Good Morning! Semiconductor stocks soared after Meta's new AI agent became one of the most downloaded apps in the App Store and boosted investor optimism around chip demand. Oura and its backers are seeking to raise as much as $2.2 billion in a US IPO. And Gen Z is shunning private equity's restaurant takeover.

The Yankees are nearing a deal to hand a 16% stake to Apollo at a $12 billion valuation. Nscale crossed $103 billion in data center contracts, a 1,000-fold increase over three years driven by Microsoft and Anthropic. And Bitcoin topped $85,000 as the crypto rally extends, with some experts declaring crypto winter officially over.

Plus: Silver Lake is asking a judge to rule that Carl Icahn and hedge funds colluded to fight its $13 billion Endeavor acquisition, Newark, NYC, and Philadelphia flights were grounded after a worker cut a Verizon fiber cable, and why CEOs need to stop bragging about 4am alarm clocks.

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

BofA’s AI Bear Bet Backfires

Bank of America was Wall Street's quiet skeptic on AI spending over the past couple of years. While basically every other big bank threw itself at data center financings, BofA kept asking how long money-losing AI companies could actually sustain the burn. So, consequently, the firm sat out some of the biggest deals of 2025 and 2026. 

But it turns out being right about the risk and being right about the trade are two very different things.

It's been an absurd year for banks underwriting and trading AI infrastructure debt, and more than $400 billion of it has hit the market in 2026 alone. Apollo says AI-related deals now make up almost 40% of new debt supply, and tech companies and hyperscalers account for more than 20% of the investment-grade index for bonds maturing 10-plus years out.

BofA sat most of that out, and CEO Brian Moynihan now expects trading revenue to be roughly flat this quarter. And it’s all thanks in part to the fact that his bank simply wasn't positioned for the boom everyone else was riding.

BofA missed Blackstone-backed QTS's $3.9 billion bond sale last quarter and currently sits third in both U.S. investment-grade and high-yield issuance, behind JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. And when banks sit out the high-profile deals, they’re not just missing an underwriting fee. Once these bonds start trading hands between asset managers, hedge funds, and insurers, the banks closest to the market get repeated shots at making money off the same debt, over and over. And while JPMorgan expects trading revenue up mid-to-high teens this quarter and Citi's guiding to mid-single digits, BofA is fighting just to keep its 16-quarter growth streak alive.

Takeaway: In the latter half of 2026, BofA changed its mind, fast. The firm extended a $520 million credit line to OpenAI earlier this year, helped sell $14 billion in bonds financing an Oracle data center in Michigan, and committed $250 billion toward U.S. critical infrastructure including data centers and compute capacity. The problem is that deciding you want back in is the easy part; rebuilding the relationships and deal flow you skipped for two years is a lot harder, and right now the results show it.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Meta’s Muse AI agent downloads are surging (CNBC)

• Smart ring maker Oura, backers seek $2.2 billion in US IPO (BB)

• Gen-Z are shunning private equity’s restaurant takeover (Guardian)

• Apollo set to take major stake in Yankees, making team most valuable in baseball (NY Post)

• Anthropic and Microsoft dominate Nscale's $103 billion in contracts (BB)

• Bitcoin price tops $85,000 as crypto rally extends (CNBC)

• Silver Lake takes on Carl Icahn and all of merger arbitrage in Endeavor fight (WSJ)

• Newark, NYC, Philadelphia flights disrupted due to cut Verizon cable (CNBC)

• Nvidia's Jensen Huang resists AI slowdown (WSJ)

• Carlyle said to prepare for $400 million IPO of India auto unit (BB)

• Law firms have a big problem: senior partners aren't retiring (WSJ)

• Priority Technology CEO to take firm private in $1.6 billion deal (WSJ)

• Perpetual rejects EQT AB's improved offer, ends takeover talks (WSJ)

• Paramount reaches historic settlement with states, clearing way for WBD deal (Axios)

• Private-equity firms buy indie-author publisher Podium for more than $400 million (WSJ)

• AMD set to top $1 trillion in market value as chip stocks soar (BB)

• The IRS is cracking down on the way the ultrawealthy pass down money (WSJ)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• The Nasdaq rose more than 2% and the S&P 500 gained 1.5% as WTI crude fell to $96.

• 10-year European government yields fell 5 to 10 basis points, while the 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.96%

• Asian and European equities rallied overnight on hopes for progress on Middle East diplomatic shipping efforts.

Economic Data

• The preliminary U.S. PMI is due Wednesday, followed by Thursday's durable goods orders and new home sales data.

• Chicago Fed's Goolsbee and St. Louis Fed's Musalem struck hawkish tones, warning further hikes may be needed.

• A quiet data week overall following last week's Fed rate hike.

China and Diplomacy

• Trump and Xi Jinping meet Wednesday, Xi's first U.S. trip since 2023, expected to extend the trade truce set to expire in November.

• Trump said he'd "probably" be open to meeting Iranian President Pezeshkian at the UN General Assembly this week.

• Trump is also expected to meet other Gulf state leaders to discuss easing the energy supply crunch.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Meta ($META) +11% after launching Muse, a personal AI agent, as investors bet the product will drive meaningfully higher chip demand.

• (+) AMD ($AMD) +10% because Meta's Muse AI launch fueled a chip-sector rally that pushed AMD above a $1 trillion market cap.

• (–) Novo Nordisk ($NVO) -8% after the drugmaker's Capital Markets Day framed 2026-2030 growth as roughly in line with peers rather than a breakout acceleration.
  

Prediction Markets

• Trump is scheduled to speak at 9:50am EDT. There’s an 79% chance that Trump says “Trump”.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Delos Data, a semiconductor and software startup, raised more than $100 million

• Sequen, a real-time ranking and relevance platform, raised $90 million

• Inspiren, a senior living tech startup, raised $70 million

• Superluminal Medicines, an obesity drug developer, raised $60 million

• Bluecore Energy, a developer of small nuclear reactors on barges, raised $50 million

• Guardio, a consumer cybersecurity company, raised $40 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Baron of Wall Street

Description:
William R. Loomis Jr., former CEO of Lazard, tells the story of Clarence Dillon, one of the most influential and least-known figures of 20th-century American finance. Dillon rose to prominence during the Roaring Twenties, building a financial empire through investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and major corporate transactions. Loomis explores Dillon's role in pioneering techniques that would later become central to modern finance, including leveraged buyouts and sophisticated corporate reorganizations. The book also moves beyond Wall Street, examining Dillon's relationships with figures ranging from Thomas Edison and Charlie Chaplin to Joseph P. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It provides a window into how Wall Street, corporate power, politics, and wealth became increasingly intertwined during a formative period in American financial history.

Book Length: 336 pages
Release Date: November 4, 2025

Ideal For:
Investors, investment bankers, private equity professionals, entrepreneurs, finance executives, and readers interested in Wall Street history, M&A, capital allocation, corporate finance, and the evolution of modern financial markets.

“Understanding modern Wall Street requires understanding the people who learned how to turn capital, relationships, and corporate complexity into power.”

DAILY VISUAL

AI Overtakes All

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DAILY ACUMEN

Vanishing Value

In January 2019, WeWork was privately valued at 47 billion dollars, a number built almost entirely on aggressive growth funding rounds rather than anything resembling a traditional profitability metric. It rented office space on long leases and subleased it in smaller pieces, a business investors had been pricing like a technology company.

When the company filed to go public that August, its full financial picture became visible to outside eyes for the first time, including losses of roughly 1.6 billion dollars the prior year against revenue of 1.5 billion, and a founder whose personal conduct raised its own set of alarms. Public market investors, who unlike private ones actually had to read the filing, refused to buy in anywhere near that price.

Within six weeks, the IPO was withdrawn entirely, the founder was pushed out, and the company that had been worth 47 billion dollars on paper was rescued in a deal valuing it at under 8 billion. Nothing about the actual office space had changed. What changed was who was finally allowed to ask what it was really worth.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• How we create career ceilings

• CEOs need to stop bragging about 4am alarm clocks

• The phrases high-integrity people use to shut down mean people

• The data-center dividend for workers

• Should you pay off your mortgage early?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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