July
U.S. megabanks cash in on AI construction boom. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, & JPMorgan reported collective second quarter stock-trading revenues of $19.3b during April, May, & June, a gain of 72% from a year earlier.
The four banks reported $42.7b in net income.
Computer chips and AI were back in vogue last week. SK Hynix, one of South Korea’s two memory chip giants, opened on the U.S. market Friday at $149 and ended the day up 13 percent.
That nudged the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to within 0.45 percent of its 2 June all-time record.
Apollo snatches Easyjet from Castlelake.
British budget airline easyJet had accepted in principle a £5.5 offer from Castlelake, a U.S. private equity firm, to buy 49% of the company.
Apollo Global Management, swooped in with a £5.7b offer that easyJet was unable to resist.
Jul 15
Midwest factories are going broke due to AI’s power demands.
A Company saw its monthly electricity cost leap from $1,600 a month to $12,000 after the local utility implemented a capacity charge to help meet the cost of supplying power after data centers connected to the grid.
During this year’s first 6 months, a record 47 mergers & acquisitions worth at least $10b each & $2.8t in value have been agreed, the London Stock Exchange Group reported.
The total value of the deals is 49% more than during the same period in 2025 & the number of deals is up 62%.
Consulting firms have charged by the hour–for their expertise.
Then came AI which can do much of what expert consultants do in a fraction of the time. As clients shift to AI for answers to their questions & problems, consulting firms are scrambling to find a new business model - the FT.
Withdrawal requests of $1.5b from Ares Capital Management’s $11b Strategic Income Fund in this year’s second quarter.
The requests amount to about 14.4% of the fund’s value. Ares halted withdrawals after the disbursements reached 5% of the fund’s assets.
The 5% limit per quarter is built into the private credit industry’s standard fund structure.
The euro, previously expected to rise to $1.20 in value this year as investors shied away from the dollar, fell to $1.1350 on 25 June, its lowest level in a year & down 2.6% in June alone.
The ECB already raised its interest rate once as energy prices climbed due to the Iran war.
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At first glance, the market for U.S. treasury securities seems healthy. About $1.2t a day in bonds & notes are changing hands, 11% more than a year ago.
At auctions, there are $2.30 to $2.50 in bids for every dollar’s worth of securities on offer, The Wall Street Journal noted.
Jul 22
Recently, equity markets have been swamped by deals of a size rarely seen. Alphabet raised $85b, SpaceX went public at $75b & South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix issued $26b in American depository receipts.
Is this a reflection of an environment of optimism & fear of missing out.
Adnoc Distribution, a division of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co, has agreed to pay $1b for Shell’s 580 gas stations, more than 350 convenience stores, & other fuel operations in South Africa.
Shell's plan is to streamline its portfolio & focus on its high-return enterprises.
South Korea’s equity market, soared in recent months on the strength of the country’s memory chip industry, and now has fallen into a bear market, down at least 20% below its most recent high.
The flagship KOSPI index was down more than 5% on 8 July - now down nearly 25%.
AI Data Center Power Demand. During this year through May, the power & utility industry saw $203.6b in mergers & acquisitions 40% more than in all of 2025 business services firm Deloitte said.
There were 77 deals made throughout the 5 months, compared to last year’s total of 151.
Investors in 20 private credit investment funds monitored by the FT asked to withdraw $22b from the funds during the second quarter, or about 8.7% of the funds’ assets.
The standard among private credit funds is to allow investors to redeem no more than 5% in any quarter.
Fund managers honored only $5.9b of the requests.
In the previous quarter, the funds were more lenient, returning $7.4b, according to investment bank Robert A. Stanger. Some funds held fast to the 5% rule.
The Japanese yen fell below ¥162 to the dollar on 29 June, its weakest since December 1986.
The yen’s latest slump was set off by renewed concerns that the Bank of Japan is coming late to the inflation fight, which is being sparked by war-related fuel scarcities, the FT reported.
Risks to the global financial system are rising, bank says.
Government debt, creeping inflation, & AI investment mania are among the growing risks to the stability of the world’s financial system, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said in its annual economic report.
Private equity firms seek loans as pace of deals slows. Europe’s buyout companies contacted elite London financing firm Enness Global 459 times this year through mid-June, exploring the prospect of borrowing against their future profits, the lender told the Financial Times.
