US stocks resumed their record rally on strong earnings and progress in US-Iran talks

Korea's KOSPI index is doing a KOSPI

UK 30Y yields climbed 14 bps to 5.8% to their highest since 1998 

US average gas prices topped $4.50/gal for the first time since July 2022

AMD beat Q1 estimates and issued a blowout forecast as booming AI demand led to a 57% sales surge in its data center business (CNBC)

Supermicro missed Q1 revenue estimates but beat on earnings and issued strong guidance as it rapidly transforms into a total data center infrastructure provider; the firm severed ties with indicted co-founder Yih-shyan Liaw (WSJ)

PayPal beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates and announced a turnaround plan to streamline its organizational structure and cut costs, including 20% of jobs (BBG)

Shopify beat Q1 revenue estimates but missed on guidance due to rising operating expenses despite strong revenue growth (WSJ)

KKR beat Q1 estimates as insurance revenue more than doubled and AUM climbed 14%, though it warned of lower profit due to a volatile outlook for deals (BBG)

Pfizer beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates and reaffirmed FY guidance on growth in its recently launched and acquired products (CNBC)

What we're watching this week:   

Full calendar here

Feel like everyone here has been awfully quite recently

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

US paused 'Project Freedom' on Iran deal progress (CNBC)

European investment banks stutter as Wall Street rivals power ahead (RT)

US hiring jumped to the highest level since 2024 (RT)

Hong Kong GDP grew 5.6% YoY in Q1 (BBG)

Debt crisis brews in Brazil as 8M firms miss payments (BBG)

Investors are piling into munis at the fastest rate in five years (BBG)

JPMorgan and BlackRock CEOs play down AI bubble talks (FT)

Larry Fink predicts birth of futures market for computing power (BBG)

AI's hottest private firms have a booming shadow market (BBG)

KKR sees compelling environment for private credit despite jitters (BBG)

Goldman named two new members to management (FT)

FINRA is investigating Morgan Stanley's Budapest IB program (WSJ)

Deutsche Bank denied training bankers to manipulate markets (FT)

SEC unveiled plans for semi-annual earnings (BBG)

Anthropic will spend $200B on Google's cloud and chips (RT)

OpenAI will spend $50B on computing power this ​year (RT)

Brockman claimed Musk wanted $80B from OpenAI to colonize Mars (RT)

Apple will let users choose AI models across iOS 27 features (BBG)

Ken Griffin blasted Mamdani for 'wierd' antics and anti-success policies (WSJ)

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Italian lender UniCredit launched a $41B all-stock hostile bid for German peer Commerzbank 

European PE firm EQT made a third improved offer for UK product testing firm Intertek for $12B after its previous $11.2B offer was rejected

UK telecoms giant Vodafone will buy out Hong Kong infrastructure conglomerate CK Hutchison's 49% stake in UK's largest mobile operator and JV VodafoneThree in a $5.8B deal

Singapore SWF Temsasek-backed CapitaLand and Hongkong Land are among possible bidders for the $4.5B Marina One high-rise complex in Singapore's central business district which is currently owned by a JV of Malaysian SWF Khazanah Nasional and Temasek

Crypto exchange Bullish will acquire transfer agent Equiniti from Siris Capital in a $4.2B stock deal, including debt 

Italian cable maker Prysmian is exploring a $4B acquisition in an M&A push 

Singaporean real estate investor Aravest is in talks to acquire a 50% stake in a portfolio of three Hong Kong hotels from struggling New World Development for $2B

MSA Safety will acquire Autronica Fire & Security from Sentinel Capital Partners for $555M

Crypto exchange Kraken will acquire crypto derivatives firm Bitnomial in a $550M cash-and-stock deal

European renewables giant EDP Renovaveis is exploring a ~$500M sale of its US distributed-generation business

Digital networking services company Lumen Technologies will buy ​networking platform Alkira for $475M cash

James Murdoch's family office Lupa Systems is in advanced talks to acquire New York Magazine and various podcasts from Vox Media for ~$300M

Northridge Capital is exploring a $175M sale of the W Hotel Aspen

Germany building materials giant Heidelberg Materials is considering a bid for $600M-listed South African cement maker PPC

Canadian challenger bank EQB won government approval for its deal to acquire the mass-market banking arm of Loblaw

William Blair agreed to acquire boutique advisory Inner Circle Sports

The new PE-backed JVs of OpenAI ​and Anthropic are in talks to acquire services companies ‌that help businesses deploy AI

LVMH is exploring sales of fashion label Marc Jacobs, its stake in Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, and US wine producer Joseph Phelps Vineyards after recently offloading Off-White, the China business of travel retailer DFS, and its 49% stake in fashion label Stella McCartney

Voice AI startup ElevenLabs raised a $500M Series D at an $11B valuation from BlackRock, D.E. Shaw, Nvidia, Salesforce, Jamie Foxx, and others

Chrysalis Investments cut the value of its stake in UK fintech Starling Bank by 14% to $470M 

Israeli defense-tech company Kela Technologies raised a $200M round at a $1.2B valuation led by Stripes and D1

Blitzy, an autonomous software development platform, raised a $200M growth round at a $1.4B valuation led by Northzone

European quantum processor company QuantWare raised a $180M Series B from Intel Capital, In-Q-Tel, and others 

GSR, a crypto capital markets and liquidity firm, raised $150M at a $1B valuation from Standard Chartered's SC Ventures

DeepInfra, a cloud inference platform provider, raised a $107M Series B led by 500 Global and Georges Harik

ZyG, an eCommerce OS startup, raised a $60M Series A led by Accel

Astrocade, a games creation platform, raised a $56M Series A and Series B from Sea, Sequoia, Google, Nvidia, and others

CopilotKit, an enterprise AI agents toolkit and creator of the AG-UI protocol, raised a $27M Series A led by Glilot Capital, NFX, and SignalFire

Lithosquare, a deep tech startup applying foundational AI to mineral exploration, raised a $25M seed round led by World Fund

Nace.AI, an applied AI company building specialized intelligence/metamodels for enterprise workflows, raised a $21.5M seed round led by Walden Catalyst

AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems is requiring limit orders from institutional buyers as demand for its $3.5B IPO grows

Indian data center operator Yotta Data Services is weighing raising $900M at a $6B valuation in an India IPO

Insurance giant AIG will sell its remaining stake in life insurance and ​retirement firm Corebridge ​Financial for $710M

General Atlantic-backed Indian eye-care chain ASG Hospital plans to file for a $500M IPO

Android-based business IoT provider Sunmi Technology surged 300% in its trading debut after raising $118M at an over $3B valuation in its Hong Kong IPO

Medical divide maker Star Sports Medicine surged 117% in its trading debut after raising $106M in a Hong Kong IPO 

Nigerian lender Access Holdings will to reduce its equity stakes in some foreign units to less than 10% of total shareholders' funds to comply with new rules

Alphabet raised $17B in its biggest-ever euro bond sale and debut Canadian dollar bond sale

Austrian lender Erste Group is working on a SRT tied to $4.7B of Austrian CRE loans 

Mozambique is considering converting a $1.4B of dollar bond owed to China into yuan loans 

Access Holdings is considering refinancing a $500M eurobond due September 

Bank of Maldives is seeking to raise $300M in a dollar sukuk bond sale

HSBC took an unexpected $400M hit from the collapse of ​UK mortgage lender MFS

North Sea oil producer Harbour Energy is set to acquire Waldorf Production UK following its restructuring, including a write off of unpaid taxes

Mexican infrastructure investor MIP Real Assets is seeking to raise $12B in debt and equity for renewable energy, highways, midstream, and digital infrastructure projects

Apollo raised $6.5B for its third hybrid debt-equity fund 

a16z raised $2.2B for its fifth crypto fund

Audax Private Debt raised a $1B private credit continuation fund led by Pantheon

Bridge Growth Partners raised a $790M continuation fund for software company Solace co-led by Apogem Capital, Golub Capital, HSBC Holdings, and Schroders Capital

Blackstone and KKR are in talks with Alphabet to equip portfolio companies with Google's AI tools

Coinbase will cut 14% of jobs due to AI

CME will launch Bitcoin volatility futures contracts 

Iggy Azalea was hit with a federal class action lawsuit over MOTHER token

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We clipped two segments from Ken Griffin's interview at the Milken Conference where he torched Mamdani's antics and policies. Watch them here and here.

Joe Wiggins shared an interesting take on why the ROI on collectibles could be lower.