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Good Morning,

Trump fired the IRS commissioner, Bessent is leading the search for J Pow's successor, institutional LPs are worried about PE's courtship of retail investors, risk-obsessed traders are again ignoring macro concerns, and quant algorithms are bullish while human traders are bearish in a rare divergence.

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Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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Markets

• US stocks rallied on Friday on the back of Big Tech and rate cuts optimism

  • Nasdaq hit a second-straight ATH

• Taxable munis are up 4.7% in their best YTD run since Covid

  • Tax-exempt munis and high-yield securities are flat and down 1.5% YTD respectively

• Global rice benchmark is down 26% YTD at an eight-year low after record harvests

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:  

  • Today: AMC, Barrick

  • Tuesday: CoreWeave, eToro, Circle, CAVA

  • Wednesday: Cisco

  • Thursday: JD.com, John Deere, Applied Materials 

• Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

• After all the ups and downs in data, tariffs, stocks and more, markets are back to pricing in two Fed rate cuts for this year.

• Trade your predictions on a range of events, only on Kalshi. Sign up with code LIT and get a $20 bonus when you trade $100.

Headline Roundup

• Trump fired IRS commissioner Billy Long (BBG)

• Bessent is leading search for J Pow successor with expanded list (WSJ)

• Bessent says new Fed chair should be able to examine organization (RT)

• Big firms tell investment banks to stop leaking their UK takeover deals (FT)

• PE LPs struggle with money tied up in 'zombie funds' (CNBC)

• PE courtship of retail investors is irking institutional LPs (BBG)

• KKR recut terms with big LPs to hand individuals larger share of deals (FT)

• Quant algorithms are bullish but humans are bearish (BBG)

• Risk-obsessed traders are again ignoring macro angst (BBG)

• China stock market is set to hit $14T market cap on strong fund inflows (BBG)

• Singapore gears up for IPO revival with 30 firms in pipeline (BBG)

• Defense is dominating credit deals in Europe (BBG)

• Equity funds saw sharp outflows for second-straight week (RT)

• Junk bond market had its busiest week since 2021 (BBG)

• US high-grade corporate bonds saw the highest inflows since Covid (FT)

• Foreign investors snapped a 17-week buying spree in Japan stocks (BBG)

• One-time bond pariahs go neck and neck with Germany, France (BBG)

• Palantir's 2,500% run has bulls scrambling to justify valuation (BBG)

• Intel CEO will meet with Trump today (WSJ)

• Trump's call to oust Intel CEO could sidetrack firm's turnaround (RT)

• Nvidia and AMD will pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US (FT)

• China said Nvidia H20 chips are not safe for China (RT)

• OpenAI's GPT-5 launch received mixed criticism (BBG) 

• JPMorgan employees have to pay for their onsite gym (INC)

• Princeton eliminated tuition for families making $250k / year (BBG)

• Bed Bath & Beyond relaunched with first store in Nashville (CNBC)

• Buzzy new social media platform replaces usernames with net worth (NYP)

• Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday (WSJ)

• European leaders want to speak to Trump before he meets Putin (BBG)

A Message from UpSlide

Pitch decks, CIMs, teasers – what's your record for versions of a single deck?

You and your team are constantly making changes under pressure. But tracking edits is still extremely manual and time-consuming, leading to deck versions in the triple digits with errors that you'll take the blame for.

That's why we built Track Changes for PowerPoint, a new UpSlide feature that helps investment banking teams speed up their review process and ensure quality – so no mistake makes it to the client's side.

It's already helping leading deal teams reduce versioning errors and speed up MD sign-off.

See it in action alongside other investment banking-focused automation features here.

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• China's state-owned shipping giant Cosco is seeking at least a 20% stake in BlackRock's Panama Canal ports deal worth $23B

• Billionaire McCaskey and Ryan families acquired the remaining 2% stake they didn't already own in NFL team Chicago Bears at a record $8.8B valuation

• Primary Health Properties is a lead bidder for UK healthcare landlord Assura, outbidding KKR and valuing the firm at $2.4B

• PE firm Silver Lake is planning a $400M JV to secure powered land to sell to data-center developers and hyperscalers

• PE firm Pacific Equity is seeking to acquire a majority stake in telecom firm Spark New Zealand's data centers at an over $357M valuation

• One Equity Partners approached UK media group S4 Capital over a takeover

• Shareholder Bill Ackman proposed combining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac amid an IPO announcement 

VC

• Decart, an Israeli AI startup specializing in GPU optimization and real-time video generation models, raised a $100M Series B at a $3.1B valuation from Sequoia, Benchmark, Zeev Ventures, and Aleph VC

• EHR platform August Health raised a $29M Series B led by Base10 Partners

• Casap, an intelligent automation company for dispute and fraud operations, raised a $25M Series A led by Emergence Capital

• Asylon, a company specializing in robotic perimeter security, raised a $24M Series B led by Insight Partners

• Celera Semiconductor, an analog design automation startup, raised a $20M Series A from Maverick Silicon

• Translucent AI, a financial intelligence platform for healthcare operators, raised a $7M seed round from NEA, Virtue, FPV, and Redesign Health

• Trust AI, a startup building an AI assistant for dentists, raised a $6M seed round from Wehrle Implant Immersion Center, Goetze Dental, and others

• OpenArt, an AI video startup for creating 'brain rot' videos, raised $5M in funding from Basis Set Ventures and DCM Ventures

• Jonathan Katz-Moses, a leading woodworking content creator with over 750k followers on social media, raised $2M in Slow Ventures' first investment from their Creator Fund

IPOs / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• US is seeking to IPO Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, potentially raising $30B at a $500B combined valuation

• Bain Capital is weighing an an Amsterdam IPO or sale of Finnish fiber-based specialty materials company Ahlstrom at an up to $9.3B valuation

• Danish energy firm Orsted is planning a $9.4B rights issue

• Torrent Gas, the city gas distribution unit of ​​Indian conglomerate Torrent Group, is considering raising $450M in an India IPO 

• Activist investor Engine Capital built a ~3% stake in $8B-listed biotech Avantor and will push for a sale

Debt 

• Pet retailer PetSmart sold $4.7B of junk-rated bonds for refinancing

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

• Struggling Florida's high-speed rail Brightline Train is offering a 15% tax-exempt yield to roll over $985M of bonds

• Struggling UK-listed diamond miner Petra Diamonds announced a plan to refinance debt after months of negotiations with lenders and will also raise $25M in a rights issue

Fundraising / Secondaries

• UK specialist insurer Pension Insurance Corporation acquired Rolls-Royce's UK pension pot for $5.8B

• Canada's BCI is seeking to sell $2B of PE assets

• Tech investment firm  Accel-KKR raised a $1.9B continuation fund for HR software firm Isolved led Goldman Sachs Alternatives

• A secondaries JV between Japan's WM Partners and Alternative Investment Capital raised $200M

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• Trump-linked World Liberty Financial is pitching a $1.5B crypto vehicle

• Binance teamed up with Spanish lender BBVA to let customers keep assets off exchange

• The hottest business strategy this summer is buying crypto

• US regulators will play key role in next crypto, bank fight

• White House crypto adviser Bo Hines departed

Check out our Crypto Sum newsletter for the full stories on everything crypto!

Exec’s Picks

• Amid the AI investing craze, a 23-year-old ex-OpenAI researcher is up 47% YTD at his new AI-focused hedge fund that is already managing over $1.5B. Talk about fundraising challenges…

• Multi-strat giant Schonfeld Strategic Advisors is being turned around by a 38-year-old millennial who took over as CIO when he was just 27. Check out Bloomberg's profile on Ryan Tolkin.

Finance & Startup Recruiting 💼

Litney Partners

If you're a junior banker looking for your next career move, check out our recruiting firm, Litney Partners. Established by Litquidity and Whitney Partners (the oldest purely financial services executive search and consulting firm), Litney Partners has placed strong candidates across leading firms spanning private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, growth equity, private credit, investment banking, and fintech. Head over to our website to drop your resume / create your profile and we'd love to get in touch!

We are able to move faster than most firms due to our paralleled reach, decades of industry expertise, and ability to attract top caliber candidates.

Next Play

If you're down bad, realizing finance isn't for you, and/or are curious to explore the world of startups (BizOps, chief of staff, strategic finance, etc.), fill out this form. Next Play reviews every submission and will reach out to schedule a 1:1 video call if they think they can be helpful as your own, personal startup matchmaker. They’ve grown their community to over 50k talented individuals and have strong relationships across the tech ecosystem.

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*DISCLAIMER: Investment advice provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC ("Autopilot"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing carries risks, including loss of principal. As always, be smart out there. Litquidity is compensated to promote AutoPilot. Compensation details available upon request.