BEFORE THE OPEN

Pre-Market:

Market Recap:

• Stock futures dip as S&P 500 nears 5,000 milestone.

• S&P almost hits 5,000, driven by earnings and resilience.

• S&P up 4.8% in 2024, set for fifth weekly gain.

• Majority beat earnings; Pinterest plunges 9% on weak forecast.

• Pepsi reports earnings before Friday's bell.

EARNINGS

What we’re watching this week:

• Today: PepsiCo (PEP)

Full earnings calendar here

HEADLINES

Special Counsel Report Sends Shockwaves Through Congress

Arm Shares Soar 60% Upon Strong Forecast — A Giant Windfall for Softbank

• Trade leaders urge governments around the world to join Red Sea military effort (more)

• US mortgage rates tick up as Fed signals its fight’s not over (more)

• Hedge funds to share more on their strategies under SEC rule (more)

• Shaky commercial loans threaten a new regional bank crisis (more)

• Einhorn says markets ‘fundamentally broken’ by passive, quant investing (more)

• Goldman facing CFTC probe over fees charged for futures trading (more)

• Wall Street love sends Disney stock soaring (more)

• Google rebrands Bard AI to Gemini with new app and subscription (more)

• McDonald’s to open 1,000 outlets in China as appetite for fast food grows (more)

• Delta to open a new tier of ‘premium’ airport lounges this year in high-end travel push (more)

• McKinsey places 3,000 staffers on review as economies slow (more)

• Plaid names first company president in another step toward IPO (more)

• 23andMe considers splitting up company to revive stock price (more)

• $22,000/mo LA rental showcases KKR’s property stresses (more)

REACH A SMARTER AUDIENCE

DEALFLOW

M+A | Investments

• General Atlantic to buy a stake in $50B Partners Capital (more)

• Saudi Arabia lines up Goldman, Citi for Aramco share sale (more)

• Flynn Group, world's largest franchisee, explores $5+B sale (more)

• Claure Group acquires minority stake in tech investor Hedosophia (more)

• Trump's media deal partner nears $50M financing (more)

• AArete, a management and technology consulting firm, acquired Legerity, a technology consulting (more)

• Autodesk, Inc. (ADSK), agreed to acquire the PIX business of X2X (more)

• Savvas Learning Company, a K-12 learning solutions company, acquired Outlier.org, an edtech startup that has created a portfolio of online college-level courses (more)

• Vensure Employer Solutions, a provider of HR/HCM technology, managed services, and global business process outsourcing, acquired MarathonHR, a human resources outsourcing firm (more)

• F&I Sentinel, a risk-management solutions provider for finance/insurance products, acquired Express Recoveries from Cox Automotive Inc (more)

• Hiline, a financial services firm, acquired Calculate, an outsourced accounting and finance firm that support the financial processes at emerging companies (more)

• Handle.com, a provider of a construction payments software platform, received an investment from Suffolk Technology (more)

VC

• Platform Accounting Group, a company that supports the operation of boutique accounting/professional services firms, raised $85M in funding (more)

• Unlearn, an AI company creating digital twins of clinical trial participants that enable research, raised $50M in Series C funding (more)

• River, a startup building multi-utility electric scooters, raised $40M in Series B funding (more)

• Ezra, a healthcare AI company, raised $21M in funding (more)

• Formlogic, a provider of autonomous precision manufacturing services for space companies, received $20M from Trinity Capital (more)

• Thea Energy, a fusion energy company, raised $20M in Series A funding (more)

• Aizon, an AI-enhanced SaaS pharmaceutical manufacturing company, raised $20M in Series C funding (more)

• Headlight, provider of a mental health practice, raised $18M in funding (more)

• Closinglock, an intech and fraud prevention technology provider, raised $12M in Series A funding (more)

• LimaCharlie, a provider of a security operations (SecOps) cloud platform, raised $10.2M in Series A funding (more)

• Volta Insite, an electrical data collection company, raised $7M in Seed funding (more)

• Truflation, an economic data field company, raised $6M in funding (more)

• Stellar Sleep, a provider of a digital solution for chronic insomnia management, raised $6M in Seed funding (more)

• Flood, a provider of a protocol for order routing, management, and settlement, raised $5.2M in Seed funding (more)

• Perigon, a company providing contextual intelligence for the web data, raised $5M in Seed funding (more)

• Vocode, an open source developer platform for conversational AI, raised $3.25M in seed funding (more)

• DeepLook Medical, a technology firm focused on visual enhancement technology to advance medical imaging, raised $1.7M in funding (more)

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CRYPTO

• US Senators berate SEC's Gensler for agency's 'unethical' handling of crypto case (more)

• Loyalty points are crypto’s new bait (more)

• Bitcoin ETFs (Ex-GBTC) now hold more BTC than MicroStrategy (more)

• Crypto project founder wanted on fraud charge is promoting new projects (more)

BULLISH BITES

🇷🇺 ICYMI: The Vladimir Putin interview

🏈 PE + NFL: Inside the succession crisis brewing at the NFL.

🐭 Muskateer: Wait, did Elon Musk just hint he's going to buy Disney?

🌎 Discovery: NASA found a super-Earth. It's in a tantalizing place.

⌚︎ Retail therapy: The Piaget Polo 79 - pure ‘70s gold.

DAILY SHARES

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