Latest / Key Markets & Headlines / Key Markets & Headlines — Thursday, May 28, 2026
Transcript
- Key markets and headlines for today. The most market-moving story this morning comes from the artificial intelligence sector, where Snowflake, ticker S-N-O-W, delivered a standout earnings report that sent its stock soaring nearly forty percent in after-hours trading. Snowflake’s fiscal first quarter revenue grew thirty-three and a half percent year over year to one point three nine billion dollars, beating analyst estimates by the widest margin in almost four years. Product revenue jumped thirty-three point nine percent from a year ago, and the company added that forty-six customers now spend over one million dollars annually, up from twenty-six a year ago. Snowflake also raised its full-year product revenue guidance to five point eight four billion dollars, up from five point six six billion previously. In addition to the strong financials, the company announced a six billion dollar expansion of its collaboration with Amazon Web Services, aiming to make it easier for enterprises to bring AI directly to governed data. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy called it a milestone quarter, highlighting the strongest sequential dollar growth in the company’s history. Looking ahead, Snowflake expects second quarter product revenue between one point four one five and one point four two billion dollars, again above consensus. The company also revealed it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Natoma, an enterprise Model Context Protocol platform for AI agents. This acquisition will allow Snowflake to establish a natively integrated governance and identity layer for AI agents, making it easier for companies to securely connect and manage how AI systems interact with their enterprise applications, databases, and tools. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions. Turning to other major developments in the AI and tech sector, Baseten, an artificial intelligence startup, is in talks with investors to raise one billion dollars at an eleven billion dollar valuation, more than doubling its five billion dollar valuation from just three months ago. Baseten’s annualized revenue has surged to around six hundred million dollars, up from two hundred million at the start of the quarter, and that’s twenty times what it was generating in March of last year. Some investors have reportedly made offers valuing Baseten as high as fifteen billion dollars, reflecting the extraordinary growth in the AI space. Cognition AI, another fast-growing AI company, has raised more than one billion dollars in a new funding round at a twenty-six billion dollar valuation. Cognition’s flagship product, Devin, is an AI agent designed to automate programming for engineers. The company’s revenue run rate has increased to four hundred ninety-two million dollars from just thirty-seven million a year ago, with the goal of crossing the one billion dollar mark later this year. Cognition’s growth has been fueled by selling software to major clients like Goldman Sachs, Mercedes-Benz, and several US government agencies. ByteDance, the developer behind TikTok and a major force in AI, is considering more than doubling its capital spending this year to as much as seventy billion dollars as it builds out data centers and other AI infrastructure. The company is even discussing boosting capital expenditures to one hundred billion dollars next year if conditions are favorable. ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot has become China’s most popular, with over three hundred million monthly users, and the company is preparing to introduce subscription fees for the service. Meta is also making moves to monetize its AI investments, launching consumer subscriptions for its Meta AI chatbot for the first time. The new subscriptions come in two tiers: Meta One Plus, priced at seven dollars and ninety-nine cents per month, and Meta One Premium at nineteen ninety-nine per month, offering expanded features. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to spend at least six hundred billion dollars on AI infrastructure over the coming years, and the company is currently building a two hundred billion dollar data center in Louisiana. French AI startup Mistral AI is expanding into advanced manufacturing, striking deals with Airbus and BMW to apply AI to industrial engineering processes like design, simulation, and quality control. This expansion follows a one point three billion euro investment from ASML, and Mistral’s recent acquisition of Austrian AI simulation startup Emmi. In the world of digital payments and crypto, Block’s Cash App has begun rolling out stablecoin payment features to a quarter of its nearly sixty million users, with plans to reach all users by the end of the week. This marks a significant shift for Block’s leadership, as users can now deposit Circle’s USDC stablecoins from external accounts or withdraw funds as stablecoins, using blockchain rails for transactions. The move signals a broader acceptance of non-Bitcoin networks by CEO Jack Dorsey. Coinbase, ticker C-O-I-N, has reinstated direct deposit functionality after an eighteen-month hiatus. Users can now allocate any portion of their paycheck to be deposited into their Coinbase account and automatically invest in USDC stablecoins or other cryptocurrencies without typical trading fees. The company has also raised its direct deposit ceiling from twenty-five thousand dollars per day to two hundred thousand dollars per week. This comes as the Clarity Act, if unchanged, could prohibit firms like Coinbase from issuing rewards on idle stablecoin balances, potentially pushing users to actively invest or stake their assets. Robinhood Markets, ticker H-O-O-D, is introducing artificial intelligence agents that can trade equities and make credit card purchases on behalf of customers. Clients will be able to set up agentic trading accounts, separate from their standard portfolios, and direct AI agents to build diversified portfolios or adjust holdings. Initially, these AI agents will be limited to equities, with support for options, cryptocurrencies, and other products coming later. Robinhood Gold cardholders will also be able to use AI agents for transactions, with spending limits and manual approval options. Roku is rolling out a new home screen powered by intelligence models to recommend content based on viewer interests. The update will be available across all Roku TVs and streaming devices in the US and is expected to reach over one hundred million streaming households soon. Roku shares rose two and a half percent on the news. Salesforce, ticker C-R-M, reported a revenue outlook for the current period that fell just short of analysts’ estimates, unsettling investors who are already concerned about the potential for AI to disrupt the software business. Salesforce expects revenue of about eleven point three billion dollars for the fiscal second quarter, slightly below the eleven point four billion dollar consensus. The company’s remaining performance obligations, a measure of future sales, were sixty-seven point nine billion dollars, also below expectations. Despite this, Salesforce’s Agentforce is on track to contribute one point two billion dollars in annual revenue, up from eight hundred million in February, and use of AI models within the platform has more than doubled compared to the prior quarter. For the quarter ended April thirtieth, revenue increased thirteen percent to eleven point one billion dollars, aided by four hundred forty-four million dollars in sales from the acquisition of Informatica. Profit, excluding some items, was three dollars and eighty-eight cents per share, well above the three dollar and thirteen cent analyst estimate. Salesforce continues to expect revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of the year. SAP is seeking to raise at least two billion euros, or about two point three billion dollars, from a bond sale—its first in six years—against a backdrop of growing questions about AI’s impact on the industry. The company is issuing a two-year floating rate note and fixed rate tranches maturing in three, five, and seven years. Proceeds will be used to finance and refinance recent acquisitions, including Reltio, Dremio, and Prior Labs, all focused on data management and AI. Dell Technologies, ticker D-E-L-L, has secured a nine point seven billion dollar contract with the US military to manage licenses for Microsoft software across classified and unclassified systems. The five-year contract is expected to save the Pentagon four hundred twenty-two million dollars annually by streamlining and consolidating software and services across the Department of War, the intelligence community, and the US Coast Guard. The contract consolidates funding from hundreds of offices that previously managed their own software license agreements. SoftBank Group is seeking nearly three hundred million dollars in the sale of five point six million shares in robotics company Symbotic through an unregistered block trade. Shares were offered at a discount of up to four point nine percent to Wednesday’s closing price. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are managing the offering, and SoftBank has agreed to a sixty-day lockup on further sales. In the auto sector, Barclays has initiated coverage of CarGurus, ticker C-A-R-G, with an Overweight rating and a thirty-five dollar price target. The firm cited CarGurus’ attractive valuation and growth profile, expecting the company to expand its paying dealer base and average revenue per subscribing dealer at a solid pace. Rivian has announced that the first customers of its new R2 SUV will receive their vehicles on June ninth. The R2 is more affordable and aimed at a broader market than Rivian’s current R1 lineup, with the initial trim starting just under sixty thousand dollars. A standard version starting at forty-eight thousand four hundred ninety dollars is planned for twenty twenty-seven, and an even more affordable version around forty-five thousand dollars is expected late next year. Uber has increased its stake in Delivery Hero, ticker D-H-E-R G-Y, to thirty-six point eight three percent by buying out Aspex Management’s shares. Uber now holds twenty-four point nine nine percent of voting rights, with the remainder in instruments. Uber recently made a takeover offer of thirty-three euros per share, valuing Delivery Hero at about ten billion euros, or eleven point six billion dollars, though the offer provided no premium to the most recent share price. Uber reportedly paid just below forty euros per share for the latest stake. BuzzFeed, ticker B-Z-F-D, has completed a majority stake investment by Byron Allen’s Family Office. Allen Family Digital acquired approximately fifty-one percent of BuzzFeed’s outstanding shares, with Byron Allen assuming the role of Chairman and CEO, and Jonah Peretti transitioning to President of BuzzFeed AI. The transaction involved forty million shares at three dollars per share, totaling one hundred twenty million dollars, funded with twenty million in cash and a one hundred million dollar promissory note due in five years. Warner Bros. Discovery, ticker W-B-D, has priced fifteen billion dollars of investment-grade loans as it refinances debt ahead of its pending acquisition by Paramount Skydance Corp. The tranches include thirteen billion dollars and one point seven two billion euros, with margins two and a half percentage points above benchmark. The deal was upsized from about ten billion dollars due to strong investor appetite, and proceeds will go toward refinancing a fifteen billion dollar bridge facility. Universal Music Group, ticker U-M-G N-A, has rejected an offer from billionaire Bill Ackman, whose investment firm Pershing Square Capital Management controls more than four and a half percent of UMG shares. Ackman’s proposal would have combined UMG with a US-listed acquisition vehicle, estimating a value of about fifty-six billion euros, or sixty-four point eight billion dollars—a fifty percent boost from its current market value. Bolloré SE, UMG’s largest shareholder, said the offer undervalues the record label. In the world of sports and entertainment, Arsenal has climbed to fifth place in the latest Football Benchmark ranking of European club valuations, with its value rising twenty-three percent to four point nine billion euros, or five point seven billion dollars. The valuation is based on financial data from the twenty twenty-four to twenty twenty-five season and does not include the expected revenue lift from Arsenal’s recent Premier League title or its upcoming Champions League final appearance. Major League Baseball players have made their opening proposals in what is expected to be a contentious round of labor negotiations. The union is seeking expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights, nearly doubling the major league minimum salary, and increasing revenue sharing from high-revenue to lower-revenue teams. The proposal also calls for a competitive integrity tax to penalize teams that fall below a payroll floor and raises the luxury tax threshold to three hundred million dollars next year. The current labor contract expires December first, and MLB is expected to institute a lockout if no agreement is reached. Turning to legal and regulatory news, former President Donald Trump has filed a new version of his ten billion dollar libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its parent company News Corp. The suit concerns a July twenty twenty-five article about Trump’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein and was refiled after a judge dismissed the original complaint for lacking sufficient claims of actual malice. Trump’s lawyers argue that the defendants recklessly disregarded the truth or purposefully avoided discovering it. The judge had previously ruled the first complaint did not meet the legal standard for public figures to allege defamation. In another legal development, Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo has been charged with using confidential information to make over one million dollars on Polymarket, a predictions market platform. According to criminal charges unsealed in New York federal court, Spagnuolo accessed confidential data using Google’s internal software tools to wager large sums on top users in twenty twenty-five. SpaceX is facing a temporary halt on launches of its next-generation Starship rocket as the US Federal Aviation Administration investigates a recent mishap. The FAA’s probe will examine why the Super Heavy booster failed after sending Starship to space. While Starship itself returned to Earth largely unscathed, the booster did not complete a planned engine burn after separation. The FAA said Starship flights will resume only if public safety is assured. Separately, SpaceX clarified that it has not committed to leasing the Colossus supercomputer for years, noting that the current lease is for one hundred eighty days with a ninety-day mutual cancellation notice. The company said it would provide a reasonable off-ramp for Anthropic, the current user, but may need the compute resources back if demand tightens. Now, shifting to macroeconomic and geopolitical developments. In Argentina, President Javier Milei’s approval rating has rebounded to roughly forty percent, up four points from April, as inflation slowed and adversaries lost favor. Disapproval fell nearly five points to fifty-eight percent, down from a peak of sixty-three percent last month. The improvement comes after monthly inflation slowed for the first time in nearly a year, and fewer voters now rank rising prices as their top concern. Corruption and unemployment remain the leading worries among Argentines. In the United States, Ohio will pause incentives for future data center projects as the state studies the economic impact of these facilities. Governor Mike DeWine announced a suspension of new tax credit requests while a legislative committee reviews the benefits and drawbacks of data center growth. Data centers previously incentivized by the state represented twenty-seven billion dollars in capital investment last year. The pause comes amid growing controversy over the water and power usage of data centers, with sixty-four billion dollars in projects canceled or delayed nationwide due to community opposition. On the geopolitical front, American forces carried out airstrikes on an Iranian military site, highlighting ongoing tensions despite recent optimism for peace. US Central Command forces shot down four Iranian attack drones targeting a commercial ship and struck another drone-launching unit in Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump emphasized that no single nation will control the vital strait, calling it international waters and pledging that the US will ensure free passage for all vessels. In event-driven news, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said the bank could consider an acquisition worth up to twenty billion dollars in the coming years, now that it has more flexibility from regulators to spend capital. Speaking at an investor conference, Dimon stressed that the bank is focused on organic growth and would only pursue a deal that is the right fit. He cautioned his team against getting distracted by merger and acquisition talk, emphasizing the importance of improving internal operations. Perella Weinberg Partners is cutting almost ten percent of its workforce, including a dozen partners, as it reallocates resources to higher-performing areas. The reductions are focused on industry sub-sectors that have lagged behind the broader market. This is Perella Weinberg’s first significant workforce reduction since twenty twenty-three, and its shares have underperformed peers, rising just two point four percent in the past year compared to Evercore’s nearly forty-seven percent gain. Synopsys, ticker S-N-P-S, has reached an agreement with Elliott Investment Management, appointing activist investor Jesse Cohn to its board. Elliott, which disclosed a multibillion-dollar stake in Synopsys in March, has agreed to standstill and voting commitments as part of the settlement. Cohn will join the board on June first and serve on the corporate governance and nominating committee. The move comes as Synopsys’ revenue growth has trailed expectations, despite its leading position in electronic design automation for chip development. Now, let’s take a quick look at some notable charts and data points. A recent chart from JP Morgan provides a good visual breakdown of US equity trading volume by market participants, highlighting the shifting landscape of who is driving market activity. US consumer spending remains robust, with same-store retail sales up nine percent year over year for the week ending May twenty-third, according to Koyfin. In Japan, equity markets are making new highs, driven by a smaller number of stocks—similar to trends seen in the US, as noted by Strategas. On the interest rate front, investors now hold their largest net short position in Fed Funds futures since early twenty twenty-three, a year when the Federal Reserve hiked rates four times. This positioning suggests growing skepticism about further rate cuts in the near term. That wraps up the key markets and headlines for today. Thanks for listening.