money

He’s no longer a cute little kid.

He’s a $185-million man.

He’s no longer a quintessential underdog routinely pardoned for his bad defense, his questionable durability and his tendency to tighten up in the playoffs.

He’s a big dog who needs to own it.

Austin Reaves, the most beloved Laker, became the most scrutinized Laker on Wednesday with the news that he agreed to a maximum four-year, $185-million contract to remain with the team.

Kudos to him for becoming the highest-paid undrafted player in league history.

Props to him for declining a rich extension offer last summer to play out the season and bet on himself.

Congrats to the Lakers for turning a homegrown talent into a budding superstar.

Seriously, it makes you just want to hug that unkempt, headband-wearing dude and let him know how his everyman story resonates with the masses.

Except that story is finished. That book has been closed. A new volume has begun.

It’s called, “Is Austin Reaves Worth It?”

Thus far, the answer has been no.

Flash back to May, the opener of the Western Conference semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, a week after he had returned to the court following a monthlong absence with an oblique injury.

Lakers guard Austin Reaves chases after a loose ball ahead of Rockets guard Amen Thompson during Game 5 of their playoff series in May.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The Lakers needed Reaves to set the tone. He instead laid an egg, shooting three for 16 from the field and zero for five from beyond the arc, his body knocked clear to Tulsa by a physical Thunder defense.

Two games later, same thing, he shoots five for 13 and one for five from deep, allowing the Thunder to pound him to a pulp.

With Luka Doncic out and LeBron James exhausted, the Lakers desperately needed Reaves to pick up the slack. He dropped it, again and again, and the Lakers were swept.

It was the same thing in the spring of 2025, when Reaves crumbled in the first-round series-clinching loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, shooting five for 14 and two for 10 in a performance that was, as usual, generally overlooked because he tried so hard and accepted his shortcomings so honestly.

That’s not going to work anymore. That’s not going to be enough anymore.

With this new deal, Reaves becomes the Lakers’ second cornerstone along with Doncic. They are now officially a one-two punch. They are now a twin-engine scoring machine that can rival any similar duo in the NBA.

Guards Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic are the new one-two punch of the near future for the Lakers.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Doncic has lived up to his end of the bargain. Will Reaves?

And what about defense? For $185 million, you’d think you could get some defense. Doncic needs his running mate to compensate for his questionable defensive skills, and Reaves has yet to do that.

Simply by earning his way onto the Lakers roster five years ago, Reaves has been a great role model for everyone who has ever been ignored or shunned or marginalized. But did the Lakers fall in love with his legend and ignore his frailties?

Yes, he averaged 23 points per game last season. But he only played in a career-low 51 games because of calf and oblique injuries, and will he add the muscle required to fend off such problems in the future?

Yes, he has been a great interview while admirably and publicly holding himself and his teammates accountable. But he’s always been able to lead from the shadows. How will he react when 185 million microphones are pointed at him?

In a postgame interview after the Lakers’ final loss against Oklahoma City this spring, Reaves was at his aw-shucks best.

“I take life day by day and I’m just blessed to have an opportunity to play for this organization, play a kid’s game,” he said, “I make good money. But like I said, I don’t think about what I’m really going to do in the future, just day by day.”

Lakers guard Austin Reaves consults with coach JJ Redick during a break in the action during Game 3 of the series against the Oklahoma City Thunder in May.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

That tone has to change. He now has to think about the future because he is the future, of this team, of this organization, of the hopes of this city.

With all of Reaves’ shortcomings, one can almost see the unsentimental Dodgers officials looking at Wednesday’s news and saying, “Wait, they did what?”

But in the end, the Lakers didn’t really have a choice. There wasn’t a free agent available who could match Reaves’ prolific shooting, and nobody who could match the Laker-centric story of his personal journey.

Renowned softie Rob Pelinka, who should count Reaves as one of his greatest successes, was so moved by the opportunity to bring him back that he mentioned the Lakers colors when answering a question about him.

“He started his journey here as a Laker and has made it very clear to us that he wants his journey to continue as a Laker,” Pelinka said during exit interviews this spring. “We want his odyssey to continue to unfold in the purple and gold.”

And so it will, for at least several more years, Reaves now occupying a Lakers leading sidekick role made famous during their championship years by the likes of Anthony Davis and Pau Gasol.

How sweet. How scary.

Published on
25/06/2026 – 10:43 GMT+2

Micron, one of only a handful of companies able to make advanced memory chips at scale, said on Wednesday that revenue in the third quarter reached $41.4 billion (€36.5bn), more than four times the $9.3 billion (€8.2bn) it recorded in the same period last year.

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The figure also comfortably beat the roughly $35.7 billion (€31.4bn) analysts had forecast, while profit climbed even more dramatically.

The Idaho-based group posted net income of $28.24 billion (€24.9bn), or $24.67 per share, against less than $2 billion (€1.7bn) a year ago. Adjusted earnings of $25.11 a share sailed past the $20.49 expected.

The market reaction to the impressive results was immediate.

Micron shares rose more than 15% in after-hours trading to around $1,213, leaving the company valued at roughly $1.16 trillion (€1tn).

The stock has now climbed about 700% over the past year, one of the most dramatic re-ratings of any large company through the AI boom, reflecting a fundamental shift in the economics of the AI build-out.

The vast data centres being constructed by hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta, which have collectively earmarked hundreds of billions of dollars in capital spending this year, depend on enormous quantities of high-bandwidth memory, a specialised chip that sits alongside the processors made by Nvidia and others.

Micron has said its entire 2026 output of these chips is already sold out under fixed-price contracts.

According to CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, the results reflect what he called the strategic value of memory in the AI era.

The company pointed to a series of multi-year customer agreements that it expects to make earnings more durable and predictable, a notable claim in an industry long defined by brutal boom-and-bust cycles.

Margins to rival the biggest names

What has startled analysts most is Micron’s profitability.

The company reported a gross margin of around 85% for the quarter, a level that now rivals or exceeds those of far larger technology names such as Nvidia and Meta, an extraordinary position for a memory maker historically squeezed by volatile chip prices.

The tightness of supply, with new factories not expected to add meaningful output until 2028, has handed producers exceptional pricing power.

Micron’s guidance was more striking still.

The company expects revenue of around $50 billion (€44bn) in the current quarter and adjusted earnings of roughly $31 a share, implying the boom is accelerating rather than fading. It is ramping up investment to match, lifting planned capital spending to about $27 billion (€23.7bn) this fiscal year and signalling a further jump in 2027, management told analysts during the earnings call.

The results offer reassurance to investors betting that AI infrastructure spending remains robust, with Micron’s order book serving as a real-time gauge of that demand.

The open question, as ever in the memory industry, is how long the upswing can last before supply catches up. Even the most bullish observers acknowledge that risk has not completely disappeared.

Published on
24/06/2026 – 14:16 GMT+2

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has given the green light to develop a prediction market app, according to the New York Times, as Meta moves to capitalise on one of the fastest-growing sectors in tech and finance.

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The app is currently being referred to as Arena internally and would let users earn points for correctly predicting the outcomes of events such as sports results, political developments and stock market moves but without any real money changing hands, at least initially.

It would operate independently of Meta’s existing social platforms, though those could funnel users towards it, according to the reporting.

What is a prediction market?

A prediction market is essentially a financial exchange where people buy and sell contracts or bets tied to the outcome of real-world events.

Each contract is a simple yes-or-no question, such as whether a certain candidate will win an election, a team will come out first in a championship or if a major political figure will pass by a certain date.

On Polymarket and Kalshi, the two most popular prediction market platforms, users buy contracts that pay out $1 if they are right and nothing if they are wrong.

As more people trade those contracts, the price reflects the market’s probability of the event occurring. If a bet is worth 40 cents, there’s a 40% chance of it happening, according to the people who have placed bets.

Fans of prediction markets argue the mechanism produces more accurate forecasts than polls or political analysts because participants have real money on the line.

Polymarket and Kalshi

The two dominant platforms in the space are Polymarket and Kalshi, which together generated around 85–90% of the roughly $44 billion (€40bn) in total trading volume recorded in 2025.

Polymarket, founded in 2020 by New York University dropout Shayne Coplan, operates globally on the blockchain. In October 2025, the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company invested $2 billion (€1.8bn) in the platform, in a major sign that Wall Street was taking the sector seriously.

Kalshi, founded in 2018 by two MIT graduates, spent years winning regulatory approval before launching as the first prediction market sanctioned by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The turning point came in October 2024, when a US court ruled Kalshi could legally offer election contracts 32 days before the presidential election. Monthly trading volume has since surged from less than $5 billion (€4.6bn) in September 2025 to around $24 billion (€21.8bn) in April 2026, overtaking the roughly $14 billion (€12.7bn) wagered monthly through legal or traditional US sportsbooks.

Donald Trump Jr. becoming an investor in Polymarket and a paid adviser to Kalshi, while federal regulators adopted a more permissive stance, also helped fuel the boom.

The risks

The boom has not come without controversy and legal cases have mounted, with a former special forces soldier getting arrested over allegations he used insider knowledge of a US operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to place a winning trade on Polymarket worth around $400,000 (€365,000).

Some US states have begun suing the platforms, arguing they are running illegal gambling operations without proper licences. The Trump administration has responded by suing the states that have moved to ban prediction markets, creating a messy legal standoff between federal and state authority.

A New York Times review found that Polymarket published hundreds of false and misleading social media posts, while Politico uncovered a campaign to pay influencers to praise the platform’s supposed accuracy.

Whether Meta’s gamified, cashless version of the concept can avoid those pitfalls or will simply serve as a gateway to them remains unclear.

Published on 24/06/2026 – 12:44 GMT+2•Updated
13:06

One of Europe’s largest military equipment producers, KNDS, rolled out long-awaited details of its initial public offering (IPO), aiming for a dual listing in Paris and Frankfurt in the coming weeks.

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The IPO could value KNDS, the maker of Leopard and Leclerc tanks, at between €12bn and €15bn, according to the Financial Times, potentially making it one of Europe’s largest defence listings in recent years.

The listing comes at a time when European military budgets are surging, driven by the war in Ukraine and doubts over the reliability of the US as a security guarantor.

The company declined to comment on the precise date, but CEO Jean-Paul Alary told reporters the offering was expected within weeks.

According to Alary, the move comes as the continent enters what he called a new era of defence and security, with armed forces modernising rapidly and rebuilding the land-warfare capabilities run down during decades of lower spending.

According to Reuters, the firm has now formally launched the IPO process, which is expected to take place in mid-July.

The announcement comes days after Germany unveiled plans to acquire a 40% stake in KNDS, saying the move would secure long-term influence over a company it considers strategically important to European security and defence.

France, which currently owns 50% of KNDS, is expected to reduce its stake to 40%.

The remaining 20% of the company is set to be floated on the stock market, with France and Germany each retaining 40% stakes following the transaction.

According to the Financial Times, the shares are expected to be marketed primarily to institutional investors amid strong demand for European defence stocks.

Once the listing is completed, KNDS shares will begin trading on Euronext Paris and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, giving investors direct exposure to one of Europe’s largest land-defence manufacturers.

KNDS was created in 2015 through the merger of Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter.

A growing headache for Rheinmetall

The rapid emergence of the rival adds to the pressure on Rheinmetall, Europe’s largest ammunition maker and KNDS’s main competitor in subsectors such as land systems.

The Düsseldorf-based group, whose shares have shed roughly a quarter of their value this year, had itself reportedly hoped to buy into KNDS, only to be shut out by the governments’ intervention.

To make matters worse, Berlin announced it would scrap Rheinmetall’s multi-billion-euro F126 frigate programme, which would have been Germany’s largest warship order since the Second World War, in favour of smaller vessels from rival builder TKMS.

Rheinmetall, which had been poised to take over the project, fell 13% in early trading on Wednesday due to the news.

The squeeze also coincides with regulatory scrutiny at home.

Germany’s Monopolies Commission has warned that defence procurement is concentrated among a small number of suppliers, potentially weakening competition and driving up costs.

Calling for reforms to procurement rules, commission chairman Tomaso Duso said competition was “the fundamental pillar of Europe’s economic order” and should play a greater role in the defence sector.

A listed KNDS will give investors a direct yardstick against which to measure Rheinmetall’s order momentum and margins.

Additional sources • AFP

The clock is running down on the most consequential deadline the crypto sector has faced in Europe.

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From the start of July, the transitional window under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) closes for good, and companies that have not secured authorisation must either stop serving European customers or wind down altogether.

MiCA is the EU’s first comprehensive law for the crypto industry, bringing exchanges, brokers and digital wallet providers under the kind of formal oversight that has long applied to banks and other financial firms.

It replaces a fragmented mix of national rules with a single rulebook spanning all 27 member states: a company licensed in one EU country earns a “passport” to operate across the bloc, but in return it must meet standards on how much capital it holds, how it is run, how it safeguards customers’ funds and how it prevents money laundering.

“What emerges is a genuine single market replacing the old patchwork of 27 national regimes,” Yamal Kalaf, co-founder of MiCAR Whitepapers Europe, which advises crypto businesses on MiCA authorisation, told Euronews.

Since the core rules took effect at the end of 2024, existing operators have been allowed to keep operating under older national registrations, but that concession was temporary.

Crypto firms need European licences but many are behind

The scale of the looming shake-out is striking.

According to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which confirmed in April that there would be no extension, only around 210 firms had obtained full authorisation by May, out of more than 1,200 that previously held national crypto registrations across the EU.

That points to a conversion rate of well under a fifth, leaving the vast majority of the old market without a licence as the cut-off arrives in a few days.

Speaking to Euronews, Roshan Dharia, CEO of distressed-investment firm Echo Base, explained that “the low conversion rate suggests that a meaningful portion of the market has concluded that obtaining and maintaining a MiCA licence is not economically viable within its current operating model.”

National regulators have warned that firms operating beyond the deadline without the new licence face enforcement action. France’s markets watchdog has also cautioned that continuing without authorisation could expose companies to criminal prosecution.

ESMA has told unlicensed providers to prepare orderly wind-downs, including transferring customer assets to authorised platforms or self-custody wallets, and to notify clients in advance so they can move funds safely.

“What we will see after 1 July is a smaller, more institutional market with real passporting. That is not a market in retreat. That is a market growing up,” Miguel Zapatero, Head Counsel at Crossmint, told Euronews.

Crossmint is a crypto infrastructure provider whose licensed rails let developers build wallets, custody and payment products.

A market reshaped around licensed rails

Plenty of familiar names have already cleared the bar.

Coinbase has been authorised in Ireland and Kraken in Ireland and Luxembourg. At the same time, the banking app Revolut secured its licence from Cyprus’s regulator late last year, allowing it to offer crypto services across the EU.

For these firms, the new rules promise a reward as unlicensed rivals retreat, the survivors stand to absorb their departing customers.

“MiCA is a genuine regulatory identity shift, not a registration exercise,” Gal Arad Cohen, partner at law firm S. Horowitz & Co, told Euronews.

The most prominent casualty so far may be Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

According to Reuters, which cited two people familiar with the matter, Binance is set to lose permission to serve EU clients because its licence application to Greece’s market regulator, the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, is poised to be rejected.

Without approval in any member state, the exchange would be unable to operate across the bloc from July onwards.

Speaking to Euronews, Patrick Mollard, CEO at Fipto, a blockchain-based payments company for businesses, referred to the Binance case by stating that “scale earns you no shortcut to a licence, and that is precisely the point.”

Binance has pushed back, saying it has worked constructively with regulators for 18 months and believes its application met MiCA’s requirements. The company added that it understood the Greek authority had completed its review and found the filing compliant.

The company has promised a further update before 30 June.

The episode has also reputedly taken on a political dimension.

French crypto publication The Big Whale reported, citing unnamed sources, that ECB President Christine Lagarde had opposed Binance’s bid for a Greek MiCA licence.

Euronews could not independently verify the report, and neither the ECB nor the Greek government has publicly commented on the allegations.

The Big Whale also reported that Binance is exploring a potential MiCA application in France after the setback in Greece, a claim that neither Binance nor French regulators have publicly confirmed.

Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Euronews.

A shake-out for smaller crypto firms

Beyond the biggest names, the deadline is expected to push smaller crypto apps and brokers towards licensed custody providers. Rather than building their own MiCA-compliant systems, many are likely to rely on authorised firms to hold customer assets.

“We will see consolidation and transfer of clients as the deadline will not be met by all currently operating entries,” Floortje Nagelkerke, partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, explained to Euronews.

The result, analysts suggest, will be a smaller, more concentrated European market, with fewer players, higher barriers to entry and a clear advantage for those holding a licence, but stronger consumer protections.

“People who hold crypto in the EU after 1 July will, on balance, hold it on safer rails,” Miguel Zapatero, Head Counsel at Crossmint, concluded.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders of the California Legislature plan to approve a proposed constitutional amendment this week that would ask voters to give them more flexibility over state spending and allow them to save money that could otherwise go back to taxpayers.

The proposal seeks to exempt deposits into state savings accounts from a spending limit that voters adopted through a series of ballot measures dating back to the late 1970s and to increase the share of tax revenue that can be put into the rainy day fund.

“Putting money aside to protect ourselves from future uncertainties isn’t just good government; it’s common sense,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is strong and resilient, but we’re not immune to economic headwinds. At a time when our essential services are under pressure, we have a responsibility to safeguard the programs and investments that Californians rely on.”

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 20, which Democrats are calling the “Save for California’s Future Act,” could receive push back from taxpayer advocates.

Under an existing state appropriations restraint, also known as the Gann limit, lawmakers cannot spend more than an amount determined by a formula that takes into consideration annual tax proceeds and changes to the population and cost of living. Tax revenue above the limit must be divided between schools and refunds to taxpayers.

With few exceptions, the limit applies to most appropriations of tax revenue, including money that lawmakers tuck away into the rainy day fund and other reserves. California voters have also capped the amount of money lawmakers can set aside in the rainy day fund to 10% of general fund proceeds in a given year.

Since taking office, Newsom has argued that it doesn’t make sense for savings to count as spending under state law.

State budget revenue is subject to dramatic swings from year to year based on stock market activity. The law, Newsom has said, prevents the state from saving more money in good years to stave off cuts to programs in bad years.

The proposed changes would exempt deposits into the rainy day fund and a short term reserve, called the “Projected Surplus Temporary Holding Account,” from the state appropriations limit. The cap on the rainy day fund would grow from 10% of general fund tax revenue to 20%.

“Californians live by a simple, bipartisan truth: set money aside when times are good so you’re ready when they’re not,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said in a statement. “The Save For California’s Future Act is what responsible leadership looks like — and future taxpayers will thank us for it.”

The measure could incentivize Democrats to save more money because funds tucked away in the rainy day fund would no longer be considered expenditures counted toward the spending limit. By allowing lawmakers to set aside more money that is not subjected to state spending limits, it could also allow them to hold onto money that would be returned to taxpayers under current law.

The measure is slated for a vote Thursday. If approved by two-thirds of lawmakers, voters will consider the proposal on the November ballot.