☕️ Penske Automotive is going private

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🚗 Penske Automotive to go private in $16.3B deal

📉 CoreWeave selloff rattles the AI boom

📈 Wholesale prices jump 1.3% reviving Fed hike bets

💹 Ripple opens Wall Street to 24/7 asset swaps

🔒 Proofpoint's Varonis deal targets AI security risks

Plus: 🌍 11 macro stories, 🏢 10 corporate stories, and 📑 5 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• Penske Automotive, the auto-retail group listed in New York, agreed to be taken private in a roughly $16.3 billion deal by two existing owners, Penske Corp. and Japan's Mitsui, the company said yesterday.
• The buyers are purchasing the roughly 27.8% of the company they don't already own at $212 per share, up from the $210 floated when the offer surfaced in July, a price Penske called about 20% above its 60-day average.
• Once completed, privately held Penske Corp. will own 64% and Mitsui the rest; the group booked about $27.5 billion in 2025 revenue from its car dealerships, its largest business.

• A selloff in AI and chip stocks wiped more than $1 trillion off the 20 most valuable names this week, triggered by credit stress at CoreWeave, worries over corporate AI spending and a hot US inflation report.
• CoreWeave sits at the center: the yield on its 2031 bond climbed to 15.78%, while the cost to insure its debt against default briefly topped 1,140 basis points, a level S&P's Gavan Nolan calls a sign of credit distress.
• The rotation hit chip leaders across the board, with Dell down 6.8% and Nvidia, AMD and Intel all falling less sharply, as rising rates, AI financing fears and fiercer competition soured sentiment.

• Wholesale prices jumped 1.3% in September and 6.3% over the year, their biggest gains since 2022, driven largely by an energy-supply crunch from the U.S.-Iran conflict that is reviving bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike.
• Both numbers blew past forecasts of 0.6% monthly and 5.5% annually, and the pain is spreading: the government said nearly half of September's rise in processed goods for immediate demand traced back to higher diesel fuel prices.
• Futures traders now see a roughly 34% chance the Fed raises rates on Oct. 28, nearly double the odds priced a week earlier, with the vast majority expecting at least one hike by year-end, as consumers also cut spending outside fuel and autos.

• Ripple has opened round-the-clock trading of real-world asset perpetual swaps to institutions through its Ripple Prime unit, letting them hold positions tied to stocks, indices, ETFs, metals, energy and currencies even when the underlying exchanges are shut.
• The swaps track perpetual futures that Trade.​xyz lists on decentralized venue Hyperliquid, covering over 100 markets, with Ripple Prime acting as principal on every trade so clients get a single counterparty and never connect to Hyperliquid directly.
• Clients can post Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin as collateral and net offsetting positions across asset classes to cut the margin they must post, though the product currently runs only under Ripple Prime's BVI license, with other regions planned but no timeline.

• Proofpoint has agreed to buy Varonis Systems for $6.3 billion, a deal it frames as a way to guard companies against security risks emerging as AI agents gain access to sensitive corporate data.
• The all-in combination pairs Proofpoint's email and identity defenses, backed by private-equity owner Thoma Bravo, with Varonis's data-security tools, aiming to track who, and which AI systems, can reach a company's most sensitive files.
• The merged firm would serve 16,000 enterprises, with the deal expected to close in the first half of 2027 subject to customary approvals; the two will run separately until then, and it marks Proofpoint's third acquisition in 18 months.

🌍 Macro News

• Warsh says AI will boost productivity and wealth, but transition will be bumpy. LINK
• IEA members agree to release over 20 million barrels of diesel. LINK
• A Singapore-registered container ship sank after being struck by a projectile in Hormuz. LINK
• Beige Book shows AI investment and Iran's energy shock reshaping corporate decisions. LINK
• G7 finance officials plan joint drills simulating AI-driven attacks on financial systems. LINK
• Bessent urges World Bank to end its ban on upstream oil financing. LINK
• Sweden's Riksbank urges lawmakers to prepare legislation for a possible digital krona. LINK
• Britain's FCA plans AI-driven supervision and enforcement without new AI-specific rules. LINK
• Crude fell as Trump weighed sanctions relief to ease tanker shortages. LINK
• Bailey says energy prices have barely lifted broader UK inflation so far. LINK
• Indonesia stocks plunged after MSCI removed the market from emerging-market classification. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Anthropic's expected IPO valuation fell to $1.5 trillion as growth cooled. LINK
• Apple topped $5 trillion as investors sought shelter from AI spending concerns. LINK
• Anduril's employee share sale values the defense startup at $90 billion. LINK
• ByteDance seeks MediaTek AI chips as US curbs limit Nvidia access. LINK
• Berkshire invests another $330 million in Bending Spoons, raising its stake. LINK
• Venture Global plans up to 10 gigawatts of power for data centers. LINK
• Ericsson shares surged after quarterly results beat expectations across the board. LINK
• CNN and Google will test generative AI tools under a multi-year partnership. LINK
• Rocket Lab delayed Neutron's debut launch from 2026 into 2027. LINK
• Mastercard launched a platform connecting stablecoins with businesses' banking and card payments. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• 7 AI stocks to buy before the OpenAI IPO: covers the AI names MarketBeat thinks re-rate when OpenAI lists, in a free report. Get the free report
• Humanoid robots could drive a twentyfold increase in memory demand by 2030. LINK
• US productivity gains increasingly benefited companies through wider margins, not workers' wages. LINK
• Crypto market value rose 40%, while major exchange spot trading fell. LINK
• Microsoft leads enterprise AI orchestration, Morgan Stanley survey suggests. LINK
• JPMorgan expects AI stocks' rebound to be slower and weaker this time. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

💬 How did you find today's edition?

We read every reply — just reply to this email and let us know how we can improve!