US stock closed mostly higher despite a pullback in chip names as the Iran situation cooled

UK's FTSE 100 hit its highest level since March, just 1% off its ATH

US munis hit their cheapest level since March 

What we're watching this week:  

Full calendar here

Chip stocks may be down but there's gotta be some alpha in Ukrainian table tennis

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Ex-JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana re-filed a new lawsuit (NYP)

US paused Iran strikes amid 'good chance' of an Iran deal (CNBC)

Crisis-level swings are a new normal in 2026 stock market (BBG)

Hedge fund exposure to US healthcare stocks is near a 5-year high (RT)

Big banks are wading back into CRE lending (WSJ)

Fund managers are on track to launch a record number of ETFs this year (FT)

Asian private credit fundraising sunk to a 12-year low (FT)

Hong Kong stock exchange relaxes listing rules to compete with US (FT)

PIMCO is embracing the AI boom on its own terms (BBG)

Fitch upgraded Jane Street to investment grade BBB- (BBG)

AI companies spend record sums on lobbying efforts (FT)

Nvidia announced $750B in new deals (BBG)

CXMT founder to give 40% of $14B wealth to workers after record IPO (BBG)

HSBC will hire 100 AI specialists in Singapore (RT)

SEC probe into Guggenheim was sparked by whistleblower (WSJ)

Waymo explores ending partnership with Uber (FT)

Cracker Barrel CEO departs one year after conservative backlash (RT)

Ares held talks to acquire $85B AUM PE firm Leonard Green & Partners

Italian lenders BMPS and Banco BPM are in talks for a stock-and-cash merger of equals as an alternative to Intesa Sanpaolo's $40B bid for BMPS 

State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. signed a $16B lease agreement with a group of investors led by Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR

Spirits giant Brown-Forman rejected a new unsolicited takeover offer from Sazerac, which rekindled its $15B bid

Hellman & Friedman is exploring a sale of software firm TeamSystem at a $9B valuation

KKR and Energy Capital Partners agreed to acquire European energy distribution firm DCC after an improved $7.6B cash offer at a 33% premium 

French telecoms operator Orange and infrastructure investor Morrison ​plan to create a data ‌center JV supported by a $3.4B investment

Goldman Sachs Alternatives acquired Italian medtech firm Numantec from White ‌Bridge Investment for $800M

TPG is in exclusive talks to acquire Macquarie-backed Netrality Data Centers for $2B-$3B

Dutch pharma company Argenx agreed to buy immunology-focused Forte Biosciences for $2.2B cash

CVC is considering buying a stake in jeweler APM Monaco from PE firm TPG for potentially $2B

EQT sweetened its takeover bid for Australian investment management firm Perpetual for a third time this month to $1.8B

Shipping group Irish Continental agreed ​to a $1.4B MBO almost two decades after its CEO's ​first takeover attempt failed

Expand Energy agreed to buy gas marketer Twin Eagle Holdings from PE firm Five Point Infrastructure for $1.25B

Wynnchurch Capital will acquire materials manufacturer Luxfer for $463M at a 30% premium

Portuguese construction giant Mota-Engil is studying a stake purchase in Brazil's Odebrecht Engenharia & Construcao

SoftBank is close to acquiring Japanese payments firm SP.LINKS from Blackstone  

Sports platform Fanatics will acquire a designated contract market and a derivatives clearing ​organization from brokerage BGC Group to launch ‌its own prediction market exchange

Blackstone is set to acquire HSBC's $20B Australia loans business

Palmer Luckey's defense tech startup Anduril is in talks to raise a new round at a $100B valuation

Ilya ​Sutskever's AI startup Safe Superintelligence raised $5B from Nvidia

European space startup The Exploration Company is in talks to raise $300M at an over $2B post-money valuation from Scaleup Europe Fund

Antares, a nuclear power startup building small modular reactors, raised a $470M Series C led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital

Enigma, an Israeli AI robotics startup, raised a $71M seed round led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital

Flourish Health, a mental health provider for young people with serious, complex needs, raised a $26M Series A led by B Capital, F-Prime, and Cherryrock Capital

Quartr, the first-party IR data and AI research infrastructure provider, raised a $15M funding round led by Altos Ventures 

Axis Robotics, the compounding data engine accelerating physical AI, raised a $12M seed round led by Hack VC

Chinese memory chip maker CXMT surged 475% in its China debut after raising $9.8B for a $490B market cap in China's biggest IPO in over a decade 

Candle Lake, the family office of Solo Cup-founder Kenneth Dart, secured a 30% stake in $15B-listed Swedish betting firm Evolution, mandating a takeover offer  

Chinese optics firm Innolight raised $6.8B in a Hong Kong listing

Nvidia will invest $1B in new shares of $24B-listed Korean internet and cloud service giant Naver

The $1.1B IPO of Blackstone-backed sandwich chain Jersey Mike's is 10x oversubscribed 

Hillhouse Investment-backed Indian managed workspace provider Table Space is preparing to file for a $350M IPO

Angola raised $320M in a 15% IPO of state-owned wireless operator Unitel, the country's biggest-ever IPO 

Sleep apnea-focused biotech Apnimed is seeking to raise $160M in an IPO

1947 Oil & Gas, the O&G company of ex-Goldman commodities chief Jeff Currie, is preparing to raise $67M in a London IPO as it pursues a $65M acquisition of Renaissance Offshore

Slovak battery energy storage company InoBat agreed to merge with Cartesian Growth Corporation II in a $1.26B deal

AT&T sold $5.3B of euro bonds

Chile is selling $3.5B of bonds in its second international debt sale this year

15 new funds joined a Venezuela international creditor group ahead of a restructuring of over $60B in international bonds

Lenders to distressed cloud tech firm Dye & Durham tapped Houlihan Lokey ahead of potential restructuring talks 

Italian luxury yacht maker Sanlorenzo backed a consortium's offer to ​acquire insolvent peer The Italian Sea Group 

Ares is preparing to sell $3.4B of bundled stakes in a flagship European private credit fund in one of the largest credit secondaries deals ever

Brookfield raised $2B for a new Middle East PE fund backed by Saudi's PIF

Apollo will invest $1.5B in Singaporean asset manager Keppel's oil rig fund

Crypto treasury firms pivot to AI in bid to win back investors

Crypto bill faces Democratic backlash over new ethics rules

WSJ published an interesting profile on David Fox, the K&E lawyer who plans to upend 'Big Law' with AI, after already doing it once before.