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Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter: ⚖️ FTC sues Amazon over $20B in secret ad surcharges 🇪🇺 EU puts ChatGPT under strictest digital rules ☁️ Anthropic signs $35B cloud deal with Lambda 💰 Nvidia invests $3.5B in MediaTek 📈 Polymarket raises $1B at $21B value Plus: 🌍 10 macro news, 🏢 11 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.
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📊 Before The Bell
 | Change over the last 24 hours · as of Sep 1, 2026, 5:54 AM ET |
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Your Billing Process Is Slower Than You Think
Most SaaS finance teams underestimate how much billing lag is costing them.Most SaaS finance teams underestimate how much billing lag is costing them.
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⚖️ FTC sues Amazon over $20B in secret ad surcharges
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- The US Federal Trade Commission and 22 states sued Amazon, alleging it "secretly and systematically overcharged" advertisers through hidden pricing tricks that may have generated more than $20 billion since 2019.
- The case targets a 2019 change to Amazon's ad auction rules, when the FTC says the company quietly added an undisclosed "soft reserve price" surcharge and used an "invented auction participant" to push prices higher.
- The suit hits Amazon's third-largest global digital ad business, which pulled in over $68 billion last year; Amazon called the complaint "misguided," said it lacks proof of consumer harm, and claims its auctions saved advertisers $8 billion from 2021 to 2025.
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🇪🇺 EU puts ChatGPT under strictest digital rules
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- The European Commission has classified OpenAI's ChatGPT as a "Very Large Online Search Engine" under its Digital Services Act, alongside Reddit and Roblox as platforms, subjecting all three to the bloc's toughest online-safety rules.
- ChatGPT was pulled in because its search function averaged about 159 million monthly EU users through March 2026, well above the 45-million threshold; Reddit reported 57.2 million and Roblox roughly 48 million, and all three have until the end of November to comply.
- Non-compliance can trigger fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue, potentially large for fast-growing OpenAI, and the regime has already levied around €870 million, including a record €550 million against AliExpress in July.
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☁️ Anthropic signs $35B cloud deal with Lambda
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- Anthropic has signed a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, an Nvidia-backed provider, to secure processing power from a data center being built in Nueces County, Texas.
- The arrangement layers multiple players: Nvidia supplies the chips and leases the 700-megawatt, $20 billion Texas campus from builder Hut 8, while Lambda runs the compute Anthropic will use to power its Claude AI service.
- The deal adds to Anthropic's spending spree-$45 billion with Nscale, $50 billion with Fluidstack and $45 billion with SpaceX, while Lambda, now raising up to $3 billion at a valuation above $12 billion, relies on Nvidia to fund access for firms below investment-grade.
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💰 Nvidia invests $3.5B in MediaTek
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- Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, granting it access to Nvidia's NVLink technology so it can design custom AI chips that plug directly into Nvidia-based data centers.
- The deal lets Nvidia keep ground even as cloud giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic build their own chips to reduce reliance on its GPUs, keeping them tied to Nvidia's data-center backbone.
- It illustrates Nvidia's pattern of backing firms that funnel business back into its ecosystem; MediaTek, which expects $2 billion in custom data-center chip revenue in 2026, follows a similar Nvidia tie-up with AWS last week.
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📈 Polymarket raises $1B at $21B value
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- Polymarket raised $1 billion in a funding round led by Donald Trump Jr's venture firm 1789 Capital, valuing the prediction-market platform at $21 billion, a 40% jump from its roughly $15 billion valuation just months earlier.
- 1789 Capital is putting in about $300 million on top of the roughly $200 million it had already invested, deepening the Trump family's exposure to a betting sector where users wager on everything from political speeches to reality-TV outcomes.
- The deal lands as Washington turns friendlier to the industry: Trump's CFTC pick Michael Selig, whose agency regulates prediction markets, has praised the platforms and sued states trying to restrict them, while the president himself has backed the sector publicly.
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🌍 Macro News
- Bessent defended doubling debt buybacks, calling US bonds top performers. LINK
- Tanker hit in Strait of Hormuz amid rising Middle East tensions. LINK
- India's economy grew 7.8% last quarter, beating forecasts. LINK
- Singapore proposes licensing framework for MAS-regulated stablecoin issuers. LINK
- SEC chair moves to scrap rule limiting shareholder activism. LINK
- Trump warns communities blocking AI data centers will fall behind. LINK
- UK shop prices rose 1.5% in August, fastest in two years. LINK
- Ireland excludes crypto from new tax-advantaged household savings scheme. LINK
- RBI's net short dollar forward position hit record $136.77 billion. LINK
- Japan seeks tax-filing exemption for trust-type stablecoins from 2027. LINK
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🏢 Corporate News
- Judge rejects SVB parent's $1.71 billion claim against FDIC. LINK
- Kraken's parent to tokenize top 100 London-listed stocks as xStocks. LINK
- NYSE parent ICE partners with tZERO on tokenized securities infrastructure. LINK
- TD tested tokenized cross-border payments on BIS's Project Agorá. LINK
- OpenAI's ad business hits $1 billion annualized revenue run rate. LINK
- Apple accuses OpenAI of destroying evidence in trade-secrets lawsuit. LINK
- Shein shares fall 8% on Hong Kong trading debut. LINK
- Hyperliquid nears deal with Kraken parent on US crypto futures. LINK
- Andreessen Horowitz expands fifth growth fund to $8.5 billion. LINK
- SLB buys German cooling maker Kelvion for $3.4 billion. LINK
- Tencent-backed chipmaker Enflame seeks $911 million Shanghai listing. LINK
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📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners | | Tesla rose 6% after the Cybercab launch event in Austin. LINK | | SLB rose 5% after announcing a $4.1 billion acquisition of Kelvion. LINK | | IREN rose 5% after Microsoft megawatt deal delivering Horizon 1 with $1.94 billion ARR potential. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers | | Edison International fell 23% after California legislators rejected a bill that would have prevented insurance companies from suing utilities for wildfire damages. LINK | | Pacific Gas & Electric fell 20% after California lawmakers failed to pass critical wildfire liability reforms. LINK | | Aon fell 10% after announcing a $17 billion acquisition of USI Insurance Services. LINK |
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📑 Research & Reports
- 6 free Claude skills for finance teams: cover close, forecasting and reporting work, ready to drop in. From Aleph. Get the 6 skill files for free
- IDC deepens 2026 smartphone shipment forecast cut to -16.7%. LINK
- 94% of Argentina's peso crypto trading now flows into stablecoins. LINK
- SpaceX may need up to $130 billion for phone network, Bernstein says. LINK
- Venezuela's oil output won't hit 1990s peak until 2050, Rystad says. LINK
- ECB says energy-driven 2026 inflation justifies gradual rate approach. LINK
- Goldman sees global AI spending reaching $1 trillion in 2026. LINK
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📅 Market Calendar
 | Earnings · Economic events |
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