☕️ Oil tops $90 after US strikes Iran

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🛢️ Oil tops $90 after US strikes Iran

🍎 John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO

📌 US takes majority control of Venezuela's oil

💸 Stripe and Advent drop $53B PayPal bid

❌ OpenAI cuts off Cursor after SpaceX deal

Plus: 🌍 9 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• Crude climbed above $90 a barrel after U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island, ending a month-long lull and reviving fears of disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf's main oil-export route.
• Roughly 7 million barrels a day were still moving through the strait last week under U.S. Navy escort via the Omani corridor, but analysts expect flows to drop in coming days, driving prices higher, after the latest strike unsettled commercial shipping.
• Rather than confront U.S. forces directly, Iran is expected to retaliate through proxies and pressure on energy flows, with Yemen's Houthis restricting the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint and Somali piracy resurfacing, five vessels now held, including a tanker seized August 20.

• Apple is handing the CEO role on September 1 to hardware engineering chief John Ternus, ending Tim Cook's tenure that began in 2011, in one of the company's biggest leadership changes in years.
• Cook won't leave, becoming executive chairman and keeping charge of Apple's relationships with the White House and China's government, ties that matter as the company handles trade policy, regulation and supply-chain pressures.
• Ternus, a 20-year Apple veteran who has run hardware engineering since 2021, could shift product direction as the company faces rising component costs and smartphone competition while defending its high-end pricing.

• The US has secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's oil reserves, President Trump said Friday, extending Washington's reach over the country's energy sector following the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.
• A joint venture between the US government and a Venezuelan private operator will receive a 100-year lease to develop 17 oil fields, a deal Venezuela's acting president said could attract billions of dollars in investment.
• The arrangement clears the way for US oil majors to return, with Chevron and others now nearing billion-dollar deals, though critics across Venezuela's political spectrum question its legality and warn it could erode national sovereignty.

• Stripe and private equity firm Advent have abandoned their roughly $53 billion bid for PayPal, walking away from what would have been the largest fintech takeover on record.
• PayPal shares fell as much as 16% from Thursday's $61.47 close, after its board rejected the $60.50-a-share offer as too low despite a 28% premium and refused to formally respond, prompting the suitors to exit.
• The collapse strips out the deal premium that helped drive PayPal's 40%-plus quarterly gain, leaving its market value near $52.6 billion, up from about $36 billion earlier this year but far below its 2021 peak of roughly $360 billion.

• OpenAI will cut off AI model access to coding-tool maker Cursor by November 12, 2026, after the startup's parent, Anysphere, was bought by Elon Musk's SpaceX, escalating Musk's long-running feud with OpenAI's Sam Altman.
• OpenAI said it triggered a contract clause allowing cancellation after "a change of control," citing an inability to trust that SpaceX will follow its terms, referencing past contract violations by Musk's companies including X.
• Anthropic, which already partners with SpaceX, said it will boost computing power for its Claude models inside Cursor, offering an alternative supplier after SpaceX's $60 billion all-stock purchase of Anysphere closed this month.

🌍 Macro News

• Dollar hovers near two-week high on hawkish Fed rate-hike bets. LINK
• Bailey warns advanced AI models threaten global financial stability via cyber-risk. LINK
• US-Canada tariff war escalates with new duties and retaliatory measures. LINK
• OCC and FDIC narrow bank supervisory scrutiny to material financial risks. LINK
• France's borrowing costs hit 2008 highs amid budget fight fears. LINK
• China's factory activity contracts again in August, beating forecasts slightly. LINK
• US Treasury cuts off Banque Misr's UAE unit over Iran ties. LINK
• India to train 100,000 more chip engineers under Semicon 2.0. LINK
• Appeals court says states can regulate prediction markets as gambling. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Music publishers sue Anthropic over alleged copyrighted-work scraping for AI training. LINK
• Shein founder loses over $15 billion as Hong Kong IPO prices low. LINK
• SpaceX to build turbines in-house to speed AI data-center power. LINK
• Apple raises Apple TV and Apple One subscription prices in US. LINK
• Jio Platforms gets approval for potentially India's largest-ever IPO. LINK
• Aon nears $17 billion deal to buy USI from KKR. LINK
• BYD shares fall as first-half profit drops 20.5% on competition. LINK
• Andreessen Horowitz raises $1.1 billion fund for AI hardware buildout. LINK
• China's CXMT posts strong profit turnaround as chip revenue surges. LINK
• Canada lends Xanadu C$195 million, its largest quantum-tech investment ever. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Aleph's budgeting benchmark report: shows how finance teams actually budget, with benchmarks you can hold your own process against. Download the free report
• Nearly a third of firms now build AI software in-house. LINK
• BIS chief favors bank tokenized deposits over stablecoins for digital money. LINK
• Big Tech firms increasingly use euro bonds to fund AI expansion. LINK
• Goldman doubles refiner profit forecasts as diesel shortage boosts margins. LINK
• Bank of America says Asia-Pacific leads in real-time cross-border payments. LINK
• AI hardware demand now boosts US inflation as much as tariffs. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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