☕️ SpaceX revenue jumps 92% to $7.8B

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🚀 SpaceX revenue jumps 92% to $7.8B

☁️ Anthropic signs $10B cloud deal with Volta

📊 Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B

🇺🇸 Trump drafts ban on Chinese data center parts

📉 AMD stock falls 9% despite 50% revenue jump

🛢️ US and Iran near strait of Hormuz deal

Plus: 🌍 10 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, 💰 7 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• SpaceX reported second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% and nearly $1 billion above Wall Street's roughly $6.9 billion estimate, in its first earnings report since debuting on the Nasdaq in June.
• The company narrowed its net loss to $541 million, or 9 cents a share, from $1 billion a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5 billion, helped by Starlink subscribers doubling and its AI segment turning profitable.
• The results follow a roughly 50% slide from the stock's post-IPO peak of $211, and the earnings release triggers a lockup that lets pre-IPO holders start selling, with about 900 million more shares unlocking after third-quarter results.

• Anthropic has signed a six-year, $10 billion compute deal with Volta Infra Holdings, securing 121 megawatts of Nvidia Vera Rubin capacity at a hydropower-fed data center site in Tydal, Norway.
• The deal lifted shares of Bitdeer, the Nasdaq-listed crypto miner and site landlord, as much as 23% before settling about 10% higher, on a 16-year lease worth roughly $4.7 billion that Bitdeer expects to run at near-90% operating margins.
• Volta's payments to Bitdeer are backed by about $1.3 billion in standby letters of credit from J.P. Morgan affiliates and another global institution, a structure the article compares to Alphabet's $43.8 billion in lease guarantees across its chip ecosystem.

• Bending Spoons, in its first deal since going public last month, agreed to buy spreadsheet-and-database maker Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash, a steep markdown from the startup's $11 billion-plus peak valuation in 2021.
• Factoring in Airtable's cash on hand, the deal values the company at about $2.25 billion, still below the $4 billion its shares fetched on private secondary markets earlier this year and its $1.4 billion in total funding raised.
• Airtable, serving over 500,000 organizations, brings recurring annual revenue of roughly $480 million as of June 2026, up over 20% year-on-year, fitting Bending Spoons' playbook of buying discounted firms, cutting staff and running them profitably.

• The Trump administration is drafting rules to blacklist Chinese-made components from US data-center construction, with the FCC planning to bar new imports of Chinese optical transceivers, the devices that move data over fiber-optic cables inside those facilities.
• The curbs would disproportionately hit China's Zhongji Innolight, flagged by the Pentagon in June for military ties and holding roughly 27% of the global data-center transceiver market, while US makers Coherent and Lumentum stand to gain despite lacking the capacity to meet demand.
• Beijing has warned it will take "all necessary measures" if harmed and could retaliate through its grip on rare-earth minerals that Western manufacturers struggle to source elsewhere, extending a tit-for-tat tech standoff into a parallel fight over Chinese open-weight AI models.

• AMD fell nearly 9% in after-hours trading despite second-quarter revenue jumping 50% year-on-year to $11.54 billion, as investors reacted to guidance that came in below the most bullish expectations.
• The beat was driven by AMD's Data Center unit, where revenue rose 107% to $6.7 billion on strong sales of processors and AI chips, with adjusted profit of $1.66 per share topping the $1.62 estimate.
• AMD guided to roughly $13 billion in current-quarter revenue, above the $12.52 billion consensus, but some analysts had hoped for as much as $14 billion, and the sell-off suggests investors wanted a stronger outlook.

• The US and Iran are close to a deal, possibly by Tuesday or Wednesday, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial ships without tolls, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a CNBC interview.
• US crude oil futures fell about 3% to below $78 a barrel after Bessent's remarks, and he said prices should drop further once hundreds of ships stranded in the Persian Gulf can finally exit.
• Bessent flagged a broad "relief trade" beyond energy, saying fertilizer, refined products and industrial gases could also cheapen, though prior efforts collapsed after a June 17 agreement broke down over which route ships could use.

🌍 Macro News

• Trump administration nears AI safety review, but only for closed models. LINK
• Generative AI cuts outsourced freelance work to developing countries by 39%. LINK
• India's central bank held rates at 5.25% for fifth straight meeting. LINK
• Fed's Warsh to scale back rate guidance, worrying Goldman Sachs on clarity. LINK
• Bernstein warns crypto could drop sharply if Senate delays CLARITY Act. LINK
• EU's MiCA framework now licenses 321 crypto firms after latest update. LINK
• Copper nears $14,000 a ton on surging US-bound shipments and tariff fears. LINK
• Europe's Stoxx 600 hit a record close, up 10% for 2026. LINK
• China's services growth slowed to a 10-month low in July. LINK
• US and UK regulators reaffirmed support for stablecoins and tokenization oversight. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Saudi-led group completes $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts. LINK
• Spotify surpassed 300 million paid subscribers in the second quarter. LINK
• OpenAI to pay $3.2 million over hiring discrimination allegations. LINK
• Texas orders audits of new data center projects amid grid concerns. LINK
• Wells Fargo joins rivals in launching blockchain-based tokenized deposits. LINK
• Western Union launches Stablecard, a dollar-stablecoin wallet and Visa card. LINK
• BP's quarterly profit more than doubled to $5.7 billion. LINK
• Apple seeks emergency order barring OpenAI from using its trade secrets. LINK
• BNY partners with Galaxy to offer institutional crypto staking rewards. LINK
• McDonald's shares rose after strong earnings and new US president pick. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Deutsche Bank cites Wicksell's theory to explain US debt demand. LINK
• European tech firms like SAP and Capgemini gain from AI deployment boom. LINK
• HSBC says shift to neutral could bring $25 billion into Indian stocks. LINK
• Bank of Italy finds stablecoins offer no real edge over remittances. LINK
• Bank of America raises 2027 global cloud spending forecast to $1.18 trillion. LINK
• UBS warns food inflation will stay elevated for years to come. LINK

💰 Deal Flow

• Walmart completes acquisition of streaming ad platform Vibe.co. LINK
• HappyRobot raised $150 million at a $1.2 billion valuation for AI logistics agents. LINK
• Quantifind raised $200 million to expand financial-crime detection technology. LINK
• Moove raised $250 million to expand autonomous vehicle fleet infrastructure. LINK
• Deel acquires deepfake-detection startup Clarity for up to $50 million. LINK
• Fed approves Santander's $12.3 billion purchase of Webster Financial. LINK
• Telesat wins $2.3 billion contract for Arctic military satellite communications. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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