Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
🇺🇸 Trump threatens to halt trade with Spain
📰 New York Times asks court to sanction OpenAI
💻 Meta launches its first paid AI coding model
💾 Micron pledges $250B for US chipmaking through 2035
🏦 Goldman Sachs wins $70B from Verizon and Lockheed
Plus: 🌍 11 macro news, 🏢 6 corporate news, 💰 9 deal flow, and 📑 5 research & reports.
📰 Top News
| 🇺🇸 Trump threatens to halt trade with Spain LINK |
- President Trump threatened to "cut off all trade" with Spain, reigniting a months-long dispute over NATO spending and Madrid's stance on Iran, though the legal authority and path to enforcing any such embargo remain unclear.
- Spain's benchmark stock index fell 2.7% Wednesday, its biggest one-day drop since Trump's last embargo threat in March, while the extra yield investors demand to hold Spanish debt over Germany's hit a monthly high on rising risk.
- A single-member embargo would seemingly unravel the recently enacted US-EU trade deal, and any disruption to Spanish imports from pharmaceuticals to olive oil would add inflation risk in the US as Middle East tensions keep energy costs elevated.
| 📰 New York Times asks court to sanction OpenAI LINK |
- The New York Times, The New York Daily News and 15 other media organizations asked a federal court on Thursday to sanction OpenAI, accusing the company of withholding evidence central to their copyright lawsuits against the AI start-up.
- The publishers say OpenAI acted in bad faith and broke court rules during the evidence-gathering phase by refusing to hand over information showing how its AI systems, including ChatGPT, are trained and used.
- The dispute traces to late 2023, when the Times sued OpenAI for infringing its copyrights to train ChatGPT; other publishers filed similar claims, and many of those cases were combined into one consolidated action last year.
| 💻 Meta launches its first paid AI coding model LINK |
- Meta began charging for its Muse Spark 1.1 coding model on Thursday, its first paid AI product, as it tries to turn heavy AI spending into revenue and catch rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for autonomous "agent" software.
- Pricing, which AI chief Alexandr Wang called "aggressive," starts with $20 in free credits per account, then $1.25 per million input tokens and $4.25 per million output tokens, undercutting comparable offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI.
- The paid push signals a strategy shift from Meta's open-source Llama roots toward selling proprietary model access, as Wall Street pressures CEO Mark Zuckerberg to show returns on AI infrastructure he funds without a cloud business to offset costs.
| 💾 Micron pledges $250B for US chipmaking through 2035 LINK |
- Micron committed to spending up to $250 billion on U.S. chipmaking through 2035, a roughly $50 billion increase, as demand for its memory chips surges alongside the artificial intelligence buildout.
- The pledge, which sent Micron shares up 7% on Thursday, is meant to shore up domestic memory production and lock in supply as AI-driven demand for its chips accelerates.
- A separate $3 billion strategic investment includes $500 million for GlobalWafers to expand Texas manufacturing under a 10-year raw silicon supply deal, while peers ARM Holdings rose 11% and Applied Materials, KLA and Lam Research each gained 7%.
| 🏦 Goldman Sachs wins $70B from Verizon and Lockheed LINK |
- Goldman Sachs said Thursday it secured mandates to manage a combined $70 billion in retirement assets for Verizon and Lockheed Martin, one of the larger recent wins in the market for outsourced corporate investing.
- The deals cover roughly $30 billion in pension assets across both companies and $40 billion in Verizon's employee retirement savings, typically 401(k)s, as large employers hand complex portfolios to outside managers with public- and private-market expertise.
- Goldman is chasing these long-term mandates because they generate steady, recurring fees unlike its volatile trading and dealmaking; its outsourced investment business held about $480 billion at March 31, within a $3.7 trillion asset and wealth division.
🌍 Macro News
- Fed Chairman Warsh names members of five review task forces. LINK
- White House blames Senate Democrats for stalled regulatory nominations. LINK
- Kalshi traders now see 54% odds of a Fed rate hike. LINK
- Fed's Williams expects oil prices to ease despite Hormuz tensions. LINK
- Gold steadies near $4,115 amid Iran tensions and rate worries. LINK
- US stock funding markets stay strained after borrowing-cost spike. LINK
- US jobless claims fell to 215,000, beating economists' expectations. LINK
- Supreme Court lets Trump remove agency heads, but not Fed. LINK
- Japan's pension fund likely to resist pressure for domestic buying. LINK
- Munis were flat while Treasuries rallied and stocks rose Thursday. LINK
- IEA sees global oil demand falling in 2026, first since 2020. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- OpenAI's Fidji Simo steps down to focus on her health. LINK
- Starbucks builds in-house AI tools, hurting Microsoft and IBM shares. LINK
- Coinbase's chief legal officer departs amid senior leadership reshuffle. LINK
- PepsiCo beat on revenue but missed profit amid weak US demand. LINK
- AstraZeneca shares fall as heart drug trial misses key goal. LINK
- MARA shares jump on plans for Texas bitcoin mining campus. LINK
📈 Stocks
💰 Deal Flow
- AI startup Mercor acquires Deeptune in undisclosed-terms takeover deal. LINK
- EasyJet weighs $7.7 billion Apollo bid over rival Castlelake offer. LINK
- MiniMax founder skips pay as firm seeks $2 billion raise. LINK
- Rubrik pledges £375 million to UK, picks London EMEA hub. LINK
- UK lender Lendable finalizes £500 million raise to grow lending. LINK
- French startup Aria raises $283 million for invoice financing platform. LINK
- Gauntlet raises record $125 million from Japan's SBI Holdings. LINK
- Paris voice AI startup Gradium raises $100 million seed round. LINK
- Wonder raises funds for possible IPO at $9 billion valuation. LINK
📑 Research & Reports
- Nearly a third of executives can't track their AI system costs. LINK
- Magnificent 7 stocks trade at narrowest premium to S&P in years. LINK
- Citi favors Rockwell, Emerson, Honeywell as physical AI plays. LINK
- Vanguard's Davis backs value stocks, non-US equities, quality bonds. LINK
- Sequoia's Cahn says AI needs $3 trillion revenue to justify spending. LINK