☕️ Alphabet raises $25B to fund AI push

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.

📊 Before The Bell

• 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.

• 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 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 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 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 bought yen for first time since 1998. LINK
• Oil rises Friday on fears Iran may restrict Strait of Hormuz passage. LINK
• US copper futures hit record near $6.90 on tight supply, AI demand. LINK
• China reviews Palo Alto Networks products, echoing 2023 Micron ban process. LINK
• Tokenized real-world asset deposits on crypto platforms tripled to $7.4 billion. LINK
• European electricity prices spiked to €500/MWh amid drought and heat. LINK
• Judge orders Pentagon to resume frozen wind farm security reviews. LINK
• US diesel exports hit record 1.9 million barrels amid supply disruptions. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• EasyJet accepts £5.7 billion takeover offer from Apollo after rival withdraws. LINK
• AMD to acquire AI chip startup Taalas, terms undisclosed. LINK
• Wintermute gains US broker-dealer status, registers with SEC and FINRA. LINK
• Unitree's Shanghai IPO raised $850 million, exceeding its fundraising target. LINK
• Nintendo beats profit forecasts despite falling Switch 2 sales. LINK
• Datadog shares fall 17% on weak sales guidance despite earnings beat. LINK
• Fiserv's new CEO cuts 2026 outlook in first earnings report. LINK
• SoftBank's fiscal first-quarter profit falls 18% to 347.3 billion yen. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Google restructures DeepMind leadership as Hassabis and Dean step back. LINK
• Financial firms lead industries in widespread AI adoption, PYMNTS report finds. LINK
• EU bank assets grew 3.63% year-on-year to €34.33 trillion, ECB reports. LINK
• Crypto dark pool trading surged to 15% of monthly volume by June. LINK
• US CEO confidence rose to 52 in Q3, signaling renewed optimism. LINK
• JPMorgan warns Hyperliquid's crypto derivatives dominance may erode from competition. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• Defense manufacturer Hadrian raises $1.37 billion, nearing $8 billion valuation. LINK
• Google in talks for $1.5 billion deal with AI coding startup Mechanize. LINK
• White Star Capital closes fourth fund at $250 million, below target. LINK
• Panthalassa reportedly raising $225 million for wave-powered AI data centers. LINK
• AI startup Mirendil signs $100 million-plus compute deal with Google Cloud. LINK
• Wealth startup Decade raises $85 million, largest Latin American seed round. LINK
• DeepSeek revives $7 billion funding round, then plans to raise prices. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

📚 Finance Resources

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