Back in January, when we profiled Meta's landmark $27.3 billion SPV deal named "Beignet" for the Hyperion data center located in Louisiana, in which Blue Owl provided the private credit, we said to "expect hundreds of billions of these in 2026."
As a reminder, META is already neck deep in off-balance sheet debt. Here is a schematic of its $27.3 billion SPV with Blue Owl "Project Beignet" for the Hyperion data center. None of this touches META's balance sheet.
Expect hundreds of billions of these in 2026 https://t.co/794EgSiiZ9 pic.twitter.com/7hMyVW6Lno
Fast forward five months when we now read that Apollo and Blackstone have finalized a $35BN private credit deal that will help finance Anthropic’s growth plans, even as traditional "banks are choking" on the amount of AI debt they have to issue.
The two private credit giants - which in a parallel universe are struggling with soaring redemption requests and gating retail investors in their private credit BDCs as documented here extensively in recent months - led the financing, one of the largest private credit deals completed, which will fund Anthropic’s purchase of Alphabet-developed chips.
The deal, dubbed project “Big Sky”, comes amid concerns that the AI frenzy has overheated the broader market. Shares in chipmakers rebounded on Monday after tumbling last week, led by Broadcom’s fall in market value. It also adds to a deluge of chip-backed loans that sparked debate over how quickly graphics processing units would depreciate as AI technology evolves.
In this type of financing structure, a special-purpose vehicle raises capital through a mix of debt and equity to purchase the chips, which are then leased to a customer, in this case Anthropic. The debt is primarily backed by the resulting lease payments, along with the unknown long-term value of the chips. In this case, the $35 billion debt facility was structured across three tranches. The senior layers — the $6 billion notes dubbed A1 and $24 billion of A2 notes — are backed by Broadcom, allowing the debt to secure lower borrowing costs aligned with Broadcom’s strong credit profile. The notes received private ratings in the mid-investment grade tier.
The transaction wrapped up days after Alphabet completed one of the largest equity offerings in history, as it looks to raise $85bn to fund Google’s AI build-out, and as SpaceX prepares for a flotation that could raise a record $86bn. Anthropic also announced it had confidentially filed for an IPO shortly after its blockbuster $65bn private financing round.
As discussed previously, the AI borrowing spree has reached beyond traditional US capital markets, where AI is expected to raise $400 billion in debt, rising to over $1 trillion through 2028 to meet roughly $1.8 trillion in capex needs over the next two years, according to Morgan Stanley...
... with Amazon raising C$14bn (US$10bn) on Monday in the largest ever Canadian dollar bond sale.
Similar to Meta's Beignet deal, Anthropic’s deal with Apollo and Blackstone relies on a complex structure that private investment groups routinely use to finance start-ups with backing from blue-chip companies. A special purpose vehicle formed by Apollo’s Atlas SP Partners raised the debt and equity, with lease agreements for the chips ultimately supporting the value of the transaction.
Per the FT, Apollo and Blackstone structured the loan across three tranches, with interest payments on the two senior segments backstopped by Broadcom. The chipmaker is making the so-called tensor processing units, or TPUs, with Google. Its agreement to provide support if Anthropic misses an interest payment helped vastly reduce the costs on the debt.
The two senior portions of the debt were split between banks and investors. Some $6bn of so-called A1 notes were sold to banks with an interest rate 1% over Treasuries. A further $24bn of A2 notes were sold on to investors in asset-backed credit markets, priced with a yield of 5.75 per cent. Buyers of the A2 tranche included institutional investors like Apollo’s Athene insurance arm, which favors high-quality debt to back its long-term liabilities.
The $4.5bn of junior debt, which is not supported by Broadcom and therefore exposes lenders more acutely to Anthropic, carried an interest rate of 8.5%. Investors were also offered an original issue discount of 98 cents to 99 cents on the dollar depending on cheque sizes. In other words, without the implicit guarantee from an investment grade guarantor - like Broadcom in this case - the cost of capital is roughly double.
In addition to the debt, Apollo’s Atlas SP Partners’ structured-finance unit provided $800 million in equity, meaning it’s effectively the owner of the SPV.
A key feature of the deal is Broadcom providing a “residual value support” agreement. That means that if Anthropic fails to make the lease payments for a certain period of time, the SPV will sell the chips to pay back the debt investors. If the value of the chips doesn’t make the debt investors whole, then Broadcom will make up the shortfall for 100% of the value owed to the A1 and A2 investors.
This type of residual value feature has been used in another mega debt deal, though it financed the construction of a data center rather than chips. As noted above, Meta provided a similar protection for the value of its Hyperion facility in Louisiana - a transaction that Morgan Stanley arranged. That allowed the so-called Beignet bonds to trade in line with Meta’s corporate debt.
For those whose head is spinning with the circularity involved, this is how we described the deal last week when it was first floated:
Broadcom is backstopping a massive $36 billion private credit SPV with Apollo and Blackstone which will help Anthropic buy Google chips... made by Broadcom. Oh, and yes: Google owns 14% of Anthropic...
*BROADCOM: WORK WITH APOLLO, BLACKSTONE SERVES OPENAI, ANTHROPIC
Translation: Broadcom is backstopping a massive $36 billion private credit SPV with Apollo and Blackstone which will help Anthropic buy Google chips... made by Broadcom.
But wait, there's more... because if that wasn't enough, Morgan Stanley, which advised Broadcom and arranged the transaction, is also lending money to investors participating in the deal!
And just because this is a "chip-backed" off-balance sheet SPV where nobody really knows who holds the debt, the monstrous circularity of all the deal aspects will be ignored until the AI credit bubble cracks.
As for the punchline: demonstrating the insane frenzy of anything involving AI, investors involved in the deal did not even know what they were investing in! According to the FT, investors pitched on the deal were not given early access to Anthropic’s financials ahead of its IPO.
Not everyone involved in the deal is a total idiot: some investors passed on the deal over the delayed-draw format of the debt, which drives down yields because the money can be withdrawn in multiple tranches over a period of time.
Yet despite the smashing success of the deal, one glaring question remains. Recall, last week SpaceX penned a massive deal with Google (to urgently burnish the IPO candidate's financials just days ahead of its IPO), according to which Google will pay Elon Musk $920 million a month for access to about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs (unlike its hyperscaler peers, SpaceX has plenty of spare compute to rent out). And yet, despite seemingly telegraphing it is dramatically "compute constrained" as the SpaceX deal implies, it still has plenty of chip available that it can sell $35B of their chips to their biggest competitor, Anthropic.
This wasn't the only such deal: just days prior, Anthropic (which will use proceeds from this private credit SPV to purchase Google chips made by Broadcom), agreed to pay $1.5 billion a month for access to 325,000 Nvidia GPU also held by SpaceX. No wonder these sham agreements were structured so they can be terminated by either party after December 2026.
For those shaking their heads at these glaring examples of circular bubble euphoria, fear not: you will have plenty of opportunities to enjoy more such deals (going back to our point up top): Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan said the company hoped to connect “investor partners with the strongest balance sheets to deliver at scale sufficient compute capacity at the lowest cost”, pointing to the deal with Apollo and Blackstone as the first of many transactions to come.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/09/2026 - 09:15A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report released Monday paints a devastating picture of both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, finding that they both knew about widespread fraud in state social services programs and failed to act.
The report centers on the Feeding Our Future scandal, in which a Minnesota-based nonprofit systematically exploited federal COVID-19 relief funds intended to provide meals to children.
So far, more than 60 people have already been found guilty of fraud in connection with the scheme, the majority of whom are of Somali descent. Some defendants used stolen taxpayer money to buy luxury goods, while others funneled proceeds to a radical Islamic terrorist group operating in Somalia. At least $300 million in federal child nutrition funds were placed at serious risk, and approximately $9 billion in Medicaid losses resulted from the broader fraud environment state officials allowed to fester.
"Fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided, and payments continued long after credible signs of fraud emerged," the report states.
Senior officials in Walz's office and Ellison's office knew about systemic fraud concerns as early as 2019 within the Minnesota Department of Human Services and, by April 2020, within the state Department of Education, the report says, directly contradicting Walz's and Ellison's public statements.
This matters because both men held legal authority to cut off payments to fraudulent operators. Neither exercised it, even though Walz was aware of the suspected fraud in Feeding Our Future by 2020, and the payments continued.
The fraudsters didn't just know how to exploit the system for financial gain; they knew how to blackmail state officials to keep their scheme going. When workers inside the Department of Education tried to audit child care and nutrition programs, providers accused them of racism. The accusation worked. Officials backed down despite holding evidence that funds were being fraudulently diverted. Dozens of human services department staff were warned, explicitly, that raising fraud concerns would get them labeled as racists and damage the government's reputation. Some were pulled into supervisory meetings. Others were excluded from the very internal discussions about the fraud they had flagged.
And the directive to look the other way from the fraud came from the top down. One Minnesota Department of Education official who first contacted the FBI about Feeding Our Future told investigators her supervisors pressured her to stop investigating "at every turn" and that she got her "hand slapped" for continuing to look into it. Staff feared reporting fraud to the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General because that agency would notify the Commissioner or HR, who would then retaliate against them. The internal culture the Walz administration built was one in which accountability was the threat, not the fraud.
Rather than combating the fraud, the Walz administration spent resources monitoring employees to keep them in line. The priority, the report shows, was getting ahead of press coverage about the fraud, not stopping it.
"Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison are responsible for one of the most stunning oversight failures this Committee has ever examined," Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a statement. "Today's report is the culmination of months of investigative work and reveals hard evidence showing how the Walz Administration failed to stop widespread fraud, allowing criminals to enrich themselves at the expense of American taxpayers. Billions of dollars were stolen because Minnesota state leaders turned a blind eye to rampant fraud and retaliated against state employees who dared to raise concerns. It is now clear the Walz Administration chose to protect the system rather than protect the taxpayer."
The report makes clear that this fraud wasn't some bureaucratic mistake or a problem that went unnoticed. Senior officials were repeatedly warned about what was happening. They chose not to act in order to preserve their political relationship with Minnesota's Somali community, manage the fallout, and sideline the employees who were raising red flags and trying to stop it.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/09/2026 - 09:00US equity futures are higher as Monday’s US stock gains extend into today’s trading with both tech and small caps outperforming as the AI theme resumes its global surge and US/Iran deal optimism is back (on the back of the now daily optimistic comments from Trump) broadening the rally. As of 8:00am ET, tech enthusiasm is on display with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.8% as chipmakers including Marvell Technology Inc. and Micron Technology Inc. posted strong premarket gains, while S&P500 futures gain 0.4%. In premarket trading, Mag7 names are mostly higher; cyclicals ex-energy are leading defensives ex-HC. A similar theme played out in APAC, with the tech-laden Kospi soaring 8.2%. Europe's Stoxx 600 is rising alongside weaker energy prices with gains driven by financials and consumer names. Oil dipped after Trump said a framework of deal "within the next 2 days," though it is unclear what has changed from previous claims over the last 2 months. Commodities are reacting to headline risk with Brent down 2.1% as Israel and Iran halt attacks and Chinese oil imports declined, and WTI below $90/bbl. The downside in energy prices has provided a mild support for global fixed income markets, with US yields 1-2bps lower across the curve ahead of the US 3-year note auction. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index is down 0.2%. Downside in USD/JPY from a report that the BOJ could hike in June and October proved fleeting. Precious metals are steady. Bitcoin sheds 1.3%. The macro data focus will be on weekly ADP, the NFIB Small Biz Survey where the Hiring sub-index may give add’l evidence for the labor market acceleration. Keep an eye on the 3Y bond auction today
In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mostly higher (Nvidia +0.4%, Amazon +0.6%, Meta +1.1%, Alphabet +0.6%, Tesla +0.6%, Apple -0.4%, Microsoft -0.3%).
In other corporate news, executives overseeing Oatly’s Chinese operations are said to be considering buying out the business. Apple’s iOS 27 and related software updates offer signs the of the company’s upcoming foldable iPhone. GSK agreed to buy clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Nuvalent in a deal valued at $10.6 billion to expand in oncology treatments.
After a brief pause in the rally that propelled equities to record highs, traders are returning on expectations that corporate profits will give stocks further room to run. OpenAI’s confidential filing for an initial public offering and the oversubscription of SpaceX’s share sale served as reminders of the vast demand for AI - before attention turns to Wednesday’s CPI print. Overnight sentiment was also boosted from lower energy costs, with Brent sliding 1.5% to below $93 a barrel. Israel and Iran agreed to end their tit-for-tat attacks, while President Donald Trump renewed his claims that a US peace deal with Tehran was nearly done.
From SpaceX’s IPO being oversubscribed ahead of books closing late Wednesday, to OpenAI filing confidentially for an IPO and said to be planning a tender sale of its shares to provide liquidity to employees, “there’s a real race for capital that’s going on,” notes CPR Asset Management’s Julien Daire, perhaps to get ahead of the moment of realization that much of this SPV chip-backed rollout is funded by American retirees putting their money in "safe" annuities.
And the biggest investor: unwitting retirees through “safe” annuities purchased from Apollo’s Athene insurance company https://t.co/UhtWzj59ia
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 9, 2026Meanwhile in China, the country plans to spend around $295 billion to fund a nationwide AI buildout of data centers, signaling its ambition to propel the domestic AI sector and rely on local suppliers for at least 80% of technology such as AI chips.
And speaking of China, the AI supercycle showed up in macro data overnight as well, with Beijing's export sales of semiconductors soaring 111% year-on-year in May, the fastest expansion since 2013. Elsewhere, the massive PJM power grid region is expected to see a 26-fold increase in energy storage over the next decade on the back of data-center driven load growth and lagging supply strain reliability and affordability.
There are red flags: bond-yield levels don’t look encouraging for stocks, but it will likely take greater rate volatility to trigger another leg lower, according to Bloomberg Senior Strategist Michael Msika. Risks are mounting into a tricky June, but portfolio rotation seems to be the preferred approach, rather than cutting exposure altogether. The bond market is running ahead of the Fed policy rate, with a clear message for Kevin Warsh that rates need to be higher, and prompted Citi to lower its short-term price target for gold.
While AI “has driven a strong rally so far, it also carries a high risk of pullbacks, which are bound to occur given the dynamic nature of the sector’s development,” said Guillermo Hernandez Sampere, head of trading at MPPM.
Warnings that a push higher in stocks could prove choppy still abound. Citigroup Inc. strategists said traders are aggressively building short-selling positions in US equities, while bullish wagers on the tech sector remained stretched. Friday’s near 5% selloff in the Nasdaq 100 has only partially reset exposure among investors, the Citi team led by David Chew noted.
The next few weeks hold major risk events, with inflation data due Wednesday and the first Federal Reserve interest-rate decision under Chairman Kevin Warsh on June 17.
“If inflationary risks continue to rise, a more aggressive repricing of the Fed could easily challenge current valuations and derail equity markets,” said Wolf von Rotberg, equity strategist at Bank J Safra Sarasin.
In politics, the race for California governor is on track for a two-person runoff in November between veteran Democratic politician Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, a British-born television personality endorsed by President Trump. The Pentagon has accused some of China’s biggest companies of supporting the Chinese military, including Alibaba, Baidu and BYD.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 is rising alongside weaker energy prices with gains driven by financials and consumer names. Health care stocks were dragged lower by GSK, which shed as much as 3.9% after announcing it would acquire US firm Nuvalent for $10.6 billion. The energy subindex was the biggest laggard as Brent crude dropped below $93 a barrel. Here are the biggest movers Tuesday:
Asian stocks rose, as bargain hunters dipped back in to buy technology stocks after a sharp selloff. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed as much as 2.8%, on track to snap a three-day losing streak. The information technology sector led gains among sub-indexes, with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics contributing the most to the advance. South Korea and Indonesia led the region’s rebound, just a day after ranking among the worst performers. The rally follows a steep pullback triggered by concerns over overheating in artificial intelligence stocks. While broader concerns about the sector’s momentum remain, the recent drop has made valuations more appealing and steady earnings are helping to support sentiment. Easing tensions in the Middle East added to the positive tone, after Iran and Israel agreed to scale back strikes following a flare-up that had threatened to derail peace efforts and drew calls for de-escalation from President Donald Trump.
In FX, the dollar headed for its biggest two-day retreat in a month. Indonesia’s central bank raised its benchmark rate ahead of its next scheduled meeting to reverse a market selloff and support the rupiah.
In rates, treasuries rose modestly as traders dialed back bets on US interest-rate hikes, led by short-dated notes as oil continued its decline after Israel and Iran agreed to stop attacks, following a flare-up in violence. US yields are richer by up to 2.5bp across front end of the curve with long end richer by around 1bp, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s spreads by 1bp and 1.5bp vs. Monday close. US 10-year yields trade around 4.545%, down 1.5bp on the day with bunds lagging by 1.5bp in the sector, gilts slightly outperforming. Bull steepening move comes ahead of this week’s first Treasury auction of $58 billion 3-year notes at 1pm New York. Treasury auction cycle resumes at 1pm New York with $58 billion 3-year notes, before $39 billion 10-year and $22 billion 30-year reopenings Wednesday and Thursday. The WI 3-year trading around 4.205% is 24bp cheaper than the May stop-out, which tailed the WI by 0.6bp.
In commodities, Brent has continued to slip, down 2.1% as Israel and Iran halt attacks and Chinese oil imports declined. Bitcoin sheds 1.3%. Precious metals are steady. Gold held steady near $4,340 an ounce. The appeal of the precious metal has steadily faded from a peak above $5,400 in January after the war in the Middle East upended expectations for US monetary policy, shifting bets from rate cuts to possible hikes.
Today's US economic data calendar includes ADP weekly employment change (8:15am), April trade balance (8:30am), May existing home sales, April wholesale inventories (10am)
Market Snapshot
Top Overnight News
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of newsquawk
APAC stocks traded somewhat mixed, albeit with a mostly positive bias as indices rebounded from yesterday's losses, with sentiment helped by Israel and Iran halting their strikes, while participants also reflected on the better-than-expected Chinese trade data. ASX 200 declined as the prior day's losses caught up with the index on return from a long weekend. Nikkei 225 fluctuated and briefly wiped out all its opening gains before rebounding to print fresh intraday highs. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were mixed with the mainland kept afloat following the stronger-than-expected Chinese trade data, although gains were capped after the US Pentagon posted a list of Chinese military companies, which included Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, Tencent, NIO and Cosco among others.
Top Asian News
European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.5%) start Tuesday's trade on a positive footing with geopolitical updates quiet. FTSE MIB (+1.6%) is the clear outperformer helped by gains in Banks, while FTSE 100 (-0.3%) is the only index in the red as miners and healthcare giants fall. European sectors hold a positive bias. Insurance (+1.3%) tops the pile, with Retail (+1.0%) and Banks (+1.2%) rounding out the top 3. To the downside are Basic Resources (-0.3%), Health Care (-0.5%) and Energy (-0.4%).
Top European News
FX
Fixed Income
Commodities
Trade/Tariffs
Central Banks
Geopolitics: Iran
Geopolitics: Ukraine
US Event Calendar
DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
Morning from Istanbul. Please don’t tell my wife, but this extraordinary city was the backdrop to the greatest night of my life some five years before I met her. Even now, the memory is vivid of that special night of passion. The heat. The noise. The sweat. A pounding heart and hours of emotional turbulence. By late evening it felt inevitable that it simply wasn’t going to happen, and that I’d leave exhausted, disappointed and slightly broken. Then, just after midnight, against all logic and expectation, came a sudden, frantic and utterly euphoric release. Yes after being 3-0 down at half-time, the "Miracle of Istanbul" arrived and Liverpool fought back and ultimately won the penalty shoot out and, with it, the Champions League back in 2005. A night I will never forget but with the way Liverpool played this past season I'm not sure when that will be next repeated.
Talking of repeats, it seems the cycle of "near a deal, not near a deal, escalation, de escalation, maybe back near a deal" continues. However for now we’re back in the “a deal is still possible” camp and in addition the AI trade has continued to bounce back this morning.
On that, the KOSPI (+7.35%) is sharply higher after its 9th worst day in 45 plus years of history yesterday (-8.29%). The Nikkei (+2.19%) is also benefiting from a recovery in technology stocks after a decline of over -3.5% yesterday. Chinese stocks are up just over half a percent and other markets are broadly flat. S&P 500 (+0.26%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.54%) futures are also continuing to recover after a decent session yesterday.
As I'm typing this this morning, President Trump has been speaking to reporters and has said that they are "very close to having a good strong powerful deal" and that they "could have an idea on Iran in one or two days now". Of course we've been here a few times before but the weekend stresses are fading back a little for now.
Indeed markets swung around yesterday as we faced an array of geopolitical headlines. Initially, it looked like another rough session, with Brent Crude up over +5% in the European morning amidst the strikes between Israel and Iran we discussed this time yesterday. However, the mood soon began to turn more positive, with President Trump calling on both sides to dial things down which to be fair he tried to do late in the weekend. Then late in the European morning session, Trump posted that “Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE! Final negotiations on “Peace” are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The Blockade will remain in place, and in full force and effect, until a “Final Deal” is reached. Things should move quickly.”
That post from Trump led to an initial decline in oil prices, but the bigger move lower then came after Iran’s Fars said that the military operation against Israel had ended. Admittedly, they warned that further Israeli attacks would lead to “much harsher and more crushing actions than before”, but the end to the attacks was taken positively. Moreover, Israeli PM Netanyahu later said that Israel would hold fire in Iran for now. So it felt as though for the time being at least, the weekend flare-up in hostilities had been stopped, and there was still a path for peace talks to continue.
Given the end to the Israel-Iran strikes, Brent crude ultimately came down from an intraday peak above $98/bbl in the European morning, to $94.25/bbl by the close. Or in other words, it was only up +1.25% from its Friday close. That gap has narrowed further this morning with a -0.80% fall as I type.
Even with the pull back, concerns around inflation remained high yesterday, which cemented investor conviction that central banks would still be hiking rates in the coming months. Indeed for the Fed, markets raised the chance of a hike as soon as September to 53%, up from 44% on Friday. It's ticked down to 50% this morning.
Given that backdrop, it was a tough session for sovereign bonds on both sides of the Atlantic. So Treasury yields rose across the curve, with the 2yr yield (+1.6bps) up to 4.16%, its highest since February 2025, while 10yr (+3.3bps to 4.56%) and 30yr yields (+4.0bps to 5.03%) saw larger increases. Notably, there were some big milestones for real yields, with the 10yr real yield (+3.7bps) closing at a one-year high of 2.20%. However, we didn’t have any Fed speakers as we’re now in the blackout period before next week’s meeting, so we don’t have much sense of how they’re thinking about the strong jobs report and whether it warrants a hawkish reaction.
Over in Europe it was a similar story, with yields on 10yr bunds (+2.2bps), OATs (+3.3bps) and BTPs (+3.4bps) all moving higher again. In fact, for 10yr OATs it took them up to a post-2009 high of 3.84%. And then in Germany, the 10yr real yield was at a 5-month high of 0.82%, despite some underwhelming data on factory orders, which showed a monthly decline of -3.8% in April (vs. -2.0% expected).
One relatively positive area yesterday was US equities, with the major indices stabilising after Friday’s slump. The recovery was particularly visible in segments that slumped the most on Friday, with the NASDAQ up +0.86%, whilst the Philly semiconductor index rose +5.61%, recovering about half of its -10.26% fall last Friday. However, the broader equity mood was more cautious, and the S&P 500 (+0.30%) recovered only a small fraction of Friday’s -2.64% decline. Indeed, almost two-thirds of S&P constituents were lower on the day, with tech and energy the only sectors to post clear gains. And the Mag-7 (-0.06%) struggled to follow the recovery in chipmakers, with Apple (-1.89%) leading on the downside amid a lukewarm reaction to the latest generation of its AI platform.
The equity weakness was clearer in Europe. In part, that was because they’d closed before the worst of the US losses on Friday, so there wasn’t the same bounce back potential. But they were also more exposed to the oil price increase, so the STOXX 600 (-0.15%) fell for a second consecutive session. There were similar moves across Europe, including for the DAX (-0.58%) and the CAC 40 (-0.23%), but Italy’s FTSE MIB (+0.63%) was the main outperformer.
Looking at the overnight data, in China both exports and imports grew at an accelerated rate in May, exceeding forecasts as surging demand for AI hardware mitigated the impact of disruptions caused by the war in Iran. Exports surged by +19.4% y/y in May, surpassing expectations of a +15% increase. This significant rise was partly fuelled by a weak performance last year, during the US-China trade war. Imports soared over +27% y/y in May, resulting in a trade surplus of $105.4 billion, the largest since January. Additionally, South Korea’s economy expanded by +1.8% in the January-March quarter compared to the previous three months, an increase from the 1.7% growth estimated in April. On an annual basis, Asia’s fourth-largest economy grew by 3.8%, revised upward from the earlier estimate of 3.6%.
Looking at the day ahead, data releases include German industrial production for April, the US trade balance for April, and US existing home sales for May. Otherwise from central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Moulin
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/09/2026 - 08:38