☕️ Alibaba profit drops 75% on AI spending

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

📉 Alibaba profit drops 75% on AI spending

🚀 Bitcoin nears $80K in best week since 2023

📡 Charter buys Cox for $34.5B

🧠 Micron pours $10B into AI memory lab

🪙 SEC proposes first dedicated crypto offering rules

Plus: 🌍 12 macro news, 🏢 6 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• Alibaba's June-quarter profit dropped 75% as heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure eroded earnings, even as the Chinese tech giant kept expanding its computing and cloud capacity to compete in the AI race.
• The squeeze came from capital expenditure jumping 75% to 67.7 billion yuan ($10 billion), driven by uneven customer purchase timing, more CPU-compute capacity, and higher prices across a range of chip components.
• Revenue rose 9% to 268.95 billion yuan, just ahead of an LSEG estimate of 268.88 billion yuan, while Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares fell as much as 4% premarket before recovering to trade 1.6% lower.

• Bitcoin was on track for roughly a 20% weekly gain, trading at $75,343.01 early Friday, up from $62,836.88 at the start of the week, as optimism returned to the world's largest cryptocurrency.
• The rally started Wednesday when Treasury yields fell sharply after the US Treasury intervened in the bond market, easing pressure on riskier assets and pushing investors into crypto, before a roughly $2.7 billion short squeeze amplified the move.
• Crypto-linked stocks followed, with Coinbase and Circle closing up 7.5% and 6.45% respectively and Strategy rising 7.8% on Thursday, while the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF gained 5.5% in premarket trading.

• Charter Communications closed its $34.5-billion takeover of Cox Communications early Thursday, absorbing millions of internet and TV customers across Southern California and expanding its Spectrum service to a 45-state footprint.
• Cox subscribers will shift to Spectrum by mid-September, keeping existing prices or moving to bundles with Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and Paramount+, while new customers in areas like Orange County and San Diego finally gain Dodgers channel SportsNet LA after a decade-long blackout.
• To win California approval, Charter pledged at least $275 million to upgrade its network and $30 million on outreach programs, and plans to rename itself Cox next year, with Cox Enterprises chief Alex Taylor becoming Charter board chairman.

• Micron will commit $10 billion over the next decade to a new AI-focused memory research facility in Boise, Idaho, sending its shares up 3.97% on Thursday to close at $974.33.
• The project drew public endorsements from Apple's Tim Cook and Nvidia's Jensen Huang, whose backing matters because Nvidia's chips rely on steady supply of the high-bandwidth memory Micron produces.
• Supporting sentiment, S&P Global lifted Micron's credit rating to BBB+ on AI memory demand it sees running through 2028, while BMO Capital began coverage with a Buy rating and a $1,300 price target.

• The SEC unveiled its first dedicated framework for crypto, a proposal called Regulation Crypto Assets that would let digital-asset firms raise money under federal securities laws without automatically being treated as issuing regulated securities.
• The rules offer a conditional "safe harbor" shielding qualifying token sales from being deemed investment contracts, a shift from the prior era when firms faced enforcement and often launched projects offshore because US capital-raising was legally blocked.
• The move responds to stalled crypto legislation in Congress, where a vote on the Clarity Act is now set for September 15; the SEC will accept public comments on its proposal for 60 days.

🌍 Macro News

• Australia passed a law forcing tech platforms to pay news publishers or a levy. LINK
• Brazil unveiled $444 million in AI investments split between US and Chinese suppliers. LINK
• CFTC will draft its own crypto rules if Congress fails to act. LINK
• South Korea will fund youth and AI programs using semiconductor tax windfalls. LINK
• Japan's inflation rose to 1.9% in July on higher energy costs. LINK
• Bessent doubts US will restart Iran combat, favors sanctions and blockade. LINK
• Gold surged past $4,500 an ounce on weaker dollar, lower yields. LINK
• South Korea proposes giving regulators direct power to probe unregistered crypto firms. LINK
• US jobless claims fell to 206,000, signaling continued labor market strength. LINK
• UK debt nears £3 trillion after unexpected July borrowing increase. LINK
• Panama Canal will cut daily crossings due to El Niño drought. LINK
• Trump renewed calls for the Fed to cut interest rates. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Binance launched Agent OS, letting AI agents trade for users. LINK
• OpenAI CFO says company targets a 2027 public listing. LINK
• Meta becomes major Azure AI customer in multi-hundred-million-dollar Microsoft deal. LINK
• Supermicro probe found no executive knowledge of alleged China smuggling scheme. LINK
• Klarna is hiring its next CFO in New York. LINK
• Webull shares jumped 13.8% after record quarterly results. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Build 10 finance tools without an engineer: walks through building your own models and internal tools using AI. From Aleph. Download the free playbook
• Hedge funds' favorite stocks trailed the S&P 500 by record margin. LINK
• Morgan Stanley issued a warning in an early August report. LINK
• Most financial firms overrate their digital identity-check systems, survey finds. LINK
• Euro-area consumers' inflation expectations eased slightly in July. LINK
• Vanguard published a new asset allocation framework in August. LINK
• UK businesses in critical financial distress rose 9% in Q2. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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