Good morning. Here’s what happened overnight and what you need to know today.
1.
Super cycle: Morgan Stanley capped a blowout quarter for the biggest US banks with record revenue and a 58% jump in profit, as the AI investment boom fed trading, dealmaking and wealth inflows. Net income of USD5.58 billion beat analyst forecasts. Investment banking revenue was also up 58% and equities trading revenue hit a record after clients traded through the US-Iran standoff and shifting rate expectations. The bank hit its longtime goal of USD10 trillion in wealth management assets, helped along by newly minted SpaceX millionaires. More than half the USD148 billion in net new assets came from stock plan IPO flows, CFO Sharon Yeshaya said. Wall Street’s biggest banks posted their best quarter for equity underwriting since 2021, according to Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley’s equity underwriting revenue rose 70% to USD851 million, with it and Goldman each earning about USD100 million on the SpaceX listing, whose shares have since slipped below their USD135 IPO price. The industry “is in the middle of an AI capex super cycle,” Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon said yesterday. Separately, BlackRock said a market rally and ETF inflows pushed assets under management past USD15 trillion for the first time, sending its shares up more than 7%. (Capital Brief)(MS)(BlackRock)
2.
Float meetings: Anthropic is lining up meetings between investors and its executives ahead of a potential IPO, Bloomberg reported citing unnamed sources. According to the report, the banks leading the offering are scheduling the meetings in the coming weeks, and the Claude maker is considering a listing as soon as October, though deliberations are ongoing and the timing could change. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase are working on the offering. Anthropic filed its IPO prospectus confidentially with the US SEC last month and has not said when it plans to debut. Going ahead would put it ahead of OpenAI, which is now said to be looking at 2027 after earlier targeting a late-2026 debut. OpenAI also filed confidentially, also potentially ahead of Chinese rival DeepSeek. Anthropic was valued at USD965 billion ($1.38 trillion) after a USD65 billion round in May, eclipsing OpenAI’s USD852 billion for the first time. (Bloomberg)(CNBC)
