US stocks rallied yesterday as the AI trade revived 

China's CSI 300 index is down 14% YTD and in a bear market with Chinese stocks are now trailing US by the widest margin in history

UPS issued a Q3 beat-and-raise again as its sees its turnaround efforts boosting holiday season margins and data center construction boosting every part of business (RT)

Coca-Cola also issued another Q3 beat-and-raise on unchanged consumer sentiment despite lackluster demand in North America (CNBC)

Robinhood missed Q3 earnings estimates as a slump in crypto offset growth in options trading and prediction markets (CNBC)

Visa beat Q4 earnings and revenue estimates boosted by an increase in payment volumes and processed transactions (WSJ)

PayPal missed Q3 revenue estimates but beat on earnings and raised guidance as it remains remains focused on executing a turnaround after snubbing a deal with Stripe and Advent (WSJ)

What we're watching this week:  

Full calendar here

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JPMorgan says Chirayu Rana pushed friend to lie in 'sex slave' case (RT)

AI talent war has quant firms racing to fund PhDs and labs (BBG)

Millennium is using prediction markets to inform trading strategies (BBG)

PE firms are including AI disruption in force majeure-style clauses (BBG)

Goldman and Morgan Stanley jockey over AI mega-deal mandates (NYT)

MBB raised starting salaries for first time since 2022 (BBG)

'Buy, borrow, die' wealth strategy has become a $5T market (WSJ)

Insurers are bullish on private markets even as government yields rise (FT)

AI financing driving private credit growth as refinancing risks rise (RT)

NYSE moves to bring all-or-nothing options to stocks and earnings (RT)

SEC is weighing an overhaul of crowdfunding rules (BBG)

JPMorgan hired nine new bankers in a small-caps push (BBG)

Anthropic's 'adjusted' profit exposes Wall Street's earnings game (WSJ)

Anthropic IPO filing calms nerves with signs of healthy growth (BBG)

Apple hit by 'Crackgate' outcry over iPhone Duo screen problems (FT)

Anduril and Qualcomm will manufacture laptops in US (TC)

sweetgreen managers are set for $200k+ pay packages (LI)

US MBA applications plunged 27% as international demand drops (BBG)

Trump will ban the term 'artificial intelligence' in government (RT)

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FTC will block uniform supplier Cintas' proposed $5.5B acquisition of rival UniFirst

Ares will acquire private credit fund MidCap Financial from Apollo in a $2.6B cash-and-stock deal and merge it with Ares Capital Corp.

Insurance software maker ​Guidewire will buy UK insurance AI firm hyperexponential in an up to $2.1B deal

Canada's La Caisse will buy a 49.9% stake in wireless towers from Canadian telecoms BCE for $1.7B

CVC is exploring an acquisition of $1.7B-listed Dutch ingredients maker Corbion 

Ferring Pharmaceuticals will acquire egg freezing startup Gameto for $1.4B

Bahrain-based Investcorp joined a consortium led by Saudi's AlTouq Group and Thara Future Investments to acquire a significant minority stake in fire safety and equipment company REDA Gulf Holding in Saudi's first inbound deal since the Houthi attacks

Quant hedge fund Two Sigma is exploring a stake sale to resolve a years-long dispute between its co-founders

General Compute, a neocloud focused on inference chips and bare-metal AI compute, raised a $100M Series A at an $800M post-money valuation led by Blackbird Ventures and Abstract Ventures 

22one, a UK stealth AI policing startup, reached a $400M valuation with backing from Sequoia, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and Creandum

Lumaril, an industrial AI startup, raised a $66M Series A at a $400M valuation led by returning investor Elad Gil

Hyphenate, the autonomous finance platform for the office of the CFO, raised a $45M Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners

Infisical, a cybersecurity infrastructure company, raised a $40M Series B at a $600M valuation led by Elad Gil

Machenta, a UK robotics startup, raised a $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures

Hyperbolic, an AI chip marketplace and software startup, raised a $30M Series A-1 led by Walden Catalyst

Safer Human Medicine, a 30k monkey breeding operation to support biomedical testing, has raised $28M with backing from Joe Lonsdale's 8VC

Luxor Technology, a full-stack compute company, raised a $16M strategic round led by CMT Digital

Simplismart, an Indian AI inference optimization startup, raised a $14M Series B at about a $100M post-money valuation led by Dallas Venture Capital  

0xPredicate, a digital-asset compliance platform, raised an $8M Series A led by Blockchain Capital

Sunshine Buns, a premium frozen cinnamon roll brand, raised a $7M Series A

Anthropic picked JPMorgan to lead the retail portion of its potential $100B IPO

Nvidia invested $3B in Meta's $98B share sale 

Chinese state-backed Swiss seeds and agri-chemicals giant Syngenta is seeking to raise $10B at $66B valuation in its revived Hong Kong IPO

Bank of America, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley will refinance $21B of its $63B financing to buy Broadcom's AI chips for Anthropic with investment grade bonds

Supermicro-backed cloud computing firm Argentum AI is in talks to raise $5B in private credit for a chip financing

US is offering $5B in financing to Constellation Energy to upgrade its nuclear reactors

Blackstone-backed Aussie data center firm AirTrunk secured a $3B green loan to fund a Sydney data center 

Indian lenders Canara Bank, PNB, and Bank of India shelved plans to raise a combined $2.5B in dollar debt as yields rise

Canada's Scotiabank is working on a SRT tied to $2B of loans

Italian app investor Bending Spoons is selling $1.5B of bonds to fund more M&A

South Korea's Samsung Life Insurance raised a record $1.5B in a debut overseas bond sale

GoldenTree-backed troubled rural hospital chain Quorum Health plans to finance its conversion to a non-profit with a $1.3B munis sale

U.S. Bancorp is looking to sell $713M of bonds in Canada

Banco de América Central raised $500M in its first cross-border deal in three years

Bank KB became the first Indonesian firm to shelve a dollar bond sale following the nation's fallout with MSCI

ICG-backed customer-service outsourcing firm Konecta agreed on temporary relief with creditors including Benefit Street Partners, BNP Paribas, and Invesco as it negotiates a restructuring on $1.2B of debt

JetBlue Airways ​is not in talks with creditors and is not planning to restructure its debt despite the bond selloff 

Law firm Weil hired bankruptcy lawyers to explore options including a possible wind-down as crisis deepens

PE firm Advent raised $27B for its eleventh flagship global PE fund and $3B for a new MM strategy

KKR raised $460M for its first private credit CV led by Allianz Global Investors

Janus Henderson launches first-ever tokenized fund licensing the Nasdaq-100

Crypto.com and OG.com launch regulated US crypto perps with 5x leverage

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2026 has been defined by strong performance across both equity capital markets and M&A. However, with recent valuation pushback in the equity markets, could a dual-track process be the answer for dealmakers looking to drive competitive tension and maximize valuation? Watch Mizuho's insights.

Dror Poleg shared a super interesting perspective on the evolution of jobs and pay in the age of AI. Read it here.

WSJ published a short piece summarizing how Anthropic arrived at its $40T TAM in its IPO filing