Latest / Key Markets & Headlines / Key Markets & Headlines — Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Transcript
- Key markets and headlines for today. The most market-moving story this morning comes out of Asia, where Samsung Electronics failed to reach a last-minute wage agreement with its largest labor union, raising the risk of a strike that could disrupt operations at the world’s largest memory chipmaker. After two days of marathon negotiations mediated by South Korean labor authorities, both sides remain sharply divided over the size of bonuses tied to booming artificial intelligence-related earnings. The union is demanding that Samsung scrap an existing bonus cap, allocate fifteen percent of its operating profit to worker bonuses, and formalize those terms in employment contracts. Samsung’s shares fell as much as six point one percent in Seoul on the news. The failed talks underscore rising tensions across South Korea as workers push for a greater share of profits generated by the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom. Union leaders have pointed to rival SK Hynix, which last year agreed to allocate ten percent of annual operating profit to a performance bonus pool. On Tuesday, a Korean policy-maker rattled markets by proposing sharing excess taxes on artificial intelligence profits via a “citizen dividend,” highlighting the growing debate surrounding this historic industry boom. Turning to equities and corporate news, Apple, ticker A-A-P-L, is planning to upgrade its Camera app, making the software fully customizable as part of a broader set of user interface changes coming in its next iPhone software update. With the new approach, users will be able to choose which features appear in the Camera app and where they’re placed, including controls for flash, exposure, the timer, and resolution. These changes are designed to offer a more personalized experience and should appeal to professional users. The next major iPhone software update, iOS twenty-seven, will also include noticeable design changes across several areas, including the Siri digital assistant, system search, and apps such as Safari, Image Playground, and Weather. Apple is also planning systemwide changes, such as new animations and redesigned tab bars. Airbnb is entering the NASCAR realm, reaching a deal with NASCAR Holdings and Speedway Motorsports to embed its listings into some of their tracks’ websites. The deal will start with the twenty twenty-seven NASCAR season, covering tracks such as Darlington, Martinsville, and Talladega from NASCAR’s portfolio, and Bristol and North Wilkesboro from Speedway Motorsports. Airbnb becomes the official lodging sponsor, a strategic move as many NASCAR races are held in rural areas where hotel options are limited. Airbnb notes that sixty-three percent of U.S. housing tracts have listings from homeowners who use its service but no nearby hotels. Affirm is expanding its partnership with Google to roll out its payment options into Google Search, including artificial intelligence Mode, and the Gemini app when checking out with Google Pay. Shoppers will be able to move confidently from decision to purchase, with the same clear options and transparent terms they rely on from Affirm. Ashish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager of Merchant Shopping at Google, emphasized the importance of secure and reliable payment options as artificial intelligence becomes a more active part of how people discover and buy. This experience will roll out to consumers and merchants in the coming weeks, giving people more ways to use Affirm across the Google ecosystem, from wallets and browsers to artificial intelligence-powered shopping journeys. Amazon MGM Studios is parting ways with its head of business affairs, Dan Scharf, amid an overall restructuring of operations at the studio division. The company will no longer operate with a centralized studios business affairs team, instead moving forward with three teams, each embedded within its Film, TV, and International Originals studios. Studio leadership said the new structure will streamline dealmaking, reduce some layers, and more closely align business affairs teams with the divisions they serve. Dan Scharf, who joined Amazon in twenty fourteen, is leaving after helping grow the studios organization and contributing to numerous talent and content deals. Anduril Industries, the defense technology company, is being valued at sixty-one billion dollars in a five billion dollar funding round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Anduril plans to invest aggressively in manufacturing capacity, research and development, and infrastructure, according to Chief Executive Officer Brian Schimpf. The note to investors confirms the deal, some details of which were previously reported. Anthropic is in early talks with investors to raise at least thirty billion dollars in fresh financing at a valuation of more than nine hundred billion dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. The round is expected to close as soon as the end of this month, though no term sheet has been signed. Anthropic is ramping up fundraising amid the breakout success of its artificial intelligence software and needs to pay for enough computing infrastructure to meet growing demand. Google recently committed to invest ten billion dollars in Anthropic at a three hundred fifty billion dollar valuation, with plans to invest up to another thirty billion if the startup hits certain performance targets. Amazon is also investing five billion at the same valuation, with plans to inject twenty billion more over time. In addition, Anthropic on Tuesday announced a dozen new tools, or plugins, intended for attorneys, law students, and others in the legal sector. One feature, called “commercial counsel,” is meant to take on work like reviewing vendor agreements, while another tool is intended to help with studying for the bar exam. The company also announced ways to connect its Claude chatbot with software from other firms commonly used in law, such as DocuSign and Thomson Reuters, as well as Harvey, a competing artificial intelligence legal service. These legal features will be available to paying customers through Claude Cowork, a general-purpose artificial intelligence agent for office work, and through third-party services built on Claude. The release of the Cowork legal tool has led to rising interest in Claude among lawyers, with Mark Pike, Anthropic’s associate general counsel, noting that lawyers are using Claude at basically the highest rate of any other profession, excluding software developers. A recent webcast on using Claude for legal tasks drew more than twenty thousand legal professionals. Anthropic is also in talks to buy developer tools startup Stainless for at least three hundred million dollars, according to The Information. Anthropic may use some of its stock to acquire Stainless, which sells software to model makers including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. Talks are still early and final terms could change. Alibaba reported weaker-than-expected sales, stoking concerns about its ability to convert substantial artificial intelligence investments into a major growth driver. Revenue rose three percent to two hundred forty-three point four billion yuan, or about thirty-five point eight billion dollars, while analysts on average looked for two hundred forty-six point five billion yuan. Net income roughly doubled to twenty-five point five billion yuan, thanks in part to equity investment gains. Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu has said the company aims to quintuple cloud and artificial intelligence revenue to one hundred billion dollars annually in five years. But performance has been affected by competition with Meituan and JD.com over the past year. Alibaba now has an artificial intelligence app integrated with shopping, navigation, and payment tools, and offers an agentic tool dubbed WuKong targeting enterprise clients. It has connected its Qwen artificial intelligence app to its Taobao platform to drive e-commerce growth and raised its cloud service prices earlier this year, including hiking the cost of artificial intelligence computing and storage products by as much as thirty-four percent. Cerebras Systems is guiding prospective investors that it expects to price its initial public offering above the top of its marketed range as demand soars for the chipmaker’s stock, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is offering thirty million shares in the IPO for one hundred fifty to one hundred sixty dollars each, which would raise four point eight billion dollars and potentially rival Arm Holdings’ five point two three billion dollar haul in twenty twenty-three for the largest ever semiconductor listing in the United States. The IPO has drawn orders for more than twenty times the number of shares available. Cerebras is set to join a cohort of public chipmaking companies seeking to challenge market-leader Nvidia. The company had net income of eighty-seven point nine million dollars on revenue of five hundred ten million for twenty twenty-five, compared with a net loss of four hundred eighty-four point eight million on revenue of two hundred ninety point three million a year earlier. Delivery Hero shares rose as much as five percent, hitting a three-month high, after a report that the German company started the process to sell its Korean business Baedal Minjok. Adviser JPMorgan sent out teaser letters to local and overseas companies and global private equity funds, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. Samsara has launched three new artificial intelligence tools for public-sector organizations. The tools include Ground Intelligence, which helps public works teams detect urgent conditions on U.S. roads; Waste Intelligence, which aids waste management teams with service verification; and Ridership Management, which provides a real-time digital manifest for the transportation services of school districts. Google is in talks with SpaceX for a rocket launch deal as the search giant expands its own efforts to put orbital data centers in space, according to people familiar with the discussions. A launch deal would put the two companies in partnership as they gear up to compete on orbital data centers, an unproven technology that SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk has said is the next frontier for his rocket company. Google is also in discussions about a potential deal with other rocket-launch companies. Last year, Google announced plans to launch prototype satellites by twenty twenty-seven as part of a moon-shot initiative called Project Suncatcher, working with Planet Labs to build those satellites. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has begun marketing its first-ever bond sale in yen, further broadening its funding channels as it sharply increases capital spending to finance artificial intelligence efforts. The firm is offering notes in eight tranches with maturities ranging from three to forty years. The deal isn’t expected to price before Friday. Last week, Alphabet raised seventeen billion dollars, partially from its debut offering in Canadian dollars. The yen deal will be the company’s fourth new currency in which it’s sold bonds this year. Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving unit, is recalling three thousand seven hundred ninety-one robotaxis to fix a software issue that could cause the autonomous vehicles to drive on flooded roads. The recall affects vehicles equipped with the company’s fifth- and sixth-generation automated-driving system. Waymo said it has placed constraints on the system to limit access to higher-speed roadways where flash flooding might occur. The decision stems from an April twentieth incident in San Antonio, where an unoccupied Waymo robotaxi encountered an untraversable flooded section of a roadway and proceeded into floodwater at a reduced speed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also has two separate investigations into Waymo’s self-driving vehicles, including one involving a robotaxi striking a child near a school in Santa Monica and another related to failures to fully slow or stop for school buses. Robinhood Markets is preparing to launch a second venture fund, filing a confidential registration for its R-V-I-I early-stage startup investment fund. The second Robinhood Ventures fund will cast a wider net than the R-V-I fund launched two months ago, investing in both growth-stage and early-stage startups. The fundraising target has not yet been set. Citi has downgraded MercadoLibre to Neutral from Buy, with a price target of one thousand nine hundred fifty dollars, down from two thousand two hundred. The firm views the company’s monetization path as less clear following a weaker-than-expected first-quarter report. MercadoLibre’s investments and take-rate pressure create monetization challenges. Meta is bringing its latest artificial intelligence model to more users by expanding access to its new Muse Spark system across its apps, including Threads, where users will now be able to consult Meta AI via in-stream prompts. Threads users can summon Muse Spark responses by tagging @meta.ai in a post or reply. Meta is also rolling out expanded access to Muse Spark via the artificial intelligence options in all of its apps. The company will enable users to talk to the Meta AI app via Voice Chat mode and is rolling out live artificial intelligence in the Meta AI app, allowing users to point their camera at the world and ask about what they’re seeing in real time. Meta is also expanding Muse Spark access to its latest model Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses in the United States and Canada. Negotiators for Major League Baseball players and owners began what figures to be lengthy and acrimonious collective bargaining negotiations Tuesday to replace their labor contract that expires December first. Management is likely to propose a salary cap system the union has vowed never to accept. An initial session of about two hours took place at the office of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a five-minute walk from Major League Baseball’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. No proposals were made. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has said repeatedly that management prefers offseason lockouts to in-season strikes, aiming to prevent the loss of regular-season games. Some major league owners have said a salary cap system that also contains a floor is needed and would improve the sport. Microsoft generated about thirty billion dollars in revenue from OpenAI-related business between twenty twenty-three and twenty twenty-five, according to The Information, citing company filings, OpenAI’s private financial documents, and people familiar with the company’s financials. The revenue figure includes OpenAI’s spending on Azure servers, its revenue share payments to Microsoft, and Microsoft’s sales of products that use OpenAI’s models. Microsoft’s revenue from selling OpenAI models through Azure rose fifty percent to one point five billion dollars in twenty twenty-five, while OpenAI’s sales of its own models to businesses rose more than two and a half times to nearly two billion during the same period. ServiceNow attracted strong investor demand for its first U.S. dollar bond sale since twenty twenty, defying concerns about artificial intelligence disruption. The software firm has drawn more than thirty-eight billion dollars of investor orders for the offering launched Tuesday. The company is seeking to raise four billion dollars from the deal, offering bonds in five tranches with maturities ranging from two to thirty years. Proceeds will be used to repay outstanding debt tied to ServiceNow’s seven point seven five billion dollar takeover of cybersecurity startup Armis, including a four billion dollar term loan with banks led by JPMorgan. Pricing on the longest maturity, a bond due in twenty fifty-six, has tightened by zero point four percentage point from earlier talk to one point three five percentage point above Treasuries. OpenAI’s Sam Altman testified that he was “extremely uncomfortable” with Elon Musk’s insistence that he have complete control over a proposed for-profit subsidiary of the startup back in twenty seventeen. Altman told jurors that Musk said he only wanted control of the entity in its early days, but that the billionaire was unwilling to sign a contract to that effect. Altman recounted a particularly tense moment when his co-founders asked Musk, “If you have control, what happens when you die?” Musk reportedly replied, “I haven’t thought about it a ton, but maybe I should pass it to my children.” Musk has accused Altman and company president Greg Brockman of seeking to enrich themselves by abandoning the nonprofit’s altruistic mission and converting it into a for-profit business with billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft. SoftBank reported a surge in quarterly profit due to valuation gains on its OpenAI investment, boosting confidence at the Japanese company to bet even more on the ChatGPT maker. SoftBank earned a net income of one point eight three trillion yen, or about eleven point six billion dollars, in its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with the average analyst estimate of two hundred ninety-five point two billion yen. The profit could be attributed entirely to its booking twenty-five billion dollars in valuation gains on OpenAI in the quarter. Since SoftBank’s first investment in OpenAI at a valuation of one hundred fifty-seven billion dollars, the U.S. startup’s valuation has surged to eight hundred fifty-two billion. SoftBank has committed to raising its total investment in OpenAI to sixty-four point six billion dollars by the end of the year. The Federal Communications Commission approved the purchase of about sixty-five megahertz of spectrum to SpaceX from EchoStar. The sale, approved by the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Space Bureau, will give SpaceX access to spectrum nationwide for its next-generation direct-to-device service. Direct-to-device systems enable phones and other devices to connect directly to satellites for high-speed coverage, rather than relying on traditional carrier services. SpaceX will acquire about fifteen megahertz of unpaired, nationwide AWS-3 spectrum, forty megahertz of nationwide AWS-4 spectrum, and ten megahertz of nationwide H-Block spectrum. The FCC also approved EchoStar’s sale of fifty megahertz of spectrum to AT&T. The two sales are worth more than forty billion dollars in total deal value. Early-stage venture firm A-Star on Tuesday announced a four hundred fifty million dollar Fund Three. The firm takes a generalist approach, backing companies across categories such as artificial intelligence applications, fintech, healthcare, and security. The average check size for this fund will be between three million and five million dollars, with the aim to back at least thirty startups. The capital will be deployed over the next two to three years, as with the firm’s previous funds. Limited partners include nonprofits, foundations, and endowments, with Carnegie Mellon University among the publicly named backers. A-Star, founded in twenty twenty and run by Kevin Hartz and Bennett Siegel, previously raised a three hundred fifteen million dollar Fund Two in twenty twenty-four and a three hundred million dollar Fund One in twenty twenty-one. Wispr AI, the developer behind the popular voice dictation tool Wispr Flow, is in talks to raise a new round of funding that could more than double its valuation to two billion dollars. Menlo Ventures is set to lead the financing, which is expected to total about two hundred sixty million dollars. The deal isn’t finalized, and terms could still change. Wispr is part of a growing crop of startups using artificial intelligence to offer improved voice-to-text features that can be faster and more natural than typing out messages. Its product has gained traction with engineers, in particular, who use it to dictate prompts and questions to artificial intelligence agents. Wispr is used by employees at Nvidia, Amazon, and other tech companies. Wix reported financial results for the first quarter of twenty twenty-six, with total revenue of five hundred forty-one point two million dollars, up fourteen percent year-over-year, and total bookings of five hundred eighty-five million, up fifteen percent. Total annual recurring revenue was one point nine zero three billion dollars at the end of the first quarter, up fifteen percent year-over-year. The company said it recently built its own proprietary large language model that is now powering Wix Harmony, aiming to reduce reliance on third-party models and control artificial intelligence inference costs. Wix repurchased approximately seventeen point five million shares for about one point six billion dollars in April through a tender offer, representing nearly thirty percent of its outstanding shares. The company maintained its full-year twenty twenty-six outlook, expecting bookings and revenue to grow at mid-teens percentages year-over-year. Walmart said it has eliminated some roles to simplify its operating structure as the world’s largest retailer ramps up a digital transformation to better compete with Amazon.com, Costco, and Aldi. The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart would cut or relocate about one thousand corporate workers. Walmart said in a statement that it is making organizational changes to simplify how work is structured across its global operating model, with the intention to create clearer ownership and minimize overlap. As a result, some roles have been eliminated, though the company declined to share the specific number of employees impacted. Under new CEO John Furner and a reshaped leadership team, Walmart is doubling down on a tech-focused strategy as it woos higher-income shoppers and builds its marketplace and delivery businesses. Turning to macro and policy developments, trade negotiators led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng held talks in Seoul to prepare for this week’s summit between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies. The two sides “held candid, in-depth and constructive exchanges in South Korea on economic and trade issues of mutual concern, as well as on further expanding practical cooperation,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The outcome of their meeting will set the stage for Donald Trump’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on May thirteenth through fifteenth — the first visit by a U.S. president to Beijing in nearly a decade. In recent calls, China and the U.S. have been discussing a possible “Board of Trade,” a proposal introduced during the Paris talks, as the two sides search for a new mechanism that could help oversee their commercial ties and manage bilateral concerns that have flared in recent years. While Trump is bringing an entourage of executives spanning major financial, technology, aerospace, and agricultural firms, expectations are low for breakthroughs. French unemployment unexpectedly rose to the highest level in five years, adding to signs the euro area’s second largest economy was already on a weak footing when the Iran war began. With joblessness increasing across all age categories, the rate reached eight point one percent in the first quarter, according to data from national statistics agency Insee. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a slight decline to seven point eight percent from seven point nine percent at the end of last year. Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the unemployment figures reflect the slowdown. The worsening data come despite the government navigating a budget crisis and avoiding another political collapse in February. Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to thirty of its thirty-three missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted. The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors. Classified assessments from early this month show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities. Iran still fields about seventy percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly seventy percent of its prewar missile stockpile. Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly ninety percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be partially or fully operational. The findings undercut months of public assurances from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have told Americans that the Iranian military was “decimated” and “no longer” a threat. S&P Global Ratings revised Mexico’s credit outlook to negative from stable, citing persistently weak fiscal results, rising debt levels, and weak economic growth. The firm affirmed Mexico’s rating at triple B, two notches above junk. S&P said the negative outlook reflects the risk of very slow fiscal consolidation largely due to low economic growth, resulting in a faster-than-expected buildup in government debt levels and higher interest burden. President Claudia Sheinbaum has engineered a bailout package for state-owned driller Petroleos Mexicanos, and S&P said expected continued support for the company would continue to aggravate Mexico’s fiscal rigidities. Uncertainty around this year’s review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is also weighing on investor sentiment. In Washington, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is resigning, according to President Trump, intensifying the turmoil atop the nation’s health agencies. Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer who previously served as the FDA’s top food official, is expected to take over the commissioner role in an acting capacity. Makary’s exit after just thirteen months in the role marks the end of a turbulent period for the agency, characterized by high turnover in top positions, backlash from the biotech industry, and internal personnel clashes that distracted from more popular initiatives to regulate synthetic food dyes and drug ads. The departure leaves a third major vacancy in health leadership as the administration confronts a deadly hantavirus outbreak. In event-driven and deal news, Brown-Forman rejected a roughly fifteen billion dollar takeover offer from rival Sazerac, according to people familiar with the matter. Advisers for Brown-Forman informed Sazerac on Monday that the company was rejecting the thirty-two dollar a share cash offer Sazerac recently made. Sazerac’s latest all-cash offer was financially backed by Wells Fargo and Apollo Global Management. Brown-Forman is publicly traded, but a majority of the company’s voting stock is controlled by Brown family members. Brown-Forman had also been in talks to combine with Absolut vodka-maker Pernod Ricard in a deal that included a large stock component. BHP Group’s incoming CEO Brandon Craig has not ruled out dealmaking as a key part of the mining giant’s growth strategy. The company is focused on copper when it comes to acquisitions. Craig said in a speech at the Bank of America Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference in Miami that BHP will continue disciplined, consistent growth, developing the pipeline already in front of it and staying ready to act when value-accretive opportunities emerge. He emphasized that the point is not growth for growth’s sake, but value-accretive growth that ultimately matters. One of his priorities will be ensuring BHP has options to grow well beyond twenty thirty-five. Intertek Group is leaning toward recommending a fourth and final takeover offer from private equity firm EQT. The British product-testing firm said it had taken the decision after significant engagement with its shareholders. EQT on Tuesday bid sixty pounds a share in cash, which valued the London-listed company at around nine point two billion pounds, or about twelve point five billion dollars. Under EQT’s proposal, investors would also receive a dividend of up to one point zero seven seven pounds, as announced by Intertek in March. Intertek quickly came under pressure from some of its top shareholders, including Matt Peltz and Harris Associates, to open talks with its suitor. The board of Intertek considers that the financial terms of the final proposal deliver value in cash to shareholders at a level which it would be minded to recommend. Intertek has also decided to pause a previously announced strategic review. Intertek’s shares closed up six point four percent at fifty-three pounds in London on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of around eight point two billion pounds. JPMorgan is set to overhaul the upper ranks of its investment bank as part of a broader reorganization. Investment banking coverage chief Dorothee Blessing, global head of capital markets Kevin Foley, and global co-head of the financial institutions group Jared Kaye will be appointed co-heads of global investment banking. Mergers and acquisitions will be brought under industry coverage groups. Charles Bouckaert, co-head of industrials investment banking, will replace Anu Aiyengar as the bank’s global head of M&A. The changes come amid a boom in deal activity, with JPMorgan reporting investment banking fees that beat estimates in the first quarter. Turning to credit and capital markets, if issuance continues at its current pace, the market could be headed toward a record year, according to Strategas. Mergers and acquisitions activity is also robust, with pending and completed deals at the end of the first quarter reflecting renewed confidence and improved financing conditions, according to Bloomberg. In credit markets, things are getting better, not worse, with default rates falling and distressed exchanges declining, according to Apollo. That wraps up the key markets and headlines for today. Thanks for listening.