Wall Street

No asset manager had ever crossed the $15 trillion (€13tn) threshold before BlackRock confirmed the milestone in results published on Wednesday.

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The rise was driven by market gains and new client money.

Clients handed the New York-based giant a net $192 billion (€167bn) in the second quarter of 2026, capping a record first half in which inflows reached $321 billion (€280bn), more than double the same period a year earlier.

To illustrate the sheer scale of BlackRock’s assets under management, the firm manages more money than the projected nominal annual economic output of every country except the US and China, and nearly three times that of Germany.

However, assets under management represent a stock of investments, while GDP measures economic output over a year.

The surge in assets came during a quarter that was lucrative too.

According to BlackRock’s second-quarter earnings release, revenue climbed 31% year on year to $7.1 billion (€6.2bn), while adjusted earnings per share reached $13.91, comfortably beating expectations.

BlackRock shares jumped about 7% on the day of the release.

“Market fundamentals are strong and well supported, with higher margins and earnings momentum catalysed by new technology,” CEO Larry Fink said in a statement.

“Our momentum is accelerating, and I’ve never been more optimistic about the growth ahead,” Fink added.

Where the trillions actually sit

The first thing to understand is that this is not BlackRock’s money.

It is the pooled savings of pension funds, insurers, governments and ordinary investors, which the firm manages for a fee. Most of the money is invested in shares.

Equities account for $8.9 trillion (€7.7tn), or 58% of the total.

Bonds and other fixed-income investments make up a further $3.4 trillion (€2.9tn), or 22%. Multi-asset strategies that combine different investments hold $1.3 trillion (€1.1tn), or 9%, while cash-management products, such as Treasury bills, account for another $1.1 trillion (€960bn), or 7%of the total.

The headline-grabbing alternative investments, including infrastructure, private credit, private equity and property remain a sliver at $449 billion, roughly 3% of assets, but they generate about 15% of BlackRock’s base fees.

Commodity and currency products hold $152 billion (€132bn), while crypto-linked funds, launched in 2024, manage about $49 billion (€42bn).

The way the money is invested matters as much as the asset mix.

Some 41% of the total sits in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Fink noted that the iShares ETF range crossed $6 trillion during the quarter, roughly double its size three years ago.

Ports, pensions and politics

BlackRock’s scale has increasingly brought it into deals with geopolitical implications. The dispute over ports at either end of the Panama Canal is one of the clearest recent examples.

After US President Donald Trump claimed China was effectively running the waterway, Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison agreed in March 2025 to sell 43 ports, including terminals at either end of the canal, to a consortium led by BlackRock. The proposed deal was valued at $22.8 billion (€19.9bn) and welcomed by Washington as a step towards restoring US influence over the ports.

Beijing objected and pressed for state-owned Cosco to be included. The sale has yet to be completed.

Panama meanwhile annulled Hutchison’s canal concessions in February, handing interim operations to Maersk and MSC, whose terminals arm counts BlackRock’s infrastructure unit GIP among its shareholders, while talks on the wider portfolio continue.

Meanwhile, Panama’s Supreme Court annulled Hutchison’s concessions to operate container terminals at either end of the Panama Canal in January. The government transferred interim control of the ports to Maersk and MSC in February, while talks over the wider portfolio continued. BlackRock’s infrastructure business, Global Infrastructure Partners, is a shareholder in MSC’s ports division.

Larry Fink’s proximity to the White House was on display again in May, when he travelled to Beijing as part of the corporate delegation accompanying Trump during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Fink joined chief executives including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook on a visit dominated by trade and technology.

The firm’s reach extends into American retirement policy as well.

An executive order signed by Trump last year directed regulators to broaden access to private-market assets through the country’s 401(k) pension plans. BlackRock had championed the shift and stands to benefit as it develops private-market products for retirement savers, which typically carry higher fees than index funds.

For more than three years, the ‘Magnificent Seven’ or ‘Mag 7’, which includes Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla, carried Wall Street.

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Then came June 2026.

Nvidia dropped over 5%, Microsoft fell about 17%, its worst monthly performance since December 2000, Alphabet declined nearly 6%, Amazon lost roughly 12% and Meta dropped around 11%.

As for Apple and Tesla, the companies had directionally different but equally volatile monthly moves.

Apple made a new all-time high closing price of $315.2 on the second day of the month but subsequently declined more than 10% from that peak.

On the other hand, Elon Musk’s company dropped more than 6% in the first week of June but clawed most of that back by the close of the month, ending roughly flat.

Taken together, the ‘Magnificent Seven’ erased about $2.3 trillion (€2tn) in market value in a single month.

What made the selloff remarkable was its breadth. Usually one or two stocks stumble while the others hold up. This time, nearly every member of the group moved lower.

The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS), which holds all seven companies, fell about 13% from its late May record high.

So what happened to Wall Street’s favorite technology stocks? And why are investors backing away?

Growing pains and spending

The MAGS ETF bled more than $700 million (€615mn) over the month, its worst outflow since it launched in 2023, according to TradingView data. For a fund that had become the simplest way to bet on the US tech boom, the reversal was striking.

One name outside the club had it even worse. Oracle, a hyperscaler not included in the ‘Magnificent Seven’, crashed around 35%, its steepest month since September 1990, after alarming investors with a surge in AI spending and debt.

The fall wiped roughly $100 billion (€87.9bn) off the fortune of co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison. The market punished the biggest AI spenders, and the numbers explain it.

The five largest hyperscalers are set to spend more than $700 billion (€615bn) on AI infrastructure this year. Microsoft alone is heading towards roughly $190 billion (€167bn), according to estimates from the Bank of America.

The bank said that hyperscaler capital spending has jumped from about 70% of operating cash flow in 2025 to nearly 100% in 2026.

The translation is simple: far less capital left over for share buybacks and dividends, and an increasingly larger bill that will need to be justified with future revenue as costs are climbing too.

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ are the biggest buyers of the memory that feeds AI data centres, and those chips have become scarce and expensive.

Micron Technology, one of the main memory chipmakers, reported earnings per share of $24.67 for its latest quarter, up from $1.68 a year earlier, close to a fifteenfold jump.

Prices for DRAM, the memory inside almost every device, rose as much as 98% in the first quarter alone, a surge some in the industry have nicknamed “RAMageddon”.

A quieter shift beneath the surface

While the biggest technology stocks struggled, the rest of the market continued to rise.

LPL Financial chief equity strategist Jeff Buchbinder points to that trend. Excluding the ‘Magnificent Seven’, the remaining S&P 500 companies grew earnings by 17.5% in the first quarter, helped in part by semiconductor and memory producers.

Buchbinder expects that figure to exceed 20.5% in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings growth projection for the ‘Magnificent Seven’ will be lower than that.

In other words, the other 493 companies are now growing earnings faster than the market’s biggest stars, and investors have noticed.

By late June, the S&P 493 – which excludes the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – had climbed 13.7% for the year. In contrast, the ‘Magnificent Seven’ basket was down 6.6%, while the broader S&P 500 posted a more modest 7.4% gain.

According to veteran investor Ed Yardeni, investors are beginning to show signs of AI fatigue, questioning whether unprecedented spending on infrastructure will ultimately generate attractive returns as cheaper open source models proliferate and AI token prices continue to decline.

Are the ‘Magnificent Seven’ still “magnificent”?

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ still delivered an estimated 29% earnings growth in the first quarter, and they are unlikely to lose their leadership positions anytime soon.

Yet, the debate has shifted.

Investors are no longer asking whether AI will transform the economy. They are asking when hundreds of billions of dollars in AI investment will begin producing meaningful returns.

June may have offered the first clear answer.

The AI trade is no longer a one way bet on seven companies. The ‘Magnificent Seven’ created the AI boom, but they are no longer the only way to invest in it.

Published on
23/06/2026 – 10:53 GMT+2

SpaceX shares closed at $154.63 on Monday, down around 16% on the day. That leaves them within touching distance of the $150 at which the shares first changed hands when public trading opened, the level set once underwriters finished building the order book, though still some way above the $135 price at which the IPO itself was struck.

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The slide has erased more than $600 billion (€524.2bn) in market value over three trading days, dragging the company down from a peak that had lifted it past Amazon and, fleetingly, Microsoft, in terms of market capitalisation.

Its valuation now sits just above $2 trillion (€1.74tn), below Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), making it the seventh most valuable company in the world.

The retreat unwinds a remarkable opening run.

After the open at around $150 on 12 June, shares climbed to almost $226 by 16 June, a gain of roughly two-thirds before the company had published a single set of results as a public firm.

Currently, SpaceX is trading over 30% lower than the intraday high of around $226 and only 3% higher than the opening price.

That rally always rested on a thin pool of freely traded shares and lofty expectations for its AI ambitions, leaving it exposed to a sharp reversal once sentiment turned.

Tapping debt to fund the AI push

The latest leg down on Monday coincided with SpaceX’s first move into the corporate debt market.

The company announced an inaugural offering of senior unsecured notes, with people familiar with the plans reportedly putting the target at around $20 billion (€17.4bn).

The proceeds are earmarked chiefly to repay a bridge loan taken on during its merger with Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI earlier this year, with the remainder going to general corporate purposes.

The debut bond sale follows the investment-grade credit ratings awarded last Friday by all three major agencies, Moody’s at Baa1, Fitch at BBB+ and S&P Global at BBB, which open the door to cheaper borrowing and a wider pool of institutional lenders.

In documents tied to the offering, SpaceX also disclosed a cash position of roughly $100.8 billion (€88bn) as of 19 June, much of it raised in the IPO, alongside $29.1 billion (€25.4bn) of long-term debt.

That mix of vast cash reserves and fresh borrowing so soon after a record flotation has unsettled some investors, who see the rapid fundraising as a sign of heavy spending ahead as SpaceX scales its AI and data centre plans.

Opting for debt rather than new shares does, however, spare existing shareholders further dilution, preserving their economic stake while the company funds its expansion.

Published on
15/06/2026 – 10:09 GMT+2

Crude prices retreated on Monday as US President Donald Trump confirmed a peace agreement with Iran and both sides announced a lifting of their respective blockades of the Strait of Hormuz.

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At the time of writing, the front month contract on US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down almost 6% from Friday’s close to roughly $80 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, dropped around 5% to about $83 per barrel.

The specific concessions made by each side are still unclear and there are questions surrounding whether the Prime Minister of Israel will respect the withdrawal of troops from southern Lebanon, which, according to the Prime Minister of Pakistan is included in the deal.

Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly address the US-Iran deal, or the issue of Lebanon, and CNN has reported that the Prime Minister of Israel is seeking an urgent meeting with US President Donald Trump after this week’s G7 summit.

Nonetheless, markets are reacting swiftly to the prospect of the Strait of Hormuz slowly reopening and the potential that the Iran war is closer to ending than reigniting.

The freshly announced peace deal is currently expected to be signed on Friday.

European, Asian and US markets

At the open, European markets also rose on the news that there is meaningful progress in ending the Iran war.

Both the Euro Stoxx 50 and the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 traded over 1% higher at the start of Monday’s session.

The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, Italy’s FTSE MIB, Spain’s IBEX 35, the Netherlands’ AEX and Switzerland’s CH20, all traded between 0.5% and 1% higher than their Friday close.

France’s CAC 40 led the pack and rose almost 1.5%.

In the US, S&P500 futures traded over 2% higher and the teach-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose more than 3%.

In other trade dealings on Monday, Asia-Pacific markets jumped overnight with South Korea’s Kospi climbing over 5%, recovering from a 4% drop on Friday, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 also traded roughly 3% higher.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.8%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped about 0.5% and Shangai’s SSE climbed over 1.5%.

Published on
12/06/2026 – 17:57 GMT+2

The moment that Wall Street had anticipated all year arrived on Friday as SpaceX, the AI and aerospace company controlled by Elon Musk, began trading publicly on the Nasdaq in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in the history of financial markets.

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In a speech before the New York session opened for trading, Musk stated that SpaceX’s goal is to “take the fiction out of science fiction.”

SPCX opened at $150, over 10% above its $135 IPO price, and it was already at more than $160 after the first few minutes of live trading.

The company confirmed on Thursday that it had priced 555.6 million Class A shares at $135 each, valuing the firm at roughly $1.78 trillion (€1.54trn) and targeting a raise of $75 billion (€64.5bn) that instantly eclipsed Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion (€25.4bn) listing, which had stood as the global record for almost seven years.

Only around 3% to 4% of SpaceX shares are currently available for public trading.

The company earmarked as much as 30% of its offering for retail investors, including 10% dedicated to European buyers, but the final amount was set at 20%. As for options contracts on SPCX, they are scheduled to begin trading next week.

The IPO has also brought Elon Musk closer to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

Forbes valued his pre-IPO SpaceX stake, estimated at around 42% of the company, at about $500bn (€435bn). At the IPO valuation, those holdings are worth roughly $690bn (€600bn), adding nearly $190bn (€165bn) to his fortune and pushing his net worth closer to the $1tn (€870bn) milestone.

Along with Musk, thousands of SpaceX employees are benefitting from the IPO and becoming millionaires.

The listing will give millions of savers indirect exposure to SpaceX as the company is expected to qualify for major stock market indexes shortly after its debut, meaning its shares could be automatically purchased by index-tracking funds.

SpaceX is estimated to be fast-tracked into the Nasdaq-100 in less than a month, as opposed to a typical wait of as much as a year.

Nasdaq’s new fast-entry rule, introduced in May, now sees it evaluating newly listed stocks for potential entry ‌by ranking ⁠their market capitalisation on the seventh trading day and assessing whether they would rank within the top 40 index members.

SpaceX is already in the top 10.

Among other changes announced, the rule that requires companies to float a minimum of 10% of their shares was also scrapped.

Analysts estimate that funds tracking the Nasdaq-100 will be required to purchase at least $7bn (€6bn) worth of SpaceX shares around the inclusion date, creating a wave of mechanical demand.

SpaceX has also already become eligible for inclusion in both the Russell US Equity Indexes and the FTSE Global Equity Index Series under the newly announced fast-entry rules from the index provider FTSE Russell.

The S&P 500, however, will not adopt a similar fast-track approach.

S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed in early June that it would maintain its 12-month seasoning requirement and GAAP profitability test, meaning SpaceX will not join the index before mid-2027.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

This article does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research and invest according to your specific circumstances.

Brent crude edged 2.5% higher on Tuesday and seems to have steadied around $100 per barrel at the time of writing, as US-Iran negotiations stall.

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On the other hand, WTI dropped over 4% and is trading around $92.6 per barrel.

Overall, oil prices were declining since last Wednesday as the framework for a peace deal, or at least a longer and more encompassing ceasefire, between the US and Iran was seemingly on the verge of being agreed.

However, Iran accused the US of breaching the current ceasefire after Washington carried out what it described as defensive strikes in the southern part of the country.

Iran’s foreign ministry stated that the US attacks in the Hormozgan province, where Iranian media reported hearing explosions early Tuesday, amounted to a “serious violation” of the fragile ceasefire that has been in effect for almost seven weeks.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiations aimed at ending the conflict could require “a few days” to reach an agreement.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump also reiterated nuclear demands in a social media post, as tensions continue to surround the fundamental aspects of a possible agreement.

Investors appear to have mixed reactions to the developments with some markets seeming to price in a decrease in the probability that a deal is imminent.

In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 has fallen more than 0.7% while the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 is trading around 1% lower as we approach the close of Tuesday’s session.

The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, France’s CAC 40, Italy’s FTSE MIB, the Netherlands’ AEX and Switzerland’s CH20 have all dropped between 0.1% and 0.7%.

Over in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Taiwan’s TAIEX closed flat, but South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 2.5% primarily driven by a continuous demand for AI-related equities.

However, US markets appear completely decoupled from other indices and the broader situation. Not only have WTI prices continued to fall on Tuesday but the S&P 500 also opened 0.6% higher.

Latest on the Strait of Hormuz

Both the US and Iran had signalled headway toward a memorandum of understanding that could end the conflict and resume maritime traffic through the blocked Strait of Hormuz, while allowing negotiators a 60-day window to tackle more complicated matters such as Iran’s nuclear activities and supplies.

In his latest remarks, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the Strait of Hormuz must remain accessible “one way or the other” as traffic through the chokepoint has dropped sharply, with only a few dozen ships currently using the route each day, compared with the usual 125 to 140 vessels.

Iran has continued to permit limited shipping, prioritising vessels connected to allied or friendly nations and arranging passage through state-to-state agreements.

Continuous reports of attacks in the Strait of Hormuz underscore how far from the normalisation of energy flows and other supplies the global economy still is.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that a tanker experienced an external blast near the waterline on its port side.

According to the agency, the vessel was located about 60 nautical miles from Muscat, the capital of Oman.

UKMTO said the tanker and all crew members were unharmed, although a quantity of bunker fuel spilled into the sea.

This is the most recent reported incident near the Strait of Hormuz at the time of writing.

Published on
25/05/2026 – 10:57 GMT+2

Oura, the Finnish company that created the ring-shaped health tracker worn by millions worldwide, has confidentially submitted draft paperwork to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO, according to several reports.

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While the number of shares and the expected price range remain undisclosed, the company had a recent funding round in the fall of 2025 that valued the business at around $11 billion (€9.5bn), more than double the $5 billion (€4.3bn) valuation it earned in a previous round in 2024.

According to CEO Tom Hale, more than 5.5 million Oura rings had been sold up to the end of last year’s third quarter.

At the time, Hale also projected that the company would reach $2 billion (€1.7bn) in annual revenue in 2026 compared with $500 million (€430mn) just two years ago.

The move towards an IPO puts a European wearable brand on Wall Street’s radar at a time when investor appetite for consumer health technology appears to be returning.

Oura has become a standout name in the fast-growing smart ring category, competing against smartwatch giants such as Apple, Garmin and Samsung, while carving out a niche with a distinct piece of hardware that some consumers find less obtrusive.

Over the past two years, the company has expanded aggressively into software, subscriptions and AI-powered health analysis. Its wearable platform now focuses on long-term health signals including sleep, readiness, heart rate, stress and recovery.

More recently, Oura has pushed further into women’s health and AI-based personal coaching, including tools designed to interpret physiological data and provide tailored wellness recommendations.

Analysts see that transition from device maker to subscripton-based health platform as central to its IPO pitch as the firm is currently on pace to surpass 5 million paid members.

A European tech champion heading to US markets

The IPO filing marks a significant moment for one of Europe’s most prominent health tech success stories.

Founded in Finland and developed around research into sleep, recovery and biometric monitoring, Oura has grown from a Nordic hardware start-up into a global player in the wearable market.

However, for Europe’s start-up ecosystem, Oura’s planned listing carries broader significance.

While its roots and design philosophy are deeply tied to Finland, the company recently transitioned to a US-based parent company, named Oura Inc. and headquartered in San Francisco, to access American venture capital while keeping its European operations.

Its decision to prepare for a US listing rather than a European one reflects a wider pattern among high-growth European tech firms seeking deeper capital markets and greater visibility among global investors.

The planned flotation arrives during renewed debate over whether Europe is losing some of its most successful technology companies to US exchanges.

Oura joins a growing list of European-founded businesses choosing Wall Street as their route to public markets, drawn by scale, liquidity and stronger investor familiarity with consumer technology.

The company’s IPO will also be seen as a test of investor sentiment towards wearable technology after a mixed few years for the sector.

Unlike smartwatches, smart rings remain a relatively young category, though interest has accelerated rapidly.

Oura is widely viewed as the segment’s category leader and its public debut could offer a clearer benchmark for how markets value next-generation health hardware combined with software subscriptions and AI services.