Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
💰 Alphabet raises $25B to fund AI push
⚖️ Meta ordered to pay $567M over kids' safety
📦 China's exports jump 23% in July
🏭 Tesla and SpaceX to build $16.8B Texas chip plant
🏠 Airbnb jumps 9% on earnings beat
Plus: 🌍 8 macro news, 🏢 8 corporate news, 💰 7 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| 💰 Alphabet raises $25B to fund AI push LINK |
- Alphabet is raising up to $25 billion through a ten-part bond sale, priced today, to help fund an AI-driven infrastructure buildout that could reach $195 billion to $205 billion in capital spending during 2026.
- The debt spans maturities from two to 40 years, with the shortest notes offered at about 0.60 percentage point over US Treasuries and the 2066-dated tranche near 1.55 points, carrying top-tier Aa2/AA+ credit ratings.
- Proceeds will go toward data centers, servers and chips powering its Gemini AI and Google Cloud services, as Wall Street holds a "Buy" consensus with a mean price target of $419.86 versus Thursday's $362.43 open.
| ⚖️ Meta ordered to pay $567M over kids' safety LINK |
- A New Mexico court has ordered Meta, the parent of Instagram and Facebook, to pay $567 million to remedy harms its platforms caused young people, following a landmark trial the company lost in March.
- The bulk of the payout, $420 million, will fund treatment services for young people, with the remainder covering awareness, prevention, and screening over the next five years, on top of $375 million in civil penalties set in the trial's first phase.
- The judge declined prosecutors' demand for structural changes at Meta, ruling that federal privacy law COPPA bars ordering age-verification tools for under-13s and that singling out Meta alone would be "inequitable and unduly injurious" to the company.
| 📦 China's exports jump 23% in July LINK |
- China's exports climbed 23% in July from a year earlier in dollar terms, topping analysts' 22.2% forecast, as global demand for high-tech components helped soak up the country's shipped goods.
- The pace cooled from June's 27% jump, the fastest since October 2021, signaling that export momentum, while still strong, is easing after an unusually rapid stretch of growth.
- Imports rose 27.5%, just under the 27.9% analysts expected and slower than June's 36% surge, which had been the quickest in five years, pointing to still-firm but moderating domestic demand.
| 🏭 Tesla and SpaceX to build $16.8B Texas chip plant LINK |
- Tesla and SpaceX will build a chip plant called "Terafab" in Grimes County, Texas, near Houston, starting with a $16.8 billion investment that Elon Musk says will create the largest building on Earth.
- The plant, spanning more than 100 million square feet and employing at least 3,000 people, aims to close what the companies call the gap between current chip supply and future computing demand for robots, robotaxis and AI.
- SpaceX filings suggest total spending could reach $119 billion across a multi-phase build, with Intel contributing on undisclosed terms, though the project drew resident pushback over its tax breaks and lack of transparency at a county meeting.
| 🏠 Airbnb jumps 9% on earnings beat LINK |
- Airbnb shares climbed 9% in extended trading Thursday after quarterly earnings and a revenue forecast that both beat Wall Street estimates, with the company citing strong booking demand "across all regions."
- Revenue rose 17% to about $3.6 billion, while net income increased to $816 million from $642 million a year earlier, and free cash flow jumped 30% to $1.25 billion.
- Airbnb guided to current-quarter revenue of $4.69 billion to $4.77 billion, above the $4.61 billion analysts expected, with bookings growing about 20% in Latin America and high teens in Asia Pacific.
🌍 Macro News
- US and Japan jointly intervened to buy yen for first time since 1998. LINK
- Oil prices rose Friday on fears Iran may restrict the Strait of Hormuz. LINK
- US copper futures hit record near $6.90 a pound on tight supply, AI demand. LINK
- China reviews Palo Alto Networks products, echoing 2023 Micron ban, shares dip. LINK
- Tokenized real-world-asset deposits on crypto platforms tripled to $7.4 billion in a year. LINK
- European electricity prices spiked to €500 per megawatt-hour amid drought and heat. LINK
- Judge orders Pentagon to resume frozen security reviews of wind farms. LINK
- US diesel exports hit record 1.9 million barrels amid global supply disruptions. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- EasyJet accepts £5.7 billion takeover bid from private equity firm Apollo. LINK
- AMD to acquire AI chip startup Taalas, terms undisclosed. LINK
- Wintermute gains US broker-dealer status, registering with SEC and FINRA. LINK
- Unitree's Shanghai IPO raised $850 million, far above its initial target. LINK
- Nintendo beat profit forecasts despite falling Switch 2 sales. LINK
- Datadog shares fell 17% on weak sales guidance despite earnings beat. LINK
- Fiserv cuts 2026 outlook under new CEO's first quarterly report. LINK
- SoftBank's quarterly profit fell 18% as costs offset AI gains. LINK
📈 Stocks
💰 Deal Flow
- Defense manufacturing startup Hadrian raised $1.37 billion, nearing $8 billion valuation. LINK
- Google in talks to pay over $1.5 billion for AI coding startup Mechanize. LINK
- White Star Capital closed fourth fund at $250 million, below target. LINK
- Wave-powered AI data center startup Panthalassa nears $2 billion valuation, raising $225 million. LINK
- AI startup Mirendil signs $100 million-plus compute deal with Google Cloud. LINK
- Latin American wealth-advisory startup Decade raised $85 million in record seed round. LINK
- DeepSeek revives $7 billion funding round while raising prices for developers. LINK
📑 Research & Reports
- Google reshuffles DeepMind leadership as Hassabis, Dean step back amid AI race concerns. LINK
- Financial firms lead industries in widespread AI adoption, study finds. LINK
- EU banking system assets grew 3.63% year-on-year to €34.33 trillion. LINK
- Crypto dark pool trading surged to 15% of volume by June. LINK
- US CEO confidence rose above 50 in Q3 2026 on easing tensions. LINK
- JPMorgan warns Hyperliquid's crypto derivatives dominance may erode amid rising competition. LINK