LexisNexis® Life Insurance Consumer Experience Study Explores Pain Points and Potential Ways to Improve the Life Insurance Application Process
, /PRNewswire/ -- LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today announced findings from a new consumer research study examining attitudes and perceptions about the life insurance application process, as the industry looks for ways to deliver faster life insurance underwriting and reduce life insurance application dropout rates. The research asked life insurance applicants about the effort involved and the time it takes to complete an application, offering updated insight into where the process creates challenges that can leave applicants less satisfied and, in some cases lead them to abandon the process entirely. The study also explored applicants' attitudes toward sharing their medical information with life insurers – and found that patient portals were the preferred method, compared to medical record exchanges and manual processes. The findings imply that life insurance carriers may be missing out on some new ways to align to consumer behavior and preferences which can shorten timelines and improve the applicant experience.
Key Findings:
79% of applicants cited the amount of required effort is the lead reason for abandoning the life insurance application process. Among life insurance applicants who abandoned the process, 63% pointed to the time required as one of the top reasons for dropping out. Among those who completed or abandoned the life insurance application process and find the process time unacceptable, 91% say it negatively impacts their overall satisfaction. 60% said a reason for abandonment was having to fill in all their medical details, and 56% said it was too difficult to gather all the information about health care providers for the life insurance application. Online patient portals are applicants' preferred method of sharing medical information with a life insurance carrier, outranking medical record exchanges and manual processes. Online patient portal adoption is already widespread – 82% of life insurance applicants report having access to a patient portal for their primary care physician (PCP), and 91% have used one within the past 12 months. Preference for online patient portals is driven largely by ease of use (77%), completeness of information (74%) and speed of record retrieval (65%). Below, LexisNexis Risk Solutions expands on these key findings, outlined in a newly published report highlighting the specific areas of the life insurance application process where applicants experience the greatest challenges.
Life insurance application pain point: Effort
In the report, 79% of applicants cited the amount of required effort as the lead reason for abandoning the life insurance application process. The research highlights the fact that effort, time and medical exams influence how life insurance applicants respond to the process. The greatest sources of effort stem from providing detailed medical information — 60% of applicants describe the hassle in filling out medical conditions and 56% mentioned it is too difficult to collect doctor information.
Life insurance application pain point: Time
Among life insurance applicants who abandoned the application process, 63% pointed to the time required as one of the top reasons for dropping out. Even applicants who complete the process experience meaningful friction: 36% of these respondents indicated time to complete an application is a pain point. Among those who completed the application process and find the process time unacceptable, 91% say it negatively impacts their satisfaction with the application process.
When application timelines extended beyond expectations, nearly one-third (33%) considered switching to a different carrier, and 26% considered abandoning their application altogether. The study identifies a clear threshold for acceptability. Nineteen percent of applicants view application timelines of five weeks or longer as highly unacceptable, compared with 1% for two-week timelines and 5% for timelines of three to four weeks.
Patient Portals Preferred for Medical Information Sharing
Online patient portals are applicants' preferred method for sharing their medical information, outranking medical record exchanges and manual processes. Applicants underscored their preference for online patient portals – 77% indicated preference is driven by ease of providing access to medical records, 74% cited completeness of medical information and 65% prefer online patient portals based on the speed of record retrieval. Adoption of online patient portals is already widespread – 82% of applicants have access to a patient portal through their PCP, and 91% have accessed it multiple times in the past 12 months.
"We conducted this research to get updated insights on how life insurance applicants respond to the process, what impacts satisfaction and what ultimately drives abandonment," said Justin Baker, associate vice president, life insurance, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "Life insurance applicants indicated that providing medical data continues to be a key driver of time and dissatisfaction and they are ready for a new, easier process for sharing medical information. We confirmed that despite conventional industry understanding of preference, there are many opportunities for the life insurance industry to positively influence the consumer experience, considering that when healthier consumers drop out, business opportunities are lost and costs increase."
"Solving for multiple areas of friction at once allows life insurance carriers to align the application experience with consumer expectations, instead of simply relocating the problem," said Baker. "Life insurers that streamline medical record collection and align with how consumers already access their health data can improve customer satisfaction, reduce application dropout rates and drive stronger business outcomes."
For more information on the LexisNexis® Life Insurance Consumer Experience Study and to download a copy of the research, visit "Reimagining Medical Data Sharing in Life Insurance Underwriting." To learn more about how LexisNexis Risk Solutions is helping life insurers get electronic medical records faster to shorten decision timelines, improve costs and benefit their customers, explore LexisNexis® Health Intelligence and our approach to consumer mediated consent.
About the Research
LexisNexis Risk Solutions commissioned a third-party research firm to conduct an online survey and collect feedback from a representative sample of consumers considered to be "in the life insurance market." The firm completed 2,502 surveys among consumers aged 25 to 75, who had shopped for or applied for a personal life insurance policy within the past five years. Results were analyzed across application outcomes to understand how friction affects consumer behavior and attitudes toward sharing medical information.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions leverages the power of data, advanced analytics platforms and integrated AI solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions and RELX.
Media Contacts:
Emma Valenti
Sr. Communications Specialist, Insurance
[email protected]
+1 470.550.7793
RELX (RELX) is now rated a 'BUY' with a new ADR price target of $33.8, reflecting improved valuation and resilient fundamentals. RELX's data and workflow solutions, especially Lexis+, maintain a strong moat against generative AI disruption, supporting stable growth and margin expansion. Organic growth remains robust at 6-7%, with dividend yield above 2.75% and operating leverage from AI-driven efficiencies.
On May 13, 2026, RELX PLC RELX shares fell 3.5% to $31.62, reflecting a broader trend of declines over recent periods. The stock has traded within a 52-week range of $27.57 to $56.33, indicating significant volatility and a substantial drop from its previous highs.
GF Value™ verdict: Current price is $31.62, compared to a GF Value™ of $49.64, indicating a 36.3% undervaluation.GF Score™: 82/100, suggesting a strong investment opportunity based on key financial metrics.Most notable signal: No insider transactions have been recorded in the last 3 months, indicating a stable insider sentiment. Is RELX Overvalued or Undervalued? The current price of RELX PLC at $31.62 is significantly below the GF Value™ of $49.64, suggesting that the stock is undervalued by approximately 36.3%. This margin of safety provides a compelling opportunity for potential investors. The GF Valuation label indicates that the stock is significantly undervalued, which may imply a favorable entry point for those looking to invest in a company with strong fundamentals.
GF Value™ is GuruFocus' proprietary measure of intrinsic value, calculated from historical trading multiples, past business growth, and future performance estimates. The undervaluation of RELX is noteworthy, especially given the company's strong profitability and growth ranks, which could indicate potential for price appreciation once the market corrects its current perception of the stock.
How Does RELX's Valuation Compare to Its History? Metric Current Historical P/E (TTM) 20.9x 32.8x Forward P/E 16.2x - RELX's current P/E ratio of 20.9x is 36% below its 5-year median P/E of 32.8x, indicating that the stock is trading significantly lower than its historical valuation norms. This analysis aligns with the GF Value™ verdict, reinforcing the notion that the stock is undervalued in comparison to its historical performance.
What Does RELX's GF Score™ Tell Us? Metric Rating GF Score™ 82 Financial Strength 5/10 Profitability 9/10 Growth 9/10 Valuation 4/10 Momentum 2/10 The GF Score™ of 82/100 indicates that RELX has strong potential based on its profitability and growth metrics, which both rank at 9/10. However, the financial strength rating of 5/10 and a low momentum rank of 2/10 suggest areas of concern that investors should be aware of. Overall, while RELX demonstrates strong profitability and growth capabilities, its financial stability and stock price momentum are relatively weaker, which may warrant caution.
What Are Insiders Doing with RELX Stock? In the last three months, there have been no insider transactions reported for RELX PLC. This lack of activity suggests that insiders may not view the stock as an attractive buying opportunity at current levels, which could reflect a cautious sentiment regarding the company's near-term prospects. Without insider buying, investors may want to consider broader market signals and company performance before making decisions.
What This Means for Investors Based on the GF Value™ assessment, RELX PLC is currently undervalued. The significant discrepancy between the current price and the estimated GF Value™ suggests that there may be a buying opportunity for investors looking for stocks with solid growth and profitability fundamentals.
For the complete analysis, visit the RELX PLC RELX stock page. You can also explore the GF Value™ page for detailed valuation methodology, or use the GuruFocus Stock Screener to find similar opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions What is RELX's GF Score™?
RELX's GF Score™ is 82/100, indicating a strong potential for long-term returns based on key financial metrics.
Is RELX overvalued or undervalued?
RELX is currently undervalued according to the GF Value™, with a significant margin of safety based on its current price compared to its intrinsic value.
What is RELX's P/E ratio?
RELX's P/E ratio is 20.9x, which is significantly below its 5-year median P/E of 32.8x, indicating that the stock is trading at a lower valuation compared to its historical levels.
This stock alert was generated using automated technology and GuruFocus financial data to provide readers with timely and accurate market reporting. This content was reviewed by GuruFocus editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].
Disclosures I/We may personally own shares in some of the companies mentioned above. However, those positions are not material to either the company or to my/our portfolios.
RELX PLC (RELX - Free Report) has been beaten down lately with too much selling pressure. While the stock has lost 11.4% over the past four weeks, there is light at the end of the tunnel as it is now in oversold territory and Wall Street analysts expect the company to report better earnings than they predicted earlier.
We use Relative Strength Index (RSI), one of the most commonly used technical indicators, for spotting whether a stock is oversold. This is a momentum oscillator that measures the speed and change of price movements.
RSI oscillates between zero and 100. Usually, a stock is considered oversold when its RSI reading falls below 30.
Technically, every stock oscillates between being overbought and oversold irrespective of the quality of their fundamentals. And the beauty of RSI is that it helps you quickly and easily check if a stock's price is reaching a point of reversal.
So, by this measure, if a stock has gotten too far below its fair value just because of unwarranted selling pressure, investors may start looking for entry opportunities in the stock for benefiting from the inevitable rebound.
However, like every investing tool, RSI has its limitations, and should not be used alone for making an investment decision.
Here's Why RELX Could Experience a TurnaroundThe RSI reading of 26.82 for RELX is an indication that the heavy selling could be in the process of exhausting itself, so the stock could bounce back in a quest for reaching the old equilibrium of supply and demand.
The RSI value is not the only factor that indicates a potential turnaround for the stock in the near term. On the fundamental side, there has been strong agreement among the sell-side analysts covering the stock in raising earnings estimates for the current year. Over the last 30 days, the consensus EPS estimate for RELX has increased 2.1%. And an upward trend in earnings estimate revisions usually translates into price appreciation in the near term.
Moreover, RELX currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), which means it is in the top 20% of more than 4,000 stocks that we rank based on trends in earnings estimate revisions and EPS surprises. This is a more conclusive indication of the stock's potential turnaround in the near term. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> .
On June 03, 2026, we delve into the DCF analysis for RELX PLC (RELX), a company that has experienced significant price fluctuations recently. The stock has seen
Shared auto policy data will help commercial and multi-line insurers better segment and price risk for business owners
, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today announced the launch of LexisNexis® Current Carrier® Commercial, which is designed to provide critical insights that help commercial insurers overcome persistent data gaps and inefficiencies in policy verification. LexisNexis Current Carrier Commercial empowers insurers with actionable insights to help improve underwriting, rating and operational performance.
A contributory solution, LexisNexis Current Carrier Commercial utilizes proprietary data contributed by participating insurers to offer a more comprehensive view of a business' commercial policy history during the underwriting process. The information about current and prior insurance policy history along with drivers and vehicles can be easily aggregated into one view, which helps insurers make more informed decisions with greater efficiency, helping to close the information gaps in their own book of business. By contributing policy data, carriers not only gain access to a more comprehensive view of their prospects, but they also unlock broader value across the contributory data ecosystem, from automated prefill capabilities and renewal monitoring to enhanced claims handling and industry-level insights.
"Estimates show an average 425,000 new businesses launch each monthi, which can create challenges for commercial insurers who are underwriting these risks – from various process inefficiencies to undisclosed information or incomplete details on current insurance policies. According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions research, 68% of insurers believe that up to 30% of their commercial insurance claims may arise from undisclosed drivers," said Brandy Hoffmeister, senior director, insurance product management, at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "With more than 37 years of experience delivering contributory solutions, we've seen firsthand how shared data can help empower carriers to see beyond their book, helping improve risk assessment, strengthen profitability and spark future innovation."
Key Benefits of Current Carrier Commercial:
Gain more insights: Access comprehensive insurance policy, undisclosed driver and vehicle information to support more informed decision-making, tiering and rating. Streamline coverage verification: Verify coverage details more quickly and efficiently. Reduce costs: Minimize expenses associated with unreliable or missing prior coverage information. Confirm policy information: Ensure better accuracy by confirming insurance policy details upfront, eliminating the need for manual collection. The solution aggregates data across four commercial auto insurance categories:
Policy Details Policyholder Information Vehicle Details Driver Details "Through this more holistic view, insurance carriers can help fine-tune risk segmentation, improve premium growth, reduce expenses and deliver a better customer experience," said Hoffmeister.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions continues to invest in innovation and enhance the value of its solutions like LexisNexis Current Carrier Commercial. Leveraging advanced content extraction techniques including the normalization of contributory data, the solution can easily find and pull specific pieces of information like names, dates or key data points from large amounts of text and/or documents to help insurers streamline coverage verification, risk segmentation and benefit from actionable insights.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions in Commercial Insurance
LexisNexis Risk Solutions works with the top 25 commercial auto carriers, reinforcing its role as a trusted data steward. LexisNexis Risk Solutions enforces strict data access protocols to ensure that information is available only to participating insurance companies and authorized affiliates.
LexisNexis Current Carrier Commercial joins the portfolio of commercial insurance solutions and commercial auto offerings such as LexisNexis® C.L.U.E.® Commercial and LexisNexis® Attract™ for Commercial. For more information, visit LexisNexis Current Carrier Commercial.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data, sophisticated analytics platforms and technology solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
Media Contact:
Emma Valenti
Sr. Communications Specialist, Insurance
LexisNexis Risk Solutions
[email protected]
+1 470.643.5848
i Commerce Institute. (n.d.). New businesses started every year. Retrieved January 8, 2026, from https://www.commerceinstitute.com/new-businesses-started-every-year/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20the%20US%20Census,of%205%2C380%2C477%20new%20businesses%20started%20in%202021. and U.S Census Bureau. (n.d.). Business formation statistics: Current data. Retrieved January 8, 2026, from https://www.census.gov/econ/currentdata/?programCode=BFS&startYear=2004&endYear=2026&categories[]=TOTAL&dataType=BA_BA&geoLevel=US&adjusted=1¬Adjusted=1&errorData=0
When Senra CEO Jordan Black was a SpaceX engineer, he took on the job of scaling up the company’s wire harnesses to support production of Starship, the company’s next-generation rocket.
Wire harnesses are what they sound like: the internal electrical cabling that runs through a rocketship, car, plane, or tractor and becomes increasingly important the smarter those vehicles get. They’re bespoke, put together by technicians who are, functionally, experienced craftspeople.
“I traveled all over the world to go visit wire harness companies,” Black told TechCrunch last month. “It really hasn’t changed since the Cold War era of wooden tables [and] manual processes.”
Black and co-founder Benjamin Shanahan started Senra in 2023 to offer a more modern solution to vehicle manufacturers. Today, the startup is announcing a $65 million Series B round, co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund, among others.
Serna isn’t looking to take humans out of the handmaking process—at least not while robots find manipulating wires a challenge and relevant training data remains scarce. Instead, it’s turning to software tools and other forms of automation to modernize aspects of the traditional manual work.
The company is benefiting from the surge of money into U.S. manufacturing, particularly the defense industrial base. While Black couldn’t disclose customers, he said they include builders of “anything from submarines and maritime vehicles, to defense vehicle systems on land, to launch vehicles, to satellites.”
If it doesn’t sound immediately important, consider a recent wire harness disaster. In 2023, Boeing discovered that its Starliner spacecraft’s wiring was held together with flammable tape, forcing an expensive delay while the entire wiring system was redone.
Black points to that experience as a reason to raise the standards for wire harnessing, using automated systems to track materials and engineering changes. “Having it all in the same software is probably the most important thing, because it’s all the little inputs that happen that can make a catastrophic change down the road,” he said.
Senra uses Amp, a proprietary software platform, to standardize the inputs throughout the wiring process and produce a digital twin to guide its technicians, who are trained by the company in what Black says is the only federally certified wire harness training program. The company is also, as it scales, finding ways to automate more of the process.
“It goes back to the Elon principle of, ‘automation is last,’” Black told TechCrunch. “We’re working on it now, but a lot of it the standardization and the foundation building that made SpaceX be able to scale something like rockets, which you could only build one a year if you were lucky, and now they do hundreds a year.”
Senra — which, by the way, is “harness” spelled backwards, minus the “h” and “s,” because Black says the company takes the “horsesh*t” out of harnesses — produces 1,000 each month across two different factories and plans to increae production to 10,000 a month in 2027.
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Tim Fernholz is a journalist who writes about technology, finance and public policy. He has closely covered the rise of the private space industry and is the author of Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Race. Formerly, he was a senior reporter at Quartz, the global business news site, for more than a decade, and began his career as a political reporter in Washington, D.C. You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected] or via an encrypted message to tim_fernholz.21 on Signal.
SpaceX stock NASDAQ:SPCX briefly looked unstoppable after the world’s largest initial public offering, but almost all the early excitement has now disappeared.
Shares closed Tuesday at $136.08, only $1.08, or 0.8%, above the $135 offering price.
The stock has fallen almost 40% from its June 16 intraday peak of $225.64, wiping an estimated $1.2 trillion from SpaceX’s implied market value.
Yet Wall Street remains strongly bullish. An average analyst target near $240 implies about 76% upside from Tuesday’s close, an estimate based on analysts’ forecasts, not a guaranteed rebound.
The post-IPO excitement has almost vanishedSpaceX priced its IPO at $135 on June 11 and began trading on Nasdaq the following day under the SPCX ticker.
Its shares opened at $150 before finishing their first session at $160.95, a 19% gain from the offer price.
The company ultimately raised $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their full allotment option.
By June 16, only its third trading session, the stock had touched an intraday record of $225.64.
The reversal has been just as dramatic. SpaceX has since surrendered nearly 40%, fallen below its first-day close and recorded three consecutive declines through Tuesday.
The IPO price now carries psychological as well as financial importance.
A sustained break below $135 would put the institutions that bought shares in the offering underwater and could further weaken confidence in a listing marketed as a rare opportunity to own Elon Musk’s launch, satellite-connectivity and AI businesses.
The decline is particularly striking because analysts have largely refused to lower their ambitious forecasts.
Roughly 80% of analysts covering SpaceX recommend buying the stock, while the average target is close to $240.
Evercore ISI became the latest broker to turn bullish on Tuesday, initiating coverage with an Outperform rating and a $230 target.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas has one of the highest mainstream targets at $300.
The bank’s thesis rests on SpaceX combining near-monopoly launch economics, the world’s largest low-Earth-orbit satellite network and a rapidly expanding AI-infrastructure operation.
Starlink could provide recurring cash flow, while Starship may eventually cut launch costs enough to unlock larger markets in communications, defence, lunar transport and orbital computing.
Jonas’s bullish scenario depends heavily on Starship becoming fully reusable and operating at an enormous scale.
Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan takes a more conservative approach but still rates SpaceX a Buy with a $205 target.
Goldman sees the company as positioned across space, connectivity and AI, with each market potentially developing into a multitrillion-dollar opportunity.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Colin Canfield has a $246 target and describes SpaceX as a “planetary infrastructure company”.
He argues that controlling rockets, satellite connectivity, AI computing and the X distribution platform creates vertical integration that conventional valuation models may struggle to capture.
The sell-off shows that investors are not accepting those assumptions without question.
SpaceX remains valued at roughly $1.8 trillion, is not expected to report a profit in 2026 and trades near 50 times estimated sales.
Share supply is another concern. The prospectus allows eligible pre-IPO holders to sell as much as 20% of their holdings shortly after SpaceX publishes its first quarterly results.
The report is expected in August, creating the prospect of substantially more stock entering the public market.
MoffettNathanson analyst Julie Zhu illustrates the sceptical case.
She initiated coverage with a Neutral rating and a $131 target, acknowledging the strength of SpaceX’s launch business while warning that the range of potential financial outcomes remains unusually wide.
Zhu told Business Insider that regulatory scrutiny was the largest long-term risk as SpaceX expands across connected industries.
She argued that vertical integration could eventually attract the type of antitrust attention already directed at dominant technology platforms.
Item 1 of 2 A man takes images of the new iPhone 17 Pro smartphones as they are displayed at the Apple store in Beijing's Sanlitun area during the start of sales in Beijing, China September 19, 2025. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
[1/2]A man takes images of the new iPhone 17 Pro smartphones as they are displayed at the Apple store in Beijing's Sanlitun area during the start of sales in Beijing, China September 19, 2025.... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - China's cyberspace regulator said on Wednesday that Apple's on-device generative AI service, Apple Intelligence, has been registered for use on iPhones in China, paving the way for the long-anticipated rollout of the service in the country.
China requires companies to register large language models and generative AI services with regulators before making them available to the public.
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Apple Intelligence will incorporate capabilities from AI models developed by Baidu and Alibaba, a source familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The development could help bolster Apple's position in China, where consumers have been waiting for the rollout of Apple Intelligence.
Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab said in a statement to Reuters that its Qwen model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence across Apple's iPhone (iOS), iPad (iPadOS), Mac (macOS) and Vision Pro (visionOS) operating systems in China.
Apple is also working with Baidu to develop Apple Intelligence features for Chinese iPhone users, a Baidu spokesperson said.
The regulator's statement did not give a launch date for Apple Intelligence in China.
Apple reported a 24.4% year-on-year increase in its China shipments in the second quarter.
Separately, ZTE's (000063.SZ), opens new tab Nubia-Doubao smartphone model was also registered with the cyberspace regulator.
Nubia is a smartphone brand owned by telecoms equipment maker ZTE, which works with ByteDance to produce the AI-focused Doubao smartphone.
Reporting by Ethan Wang, Che Pan and Liz Lee. Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Liz Lee covers a range of China-related stories from Beijing, including diplomacy, policy, economic data, and extreme weather events. She has reported on breaking news and enterprise stories since joining Reuters in Malaysia. She previously focused on corporate deals and news in Kuala Lumpur, from IPOs to labour issues. Liz is a fellow at the International Strategic Forum and is part of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Her work also contributed to a story selected as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, which looked into scam centres in Southeast Asia.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 2.24%), also known as just SpaceX, is a company that could disrupt many different industries, including space travel and telecom. But one that investors may not have considered is the smartphone market. While its Starlink service offers mobile internet for smartphones, CEO Elon Musk has also hinted that entering the smartphone market may be a possibility.
Image source: Getty Images.
The company reportedly has a prototype for a device that's similar to an iPhone According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX has been working on a device that has a slimmer design than Apple's iPhone. While it's designed to help people interact with artificial intelligence (AI), its capabilities could certainly extend beyond that, as it's expected to use a Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm.
The device is nowhere near launching, and there is no certainty that it will even come to market. But with Musk being critical of Apple's restrictive app store policies, it also wouldn't be surprising if he were to want to bring his own smartphone or similar device to market, one that could rival Apple's popular devices. He has suggested in the past that while he isn't thrilled with the idea of doing so, he may feel compelled.
"The idea of making a phone makes me want to die. But if we have to make a phone, we will. But we will aspire not to make a phone."
Is SpaceX the ultimate growth stock to own? One of the most compelling reasons to invest in SpaceX despite its high valuation is that it has some tremendous growth opportunities. Not only can its reusable rockets revolutionize space travel, but its Starlink business could make it a big player in the telecom sector. And its biggest opportunities are in artificial intelligence (AI), with the company planning to put data centers into space. SpaceX arguably already has too many places to spend and invest in as it is. A smartphone may be a possibility down the road, but I wouldn't expect that to be a focus for the business at this stage.
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SpaceX has already been incurring billions in losses, and investing in too many different areas at once could prove to be costly and risky. While making risky investments can work for large tech companies with massive resources and strong financials, that strategy may not be as sound for a company such as SpaceX, which still needs to find its way out of the red.
SpaceX may be an exciting stock to own, but it's also a highly risky one, and there are arguably far better growth stocks out there for investors that offer a better mix of growth and safety.
A specially designed Google logo, during the opening of Google's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Berlin, Germany, March 5, 2026. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesLUXEMBOURG, July 15 (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit Google on Wednesday urged Europe's top court to dismiss EU antitrust regulators' appeal against a lower court ruling that scrapped a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) fine, saying the regulators' arguments were flawed.
The dispute reached the Court of Justice of the European Union after regulators appealed a 2024 General Court ruling that annulled the fine imposed on Google in 2019. The lower court cited errors in the European Commission's assessment of the case.
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The Commission, the EU's competition watchdog, said Google used restrictive clauses in contracts with publishers that prevented rivals from placing search advertisements on the publishers' websites, reinforcing Google's dominance in online search advertising.
The Commission said the practices ran from 2006 to 2016. Google, whose AdSense platform provides search advertising, removed the contested clauses from publisher agreements in 2016.
"The Commission's new arguments are flawed. The General Court's reasons are clear and complete," he told the panel of five judges.
Holmes said the Commission had ignored evidence showing Google's rivals had substantial opportunities to compete.
Commission lawyer Anthony Dawes criticised the lower court's ruling, saying it imposed an unprecedented obligation on regulators to analyse issues already settled by case law.
"This finding turns case law on its head," he said, adding that the lower court's reasoning would effectively treat exclusive clauses as lawful by default.
A court adviser is due to issue a non-binding opinion on November 12, with a final ruling expected in the following months.
The AdSense fine was one of four EU antitrust penalties that have cost Google €9.5 billion during its nearly two-decade dispute with the Commission. The lower court's decision to annul the fine marked a rare legal setback for the EU watchdog.
The case is C-826/24 P Commission v Google and Alphabet (Google AdSense)
($1 = 0.8771 euros)
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
An agenda-setting and market-moving journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 21-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high profile mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies' shares and helped investors decide on their next move. Her knowledge and experience of European antitrust laws and developments helped her break stories on Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations. She has previously reported on Greek politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched above its weight on the international stage, as well as on Dutch corporate giants and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.
Over 30 years ago, the advent and proliferation of the internet vaulted the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite to new heights. After a multidecade wait, the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is having the same effect on equity markets.
The most influential businesses on Wall Street that have embraced AI, such as Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL +2.04%)(GOOG +1.93%), social media maven Meta Platforms (META +0.66%), and iPhone maker Apple (AAPL 0.77%), have been handsomely rewarded. Unfortunately, AI is reshaping a trillion-dollar catalyst for Wall Street, which comes with potentially terrifying implications for the second-priciest stock market in history.
Image source: Getty Images.
The stock market's most influential companies want their piece of a $15.7 trillion pie Empowering software and systems with the tools to make autonomous, split-second decisions is, arguably, the largest long-term addressable opportunity we've ever witnessed. According to PwC analysts, AI can create up to $15.7 trillion in global economic value by 2030.
There are several ways to approach this technology from an investment standpoint. While hardware providers have shone brightly, thanks in part to graphics processing unit and memory/storage supply shortages, it's AI application companies that are now garnering attention.
Since Alphabet began incorporating generative AI and large language model capabilities into its cloud infrastructure service platform, Google Cloud, sales have accelerated. In the March-ended quarter, this high-margin platform delivered 63% year-over-year sales growth.
"Google Cloud revenues grew 63% with backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter to over $460 billion."
-- Qualtrim (@qualtrim) April 29, 2026 It's been a similar encouraging story for Meta Platforms, which has integrated generative AI into its global advertising platforms. Enabling businesses to tailor static and video messages to users can improve click-through rates and bolster Meta's unrivaled social media ad pricing power.
Apple is also benefiting from its rollout of Apple Intelligence, the company's personal AI system built into its physical devices (e.g., iPhone, iPad, and Mac). Apple's sales growth has reignited since the introduction of Apple Intelligence.
Image source: Getty Images.
Aggressive investments in AI come at a steep cost to Wall Street However, aggressive investments in AI infrastructure have completely reshaped what's been a core catalyst for the stock market since the start of 2018: stock buybacks.
Beginning in 2018, after President Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law, the peak marginal corporate income tax rate was permanently lowered from 35% to 21%. With businesses retaining more of their earnings, share repurchases picked up significantly. In 2025, S&P 500 companies were estimated to have repurchased more than $1 trillion of their own stock, according to research by The Motley Fool.
For companies with steady or growing net income, buybacks can boost earnings per share and make them more attractive to value-seeking investors.
But the AI revolution has altered this dynamic. After Alphabet repurchased $346 billion of its stock over the trailing decade (ending Dec. 31, 2025), it announced an $84.75 billion equity offering on June 2 to fund its AI ambitions.
Companies are issuing shares more, buying back less. pic.twitter.com/GbVQ38W59I
-- Cassandra Unchained (@michaeljburry) July 10, 2026 Meta, which has spent over $230 billion on buybacks over the trailing decade (ending Sept. 30, 2025), didn't spend a dime on buybacks in the first quarter of 2026 and, according to reports, has considered an equity offering to build out its AI data center.
Meanwhile, Apple has bought back more of its own stock ($853 billion) since 2013 than any other public company. It's spent 25% less on buybacks through the first six months of fiscal 2026 than it did through the same period in the previous year.
The AI revolution is taking stock buybacks off the table, which may further expose a pricey stock market that's never sustained premiums of this magnitude for any extended period.
Amazon (AMZN +0.18%) recently announced that it would spend at least €10 billion ($11.4 billion) to modernize its European fulfillment network with robots over the next few years. These robots include Proteus, its fully autonomous warehouse robot; STARK, which picks up heavy bins from conveyor belts and stacks them into carts; and Vulcan, its first tactile-sensing robot that can handle a wide variety of packaging shapes and materials with extreme precision.
Will Amazon's robotics expansion create headwinds for Symbotic (SYM +2.90%), or could it accelerate the automation arms race and drive its stock even higher?
Image source: Getty Images.
What does Symbotic do? Symbotic develops fully autonomous warehouse robots that process pallets and cases. It claims a $50 million investment in just one of its modules (which includes its robots and software) can generate $250 million in savings over 25 years.
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Walmart (WMT 0.94%) is Symbotic's largest customer and one of its top investors. Symbotic generated 85% of its revenue from Walmart in fiscal 2025 (which ended last September), and it holds a contract to automate all of its U.S. regional distribution centers by 2034. Symbotic also acquired Walmart's own robotics division in early 2025, and the two companies are co-developing automated micro-fulfillment systems for individual stores.
Symbotic's other smaller customers include Target, Albertsons, C&S Wholesale, and GreenBox -- a warehouse-as-a-service joint venture it formed with its other major investor, SoftBank.
Why Amazon's move could be great news for Symbotic Amazon's new warehouse robots might initially seem like a threat to Symbotic, since the e-commerce giant could eventually sell its robots to third-party customers to offset its own spending. However, most of Symbotic's revenue still comes from Amazon's top competitor, Walmart, which will likely ramp up its own robotics spending in response to Amazon's accelerated investments.
That automation "arms race" could also drive other retail giants to sign more deals with Symbotic and its industry peers. According to Fortune Business Insights, the warehouse automation market could expand at a 16.1% CAGR from 2026 to 2034 as more of those tailwinds kick in.
From fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2028, analysts expect Symbotic's revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at CAGRs of 26% and 73%, respectively.
With an enterprise value of $3.2 billion, it still looks undervalued at one times this year's sales and 10 times its adjusted EBITDA. Therefore, this underappreciated robotics stock could still be a great long-term play on the booming warehouse automation market.
Leo Sun has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Symbotic, Target, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
The Operator’s Era at Amazon When Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) handed the keys to Andy Jassy on July 5, 2021, the stock was coming off a pandemic sugar high. Jassy, the architect of AWS, inherited a bloated cost structure and a valuation that had already priced in the future. His response was unglamorous: layoffs, a return-to-office push, a 20-for-1 stock split in 2022, and a brutal focus on retail margins.
Then came the pivot to AI. Under Jassy, Amazon’s custom chip business (Graviton, Trainium, Nitro) crossed a $20 billion annual run rate, posting triple-digit year-over-year growth, and AWS landed compute commitments from OpenAI (roughly 2 GW of Trainium starting 2027), Anthropic (up to 5 GW), and Meta. Advertising quietly ballooned to over $70 billion TTM. Kuiper/Leo satellites and Zoox robotaxis remain optionality plays.
Your $10,000 Bought Business Progress, Not Fireworks Here is how that Jassy-day stake looks today, along with standard benchmarks:
Jassy Tenure (July 6, 2021, to July 14, 2026)
Initial Investment: $10,000 Current Value: $13,466 (34.66% total return) S&P 500 (same period): $17,366 (73.66%) Amazon S&P 500 1-Year Return 9.66% 20.33% 5-Year Return 36.31% 72.93% 10-Year Return 573.04% 248.34% The uncomfortable truth: Jassy’s tenure has trailed a simple index fund by a wide margin. That is less about execution and more about the entry price he inherited. The operational story is stronger: AWS grew 28% in Q1 2026 (its fastest in 15 quarters) at a 37.7% operating margin, and EPS of $2.78 came in well ahead of the $1.65 consensus.
Grading Jassy, and What Comes Next Our grade for Jassy: B+. Retail margins are healthier, AWS reaccelerated, and the AI infrastructure land grab has materialized. The stock lag is a valuation inheritance issue, not a strategy failure. Points off for long-term debt climbing to $119.1 billion from $65.6 billion, as well as TTM free cash flow collapsing 95% to $1.2 billion as capex ramps.
With Bezos still executive chair and the AI capex cycle intensifying, speculation about an eventual leadership change will grow if returns stay muted. While nothing suggests a near-term change is imminent, investors should not assume Jassy runs Amazon for another decade.
The Bull and Bear Case From Here A $10,000 stake in Amazon today makes sense for investors who believe the roughly $200 billion of 2026 capex earns a real return through AWS AI workloads, advertising, and Trainium adoption. However, those who think Anthropic-related gains inflate earnings, masking a P/FCF that has ballooned, and that tariff risk threatens retail will want to shy away from the stock. Analysts are overwhelmingly bullish, and their $312.91 consensus target suggests room to run. The setup skews constructive, but the easy money on this stock was made before Jassy took over.
Meet America's Newest $1b Unicorn (Sponsor) A US startup just passed a $1 billion private valuation, joining billion-dollar private companies like OpenAI and ByteDance. Unlike those other unicorns, you can invest in EnergyX right now; but only until July 16.
Over 50,000 people already have, along with global giants like General Motors and POSCO.
Here's why there's so much interest: EnergyX's patented tech can recover up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That's a big deal, as demand for lithium is expected to 5X current production levels by 2040. Become an early-stage EnergyX shareholder before the 7/16 investment deadline.
Anchorage Digital, home to America’s first federally chartered crypto bank, today announced expanded support for the TRON Network with native TRX staking and custody for TRC-20 assets. The expansion enables institutions to securely custody TRON-based assets and participate in network staking through the same regulated platform they already use for digital asset custody. TRON Network is governed by TRON DAO, the community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps).
Institutions can now stake TRX directly through Anchorage Digital, enabling them to earn protocol staking rewards while maintaining the security, operational controls, and regulatory standards they expect. Staking rewards are generated by the TRON protocol and vary based on validator selection and applicable platform fees. The launch also includes support for TRC-20 assets, giving institutions broader access to tokens issued on the TRON network.
Earlier this year, Anchorage Digital added custody support for the TRON blockchain, allowing institutions to hold TRX through both its regulated platform and Porto, Anchorage Digital’s self-custody wallet. Today’s launch builds on that foundation by adding native staking and broader support for the TRON ecosystem.
“Institutions are looking for the ability to participate in leading networks where on-chain activity and adoption continue to grow,” said Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital. “TRX staking is another step in our commitment to supporting the digital asset ecosystems our clients care about. By adding native staking alongside custody, we’re giving institutions a compliant way to engage more deeply with TRON, a network that sits at the center of the stablecoin economy.”
“Expanding support with Anchorage Digital is an important milestone for the TRON ecosystem and the institutions building on it,” said Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. “Custody is the first step, but staking allows institutions to become active participants in the network. Secure, regulated infrastructure is what helps turn institutional interest into participation.”
TRON has become a leading blockchain for stablecoin settlement, with the largest circulating supply of USD Tether (USDT), which currently exceeds $90 billion. The network has also grown to more than 392 million total user accounts, processed over 14 billion transactions, and reached more than $26 billion in total value locked.
As institutional adoption of digital assets grows, Anchorage Digital’s expanded TRON integration provides secure, regulated access to one of the world’s most active blockchain networks. Through this integration, Anchorage Digital is broadening institutional participation in the TRON ecosystem, while TRON continues to strengthen the infrastructure supporting stablecoin settlement and on-chain financial activity.
Anchorage Digital is a global crypto platform that enables institutions to participate in digital assets through trading, staking, custody, governance, settlement, stablecoin issuance, and the industry’s leading security infrastructure. Home to Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., the first federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., Anchorage Digital also serves institutions through Anchorage Digital Singapore, which is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore; Anchorage Digital NY, which holds a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services; and self-custody wallet Porto by Anchorage Digital. Anchorage Digital Bank also offers fiat custody services through the use of an FDIC-insured, licensed sub-custodian. Anchorage Digital is funded by leading institutions including Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, Goldman Sachs, KKR, and Visa, with a valuation of $4.2 billion. Founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California, Anchorage Digital has offices in New York, New York; Porto, Portugal; Singapore; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Learn more at anchorage.com, on X @Anchorage, and on LinkedIn.
TRON DAO is a community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and dApps.
Founded in September 2017, the TRON blockchain has experienced significant growth since its MainNet launch in May 2018. Until recently, TRON hosted the largest circulating supply of USD Tether (USDT) stablecoin, which currently exceeds $90 billion. As of July 2026, the TRON blockchain has recorded over 392 million in total user accounts, more than 14 billion in total transactions, and over $26 billion in total value locked (TVL), based on TRONSCAN. Recognized as the global settlement layer for stablecoin transactions and everyday purchases with proven success, TRON is “Moving Trillions, Empowering Billions.”
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Tether froze 4 TRON wallets holding around $131M in USDT linked to Iran’s IRGC and central bank. The frozen addresses are associated with entities sanctioned by the U.S. Tether has frozen four wallets on the TRON network holding a combined $131 million in USDT. The funds have been linked to two of the most heavily sanctioned entities, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Central Bank of Iran. Moreover, both are sitting on the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC sanctions list.
The move did not happen in isolation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the action publicly, stating the Treasury is committed to disrupting Iran’s use of digital assets for illicit financial activity. Furthermore, OFAC sanctioned the wallets directly, and the freeze followed.
Where Did the Money Come From? Most of the funds are traced back to two sources: DTC Pay, a payment service provider, and Bitso, a cryptocurrency exchange.
Neither has been accused of wrongdoing at this stage, but the fact that $131 million moved through identifiable platforms before landing in sanctioned wallets. It raises serious questions about the due diligence happening across the payment and exchange layer.
Tether has not yet disclosed the official reason for the blacklisting publicly. However, the established nexus between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Central Bank of Iran provides the most comprehensive explanation of the situation.
How This Moves the Needle for the Broader Market? On the surface, a freeze of this size does not move markets directly. But what it does is send a very clear signal: stablecoin issuers are now active participants in sanctions enforcement. Not passive infrastructure. Significantly, for the broader crypto market, it shows that Tether can and will cooperate with regulators when pushed. That’s reassuring for institutional players who worry about regulatory exposure.
On the other hand, it proves that USDT on TRON can be frozen at any point, which quietly rattles the narrative around censorship resistance that a large portion of the crypto community still holds onto.
Additionally, the statement of Bessent made one thing clear: that the U.S. is far from finished. Treasury will continue tracking illicit crypto flows, and more freezes could follow.
For exchanges and payment providers moving large USDT volumes, the pressure to tighten compliance is no longer optional. Also, the broader implications are straightforward: the inherent traceability of distributed ledger technology ensures that the movement of funds remains permanently auditable.
Crypto Market Highlights
MemeCore Flashes Strength: Can It Extend Its Bullish Streak?
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The exchange's user base represents about 43% of the estimated 741 million people worldwide who currently own cryptocurrency.
Binance has marked its ninth anniversary by highlighting strong user growth and expanding beyond digital assets into traditional financial products. The exchange now reports 323 million registered users across more than 100 countries, reflecting its growing global presence.
The scale of that user base becomes clearer when placed in the context of global cryptocurrency adoption. According to the firm’s report, its users represent about 43% of the estimated 741 million people worldwide who currently own cryptocurrency. Notably, this compares with a global crypto user population of fewer than six million when Binance launched in July 2017.
User Growth and Trading Activity Registered users on Binance grew by another 7% during the first half of 2026 despite mixed market conditions. The company also reported a 9% rise in institutional users over the same period, pointing to continued participation from larger market players.
This growth in user activity was accompanied by higher trading volumes. Binance’s cumulative trading volume reached $156 trillion after adding $11.4 trillion during the first six months of the year. That pushed total trading activity 7.8% above the level recorded at the end of 2025.
Expansion Into Traditional Financial Products The exchange also reported steady activity outside its crypto business through newer financial products. Monthly trading volume for its traditional finance offerings has remained above $80 billion since March, according to the company.
One of the latest additions to that business is direct stock trading, which Binance introduced in June as part of its broader financial services strategy. The product reached $1 billion in assets under management within 30 days and generated more than $3 billion in cumulative trading volume.
The company’s tokenized U.S. equities, known as bStocks, also recorded early growth after launch. Binance said the offering reached $100 million in assets under management within two weeks, while 47% of trading activity occurred outside regular U.S. market hours.
You may also like: Strategy or Binance: Who’s Sitting on More Unrealized Bitcoin Losses? CryptoQuant Weighs In UK Investors Sue Binance and Former CEO Changpeng Zhao for $200M XRP Whales Are Moving On, and Binance Is No Longer Their Top Choice Co-CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng said the company aims to serve both retail users and institutional participants through a wider range of financial products. They added that recent launches, including stocks and tokenized assets, support Binance’s goal of improving access to global markets.
To celebrate the milestone, Binance launched a community campaign called “Built by You,” featuring up to $4.5 million in rewards and an interactive virtual experience. The anniversary comes as regulatory frameworks continue to evolve in major markets and institutional participation in digital assets remains a key industry trend.
ANSEM and CASHCAT have become two of the biggest memecoin success stories of 2026. Both started with relatively small communities before attracting millions of dollars in trading volume and producing remarkable returns for early participants. Their rapid rise has once again shifted investor attention toward projects that are still in the presale stage.
Among those gaining interest is MemeToro ($MT), a BNB Chain project combining AI-driven launch tools with a broader SocialFi ecosystem rather than focusing on a single memecoin.
ANSEM and CASHCAT Took Different Paths to Success Although both tokens generated significant returns, they reached the spotlight through different narratives.
ANSEM, also known as The Black Bull, is a Solana memecoin inspired by crypto commentator Ansem. During July 2026, the token surged more than 166,000% in one week, reaching a market capitalization between $370 million and $417 million. At one point, it even overtook the Official TRUMP token in market value while generating more than twice its daily trading volume.
Its distribution model also attracted attention.
Instead of locking founder tokens, large portions of the supply were gradually distributed to the community through airdrops, encouraging wider participation and social engagement.
CASHCAT followed a different story.
Built on Robinhood Chain shortly after the network launched, the token became the chain’s flagship memecoin within days. Several early buyers reportedly turned investments worth only a few hundred dollars into more than $1 million as the market capitalization climbed above $120 million.
The success of both projects demonstrates that strong community narratives, timing, and blockchain adoption often work together to drive memecoin momentum.
Why AI Is Becoming Part of New Token Launches The next stage of memecoin development may involve more automation than previous cycles.
Instead of depending entirely on manual research or social media trends, newer platforms are beginning to integrate AI into the token creation process.
MemeToro’s AI agent has been designed to monitor market discussions, online communities, news events, and social activity continuously. When the system identifies a growing narrative, it assists users by generating the core elements needed for a new token, including branding assets, token concepts, and launch information.
Every proposed launch can be reviewed before deployment under a fair-launch model, reducing many of the manual steps traditionally involved in creating new blockchain projects.
This approach reflects a broader industry trend where artificial intelligence is increasingly being used as a development tool rather than simply a trading assistant.
Every Memecoin Cycle Creates New Winners ANSEM and CASHCAT illustrate how quickly new narratives can reshape the cryptocurrency market. Both projects benefited from strong communities, favorable timing, and growing blockchain ecosystems.
As the market continues evolving, attention is gradually expanding beyond individual memecoins toward platforms that help create and support future projects.
MemeToro ($MT) represents that changing direction by combining AI-powered launch technology with SocialFi, staking, and prediction markets, giving investors another segment of the memecoin market to evaluate alongside today’s leading community tokens.
More Information on MemeToro ($MT) Presale Here:
Website: https://memetoro.com/
X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt
Telegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mt
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The BNB Foundation has officially announced the successful completion of the 36th quarterly BNB token burn by BNB Chain.
Here are the facts and figures from the latest burn:
Total BNB burned: 1,615,827.795 BNB Approximate value in USD around the time of burn: ~$931,702,464 Transaction ID (TXID) for BNB burn: View transactionRemaining to be burned: Check real-time data hereRemaining total supply: 133,166,127.91 BNB*at time of writing 15 July, 2026 at 10:35AM UTC.
What You Need to Know About the BNB BurnBNB is the native coin of the BNB Chain ecosystem, essential for powering its multifaceted Web3 environment. It supports transactions on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC), the opBNB L2s, and BNB Greenfield blockchain. Besides transaction fees, BNB serves as a governance token, granting holders the ability to participate in the BNB Chain’s decentralized on-chain governance. Additionally, BNB functions as a strategic reserve asset and enters the radar of more mainstream financial institutions, driving ecosystem growth and incentivizing adoption.
Following its mainnet launch on April 18, 2019, BNB transitioned from the Ethereum Network to BNB Chain. "Build and Build" is the philosophy behind BNB, reflecting its role in fostering development within the ecosystem. BNB employs an Auto-Burn system to gradually reduce its total supply to 100,000,000 BNB. The burn amount is adjusted based on BNB's price and the number of blocks generated on BSC during a quarter, ensuring transparency and predictability.
BNB Auto BurnThe BNB Auto-Burn provides an independently auditable, objective process. The figures are reported quarterly, and the mechanism is independent of the Binance centralized exchange.
This quarter's burn and future burns will occur directly on BSC due to the BNB Chain Fusion. The corresponding BNB amount will be sent to the "blackhole" address: 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dEaD.
Note: Due to the recent Lorentz, Maxwell and Fermi upgrades, BSC is producing blocks more frequently, compared with the time when the Auto Burn formula was originally defined. The parameters used in the formula have been adjusted to keep the idea and spirit consistent.
BNB Real-time BurnAdditionally, BNB implements a real-time burning mechanism based on gas fees. BSC validators determine the ratio of gas fees collected in each block, which is burned at a fixed rate. Since the introduction of BEP95, roughly 291K BNB has been burnt under this mechanism.
Further Reading35th BNB BurnDesign Mechanisms of the BNB TokenReal-Time Burning MechanismWhat is BNB Greenfield?What is opBNB?
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
BNB Chain just torched another $932 million worth of its native token. The network’s 36th quarterly Auto-Burn removed approximately 1.62 million BNB from circulation in mid-July, continuing a yearslong campaign to cut the token’s total supply in half.
How the burn works BNB Chain’s Auto-Burn is a formula-driven mechanism that calculates how many tokens to destroy based on two inputs: the average price of BNB during the quarter and the number of blocks produced on the network.
When BNB’s price drops, the formula actually burns more tokens. When the price rises, fewer get destroyed. It’s a built-in stabilizer designed to maintain consistent dollar-value burns regardless of market conditions.
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This latest burn slightly exceeded the pre-estimated target of 1.615 million BNB, coming in at 1.62 million tokens. The previous burn on April 15, 2026, destroyed 1,569,307.34 BNB valued at approximately $1.02 billion.
This mechanism operates independently from the Binance centralized exchange. BNB Chain is its own network, and the Auto-Burn is a protocol-level function, not a corporate treasury decision by Binance the company.
The long road to 100 million BNB launched with a total supply of 200 million tokens. The stated goal has always been to reduce that number to 100 million through a combination of burn mechanisms, effectively halving the supply over time.
With this latest burn, the network has now destroyed over 67 million BNB tokens since the program began. That puts it roughly two-thirds of the way toward the 100 million target, with about 33 million more tokens needing to be destroyed before the mission is complete.
What this means for investors The fact that this burn came in at $932 million compared to the previous quarter’s $1.02 billion largely reflects price movement rather than any decline in network activity, given that the Auto-Burn formula adjusts based on BNB’s price. Investors should pay attention to the underlying metrics: block production, transaction counts, and DeFi activity on the chain, not just the headline burn number.
Complementing the Auto-Burn are ongoing real-time burns that apply to a portion of gas fees as dictated by BEP-95, along with the Pioneer Burn Program, which compensates users for specific lost tokens.
The next quarterly burn will likely occur in October 2026, consistent with the program’s schedule of burns in January, April, July, and October each year. By then, the total destroyed supply should cross 68.5 million tokens, leaving roughly 31.5 million to go before the network reaches its halving target.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
BNB Chain completed its 36th quarterly BNB burn today, with a total of 1,615,827.795 BNB destroyed, valued at approximately $931.7 million at the time. The burn was executed via BSC’s on-chain Auto-Burn mechanism, and the transaction hash has been made public. The remaining total BNB supply stands at around 133.17 million. BNB’s ongoing goal of reducing its total supply to 100 million is aimed at boosting its deflationary properties and supporting the growth of the BNB Chain ecosystem.
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Stellar (XLM) has shown little price movement following the Stellar Development Foundation’s announcement of its new partnership with the x402 Foundation. Technical analysis suggests the market is lacking a clear direction, with traders waiting on a decisive catalyst to trigger fresh momentum for XLM.
SDF Partners with x402 FoundationThe Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the nonprofit organization driving development and growth for the Stellar network, revealed that it has joined the x402 Foundation as a Premier member. SDF described the x402 Foundation as aiming to establish open standards for internet-native payments over HTTP, seeking to build broader frameworks for programmable and interoperable payment solutions.
SDF highlighted the potential benefits of the partnership, emphasizing that joining the x402 Foundation aligns Stellar with initiatives focused on scalable and programmable payments infrastructure. This move signals an intent to solidify Stellar’s position as a leading force in the future of internet payments, according to the foundation’s social media update.
The x402 Foundation, officially launched under the Linux Foundation’s oversight, focuses on stewarding x402—a set of open standards for modern payment protocols over the web.
Mini dictionary: x402 Foundation, a nonprofit organization governed by the Linux Foundation, focuses on developing open standards for internet-native payments, particularly through the HTTP protocol, to improve interoperability, programmability, and scalability in global financial systems.
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XLM’s role in programmable payment infrastructure could expand following SDF’s Premier membership in the x402 Foundation, yet traders have not shown strong buying interest to date.
Technical Analysis: Rangebound MarketThe current price of Stellar sits near $0.1846, marginally below the middle band of the Bollinger Bands, which stands at $0.1882. The next major resistance is positioned at the upper Bollinger Band at $0.2088, while support remains solid around the $0.1677 level at the lower band.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) currently hovers around 45, indicating neither clear bullish nor bearish momentum. While buyers are maintaining present price levels, the momentum has not been strong enough to confirm a breakout. As XLM continues to trade beneath the Bollinger Bands midline, it points to continued indecision in the market.
IndicatorValueImplicationCurrent Price$0.1846Near Bollinger Bands midlineBollinger Bands Midline$0.1882Key resistanceBollinger Bands Upper Band$0.2088Next major resistanceBollinger Bands Lower Band$0.1677Key supportRSI45Neutral-to-slightly bearishA firm daily close above $0.1882 could prompt further buying, while a move below $0.1677 may draw renewed selling pressure. For now, the price action remains within a well-defined range.
Stable Open Interest and Network ActivityAccording to CoinGlass, open interest in Stellar derivatives stands around $180 million, reflecting a cautious market environment where traders are not adding significant new leverage. This level of activity suggests that participants prefer to maintain their current positions, pending new developments that could shift sentiment.
On-chain data from DeFiLlama reveals that the number of active addresses on the Stellar network has remained relatively unchanged in recent weeks. This steady participation supports the network’s resilience, even as price movements have stalled.
If the price secures a close above $0.1882 resistance, XLM could target $0.2088. If support near $0.1677 fails, buyers may be prompted to defend that level, as seen previously.
Overall, the SDF’s collaboration with the x402 Foundation underlines the foundation’s commitment to long-term utility in payment infrastructure. However, charts and sentiment remain mixed, and the market appears to need a stronger catalyst for a significant price move.
While the latest partnership strengthens Stellar’s long-term narrative, traders continue to adopt a cautious stance, awaiting further developments that could influence direction.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
NEW YORK, July 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leading securities law firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and certain of the Company’s senior executives for securities fraud after its significant stock drop resulting from potential violations of the federal securities laws.
If you invested in Microsoft, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases/microsoft-class-action-lawsuit.
Key Details of the Microsoft ($MSFT) Class Action:
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 11, 2026Alleged Misconduct: Securities fraud alleging that Microsoft misled investors regarding its Azure cloud computing platform and AI chatbot CopilotStock Drop: January 28, 2026 – 10% Stock DropCourt: U.S. District Court for the Western District of WashingtonAction: Contact BFA Law to discuss your rights
Investors have until August 11, 2026 to ask the Court to be appointed to lead the case. The complaint asserts securities fraud claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on behalf of investors in Microsoft common stock. The class action is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. It is captioned City of St. Clair Shores Police and Fire Retirement System, et al., No. 26-cv-02071.
Why is Microsoft Being Sued for Securities Fraud?
Microsoft is a multinational technology company that develops software, cloud services, and devices. In recent years, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform named Azure has been Microsoft’s main growth driver. A key reason for Azure’s recent growth is Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment into AI, including the development of its own generative AI chatbot named Copilot.
According to the complaint, during the relevant period, Microsoft consistently touted Copilot’s best-in-class capabilities, which purportedly drove widespread and growing user adoption. Copilot’s apparent success allowed Microsoft to report surging Azure-related revenue.
As alleged, in truth, Copilot suffered from severe functionality issues that caused user adoption to decline and put Microsoft’s Azure revenue at risk.
Why did Microsoft’s Stock Drop?
On January 28, 2026, Microsoft announced disappointing 2Q 2026 financial results and that Azure growth had slowed suddenly. Microsoft also allegedly revealed for the first time that the number of Microsoft 365 Copilot premium customers totaled only 15 million, materially below analyst estimates.
This news caused the price of Microsoft common stock to decline $48.13 per share, or 10%, from $481.63 per share on January 28, 2026, to $433.50 per share on January 29, 2026.
Additionally, on February 3, 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported in an article titled “Microsoft’s Pivotal AI Product Is Running Into Big Problems” that severe challenges and functionality issues had plagued Copilot, causing the application to lose market share. Specifically, The Wall Street Journal reported that “[c]onfusing brand positioning and interoperability problems have frustrated users.”
Click here for more information: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases/microsoft-class-action-lawsuit.
What Can You Do?
If you invested in Microsoft, you may have legal options and are encouraged to submit your information to the firm.
All representation is on a contingency fee basis; there is no cost to you. Shareholders are not responsible for any court costs or expenses of litigation. The firm will seek court approval for any potential fees and expenses.
BFA is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It has been named a top plaintiff law firm by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, and ISS SCAS, and its attorneys have been named “Elite Trial Lawyers” by the National Law Journal, “Litigation Stars” by Benchmark Litigation, among the top “500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers” by Lawdragon, “Titans of the Plaintiffs’ Bar” by Law360 and “SuperLawyers” by Thomson Reuters.
Most recently, The Legal 500 awarded BFA the most client satisfaction accolades of any plaintiff’s securities litigation law firm, with clients noting: “[t]here is no better service provider in the practice area,” “[t]he interest of the client is always front and center,” and “[t]here isn’t a better firm in this space.” One testimonial described the firm as “nimble and entrepreneurial,” with a “relentless focus on adding value for clients.”
Among its recent notable successes, BFA recovered over $900 million in value from Tesla, Inc.’s Board of Directors, as well as $420 million from Teva Pharmaceutical Ind. Ltd.
For more information about BFA and its attorneys, please visit https://www.bfalaw.com.
Key TakeawaysThe RWA Crypto Platforms Capitalizing on Tokenization’s MomentumOndo Finance: Bridging Traditional Treasuries to BlockchainChainlink: Essential Infrastructure Powering RWA EcosystemsCentrifuge: Bringing Business Credit Markets On-Chain Tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) is drawing participation from institutional powerhouses including BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Franklin Templeton Ondo Finance concentrates on bringing U.S. Treasury products and yield-generating instruments to blockchain for institutional clients Chainlink delivers the oracle technology and blockchain connectivity essential for RWA platform operations Centrifuge targets the tokenization of private credit markets, business invoices, and commercial receivables for decentralized lending Each platform provides distinct investment exposure to the expanding tokenization ecosystem The RWA Crypto Platforms Capitalizing on Tokenization’s Momentum Tokenization of real-world assets represents one of the most rapidly expanding sectors within cryptocurrency today. The concept is simple: convert conventional financial instruments—including bonds, credit facilities, and property holdings—into blockchain-based tokens.
Established financial giants have already entered this space. Firms such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan have either introduced or investigated tokenized investment vehicles over the past few years.
Three blockchain platforms stand out as key beneficiaries of this movement: Ondo Finance, Chainlink, and Centrifuge. Their strategies for capturing this market vary significantly.
Ondo Finance: Bridging Traditional Treasuries to Blockchain Ondo Finance specializes in migrating conventional financial instruments to distributed ledger technology. The platform primarily concentrates on tokenized versions of U.S. Treasury securities and other interest-bearing products.
Ondo Price Investors gain entry to compliant, yield-producing digital securities via blockchain infrastructure through this platform. The approach merges cryptocurrency’s transparency advantages with the security profile of government-issued financial instruments.
Ondo has cultivated partnerships with institutional entities and progressively broadened its offering portfolio. The platform is recognized as among the most straightforward investment vehicles for accessing the tokenization sector.
Investors seeking blockchain-based exposure to traditional financial products find Ondo among the most reputable options currently available.
The platform has strengthened its market position through strategic focus. Instead of diversifying into peripheral ventures, it has maintained concentration on tokenized financial instrument development.
Chainlink: Essential Infrastructure Powering RWA Ecosystems Chainlink operates as infrastructure rather than a tokenization platform. The network delivers decentralized oracle capabilities, establishing connections between blockchain smart contracts and external data sources.
This encompasses market valuations, interest rate information, reserve verification data, and additional metrics that tokenized instruments require for proper functioning. RWA platforms cannot maintain reliability without trustworthy data provision.
Chainlink has also engineered its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, abbreviated as CCIP. This technology enables separate blockchain networks to exchange information and transfer assets securely.
With RWA markets developing across numerous blockchain ecosystems, cross-chain capabilities gain strategic importance. Chainlink maintains partnerships with prominent financial institutions and blockchain initiatives.
An investment in Chainlink provides exposure to comprehensive blockchain infrastructure expansion rather than a single tokenization platform.
Centrifuge: Bringing Business Credit Markets On-Chain Centrifuge has pursued real-world asset tokenization longer than most competitors. The platform emphasizes private credit markets, business invoicing, and commercial receivables.
Companies utilize Centrifuge to convert their financial instruments into tokens and secure financing through decentralized finance channels. This approach connects traditional borrowers with blockchain-based capital markets.
Private credit markets represent one of tokenization’s most substantial opportunities. Centrifuge has accumulated specialized expertise in this segment across multiple years.
While the platform maintains a smaller profile compared to Ondo or Chainlink, it delivers focused exposure to blockchain-enabled business financing.
Should institutional participation in DeFi lending accelerate, Centrifuge stands positioned to experience heightened service demand. The platform maintains distinction as one of few projects with extended operational history specifically within tokenized private credit markets.
Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol has now facilitated more than $21 billion in cumulative transferred volume and supports over $62 billion in cross-chain tokens. The milestone was announced on July 10, 2026.
The protocol now operates across more than 60 blockchains. Monthly transaction volume hit roughly $18 billion earlier in 2026. Earlier this year, CCIP added 26 new integrations spanning 17 different blockchains.
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Asset migrations to CCIP have exceeded $7.2 billion since May 2026. Among the most notable moves was a $2.5 billion migration from Mantle’s MNT Super Portal.
From oracle network to interoperability giant Chainlink first introduced the CCIP concept back in August 2021. The mainnet launch followed in July 2023, with general availability rolling out by April 2024.
CCIP has established partnerships with SWIFT, ANZ Bank, and BNY Mellon. Hedera’s integration added another major network to CCIP’s growing list.
What this means for investors The LINK token currently trades around $8.30 to $8.40, with a market capitalization of approximately $6 billion.
The competitive landscape includes LayerZero, Wormhole, and Axelar, all competing for cross-chain market share, each with different security models and go-to-market strategies.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Chainlink (LINK) price edges higher on Wednesday, holding its 5% gains from the previous day. Retail speculative demand for LINK is rising, with its futures Open Interest up 6% over the past 24 hours. The technical outlook is mildly bullish, with LINK edging higher toward a key resistance trendline as upside momentum builds up.
Retail demand holds firm in LINKRetail demand for Chainlink holds firm as the broader crypto market risk-off sentiment eases amid reduced inflation risks in the US. In addition, adoption of Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) for cross-chain bridges and enterprise-grade security by Mantle's Super Portal and Aave's Stable Vaults reflects industry-level demand, boosting retail support, as previously reported by FXStreet.
CoinGlass data shows the LINK futures Open Interest (OI) surged 6% over the last 24 hours, indicating an increase in leverage-based positional buildup. The funding rate stands at 0.0079%, reflecting a bullish bias among traders.
LINK derivatives data. Source: CoinGlassWill LINK price extend its gains?Chainlink holds steady on Wednesday above its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $8.12, holding its 5% gains from Tuesday. LINK maintains a constructive near-term bullish bias as price advances toward the overhead trendline near $9.20, projecting roughly 10% upside.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator rises with its signal line into positive territory, while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovers just above 60, together suggesting building upside momentum rather than overbought stress.
LINK/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, immediate support is seen at the 50-day EMA at $8.12, with the previous swing low zone between $7.15 and $6.99 providing the next cushion.
(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)
Mizuho has downgraded Circle Internet Group from Neutral to Underperform and cut its price target from $85 to $50, citing competition from Open USD.
Summary
Mizuho cut Circle’s price target to $50, warning Open USD could further squeeze stablecoin margins. Open USD shares reserve earnings with partners, challenging Circle’s existing distribution economics around USDC globally. Circle also faces margin pressure from Hyperliquid revenue-sharing terms despite recent federal banking approval milestone. The Japanese investment bank said the stablecoin model could pressure the economics behind Circle’s USDC business.
According to a CoinDesk report, analysts led by Dan Dolev said Open USD “could fundamentally alter CRCL’s business model” by changing how reserve income flows to distributors. Circle shares traded at $62.63 when the report was published.
Mizuho cuts Circle’s 2027 earnings outlook Mizuho raised its estimate for Circle’s distribution and transaction expense ratio in 2027 from 64% to 73%. The bank also lowered its adjusted EBITDA forecast from $1.09 billion to $699 million, about 25% below the analyst consensus cited in the report.
The bank said higher interest rates could support reserve income but may not fully offset pressure from changing stablecoin economics. Its concern centers on how much yield Circle can retain after paying distribution partners, including companies that help USDC reach users and financial platforms.
Open USD challenges the existing stablecoin model Open USD was announced on June 30 by Open Standard, with more than 140 companies participating in its ecosystem. Partners include Coinbase, Mastercard, Stripe and BlackRock. The project says businesses will be able to mint and redeem the stablecoin without fees or artificial volume limits.
Under the model, partners receive reserve earnings after a small management fee covers operating costs. That differs from Circle’s structure, where reserve income is generated before revenue-sharing payments to major distribution partners. As previously reported, Open USD’s announcement raised questions over whether Circle’s own partners could support a rival while continuing to distribute USDC.
Coinbase relationship adds another pressure point Mizuho also pointed to Circle’s revenue-sharing relationship with Coinbase. The bank said the agreement is expected to come up for renegotiation in August, and Coinbase’s participation in Open USD could give it more leverage in future talks.
A separate warning came from JPMorgan. As reported by crypto.news, the bank cut earnings forecasts for Circle and Coinbase after a new USDC revenue-sharing arrangement with Hyperliquid. JPMorgan said the deal could reduce reserve income retained by both companies even if USDC usage grows.
Circle continues to expand USDC infrastructure The downgrade comes as Circle expands its regulatory and payments footprint.Circle data showed USDC circulation at about $73 billion as of July 13, down from $77 billion at the end of the first quarter.
Circle also recently received final approval to establish Circle National Trust. The federally regulated entity will initially focus on digital asset custody for Circle and its affiliates, with possible future services for selected institutional clients.
The company is also expanding USDC use in Asia. JCB and Circle announced a pilot covering cross-border treasury transfers and possible merchant payments in Japan. The project will start with JCB’s internal transfers before the companies assess wider retail payment uses.
Mizuho’s downgrade focuses on Circle’s ability to protect margins as stablecoin competition changes how reserve income is shared. Open USD has not proved it can match USDC’s distribution or liquidity, but its partner-led model creates a new pricing benchmark. Circle’s earnings path will depend partly on USDC supply, interest rates and future revenue-sharing agreements.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, whale address '0xf29' has deposited 5 million USDC into HyperLiquid, placed a TWAP order to open a CXMT short position with 1x leverage, and the short position is currently being increased.
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15 July 2026 | 10:12 Interactive Brokers has added nine cryptocurrencies to its trading platform and enabled clients to move dollar value out of their brokerage accounts through stablecoins, extending a service that previously focused on inbound funding.
According to the company’s July 14 announcement, eligible clients can now convert U.S. dollars held at Interactive Brokers into USDC, PayPal USD (PYUSD) or Ripple USD (RLUSD) and send the tokens to an external wallet. Transfers are processed around the clock, including weekends and holidays.
Nine Tokens Join the Trading Platform AAVE, UNI and PAXG are also available through Paxos Trust Company. PAXG differs from the other additions because each token represents ownership of allocated physical gold held in professional vaults, giving brokerage clients tokenized commodity exposure alongside conventional cryptocurrencies.
The convenience comes with a custody trade-off. Interactive Brokers states that it neither executes nor custodies the digital assets: positions are held with Paxos or Zero Hash and fall outside SIPC protection. SEC staff has noted that non-security crypto assets may not be covered by a specific insolvency framework, leaving recovery dependent on the custodian’s account structure and applicable bankruptcy law. IBKR still receives part of each trading commission as a referral fee while its partners retain the custody exposure.
Stablecoins Become a Two-Way Brokerage Rail Interactive Brokers began allowing clients to fund accounts with stablecoins earlier in 2026. The latest update completes the opposite side of that process: cash can now leave an IBKR account as a supported digital dollar and arrive in a custodial or self-custody wallet.
The change makes stablecoins more than a deposit method. Clients can move capital between blockchain wallets and a brokerage account without waiting for traditional banking hours, then use the converted funds to access stocks, bonds, options, futures and other products available through IBKR.
“We believe digital assets should be integrated into a client’s broader financial experience, not treated separately,” Interactive Brokers CEO Milan Galik said.
Eligible clients can also transfer supported cryptocurrencies directly between external wallets and their IBKR-linked Paxos or Zero Hash accounts instead of selling the assets before moving platforms.
IBKR Is Opening Its Brokerage Ledger to Onchain Liquidity The nine listings expand the trading menu, but bidirectional transfers change the platform’s underlying function. Stablecoin deposits previously allowed clients to move onchain dollars into an IBKR account, where they were converted into cash. The new withdrawal route reverses that flow, allowing brokerage balances to leave as USDC, PYUSD or RLUSD without first passing through a bank wire.
This effectively turns Interactive Brokers into a bridge between traditional securities and external blockchain markets. A client could sell an asset inside the brokerage account, convert the resulting dollars into a stablecoin and transfer that value to a self-custody wallet outside banking hours. The funding rail operates continuously, although the stocks, bonds and other instruments available through IBKR remain subject to their respective market hours.
Interactive Brokers is not taking direct custody risk to provide that connection. Its official disclosures state that Paxos or Zero Hash execute the trades and hold each client’s digital assets in a separate account outside IBKR. The brokerage receives part of the trading commission as a referral fee, giving it a way to monetize crypto access without building its own exchange and custody infrastructure.
External-wallet support also should not be confused with unrestricted transfers. Zero Hash screens wallet addresses against sanctions and internal risk lists before processing movements, and incoming assets linked to high-risk addresses may be placed in quarantine rather than credited immediately. The service therefore combines self-custody access with the compliance controls of a regulated intermediary.
Trading Fees and Regional Restrictions Crypto commissions range from 0.12% to 0.18% of transaction value, depending on monthly volume. Each order carries a $1.75 minimum, capped at 1% of the trade value, with no added spreads or markups. Although IBKR advertises no custody fee, clients maintaining an open Paxos account may incur a $0.15 monthly charge passed through by the broker.
The rollout is not universal. Bidirectional stablecoin funding is unavailable to clients of Interactive Brokers U.K. and Interactive Brokers Ireland, while Irish accounts are also excluded from the newly listed tokens. Availability elsewhere depends on the client’s country of residence and the Interactive Brokers entity serving the account.
The information provided in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice.
Author
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
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TLDR: Mizuho downgraded Circle to Underperform, cutting its price target from $85 to $50. OpenUSD’s revenue-sharing model threatens Circle’s core USDC business economics. Mizuho slashed 2027 adjusted EBITDA forecast to $699 million from $1.09 billion. Circle’s August Coinbase renegotiation looms as a key risk to distribution costs. Mizuho, a major Japanese investment bank, has downgraded Circle from Neutral to Underperform. The bank also slashed its price target on the stablecoin issuer sharply.
Circle’s target price dropped from $85 to just $50 per share. Analysts cited emerging competitive threats that could weigh heavily on future earnings.
Mizuho Cites Growing Threat From Rival Stablecoin Model The downgrade stems largely from concerns over OpenUSD, a newly launched stablecoin. Analysts led by Dan Dolev outlined the threat in a Tuesday research note.
The team warned that OpenUSD “could fundamentally alter CRCL’s business model, which relies on retaining a large portion of the treasury yield to drive revenues.” That assessment forms the basis for Mizuho’s sharply lowered outlook.
OpenUSD was unveiled on June 30 by the Open Standard consortium. This group already counts more than 140 partners across major financial sectors.
Notable backers include Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, and BlackRock among others. Their involvement gives OpenUSD substantial credibility and reach within the industry.
Circle’s existing USDC model captures most reserve income before sharing with partners. OpenUSD instead charges a small fee and passes most income along.
This structural difference could force Circle to share more revenue eventually. Distribution partners may push for larger cuts as OpenUSD gains traction.
The timing is notable given Circle’s upcoming negotiation with Coinbase in August. Coinbase remains Circle’s largest and most important distribution partner currently.
Coinbase has already shown support for the OpenUSD initiative publicly. Mizuho’s note suggests this backing could strengthen Coinbase’s position in talks.
Revised Estimates Reflect Deeper Margin Concerns Mizuho adjusted several key financial estimates to reflect these emerging pressures. The bank raised its 2027 distribution and transaction expense ratio forecast.
That figure now sits at 73%, up notably from a prior 64% estimate. Higher costs directly reduce the amount of profit Circle can retain.
Adjusted EBITDA projections fell as a result of these revised assumptions. Mizuho now forecasts $699 million, down from $1.09 billion previously.
This updated figure lands roughly 25% below current Wall Street consensus estimates. Consensus estimates currently sit near $941 million for the same period.
Mizuho noted that higher interest rates alone will not offset the damage. Even improved reserve yields cannot fully counter mounting distribution cost pressures.
Circle shares reacted to the news, slipping about 0.6% in trading. Shares were last seen near $62.63 at the time of publication.
Beyond OpenUSD, Circle faces additional headwinds from other market participants. JPMorgan flagged separate concerns tied to Circle’s partnership with Hyperliquid.
That bank described the arrangement as creating a prisoner’s dilemma dynamic. Together, these reports paint a more cautious picture for Circle’s near-term outlook.
The broader stablecoin sector has also cooled somewhat in recent months. USDC’s circulating supply dropped to roughly $73 billion from March highs.
Total stablecoin market value has shrunk close to $10 billion since May. Softer trading volumes and rising competition both contributed to that decline.
In December 2023, Circle quietly pulled the plug on Heka Funds, a Malta-based trading firm with deep ties to Tether. The reason: suspected market manipulation designed to benefit USDT at USDC’s expense. The full story stayed under wraps until July 14, 2026, when the Financial Times published findings from the subsequent arbitration.
The arbitrator sided with Circle. Heka had sought $49 million in lost profits. It walked away with nothing.
What Heka was actually doing Heka Funds, associated with London’s Abraxas Capital Management, was not some small-time operation. The firm ran large-scale USDC redemptions and arbitrage strategies through Circle’s platform, and by its own account, those strategies had delivered returns exceeding 100% since inception.
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Tether was historically one of Heka’s largest clients. That relationship never made it into Heka’s disclosures to Circle.
The arbitrator found that Heka intentionally withheld its connection to Tether, a fact that turned out to be central to the entire dispute. The arbitrator’s finding on non-disclosure was enough to end Heka’s claim.
The stablecoin market context The stablecoin market had grown to approximately $307 billion by the time the arbitration findings became public, with USDC and USDT accounting for the dominant share of that figure.
Tether has not been named as a direct party to the dispute. The connection runs through Heka’s client relationships, not any formal Tether instruction to manipulate Circle’s markets.
What investors and traders should take from this Heka’s entire arbitration claim collapsed not because Circle couldn’t prove manipulation, but because Heka couldn’t prove it was operating in good faith when it hid a material conflict of interest.
Circle’s willingness to fight a $49 million arbitration claim rather than settle signals that it views platform integrity as a non-negotiable. For retail and institutional investors holding USDC, the short version is that Circle won, and the redemption mechanism functioned as intended under stress. The less comfortable version is that a sophisticated firm with ties to the world’s largest stablecoin issuer was running strategies on Circle’s platform that Circle considered manipulative, and nobody found out for nearly three years.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Warren Buffett said Wednesday he — not Berkshire Hathaway's new CEO Greg Abel — was the driving force behind the recent big investment in Alphabet.
"I initiated it," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick. "I am not doing anything that he doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time, but he is the decider."
Berkshire first disclosed a stake in Alphabet during the third quarter of 2025 and has dramatically increased its investment since. Last month, the conglomerate invested an additional $10 billion through a private stock purchase.
"The trick in life is to find — I mean investing — is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time," Buffett said.
Buffett, who stepped down as Berkshire's chief executive earlier this year but remains chairman, said he and CEO Greg Abel continue to work closely together on investment decisions.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
Nvidia (NVDA +4.08%) and Cerebras Systems (CBRS 0.40%) both offer something in great need right now: the high-powered compute to fuel artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. Nvidia is the better-known of the two, having been in the chip space for more than 30 years, and today dominates the AI chip market. Cerebras is an exciting new player with a very powerful chip.
Both of these companies could make an interesting investment, and they have seen their shares decline from highs in recent times. This presents a potential buying opportunity. But which is the better discount AI buy right now? Let's find out.
Image source: Getty Images.
The case for Nvidia Nvidia hardly needs an introduction these days. The company has made headlines since the start of the AI boom as its comments set the tone for what happens next in this market. Nvidia designs the world's most sought-after graphics processing units (GPUs), the key chips needed to power essential tasks like the training and inference of models.
The company was first to enter this market and has made innovation a focus -- that's helped it stay ahead of rivals. In fact, Nvidia updates its GPUs on an annual basis, and the next update is right around the corner. The company aims to ship its Vera Rubin platform later this year, and it will offer an important new product: the stand-alone central processing unit (CPU).
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This opens up a new $200 billion market to Nvidia, and the company plans on conquering it. In its latest earnings report, it predicted $20 billion in stand-alone CPU sales this year and said it was on track to dominate this market.
Meanwhile, Nvidia has proven its strength over time, and in recent years has delivered quarter after quarter of double- or triple-digit earnings gains. And earnings have reached record levels amid this AI boom. All of this is likely to continue, considering the sustained level of demand and the idea that AI is in its early days of real-world use.
The case for Cerebras Cerebras may not be a household name like Nvidia, but the company's technology might quickly put it on the radar screens of many investors. This player has designed a giant chip, its wafer-scale engine (WSE), that it says delivers speeds faster than today's GPUs. How has Cerebras accomplished this? By making the WSE 58 times larger than Nvidia's B200 chip.
Cerebras says that this size allows it to offer massive compute and memory bandwidth, and this results in tremendous speed. The company says that in inference, or the thinking AI goes through to solve a problem, it's delivered answers 15 times faster than today's top-selling GPUs. This has translated into growth for Cerebras, with first-quarter revenue soaring 92% to $193 million. And the company recently signed key deals with OpenAI for compute and with Amazon's cloud unit to make its WSE systems more broadly available. So this could be a major transition point for Cerebras, as more potential customers discover its chips and give them a try.
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It's important to note that, considering the high level of demand for compute, Cerebras doesn't have to unseat Nvidia in order to be highly successful and deliver strong growth. Analysts predict the AI market will reach beyond $3 trillion in the early part of the next decade, and this should create a strong revenue opportunity for many chip players.
This young company, founded in 2015, went public in May, raising $5.5 billion in the biggest IPO of 2025 -- until Space Exploration Technologies launched its operation in June, for the largest IPO ever.
The market leader or the young challenger? Cerebras isn't yet profitable, which isn't surprising at this stage of its growth story, but this adds to risk. The stock has slid 30% from its first day of trading, offering an interesting buying opportunity for aggressive investors.
But for most investors, I consider Nvidia the best discount AI buy today. The AI giant is trading at 23x forward earnings estimates, which looks like a steal considering all of the company's strengths.
Now that SK Hynix (SKHY +27.16%) trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange, U.S. investors have a front-row seat to one of the most commanding positions in the entire artificial intelligence supply chain.
The South Korean company makes more than half of the world's high-bandwidth memory -- the specialized chips that Nvidia (NVDA +4.08%) needs to make its AI accelerators work. That kind of market grip is rare, and understanding it is the key to understanding why this stock matters.
SK Hynix's debut made it the largest first-time U.S. listing ever by a foreign company, after investor demand exceeded the shares available by more than seven times. The landmark IPO gives U.S. investors an easy way to buy one of the world's leading AI memory chipmakers, but the stock's strong debut doesn't eliminate the need to evaluate its long-term investment prospects.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why Nvidia can't build AI chips without this memory Start with what high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, actually does. An Nvidia AI accelerator is only as fast as the data you can feed it, and ordinary memory can't keep up.
HBM solves that by stacking memory vertically and placing it right beside the processor, so information flows almost instantly. Without enough of it, even the most powerful AI chip sits idle, waiting.
That makes HBM a genuine chokepoint in AI hardware -- and SK Hynix sits squarely in the middle of it, holding roughly 56% of the market by its own reckoning.
How SK Hynix built and defends its lead Dominance like this doesn't come from one lucky break. SK Hynix has consistently been first to develop and qualify each new generation of HBM, which matters because Nvidia designs its chips around whatever memory is ready first.
That head start has paid off with the newest generation, HBM4, tied to Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin platform. Supply chain estimates suggest SK Hynix will provide the majority of the HBM4 going into those systems, and in June the two companies announced a technology partnership to align their roadmaps for years to come.
Being the leader in a shortage is a powerful position. When demand outstrips supply, the supplier with the most capacity and the best technology can command higher prices and lock in the largest customers first. That is precisely the position SK Hynix occupies right now, and it's why the company has become one of the clearest beneficiaries of the AI build-out.
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The competition is not standing still Here's the part investors shouldn't gloss over. A greater-than-50% share also means there's a lot of ground for rivals to take. Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology have both been certified to supply HBM4 for Nvidia's newest platform. Samsung has pushed into mass production, and Micron has been gaining share.
Memory is also a famously cyclical industry that swings between shortage and glut; today's pricing power can fade quickly if too much capacity comes online or AI spending cools. SK Hynix's Seoul-listed shares have already soared over the past year, and memory stocks briefly tumbled into a bear market just before this listing, a reminder of how fast sentiment shifts here.
What it means for investors SK Hynix offers something unusual: direct ownership of the leader in a component the AI boom literally cannot run without, at a moment when demand for that component is expected to stay tight into 2027. That's a compelling setup. But leadership in memory has changed hands before, and a single dominant customer relationship cuts both ways. It's a strength while Nvidia is winning and a risk if that spending ever slows.
My honest read is that SK Hynix's HBM dominance is real and hard for rivals to displace overnight, which makes it a serious name for anyone building AI exposure. Just go in clear-eyed: You're buying a cyclical business near a euphoric moment, so let the company's ability to hold its lead -- not the excitement around AI -- guide how much you're willing to commit.
Shares of streaming giant Netflix (NFLX 0.39%) are down roughly 30% so far in 2026 and off 45% from the peak they touched about a year ago. That decline reflects investors' growing concerns over the durability of its competitive advantages in a crowded media landscape.
Since Netflix no longer publicly reports its subscriber growth numbers, investors will look for other ways to gauge the company's health when it reports second-quarter earnings on Thursday. As one of the leading streaming platforms, engagement is the foundation of its business model. Its ability to raise subscription prices and grow advertising revenue depends on the platform's ability to capture and hold a large share of its subscribers' viewing time.
Image source: Getty Images.
A shift in the attention economy Competition for screen time now comes from all corners of the media world, putting more pressure than ever on Netflix's core business of offering on-demand shows and movies. The alternatives have expanded beyond premium streamers to include everything from live streamers on Twitch to podcasts that consume hours of user time to short-form videos on TikTok to co-creator gaming platforms like Roblox.
This environment makes it harder to maintain audience attention. On the content front, a planned new series from the producers of Stranger Things was recently canceled, and some popular returning Netflix shows have reportedly drawn smaller audiences in their second seasons.
When the company reports this week, investors will be watching the trajectory of revenue growth and margin expansion. However, management's response to a recent Wall Street Journal article that reported on the company's internal concerns regarding member engagement will likely take center stage.
Pressure on pricing power and ad growth While Netflix remains profitable, a sustained decline in engagement would weigh on its ability to push through periodic price increases in the years ahead. It could also cap the growth of its ad-supported subscription tier.
The company's ad revenue is expected to double this year to roughly $3 billion, but that is still only about 6% of total sales. For the ad tier to become a more meaningful contributor, it needs a large and engaged audience.
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Management is exploring ways to counter the trend, including adding live channels and bundling other streaming services. These moves would be a significant shift for the company. The upcoming earnings call will be an important opportunity for management to address the engagement narrative and outline its content strategy.
Bryan White has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix and Roblox. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Joe Locke delivers a reading during the Together At Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey in London, Britain, December 5, 2025. Jordan Pettitt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - "Heartstopper Forever" signals a major shift towards adult territory for the franchise, its star Joe Locke says, as the hit Netflix coming-of-age drama comes to a close.
The British actor, who rose to fame with the first season of the "Heartstopper" television series, joined co-stars Kit Connor and Yasmin Finney at Tuesday's London world premiere of "Heartstopper Forever", the feature film concluding the franchise.
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"They're young adults, and it would be remiss of us to not show that in their own way," Locke told Reuters. "If we were to show these kids not having sex, then that would be unrealistic, because teenagers have sex."
Locke and Connor became breakout names after the first season's 2022 debut, which grappled with the theme of homophobia. The show became an instant hit and expanded across two more seasons.
Creator Alice Oseman said she had never expected the series, which began as a comic, to achieve such success.
"I was really just doing this on the side as a fun side project, and now it's so important to so many people and I really don't take that lightly," she told Reuters.
Two years on from season three, "Heartstopper Forever" centres on Charlie, played by Locke, and Nick, played by Connor, contemplating living apart as decisions over university choices and gap years loom over them.
As Nick worries about the toll of distance on a fragile Charlie, he slips into alcohol use; Charlie, meanwhile, struggles with mounting jealousy.
Connor said the fandom's response to the series and the personal stories he has heard about its impact, have made being part of the franchise "a really amazing thing.”
"As an actor, you can frankly not expect any of the jobs that you do to have the kind of impact that this show and this film hopefully will have," he said, adding, "I feel very lucky for it every day."
Though "Heartstopper Forever" is set to conclude the franchise for now, Oseman said she would "never say never" to developing a spin-off.
"Heartstopper Forever" is set to be released on Netflix on Friday.
Reporting by Francesca Halliwell; Editing by Alexandra Hudson
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Item 1 of 3 A drone view shows the Netflix logo on one of the company's buildings in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole
[1/3]A drone view shows the Netflix logo on one of the company's buildings in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 15 (Reuters) - Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab is under pressure to reassure investors about its growth strategy when it reports second-quarter results on Thursday, as its user engagement has faltered amid growing competition from traditional media players, YouTube and mobile viewing.
The streaming giant has shed over a fifth of its value this year due to doubts about its growth efforts, including an ad business that is still far from becoming a major revenue stream.
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The company is expected to report a 13.6% rise in revenue to $12.59 billion, its slowest growth in over four quarters, while adjusted earnings per share will likely total 79 cents, according to analysts polled by LSEG.
The advertising business — seen as crucial to Netflix's growth since the boost from its password-sharing crackdown and price hikes over the past two years fades — is expected to bring in $705.8 million in revenue.
"We had to lower our (advertising) forecast," Emarketer analyst Ross Benes said, adding the ad business has not grown as strongly as most analysts originally expected.
To draw in advertisers and boost engagement, Netflix has pushed into live events. CNBC reported, opens new tab that the company was exploring a bid for the 2030 and 2034 FIFA World Cup U.S. rights, and in talks to acquire online film platform Letterboxd.
"The company has moved from disruption to dominance, and the challenge now is to sustain momentum from a much larger base," PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said.
Bloomberg News reported, opens new tab earlier this month that Netflix viewers were less likely to return for later seasons, with hit shows such as "The Night Agent" and "Beef" losing roughly half or more of their audience after their first season.
Comcast's (CMCSA.O), opens new tab NBCUniversal spinoff has also fueled deal speculation, but some analysts expect Netflix to focus on smaller deals rather than another major acquisition.
Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli
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Key Takeaways Bank of America expects 2026 NII growth at the high end of 6-8%, backed by loans, deposits and repricing.BAC raised full-year operating leverage guidance to 300-400 basis points after a strong first half.More than 200,000 employees use AI tools as broad segment growth supports stronger earnings power. Bank of America Corporation (BAC - Free Report) used its second-quarter 2026 call to push a forward-looking message rather than simply celebrate a beat. Management framed the quarter as evidence that broad client activity, disciplined expenses and steady balance sheet optimization are translating into stronger earnings power.
That mattered because executives also tightened the focus on what comes next: net interest income at the high end of prior guidance, continued loan and deposit growth, and more operating leverage even as the company keeps spending on technology, marketing and AI tools.
BAC Raises the Bar on 2026 NIIChairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said the quarter showed organic growth across every business segment. Revenues of $31.6 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $30.62 billion and rose 15% year over year. EPS of $1.21 topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.13 and increased 34% from the prior-year quarter.
The more important takeaway was the outlook. Chief financial officer Alastair Borthwick said Bank of America now expects full-year 2026 net interest income growth at the upper end of its 6% to 8% range, supported by loan and deposit growth, fixed-rate asset repricing and balance sheet optimization.
Borthwick also said the company’s banking book remains asset sensitive, while a 100-basis point parallel shift above the forward curve would add about $1 billion of NII over the next 12 months. That gave investors a clearer sense of the embedded earnings lift management still sees in the core franchise.
Bank of America Defends Deposit StrategyA KBW analyst pressed management on deposit pricing and whether BAC could keep outperforming peers in a higher-for-longer setting. Borthwick’s answer centered on client mix rather than rate competition. He said the company is prioritizing operating accounts and relationship deposits, not chasing rate-sensitive balances.
That response aligned with the quarter’s balance sheet trends. Average deposits rose to $2.02 trillion, the 12th straight quarter of sequential growth, while average loans and leases increased 8% from a year earlier to $1.22 trillion. Average consumer deposits were $957 billion, and Moynihan said spending trends strengthened during the quarter.
Management also sounded constructive on the second-half loan demand. In Q&A, Borthwick said commercial growth remains healthy and card balances are moving toward management’s target pace, reinforcing the view that NII growth is being driven by underlying business activity rather than a temporary market tailwind.
BAC Keeps Leaning Into Operating LeverageMoynihan and Borthwick repeatedly returned to operating leverage as one of the quarter’s defining features. The bank posted 6.6% operating leverage in the quarter, while the efficiency ratio improved 359 basis points from a year ago to 59%.
Borthwick said first-half 2026 operating leverage exceeded 450 basis points, leading management to lift its full-year expectation to 300-400 basis points from prior commentary of more than 200 basis points. He cautioned that second-half comparisons get harder because NII and investment banking were already accelerating in the back half of 2025.
A Bernstein analyst and a Citi analyst both tested whether that leverage outlook implied underinvestment. Moynihan rejected that framing, saying Bank of America is still investing heavily in financial centers, marketing, rewards, digital capabilities and AI, while productivity gains are helping offset some of that spending.
Bank of America Highlights AI and Segment BreadthManagement treated AI as a practical productivity story, not a separate growth narrative. Moynihan said more than 200,000 employees are using AI-enabled capabilities, generating over 400,000 prompts a day, with 300-plus approved AI use cases and 114 live generative AI use cases.
That message was tied directly to execution inside the businesses. Consumer Banking posted 10% net income growth, Global Wealth and Investment Management delivered 42% net income growth on record revenues, Global Banking benefited from a 50% jump in total corporation investment banking fees and Global Markets produced its 17th consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales and trading revenue growth.
In Q&A, management also linked AI enthusiasm to underwriting discipline. Moynihan said the bank is evaluating how AI affects borrowers and industries while also using the technology internally to improve speed, consistency and client coverage. That kept the tone measured even as executives sounded upbeat on the long-term opportunity.
BAC Leaves an Upbeat But Disciplined ToneThe call ended with a management team emphasizing breadth, not a single standout line item. Moynihan pointed to resilient consumers, healthy commercial activity, strong capital markets pipelines and continued capital returns, including $8 billion returned to its shareholders in the quarter through dividends and repurchases.
Borthwick’s closing tone was similarly disciplined. He described activity as healthy across lending, payments, wealth, investment banking and markets, while maintaining that credit quality remains stable and the balance sheet remains a source of strength.
Zacks Signals for Bank of AmericaBAC currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a Value Score of C, Growth Score of C, Momentum Score of A and VGM Score of B. Under the Zacks framework, the rank is the first screen because earnings estimate revisions are the most important driver, while Style Scores help refine opportunity by value, growth and momentum characteristics.
That combination points to balanced style characteristics with stronger momentum than value or growth at the moment. The VGM Score of B is constructive, but the Style Score framework is most favorable when paired with Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) stocks. A Zacks Rank can change after earnings as analyst estimate revisions move in response to the just-reported results. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
People arrive to the JPMorgan Chase & Co., headquarters in New York City, U.S., April 1, 2026. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesJPMorgan will hire 30 EMEA corporate bankers before year-endLatest sign of US banks seeking more corporate clients in EMEAHeadcount to rise 60% in five years in Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, PolandLONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab has launched an expansion of its corporate banking business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as it seeks to grow income and claim market share from regional and domestic lenders, James Roddy, head of global corporate banking at the U.S. lender, told Reuters.
JPMorgan will hire 30 senior bankers before the end of the year in the region to support the firm's initiative to facilitate $1.5 trillion in financing for industries critical to national security, including up to $10 billion of its own money, Roddy said.
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The hiring forms part of a push to grow the bank's business across the EMEA region serving three corporate client groups, namely large-cap, mid-size companies and startups, Roddy said.
"Everything is on the table for entering new markets or adding resources where we are already present. We have the full support of the board to hire if it will help us better serve a client," Roddy said.
The U.S. banking giant's ambition is the latest sign of American lenders using their balance sheet clout to take more market share from European and other lenders, underscoring how regulatory changes and a booming home market have given Wall Street lenders further firepower.
JPMorgan has grown its number of clients in EMEA by 25% and revenues by 15% in the last two years, Roddy said, and is aiming to add more as it expands across the region providing services such as corporate finance, cash management, payments and foreign exchange.
JPMorgan ranks first for European investment banking fees - which will include some though not all corporate banking-related fees - so far this year, up from third place in the same period last year, according to LSEG data, increasing its market share by 1.3 percentage points to 7.4%, the most growth among the top ten lenders.
The lender has also doubled its headcount in the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey and Poland over the last two years and will grow total staff numbers by a further 60% over the next five years, Roddy said, declining to give specific numbers of employees in those markets.
JPMorgan has particularly stepped up its business and lent more in the Middle East as the turmoil resulting from the U.S.-Iran conflict has seen rivals reduce their risk appetite in the region, Roddy added.
The bank said last October it would invest up to $10 billion in U.S. companies critical to national security and economic resilience as part of the broader Security and Resilience Initiative (SRI).
JPMorgan appointed Daniel Rudnicki Schlumberger as its head of SRI for EMEA in June, following ex-British politician Chuka Umunna leaving the role for Citigroup.
Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Alexandra Hudson
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Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JPMorgan. Bloomberg/Getty Images JPMorgan's next CEO will have to tick a whole lot of boxes to be a worthy successor in Jamie Dimon's eyes.
Dimon, 70, answered a question during the bank's second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday about what he and his board are looking for in the company's next leader, and what he thinks makes an exceptional CEO.
The billionaire banker replied that the person should:
Be good at managementBe good with peopleBe analyticalBe detailedBe a "culture carrier"Be curiousHave heartHave gritHave soulHave work ethicBe able to travelBe able to deal with CEOs and prime ministersUnderstand and engage with the bank's back-office functions"I could give you a long list of stuff, but it's all of that," said Dimon, who's been running the banking giant for more than 20 years.
He later added that he prizes "flexibility of mind," "brain power," and emotional intelligence, and believes leaders should have "experience across the company" so they care about and respect its various divisions.
Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, made a similar point in his recent "Streetwise" memoir. He said that a recurring concern at the firm was that CEOs picked from its trading side wouldn't properly prioritize the investment-banking side, and vice versa.
Dimon, who has no immediate plans to retire, told analysts on the call that JPMorgan has a strong bench ready for his departure, whenever it happens. He pointed to operating chief Jennifer Piepszak and Mary Erdoes, the CEO of JPMorgan's asset and wealth management business.
"So it's a great team of people which I am fully confident if I was hit by a truck — which is not my preference — we would be fine," he quipped.
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Theron Mohamed You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Theron Mohamed is a London-based correspondent on the Trending team at Business Insider. His coverage spans finance, investing, wealth, markets, and the economy.Theron joined BI in 2019 as a reporter at Markets Insider and rose to the rank of correspondent before moving to the Trending team in 2024. He previously covered tech, media, and telecom stocks for Investors Chronicle magazine and had a brief stint on the Financial Times' Data team. He interned at the Wall Street Journal in New York where he primarily wrote for Heard on the Street.Theron has freelanced for The Independent, The Telegraph, WIRED, and several smaller publications. He holds an undergraduate degree in geography from the London School of Economics, and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.Theron often covers Warren Buffett, Michael Burry, Jeremy Grantham and other top-flight investors. He also writes about the world's wealthiest people and shares financial advice from all manner of rich and successful people.Email Theron at [email protected] and follow him on X @theron_mohamed.Expertise
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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced results for second-quarter 2026. “Johnson & Johnson delivered strong second-quarter results, demonstrating the power of our innovation, the depth of our portfolio and the momentum in our pipeline as we advance transformative treatments that address the world's toughest health challenges,” said Joaquin Duato, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “With raised guidance and quarterly.
Johnson & Johnson beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter sales and profit on Wednesday, as strong growth from immunology drug Tremfya and cancer blockbuster Darzalex more than offset erosion from older products and a drop in sales for heart pumps it picked up in its 2022 acquisition of Abiomed.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend for the third quarter of 2026 of $1.34 per share on the company's common stock. The dividend is payable on September 8, 2026 to shareholders of record at the close of business on August 25, 2026. The ex-dividend date is August 25, 2026. About Johnson & Johnson At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare inn.
