Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
⚖️ DOJ probes Nvidia's $20B Groq deal
📉 Bond yields hit 3-year high despite Treasury buyback
🏭 TSMC's August revenue hits record on AI demand
🚫 Automattic puts CEO Mullenweg on paid leave
🤝 Silver Lake combines Cegid and Silae in €10B deal
Plus: 🌍 9 macro news, 🏢 9 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| ⚖️ DOJ probes Nvidia's $20B Groq deal LINK |
- Nvidia shares slipped 0.91% after reports that federal investigators are examining whether its $20 billion licensing deal with AI chip developer Groq was structured to sidestep mandatory antitrust review.
- Under the December arrangement, Nvidia licensed Groq's technology while the startup stayed independent, but Groq's CEO and COO moved to Nvidia, a setup lawmakers call a de facto acquisition that weakens competition in AI chips.
- The deal, Nvidia's largest to date, may conclude without enforcement, according to the article, and comes as Nvidia pursues commitments of up to $100 billion to OpenAI and $5 billion to Intel.
| 📉 Bond yields hit 3-year high despite Treasury buyback LINK |
- Long-term Treasury yields climbed to their highest in about three years even after the government unveiled a larger bond buyback, as investors judged the effort too small to counter Washington's deep fiscal problems.
- Treasury said it will buy back up to $6 billion in bonds at tomorrow's auction, triple the $2 billion started in April 2024-but the 30-year yield jumped to 5.30% and the 10-year to 4.85%, its highest since October 2023.
- Because every buyback must be funded by new borrowing, Treasury is swapping cheap low-rate debt bought at discounts, one 2040 bond fetched 64 cents on the dollar in February, for higher-cost debt and short-term T-bills, trimming total debt but potentially raising interest costs.
| 🏭 TSMC's August revenue hits record on AI demand LINK |
- TSMC posted record monthly revenue of $16.35 billion for August, up 53.3% from a year earlier and 10.1% from July, as demand for chips used in artificial intelligence applications stayed strong.
- The August figure marked a fourth straight month of rising revenue for the world's largest contract chipmaker, which forecast third-quarter revenue between $44.6 billion and $45.8 billion after a more than 77% jump in second-quarter profit.
- TSMC held a 72.5% share of the global foundry market in the second quarter, per TrendForce, with AI server demand keeping its advanced 5-, 4- and 3-nanometer capacity fully booked; shares closed 0.61% lower before the revenue release.
| 🚫 Automattic puts CEO Mullenweg on paid leave LINK |
- Automattic's board voted yesterday to place co-founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave, installing finance chief Mark Davies as interim CEO while Mullenweg, who voted against the move, stays on the board.
- The reshuffle hands new management the company's continuing lawsuit with hosting rival WP Engine, which began after Mullenweg's September 2024 demand for a trademark licence worth 8% of the host's monthly gross revenue, roughly $32 million.
- Mullenweg still personally controls WordPress.org and leads the free open-source project, so the board can change who runs the hosting business without touching who controls the software distribution servers users rely on for updates.
| 🤝 Silver Lake combines Cegid and Silae in €10B deal LINK |
- Private equity firm Silver Lake will merge its two French software companies, Cegid and Silae, into a business valued at more than 10 billion euros ($11.6 billion), betting on scale to weather AI disruption.
- The combination pulls together payroll, accounting, e-invoicing and payments data and forms a 1,400-person developer team to invest in AI, with Silver Lake staying majority owner and the combined group expected to generate 1.6 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in annual revenue.
- The deal comes as software stocks recover from fears of an AI-driven "SaaSpocalypse," with May the sector's best month since 2001; the transaction needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
🌍 Macro News
- Chinese AI chipmakers raise prices 20%-50% amid high-bandwidth memory shortages. LINK
- Treasury 10-year sale draws strong demand despite highest yield since 2007. LINK
- Bessent warns traders against betting on weaker yen, citing US informational edge. LINK
- Crypto advocates, community bankers lobby senators' home states before Clarity Act vote. LINK
- EU proposes procurement rules favoring European goods and excluding unfair competitors. LINK
- Gold edges higher as weaker dollar supports demand before inflation data. LINK
- New US tariffs threaten Canadian small businesses with layoffs and closures. LINK
- US sanctions Chinese online marketplace accused of enabling crypto scams. LINK
- Political opposition grows against AI data centers before US midterms. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- US Bank pilots cross-Atlantic transfers using its dollar-backed stablecoin. LINK
- Boring Company raises $3 billion, valuing Musk's venture at $23 billion. LINK
- Harvey raises $550 million at $15.5 billion valuation, nearly doubling value. LINK
- Consensys will split MetaMask from institutional and Ethereum infrastructure operations. LINK
- Amazon issues first sterling bonds, expanding funding beyond euros and francs. LINK
- Listen Labs abandons $125 million funding round to pursue Salesforce acquisition talks. LINK
- Samsung will manufacture a custom AI chip for OpenAI, expanding partnership. LINK
- Ant, Visa and Mastercard develop standards for AI-agent payments. LINK
- Tether and Fasanara launch lending vehicle targeting up to $3 billion. LINK
📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners |
| Cloudflare rose 11% after announcing a security partnership with OpenAI for Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation. LINK |
| Chime Financial rose 7% after agreeing to acquire Stride Bank for $590 million in cash and raising full-year revenue guidance to $2.76 billion-$2.77 billion. LINK |
| Meta Platforms rose 7% after Muse Spark 1.3 AI coding model launch. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers |
| Ubiquiti fell 10% after missing Q3 earnings expectations. LINK |
| Caseys General Stores fell 14% after inside same-store sales growth of 3.2% missed the 4.1% Street estimate. LINK |
📑 Research & Reports
- Anthropic sees stronger growth from AI but warns of knowledge-worker job losses. LINK
- Think tank says AI data centers will create fewer UK jobs. LINK
- Stablecoin on-chain activity vastly exceeds genuine monthly payment volume, Morgan Stanley estimates. LINK
- Only 23% of US consumers trust AI to handle payments. LINK
- HSBC raises year-end S&P 500 target to 8,100 on strong earnings. LINK
- Gold ETFs attract $18 billion in August, their second-largest monthly inflow. LINK