to access stablecoin and digital asset liquidity, raised $8M from Galaxy Ventures, Framework Ventures, and more

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will lead SpaceX's record $75B IPO

UK PE firm Hg spun out 30 companies worth $580M from its $22B software group Visma into a new Luxembourg vehicle Norvato ahead of Visma's IPO

Chinese AI startup Moonshot will revamp its corporate structure to pave way for a Hong Kong IPO; the firm is valued at $20B

Biggest shareholder KKR will offload its entire 10.6% stake in $9.2B Japan-listed chipmaking gear supplier Kokusai Electric

Steel giant ArcelorMittal sold a 10% stake in French steel ​tubes maker Vallourec for $667M at an 8% discount to cut its stake to 17%

Chinese conglomerate Fosun International picked banks for a $500M Hong Kong IPO of holiday resort operator Club Med

Danish conglomerate Schouw is seeking to raise $423M at a $1.7B valuation in an IPO of fish feed producer BioMar in what would be Denmark's biggest IPO since 2018

Boutique investment bank Lincoln International raised $421M at a $2B valuation in an IPO priced at the top of a marketed range

Franco-German tank maker KNDS plans to sell 2% of its 16% stake in German engineering firm RENK Group for $312M at a 3% discount ahead of its IPO

Chinese dexterous robotic hands startup Linkerbot is considering a Hong Kong IPO

Banks are preparing to sell $49B of debt to back Paramount Skydance's $110B takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery

Banks led by JPMorgan launched a $6B loan sale to refinance part of Warner Bros. Discovery's $15B bridge facility ahead of its takeover 

Water treatment firm Ecolab sold $5B of investment grade bonds to help finance its $4.75B takeover of data center cooling company CoolIT Systems from KKR

Indonesia sold $3.45B of dollar and euro bonds

China is seeking to raise $882M in a debut green sovereign bond sale in Hong Kong 

The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is in talks to raise $400M in private credit to overhaul the Arthur Ashe Stadium in NYC

Italian luxury hotel developer and rail operator Arsenale plans to raise $350M in a bond sale

Saudi-backed AI company Humain picked Goldman Sachs to advise on a ‌financing package to build over $5B worth of data centers 

PGA-rival LIV Golf is preparing to shift its HQ and file for bankruptcy in US after Saudi's PIF abruptly pulled funding after plowing $5B

Freight services firm STG Logistics secured court approval for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan to cut over $1B in debt

Lower MM private credit firm Stellus raised $1.5B for its fourth fund

PE secondaries firm Aqualis Partners is seeking to raise $750M for a debut fund 

India's 360 ONE Asset Management is seeking to raise $500M for its sixth private credit fund

French PE firm Astorg is struggling to raise for its ninth flagship fund

Ex-FTX exec Patrick Gruhn launched 'no loss' AI trading platform UpsideOnly

Two Americans were arrested after breaking into Punch the Monkey's enclosure in Japan to promote a Solana memecoin

Greenland Energy Company (NASDAQ: GLND) is looking to unlock 2 million acres of the Jameson Land Basin. They are pairing decades of legacy seismic data with modern reprocessing to chase what independent engineers (Sproule ERCE) say could be up to ~13 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Check them out to see what the opportunity holds.*

Financial Times published some interesting data on South Korea's KOSPI index; the stock market that's outpacing Nasdaq's dot-com era gains.