Latest / Key Markets & Headlines / Key Markets & Headlines — Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Transcript
- Key markets and headlines for today. The single most market-moving story this morning centers on Samsung Electronics, where talks between the company and its largest labor union have broken down, raising the prospect of a strike that could disrupt global chip supply and hamper a key engine of Korean economic growth. A general work stoppage is set to go ahead on Thursday after Samsung’s management rejected a proposal from government mediators that had been accepted by the union. Labor leader Choi Seung-ho confirmed the strike plans to reporters. Hours later, South Korea’s labor minister called for direct negotiations between the two sides, though it’s unclear whether even that intervention can resolve their differences. Samsung shares tumbled as much as four percent before recouping losses in afternoon trading. The company said negotiations failed even after it accepted the majority of the union’s requests, including those related to bonuses, but blamed what it called “excessive” demands. The union, for its part, is holding firm that compensation must be raised even for employees in loss-making divisions, a stance that Samsung says violates company policy. Samsung warned that abandoning this principle could have negative ripple effects across other enterprises and industries. With Samsung being a critical player in the global semiconductor supply chain, any disruption could have far-reaching implications for tech manufacturers and the broader market. Turning to equities and company news, there’s significant movement and strategic shifts across the tech and consumer sectors. At Apple, ticker A-A-P-L, Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji is reorganizing hardware development and shifting oversight of key functions such as product design. This is part of an effort to speed up work on future devices. Srouji, who was recently elevated to an expanded role managing both hardware engineering and technologies, is making these changes this month. The move is part of a broader leadership overhaul at Apple, with longtime hardware executive John Ternus set to become chief executive officer on September first. The hardware shake-up is also intended to better integrate teams working on in-house silicon with those creating products. In the most significant shift, Srouji is changing management of product design — a function that involves engineering the look, feel, and main capabilities of Apple’s devices. That responsibility is moving from Kate Bergeron, a veteran vice president, to two of her longtime deputies: Shelly Goldberg and Dave Pakula. In artificial intelligence, Anthropic has brought on Andrej Karpathy, the AI researcher who co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI and previously led AI at Tesla. Karpathy started this week at Anthropic, where he’s working on pre-training under team lead Nick Joseph. Pre-training is responsible for the large-scale training runs that give Anthropic’s Claude model its core knowledge and capabilities. It’s also one of the most expensive, compute-intensive phases of building a frontier AI model. While at OpenAI, Karpathy focused on deep learning and computer vision before moving to Tesla, where he led the Full Self-Driving and Autopilot programs. Separately, Anthropic has also brought on Chris Rohlf to its frontier red team, which stress-tests advanced AI models against severe threats. Rohlf is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry with more than twenty years of experience. Alibaba, ticker B-A-B-A, has added a new processor to its expanding AI technology stack, enhancing its push to cover every aspect of artificial intelligence development. The company’s chipmaking unit, T-Head, unveiled its Zhenwu M eight ninety AI accelerator, equipped with one hundred forty-four gigabytes of GPU memory, at an event in Hangzhou, China, on Wednesday. The hardware will handle both training and inferencing jobs and is particularly suitable for agentic tasks, according to Alibaba. The company now plans to upgrade its Zhenwu chip every year, aiming to match the pace of industry leader Nvidia. Alibaba also released the new Qwen three point seven Max, a foundational model optimized for coding and agentic jobs. The Hangzhou-based firm is among the strongest contenders in China’s AI field with its open-source Qwen series, though its latest releases have mostly been proprietary, following a structural revamp in March to focus on monetizing AI. Chewy shares are down as much as nine percent, hitting their lowest intraday level since May twenty twenty-four, after the online pet retailer presented at the JPMorgan Technology, Media and Communications Conference. The company provided some cautious commentary during the event, saying it’s seeing a more “stretched” consumer now than at the beginning of the year. Chief Executive Officer Sumit Singh said, “While Pet remains resilient, it is not immune to the macro changes that we are seeing in the last couple of months.” He continued, “We are continuing to see and interpret the consumer as being more stretched than we were when we entered the year. There is no shortage of data points that supports that.” Israeli AI startup Decart has raised three hundred million US dollars at an estimated four billion dollar valuation in a round led by Radical Ventures. Nvidia also joined the round, along with several other corporate and venture investors. Decart previously raised one hundred million dollars in August twenty twenty-five at a three point one billion dollar valuation, bringing its total funding to more than four hundred fifty million dollars. Amazon has signed on as a customer, and Nvidia is also a business partner for Decart’s AI infrastructure products. Founded in late twenty twenty-three by Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, Decart builds AI software for real-time video and robotics simulations. Etsy received an upgrade from Arete, which moved the stock to Buy from Neutral with a seventy-six dollar price target. The analyst told investors that the company’s gross merchandise sales growth rates are “finally” showing signs of improvement. Etsy’s buyer metrics either stabilized or improved in the first quarter, suggesting its efforts to improve retention and frequency are beginning to work. Arete argues the company is “turning a corner.” Google, ticker G-O-O-G, has reached a deal to hire more than twenty researchers from artificial intelligence startup Contextual AI and license its technology, according to people familiar with the matter. The Alphabet-owned research lab has agreed to pay roughly one hundred million dollars to Contextual as part of the arrangement. Among those joining DeepMind is Douwe Kiela, Contextual’s co-founder and chief executive officer. The move marks the latest example of large tech firms turning to unusual licensing deals to scoop up competitive talent from startups rather than acquiring the companies outright. This tactic, also employed by Meta Platforms and Microsoft, is thought to be less likely to raise antitrust concerns, though some regulators have scrutinized the practice. Staying with Google, monthly active users of the company’s Gemini AI app have more than doubled to nine hundred million over the past year, according to Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai at the twenty twenty-six I/O developer conference. Daily requests are up more than seven times. The company is now processing upwards of three point two quadrillion artificial-intelligence tokens per month, representing a sevenfold increase from four hundred eighty trillion monthly tokens a year ago, and up from nine point seven trillion monthly tokens in May twenty twenty-four. The rapid growth of Gemini has contributed to a twenty-five percent increase in the stock price of Google parent Alphabet this year and positioned the company as one of the leading AI research companies. In the world of sports and private equity, Doug Ostrover, the billionaire co-founder of Blue Owl Capital, is unloading his stake in the NFL’s Washington Commanders. Ostrover is selling his stake back to the Josh Harris-led ownership group, three years after joining a consortium that paid the largest amount ever for a US professional sports team. Ostrover had already sold part of his stake last year and is now offloading the remainder. Ostrover, along with fellow Blue Owl co-founder Marc Lipschultz, was part of a group led by Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, that bought the Commanders for more than six billion dollars in twenty twenty-three. Elsewhere in the NFL, Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, top executives at WME and TKO Group, are buying small ownership stakes in the Las Vegas Raiders. The deal, expected to close later this month, will see them become minority owners in the team. Raiders owner Mark Davis will continue as the controlling shareholder. Other investors include Dell Technology founder Michael Dell and Joseph Baratta, Blackstone’s global head of private equity. The deals led by Durban value the Raiders at around nine point nine billion dollars, according to CNBC. The Cleveland Browns have also sold a stake to Arctos Partners, adding to the private equity firm’s investments in NFL teams. Browns majority owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam welcomed Arctos as a limited partner. The total investment is said to be for ten percent of the club at a valuation of more than nine billion dollars. The transaction will be made in three tranches, with the first investment for three percent of the team already approved by the owners. Approvals for the other two tranches will follow at a later date. Sportico values the team at six point one billion dollars, placing it twenty-third out of thirty-two NFL franchises. Netflix is expanding into new family-oriented business segments, making what it calls “major moves” into toys and candy. The streaming company is working with Ferrero Group to bring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory offerings to market, starting with ten seasonal and limited-edition chocolates, plus sugar confectionery, ice cream, and cereals. Netflix also announced that Moose Toys will serve as its main toy partner for at least two upcoming projects. The company said its toy business has grown significantly over the last year, with lines based on the television show Stranger Things and the animated film KPop Demon Hunters. Chief Marketing Officer Marian Lee said, “Our growing lineup of kids and family entertainment opens up exciting ways to celebrate stories through a range of product categories that our fans are eager for.” OpenAI is setting up an AI lab in Singapore through a multiyear partnership with the local government, part of a broader effort to support the city-state’s artificial intelligence ambitions. The ChatGPT maker agreed to spend more than three hundred million Singapore dollars, or about two hundred thirty-four million US dollars, to establish its first so-called applied AI lab outside the United States. The effort will expand its Singapore-based technical team to more than two hundred roles over the next few years. OpenAI established its Singapore office in twenty twenty-four. Paramount Skydance, ticker P-S-K-Y, had its issuer credit rating affirmed by S&P at double B plus. The rating remains on CreditWatch negative. Paramount Skydance, ahead of its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, has offered to exchange Warner Bros. Discovery’s junior-lien exchange notes for second-lien Paramount Skydance notes. S&P said that if the acquisition closes as proposed, it will lower the issuer credit rating on Paramount Skydance by one notch to double B and take several rating actions on its debt, including assigning a triple B minus issue-level rating to first lien secured debt. Rakuten is undergoing a broader reorganization of its fintech businesses. Mizuho Bank will take a ten point five two percent voting-rights stake in Rakuten Bank. Under the restructuring, units including Rakuten Securities and Rakuten Card will be placed under Rakuten Bank, with Mizuho Bank and Rakuten Bank entering a capital and business alliance. After the transactions, Rakuten Group will hold a forty-nine point nine five percent voting-rights stake in the banking unit, while the remainder will be held by public shareholders. Roblox has authorized its first-ever share buyback program with the goal of repurchasing up to three billion dollars of its stock. The video-game giant plans to repurchase one billion dollars of that over the next twelve months. Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra said the move is a “testament to our confidence in the long-term opportunity ahead.” The repurchases are designed in part to offset dilution from employee stock grants. While investing in growth remains the company’s highest priority, Roblox’s balance sheet and free cash flow allow it to also buy back stock. SoftBank is facing internal anxiety over its ballooning commitment to OpenAI, now totaling over sixty billion dollars, and what some see as Masayoshi Son’s starstruck devotion to Sam Altman. A key concern is that Son is focusing too much of SoftBank’s capital on a single company, especially one that’s recently faced business, reputational, and legal challenges. While these concerns are held by a minority within SoftBank, some executives fear a catastrophic repeat of the WeWork debacle, when Son’s enthusiastic support for another charismatic founder led to a more than fourteen billion dollar write-down. In January twenty twenty-five, Son and Altman shared the stage at the White House as Donald Trump unveiled the Stargate Project, a five hundred billion dollar initiative by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi-backed MGX to roll out AI data centers across America. In February, SoftBank announced another thirty billion dollar investment in OpenAI to be executed in three tranches, bringing its total commitment to more than sixty billion dollars and taking the venture’s valuation to seven hundred thirty billion dollars. SpaceX expects to proceed with its acquisition of artificial intelligence coding startup Cursor thirty days after Elon Musk’s company begins trading publicly, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk’s rocket, satellite, and AI giant is expected to file for an initial public offering as soon as Wednesday and list its shares on June twelfth. If the deal doesn’t go through, SpaceX would pay Cursor a ten billion dollar breakup fee in cash. The deal would bolster the AI coding capabilities of a company that’s set to break records with its IPO. SpaceX has been seeking to raise as much as seventy-five billion dollars on a valuation of more than two trillion dollars. Goldman Sachs has the leading role on the cover of SpaceX’s initial public offering, giving the firm a prominent position in what could be the biggest listing of all time. Morgan Stanley is also listed as a lead bank. Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase appear in alphabetical order on the preliminary prospectus. SpaceX’s IPO is targeted to raise as much as seventy-five billion dollars and is seeking a valuation of more than two trillion dollars. At that size, it would easily surpass Saudi Aramco’s twenty-nine point four billion dollar IPO in twenty nineteen. Bankers are preparing to sell forty-nine billion dollars of debt to back Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, in one of the most highly-anticipated financing deals of the year. A premarketing process is expected to launch as soon as the next couple of weeks, tapping into a window of activity where the credit markets are not only open but offering attractive funding terms despite the backdrop of macro volatility. The company is seeking to use loans and bonds to refinance its existing short-term financing, known as a bridge loan, into longer-term debt, a key step in Paramount’s acquisition of the media giant. Typically, borrowers opt for either high-grade debt or leveraged financing, rarely both in combination, making this a complex debt deal that is expected to be sold to a broad number of investors. The majority of this financing deal will consist of investment-grade secured bonds, with Apollo’s insurance business expected to take a large chunk of that tranche. Warby Parker shares initially spiked before dropping as much as eighteen percent, the most intraday since November sixth, after the retailer unveiled its first intelligent eyewear frame. The frames, built in partnership with Google and Samsung, feature Google’s Gemini AI model and work with Android XR for contextual, real-time assistance. Warby Parker planned to launch the line this fall with multiple optical styles. Piper Sandler analyst Anna Andreeva said the stock reset lower “given lack of clarity around the pricing, exact date of the launch, and additional styles offered.” Stifel analyst Peter McGoldrick said that while firmer details around launch timing this fall are encouraging, he views the release as a non-event. CLEAR is partnering with Expedia to bring CLEAR’s trusted, frictionless airport experience to one of the world’s largest travel platforms — connecting Expedia travelers and One Key members with CLEAR from the moment they book. Through Expedia, travelers can sign up for CLEAR Plus and CLEAR Concierge for a more frictionless and predictable experience from home to gate. One Key members who sign up through Expedia will receive tiered pricing. CLEAR will be featured across key Expedia touchpoints, including discovery experiences, flight shopping, and trip management, making it easier for travelers to sign up for the services that transform their day of travel. Available first in the United States, the partnership reflects a shared commitment to delivering a more connected, seamless experience from booking to boarding. Turning to macro and geopolitics, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the strength of their relationship during talks in Beijing as both countries seek to reinforce bilateral ties in the shadow of wars in Ukraine and Iran. The two leaders signed a pact on deepening strategic cooperation on Wednesday before looking on as officials from both nations inked a series of other documents on topics ranging from trade and technology to railway construction. Putin said approximately forty agreements had been reached during the visit, even as they didn’t mention a key gas pipeline project. “We have built a stable system of mutual trade that is protected from external influence and negative trends in global markets,” Putin said, sitting next to Xi after talks between the two sides. The Chinese president said earlier that both sides are working on deepening political trust and strategic coordination. Discussions between the two leaders at the Great Hall of the People included the Middle East, with Xi adding urgency to his earlier calls for a ceasefire in a conflict that started with the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and then spread across the region. Hours earlier, US President Donald Trump — who held a summit with Xi in Beijing last week — threatened to resume strikes on Iran in the coming days as part of the push for a deal to end the war. In Europe, the European Union finalized the text of its long-delayed US trade deal after months of negotiations, clearing a major hurdle to ratifying the pact before President Donald Trump’s threatened deadline to impose higher tariffs. The deal, which was initially struck last July, would see the EU erase levies on US industrial goods in exchange for a fifteen percent tariff ceiling on the bloc’s exports. The European Parliament and EU countries will now vote to ratify the finished text. Trump has said that if the deal isn’t in place by July fourth, he will hike tariffs on European automobiles to twenty-five percent from fifteen percent. Early on Wednesday, EU negotiators inserted a clause allowing the commission to suspend the trade deal if tariffs on products using steel and aluminum surpass fifteen percent after twenty twenty-six. In the United Kingdom, inflation fell to its lowest rate in more than a year, prompting traders to bet on fewer Bank of England interest-rate hikes even though economists expect price pressures to return. The Office for National Statistics said its consumer prices index rose two point eight percent in the year to April, down from three point three percent the previous month. This reflects more favorable annual comparisons and government support with bills. The figure was lower than forecasts of three percent by private sector economists and the Bank of England. Services inflation, a key sign of underlying price pressures, was three point two percent, the lowest since January twenty twenty-two. Markets now see the chance of a rate hike in June at less than twenty percent, compared with about fifty percent at one point last week, based on swaps pricing. Wagers on the extent of rate rises throughout this year were also cut, with pricing of fifty-five basis points — equivalent to at least two quarter point moves — but seven basis points less than at Tuesday’s close. Gilts jumped at the open, sending the ten-year yield six basis points lower to five point zero seven percent, while the pound hit a fresh low for the day versus the dollar after the data was released. In Washington, the Pentagon said it was permanently cutting about four thousand soldiers from Europe as part of a broader review of forces that has generated anxiety among US allies on the continent and elsewhere in the world. The analysis is meant to push NATO allies “to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Tuesday evening. The cut will bring the number of US Army Brigade Combat Teams stationed on the continent from four to three, which is equal to twenty twenty-one levels. “The department will determine the final disposition of these and other US forces in Europe based on further analysis of US strategic and operational requirements, as well as our allies’ own ability to contribute forces toward Europe’s defense,” Parnell said. President Trump said earlier he would pull at least five thousand troops from Germany and suggested a broader drawdown of US military personnel in Europe was in the works. In event-driven news, mid-market investment bank Lincoln International and its backers raised nearly four hundred twenty-one million dollars in a US initial public offering priced at the top of the marketed range. The Chicago-based firm and some of its executives sold about twenty-one point zero five million shares at twenty dollars each. At the IPO price, Lincoln has a market value of about two billion dollars based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings. Lincoln, which advises business owners and private equity funds, had net income of two hundred fourteen point one million dollars on revenue of seven hundred eighty-three point eight million in twenty twenty-five, compared with net income of one hundred sixty-three point six million on revenue of five hundred seventy-eight point seven million a year earlier. The offering was led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Elliott Investment Management has raised its stake in Nippon Express Holdings and plans to ask the Japanese logistics services provider to sell part of its properties and fund a large-scale share buyback. The US activist investor said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it raised its stake in Nippon Express to six point zero five percent from five point zero four percent. Elliott also plans to propose that the Japanese company consider a new strategy for mergers and acquisitions and ways to improve margins. Looking at the latest market flows and charts, US large cap ETFs overwhelmingly had the largest inflows last week. Only US small cap and non-cyclical sectors saw outflows, according to Arbor. Across developed markets, bond markets are staging what’s being described as a slow-motion car wreck, with yields moving higher. Yet, the move in rates isn’t all about inflation — there’s a growth element as well, with economic surprises accompanying the move in yields, according to Strategas. Despite the rise in yields, there’s been no real movement higher in high-yield spreads, suggesting that the credit market seems comfortable with the move in yields thus far. Thanks for listening.