CME Group and Silicon Data announced two new futures tied to hourly rental rates for Nvidia’s H100 and Blackwell B200 GPUs, launching Oct 5 pending approval. The contracts give AI developers and hyperscalers a regulated way to lock in compute costs and manage price volatility, turning GPU power into a tradable commodity.
Default rates in private‑credit portfolios have risen to their highest levels in years, and fund managers' internal health reviews show declining loan performance. The stress signals lower investor returns and could tighten credit supply as lenders brace for more defaults, despite public optimism from big‑ticket firms.
CoreWeave posted Q2 2026 revenue of $2.58 billion, more than double the year‑ago quarter, and an adjusted EBITDA of $1.51 billion. The company’s backlog hit $104 billion, and CEO Michael Intrator called the results an “important inflection point.” The news sent the stock up about 16% in after‑hours trade.
The company posted Q4 2026 net income of $1.18 billion and diluted EPS of $1.62, beating analysts’ forecasts and lifting gross margin to 17.5% from 9.5% a year ago. The results sent SMCI shares up about 7% in after‑hours trading, underscoring the upside from booming AI‑optimized server demand and a healthier enterprise mix.
Riot struck a 20‑year, 191 MW lease with a frontier AI lab, worth about $9.1 billion, bringing its AI‑grade capacity to 241 MW. Q2 revenue rose to $174.2 million, a 14% YoY beat, signaling the firm's pivot from pure bitcoin mining to a lucrative AI data‑center landlord role.
An interactive by The Guardian reveals a widening gap: US firms are posting record earnings while customer service collapses. Consolidation gives companies pricing power, forcing shoppers to pay more for lower-quality experiences, deepening consumer pessimism and threatening broader economic health.
After a two‑year slump that saw 20‑30% more homes on the market in Florida, Texas and Arizona, inventory finally steadied in early 2026, halting price declines. Builders can pause cutbacks and buyers face a less hostile mortgage‑rate environment around 6%, easing the housing‑recession drag on the broader economy.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack told Yahoo Finance that a single 25‑basis‑point increase is unlikely to meaningfully restrain the economy or bring inflation back to 2%. She urged the Fed to consider a series of hikes, warning that delay will cement price pressures and erode workers’ wage gains.
George Washington University sold its 120‑acre Virginia campus to Amazon for $427 million, while the University of Michigan is planning a $1.25 billion high‑performance computing hub. The deals illustrate how AI infrastructure demand is turning university real estate into cash, raising alarms that academic resources and talent could be siphoned off.
Boeing is offloading Wisk Aero, SkyGrid and Insitu to Archer Aviation, taking newly issued Archer Class A shares worth about 19.75% of the company and options for more over four years. The deal lets Boeing trim non‑core units while giving Archer a full suite of autonomous‑flight, traffic‑management and drone technology to fast‑track its eVTOL rollout.
Apollo Global Management is injecting $2.6 billion of debt and equity into Yankee Global Enterprises, refinancing existing loans and taking a minority stake. The Steinbrenners keep full control while Apollo joins the board, marking one of the biggest private‑equity moves into major‑league sports.
PitchBook data shows PE firms held 33,575 portfolio companies unsold at end‑June 2026, up from 32,451 a year earlier and 15,923 a decade ago. The growing backlog squeezes fund returns and leaves little capital for new investments, threatening downstream owners of these stuck businesses.
You’re caught up.
That was all 12 stories in the 12 August issue.