US stocks sunk yesterday as bond markets punished the Fed for holding rates steady despite rising inflation

Korea's KOSPI index is down 38% from ATHs in just one month

UK's "anti-tech" FTSE 100 index hit an ATH

US 30Y yield surged 14 bps to 5.2% to the highest since 2007

US 10Y yield surged 7 bps

Dysfunction in US high-grade bond markets rose to the highest since November 2023 

Dollar fell 0.3% by the most in two weeks 

UBS beat Q2 earnings estimates on strength in IB and wealth (WSJ)

Meta beat Q2 revenue estimates but missed on earnings and guidance on light DAP numbers and its worst FCF in four years; the firm is entering the thriving cloud-computing business (CNBC)

Microsoft beat Q2 earnings and revenue estimates as cloud revenue topped $100B and boosted capex on growing AI demand, with over $130B in new data center leases (CNBC)

Qualcomm missed Q3 earnings and revenue estimates and provided light guidance amid an ongoing supply crunch for computer parts, especially memory (CNBC)

Robinhood smashed Q2 estimates on a 44% rise in trading revenue as prediction markets swallow dwindling numbers in crypto (WSJ)

Chipotle issued a Q2 beat-and-raise as new menu items, value deals, and revamped rewards helped boost demand (CNBC)

Procter & Gamble beat Q4 earnings estimates but missed on revenue on weakening consumer demand (CNBC)

What we're watching this week:  

Full calendar here

Markets weren't happy at all with the Fed's decision to hold rates steady. But they're still doubtful about September's move

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Fed held rates steady at 3.5%-3.75% with three dissents (CNBC)

Trump pledged to "beat the f*cking sh*t out of Iran" (CNBC)

South Korea holds emergency meeting after 40% $2T stock rout (RT)

Korea apologized for leveraged ETF mania after market rout (CNBC)

Retail traders dumped the most individual stocks since Covid (BBG)

UK drops ban pursuit of PE executives over price gouging (FT)

Democrat lawmakers press SEC to probe Trump Media's fast feed (RT)

Polymarket is launching a new media company called Eventual (AX)

Zuckerberg said US should not ban Chinese AI (FT)

FTC sued Hims & Hers for sending user health info to Meta and Snap (RT)

Musk settled long-running legal battle with X advertising group (FT)

FIFA president defends $20B commercial venture after backlash (FT)

Ferrari already hit 2026 sales target for Luce EV (FT)

China's commercial space boom poses strategic challenge for US (FT)

Ex-Goldman exec awarded £1.5M after paternity leave 'stigma' (FT)

NextEra ​Energy and Brookfield plan to develop a $100B data center campus and power plant in Kentucky

A consortium led by Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, wants to eventually obtain control of UK soccer club Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Group; the group is currently in talks for a 30% stake at a $6B valuation

New Mountain Capital-backed accounting firm Grant Thornton US agreed to buy rival CBIZ for $5B cash at a 55% premium

Sixth Street, South Korea's SK Telecom, Singapore's GIC, and Canada's La Caisse are bidding for a 50% stake in Bain Capital's APAC-focused Bridge Data Centres, which could fetch a $4B valuation

China's Zijin Gold and Canada's Allied Gold scrapped a $3.9B merger

Shell and Phillips 66 are looking to sell their 61% stake in US pipeline Explorer at a  $3.5B valuation

DigitalBridge-backed Vantage Data Centers is considering selling its Malaysia assets for $2B

Aussie investment firm Perpetual rebuffed a third takeover offer from EQT that valued the firm at $1.8B

PE firm Apax will acquire two plastic ​packaging units, including US unit Centor, from German drug packaging firm Gerresheimer for $1.7B, including debt

Deutsche Lufthansa and Air France-KLM submitted binding offers for a 49.9% stake in Portugal's state-owned airline TAP at a reported $1.7B valuation 

Schneider Electric is in talks to acquire European smart device maker Shelly Group for $1.5B

Bain Capital and digital infrastructure developer Tillman Global announced a $1.5B investment in Tillman-backed Eaton Fiber

Global Diamond Consortium, a group comprising ex-De Beers CEO Gareth Penny, Namibia, Angola, Botswana, and others, is in talks to acquire the De Beers diamond monopoly from miner Anglo American for $1B

Real estate firms Stonemont and PCCP are acquiring a portfolio of 38 industrial buildings from Blackstone's Link Logistics in a $1B deal

CVC is considering a sale of Chinese retail pharmacy chain Xi'an Yikang Pharmaceutical for $500M-$600M

Italian asset manager Azimut Holding agreed to buy Turkey's portfolio management unit Yapi Kredi Portfoy Yonetimi from Turkish lender Yapi Kredi for $350M

Processa Pharmaceuticals acquired immunology-focused Vidya Therapeutics in an all-stock ​deal while also raising $200M in new equity

Italian gas network operator Snam will shortlist bidders for its biomethane business by the fall; bidders include Edison, Arcus Infrastructure Partners, Vesper Infrastructure, and others

Bloomberg agreed to acquire private markets data platform Canoe Intelligence

French infrastructure investor Meridiam is weighing a bid for Istanbul's two iconic Bosporus bridges

Family office Aser Ventures could sell part of its minority ‌stake in sports streaming platform DAZN

Talent agency THE·TEAM will acquire the remaining 40% stake from disgraced founder Casey Wasserman with backing from owner Providence Equity Partners

China's Moonshot AI raised a $3.5B round at a $35B valuation

ThreatLocker, a Zero Trust cybersecurity company, raised a $190M Series F led by Elephant

AI interconnect startup Eliyan ​raised a $145M Series C at a $1B led by Seligman Ventures

Chip design startup ChipAgents raised a $130M Series A led by B Capital

Freehand, an AI agents startup for supply-chain and procurement spend, raised $75M co-led by Battery Ventures and NewRoad Capital Partners 

P-1 AI, an engineering AI startup, raised a $50M Series A led by NEA

Encore AI, a startup that analyzes customer interactions to train and deploy AI voice and text agents, raised a $30M Series A led by Team8

LemonEdge, a modern fund accounting platform for private markets, raised a $21M Series A led by Blackstone 

Terminal, a telematics integration and data infrastructure provider, raised a $20M Series A led by Battery Ventures

Centralize, the relationship intelligence platform for enterprise revenue teams, raised $19M led by NEA

Henry AI, an AI platform for automating back-office knowledge work in commercial real estate, raised a $16.5M Series A led by FirstMark Capital

AI detection startup Pangram raised a $9M funding round led by Menlo Ventures

AI server maker Quanta Computer is seeking to raise $2.2B in a GDR sale at a 7% discount in Taiwan's biggest stock offering in two decades

First Choice Healthcare will merge with Westin Acquisition at a $650M valuation

Dutch lender ING is nearing two SRTs tied to $10B of loans including AI-linked debt

Bank of Montreal completed two SRTs tied to $5B of corporate loans

CoreWeave sweetened terms on a $2.6B loan to fund additional computing capacity for firms including Anthropic

Blackstone-owned data center firm AirTrunk secured a $2.3B green loan from 30 lenders for a new facility in Malaysia 

Blackstone-backed Ancestry.com slashed the size of a loan sale by $700M to $10.5B and raised a concurrent junk-bond sale by $450M to $950M and adjusted debt terms to woo creditors 

India's UltraTech Cement is in talks to raise $517M in local bonds

Thoma Bravo-backed cybersecurity firm Proofpoint reworked a $5B loan deal, offering major concessions to lenders anxious about AI-driven tech disruption

Hedge fund Millennium is looking to raise a record $20B in new capital

Situational Awareness, the $20B hedge fund of ex-OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, is looking to raise fresh capital after suffering heavy losses from the AI stock rout

Hong Kong PE firm ZQ Capital raised $300M for its flagship fund

Binance wants to join prediction markets race with CFTC stamp

BNY will adopt blockchain technology for records in new era for Wall Street

Callie Cox wrote an interesting piece on how exposure to private markets requires a different mindset overall.

Also, the 'Mag 7' era for markets is seemingly over.