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The World Bank says stronger domestic demand, investment and early AI adoption are supporting growth, but inflation, debt and climate shocks remain key risks. Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is expected to grow faster in 2026, …

The World Bank says stronger domestic demand, investment and early AI adoption are supporting growth, but inflation, debt and climate shocks remain key risks. Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is expected to grow faster in 2026, despite geopolitical tensions, climate shocks and continued uncertainty in global trade, according to the World Bank. The lender has raised its growth forecast for the region to 4.3 per cent in 2026, up from 4.1 per cent in 2025 and 0.3 percentage points higher than its April projection. The improved outlook is being supported by stronger domestic demand, greater macroeconomic resilience and increased investment driven by the global shift towards clean energy and digital technologies. “Despite a challenging global environment, economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience, with growth forecasts upgraded for nearly three-quarters of countries in the region, including Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Zambia,” the lender said in its October Economic Update report. “These gains reflect years of reforms and improved economic management. The next challenge is turning growth into more jobs and better opportunities. By investing in the foundations of an AI-ready economy, African countries can unlock productivity gains, spur innovation, and accelerate the structural transformation needed to raise living standards and reduce poverty.” However, the stronger growth outlook comes amid persistent inflationary and fiscal pressures that could continue to squeeze household incomes and limit government spending. Median inflation across the region is projected to rise to 5.5 per cent in 2026, from 3.7 per cent last year, largely due to higher global prices for fuel, fertiliser and food. Public debt has broadly stabilised at about 57 per cent of gross domestic product, but high debt-servicing costs continue to limit government spending on critical sectors such as health, education and infrastructure. Falling development assistance is adding to the pressure, forcing governments to focus more on mobilising domestic revenue, strengthening local capital markets and securing sustainable sources of financing. The World Bank warned that risks to the economic outlook remain tilted to the downside. Further geopolitical tensions could push up commodity prices, worsening inflation and fiscal pressures. Climate shocks, including a possible El Niño event, could disrupt agricultural production and deepen food insecurity, while tighter global financial conditions could further restrict access to financing. The report also identifies Artificial Intelligence as a potential driver of productivity and job creation, with Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa among the countries showing early adoption. It says affordable, locally adapted AI applications in sectors such as agriculture, education, healthcare, finance and logistics could deliver greater economic benefits to the region than costly frontier technologies.

South Africa's FNB is adding crypto to its share-trading platform through a partnership with local exchange VALR South Africa’s second-largest bank is letting its customers buy Bitcoin without ever leaving the banking app. First …

South Africa's FNB is adding crypto to its share-trading platform through a partnership with local exchange VALR South Africa’s second-largest bank is letting its customers buy Bitcoin without ever leaving the banking app. First National Bank (FNB) has unveiled a feature called “Crypto Investing” that opens digital asset trading to nearly 9 million retail clients. FNB is the retail banking arm of the FirstRand group. It announced the service on October 6, 2026, and built it in partnership with VALR, a local crypto exchange. Clients can buy, sell and trade digital assets directly on the bank’s existing share-trading platform. What FNB clients can actually trade The menu is short for now. The service supports five assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL) and the USDT stablecoin from Tether. The barrier to entry is about as low as it gets. Trades start at a minimum of R10, which works out to about $0.60. Advertisement Trading runs 24/7, which matches how crypto markets operate. Clients fund their purchases directly from their FNB accounts. There is no need to wire money to a third-party exchange or juggle a separate login. The feature plugs into FNB’s existing investment products. Those include Share Saver, Share Builder, Share Investor and Share Zero. The news moving money, markets, and the world—before your day starts. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Email address Subscribe free We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime. The walled garden approach There is one significant catch. Any crypto bought through FNB stays inside the bank’s ecosystem. Clients cannot send their coins out to an external wallet or another exchange. FNB has two reasons for the restriction. The first is compliance with South African exchange-control regulations, which govern how money and value move across the country’s borders. The second is security. Keeping assets within a controlled environment reduces the risk of customers sending funds to scam wallets or fraudulent platforms. FNB executives pointed to strong customer demand for alternative investments as the motivation. They framed the bank as a trusted gateway to these markets, one that comes with established risk management attached. South African banks warm up to crypto FNB is not the first mover here. Discovery Bank struck a similar arrangement with crypto exchange Luno in November 2025. The local numbers back that up. More than 6 million South Africans were estimated to hold crypto assets as of late 2025. Over that same period, more than R25 billion in crypto assets were reported under custody at major platforms. What this means for investors and the banking sector For VALR, the partnership is a distribution win. Exchanges usually spend heavily to acquire customers one at a time. Plugging into a major bank’s client base offers reach that is hard to build independently. FNB says it plans to expand the list of supported assets. The bank also intends to provide educational resources to help clients understand the complexities and risks of digital currencies.

Michael Saylor's Bitcoin treasury company is now changing hands more often than a tech giant roughly ten times its size Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) is now trading more shares than Oracle. That makes it the …

Michael Saylor's Bitcoin treasury company is now changing hands more often than a tech giant roughly ten times its size Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) is now trading more shares than Oracle. That makes it the 24th most-traded stock in the US. Consider the scale. A company built around a Bitcoin stockpile is drawing more daily trading activity than one of the oldest names in enterprise software, despite being a fraction of its size. The numbers behind the volume Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy and led by Michael Saylor, has seen its trading activity climb sharply through 2026. At times its daily share volume has overtaken Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL). Across the year, MSTR has landed anywhere from 20th to 29th in rankings of the most actively traded US stocks. The company’s 30-day average trading volume has consistently held between 22 million and 25 million shares. Measured in dollars, that 30-day average works out to roughly $3.6-3.9 billion. Oracle, by comparison, has typically trailed. Recent snapshots put its volume at around 19 million shares. Advertisement August 2026 was the standout month. MSTR volume peaked at 46-49.2 million shares, and the stock briefly ranked as high as the 10th most active name in the market. One August session alone saw nearly $800 million change hands. That was enough to push Strategy into the top 30, ranking around 29th, after it had reached roughly 20th earlier in the year. AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Email address Subscribe free We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime. A small company with a very loud ticker Strategy’s market capitalization is estimated at $54-65 billion. Oracle’s sits at $592 billion. So a company worth about a tenth as much is, on some days, the more heavily traded stock. Strategy’s treasury reportedly holds more than 800,000 BTC, funded through equity and preferred share raises that exceeded $5.6 billion year-to-date by May 2026. That pile has turned MSTR into something closer to a Bitcoin vehicle than a software company. For many buyers, the stock is a way to get crypto exposure through an ordinary brokerage account. Short interest adds another layer. Reports throughout 2026 have put it between 9-14% of the company’s market cap. How Strategy got here Under Saylor, the company pivoted from enterprise analytics to accumulating Bitcoin, steadily raising capital to buy more. The name change from MicroStrategy to Strategy reflected that shift. The software business still exists, but it is no longer what moves the share price. That pivot explains why MSTR’s trading patterns look so different from a typical tech stock. Its swings are driven largely by crypto market conditions rather than quarterly earnings or product launches. The growing interest has been attributed largely to retail and speculative investors. What this means for traders and the market For active traders, heavy volume means liquidity. Getting in and out of positions is easier when tens of millions of shares move each day, which helps explain why MSTR has become a favorite for short-term strategies. Because the stock functions as a Bitcoin proxy, sentiment shifts in crypto can hit MSTR quickly, and the combination of high volume and meaningful short interest can amplify moves in either direction. How Strategy continues funding its Bitcoin purchases, and how the market prices its preferred and common share issuance, will shape whether today’s trading enthusiasm holds up when crypto conditions turn.

Anthropic is expanding the reach of its most advanced AI models, including the Claude Mythos 5, by allowing a limited number of organizations to test its cyber capabilities. This initiative is part of Project …

Anthropic is expanding the reach of its most advanced AI models, including the Claude Mythos 5, by allowing a limited number of organizations to test its cyber capabilities. This initiative is part of Project Glasswing, which involves coordination with the US government to address and remediate cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The move underscores Anthropic’s strategy of controlled access to its high-level AI models, positioning itself as a leader in the AI industry amidst competition from other systems like Z.ai’s GLM-5.3. The collaboration is expected to enhance Anthropic’s profile and growth prospects, potentially influencing its market valuation. Key Takeaways Anthropic’s collaboration with the US government appears to suggest increased confidence in its AI capabilities, supporting potential growth in valuation. The company’s strategy of providing controlled access to its models is consistent with strengthening its market position against competitors. Market activity reflects an upward trend in expectations for Anthropic’s valuation, suggesting participants view the expansion as a positive indicator. What to Watch Markets will be monitoring further developments in Anthropic’s partnerships and any announcements of new funding rounds or strategic initiatives. Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO, and strategic partners like Amazon and Google, could play pivotal roles in shaping the company’s valuation trajectory. Observers should watch for additional government collaborations or technological advancements that could further impact market perceptions.

CFOs don’t need a crypto thesis. They need ROI. Adoption hinges on counterparties, seamless ERP and treasury integration, and demonstrable savings across FX, fees, working capital and reconciliation. Payments beat holding. Enterprises increasingly look …

CFOs don’t need a crypto thesis. They need ROI. Adoption hinges on counterparties, seamless ERP and treasury integration, and demonstrable savings across FX, fees, working capital and reconciliation. Payments beat holding. Enterprises increasingly look at stablecoins as faster payment infrastructure, particularly cross-border, rather than an asset to keep on the balance sheet. Stablecoins have a demand problem, not a supply problem. Infrastructure, regulation and institutional investment are racing ahead of actual corporate adoption because most CFOs still need a compelling reason to switch rails. Stablecoins have spent the past year and a half acquiring nearly everything an emerging payments technology is supposed to need to go mainstream. Clearer regulation, check; more institutional backing, check; better infrastructure and growing support from banks, FinTechs and payment providers? Check, check, and check. By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions . Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required. The problem? New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, along with existing research from PYMNTS Intelligence, shows that what stablecoins have not been acquiring at the same pace as their infrastructure building is actual corporate demand. The most cited corporate adoption obstacles, per the Fed’s research, were not linked to regulatory uncertainty or lack of access. Companies instead were satisfied with existing payment methods, unsure of the economic benefit of stablecoins and, critically, were not being asked by customers or suppliers to transact differently. The findings rhyme with months of PYMNTS Intelligence research, which found this spring that 42% of middle market companies had at least discussed, tested or used stablecoins, while just 13% were actually using them. The findings separately illustrate the widening gap between corporate curiosity and production deployment. But put the two bodies of research together, and five conclusions emerge about what corporate stablecoin adoption will require. Read also: Stablecoins Are Just Wildcat Banking With Better Wi-Fi 1. Stablecoins Don’t Have a Supply Problem. They Have a Demand Problem. The GENIUS Act helped address one of the industry’s longstanding problems by establishing a federal framework for stablecoins. But regulation can make an instrument available without making it necessary. That distinction matters. The Cleveland Fed found only 21 respondents who identified availability through an existing financial services provider as something influencing, or potentially increasing, their interest in stablecoins. More respondents wanted evidence that stablecoins were cheaper or more efficient, more time to watch adoption, or demand from customers. PYMNTS Intelligence data points toward the same divide. Stablecoins are attracting considerably more corporate attention than conventional cryptocurrencies, but discussion and experimentation are running well ahead of actual use. That changes the industry’s central commercialization problem. Building another wallet, stablecoin or settlement network may increase supply without materially increasing transactions. For CFOs, the question is less whether stablecoins can move money than why they should replace a payment process that already works. 2. Payments Are More Compelling Than Holding The second point of agreement may be more important for stablecoins’ long-term trajectory. Among the eight Cleveland Fed respondents using or planning to use stablecoins, four cited accepting customer payments and four cited supplier payments. All three that envisioned stablecoins serving a treasury function also intended to use them for payments. The Fed’s review of corporate disclosures, meanwhile, found virtually no evidence that nonfinancial, noncrypto companies are keeping meaningful stablecoin positions on their balance sheets. PYMNTS Intelligence has found something strikingly similar from another direction: 88% of firms receiving stablecoins convert them immediately into U.S. dollars. In that model, the winning stablecoin may eventually become almost invisible. See more: Why Stablecoins Are a Money Story, Not a Consumer Story 3. Counterparties Matter More Than Crypto Enthusiasm Payments technologies are unusually dependent on network effects. A company gains little from supporting a new rail if its customers and suppliers have no reason to use it. That suggests stablecoin adoption may be less about persuading individual CFOs and more about achieving sufficient density within particular commercial corridors. A U.S. manufacturer may have little reason to introduce stablecoins across domestic suppliers already paid efficiently through ACH. The calculus can look different when paying a supplier in a market where correspondent banking is expensive, settlement is slow or dollar access is constrained. Stablecoins can remain marginal across corporate payments overall while becoming economically important inside specific cross-border corridors, marketplaces or supplier networks. Lloyds Banking Group and Visa, for example, on Wednesday (Sept. 30) completed a seven-day live pilot that tested cross-border settlement using stablecoins. More here: What Stablecoins Can Learn From the $12 Trillion Repo Market 4. Stablecoins Have to Fit the Finance Stack, Not Replace It There is another obstacle that enthusiasm about faster settlement can obscure. CFOs do not operate payments in isolation. Transactions flow through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, treasury management software, bank connectivity, sanctions screening, approval workflows, accounting systems and reconciliation processes. A payment that settles in seconds but creates hours of manual reconciliation is not necessarily an improvement. We’d love to be your preferred source for news. Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! Add as Preferred Source PYMNTS’ reporting on enterprise adoption has repeatedly identified this back-office issue. The challenge is connecting tokenized settlement with ERP, treasury and banking infrastructure without forcing companies to establish parallel financial operations. The Cleveland Fed survey captures the same problem from the buyer’s perspective. Respondents cited uncertainty about benefits and costs, accounting and tax treatment, employee knowledge and operational complexity as barriers. That makes integration a competitive issue, not simply a technical one. PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster has repeatedly highlighted this with Ryan Rugg, global head of digital assets for Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS), on “From the Block,” noting that ERPs serve as “the gating factor for adoption at scale.” Read more: Nobody Told the ERP That Blockchain Won 5. CFOs Need Economics, Not a Crypto Thesis Perhaps the clearest overlap between the Fed and PYMNTS research is that corporations are approaching stablecoins as finance departments generally approach infrastructure: show the return. Forty-two Cleveland Fed respondents said more evidence that stablecoins were cheaper or more efficient would increase their interest. Several simply said their current payment methods already worked. The relevant corporate calculation includes transaction fees, foreign exchange spreads, working-capital effects, implementation costs, compliance overhead, reconciliation expense, liquidity requirements and operational risk. Stablecoins need to improve the total equation. That is a considerably higher hurdle than demonstrating faster settlement. And that may explain why cross-border B2B payments remain one of their most credible enterprise entry points. The worse the incumbent economics, the easier the stablecoin business case becomes. That is a much narrower proposition than “stablecoins will replace payments.” It may also be a much more commercially significant one. Of course, there’s still lots of work to do. “The Wallet Effect: How Credit Unions Can Close the Digital Currency Access Gap,” a June Credit Union Tracker from PYMNTS Intelligence and Velera, found rising interest in digital currency among younger consumers, and a limited grasp on how various digital assets work, with stablecoin awareness falling short for 70% of credit union members. For all PYMNTS digital transformation and B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily digital transformation and B2B newsletters. At PYMNTS Intelligence, we work with businesses to uncover insights that fuel intelligent, data-driven discussions on changing customer expectations, a more connected economy and the strategic shifts necessary to achieve outcomes. With rigorous research methodologies and unwavering commitment to objective quality, we offer trusted data to grow your business. As our partner, you’ll have access to our diverse team of PhDs, researchers, data analysts, number crunchers, subject matter veterans and editorial experts.

Global supply chain pressures inched up in September, reaching their highest level since the recent peak seen in May, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI). …

Global supply chain pressures inched up in September, reaching their highest level since the recent peak seen in May, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI). By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions . Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required. The GSCPI rose to 1.28 in September, up from an upwardly revised 1.20 in August. The August figure was revised up from an initial reading of 1.06. The GSCPI provides a gauge of global supply chain conditions by integrating transportation cost data and manufacturing indicators. It has been published since 1997, according to the New York Fed’s overview of the index. The GSCPI is based on standard deviations from an average value, according to a graph included in the index. We’d love to be your preferred source for news. Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! Add as Preferred Source A zero in the index indicates that it is at its average value, while a positive value indicates higher global supply chain pressure and a negative value indicates lower pressure, according to a staff report on the GSCPI. The GSCPI hit its most recent peak in May, with the estimate gauged at 1.81, according to the chart. It reached its all-time high in December 2021, with an estimate of 4.43. The last time the GSCPI had a negative value, or lower-than-average global supply chain pressure, was November 2025. The current estimate for that month is -0.21, per the chart. Reuters reported in July that supply chain pressures had begun to abate after reaching a four-year high earlier in the year. The GSCPI reached its recent peak in April and May as the U.S.-Iran conflict disrupted the flow of trade through the vital Strait of Hormuz and led to a spike in the price of fuel. The pressures began to abate when some traffic was allowed through the strait, giving economists and Fed officials hope that inflationary pressures would begin to ease. In other supply chain news, Bloomberg reported in September that The Port of Los Angeles, which is America’s busiest container hub for global trade, blocked more than 120 million cyberattacks during August. The port’s cybersecurity team identified intrusion, network exploitation, credential harvesting and malware attacks during the month, according to the report. For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B newsletter.

The smartphone chip giant unveiled its Dragonfly server CPU, a Meta deal, and a $40 billion non-handset revenue target at its Investor Day Qualcomm spent years as the company inside your phone. Now it …

The smartphone chip giant unveiled its Dragonfly server CPU, a Meta deal, and a $40 billion non-handset revenue target at its Investor Day Qualcomm spent years as the company inside your phone. Now it wants to be the company inside the data center, too. At its Investor Day on June 24, 2026, the chipmaker laid out a plan to push hard into AI infrastructure. It set a goal of more than $15 billion in data center revenue by fiscal 2029. Investors liked what they heard: shares jumped more than 12% in after-hours trading. The pitch rests on a market Qualcomm projects will reach approximately $200 billion for CPUs by fiscal 2029 or 2030. Dragonfly, Meta, and a much bigger target The centerpiece of the strategy is a new product family called Dragonfly. Its flagship is the Dragonfly C1000, a server CPU built for agentic AI workloads. The C1000 uses a multi-chiplet design. Instead of one giant slab of silicon, it stitches together several smaller pieces, an approach that can improve manufacturing yields and flexibility. The specs are aggressive. The chip packs more than 250 Oryon cores and runs at frequencies above 5 GHz. It is pitched as delivering more than double the performance per watt of competing server CPUs. Advertisement Performance per watt matters more than it sounds. Data centers are increasingly limited by how much electricity they can pull, not just how much hardware they can buy. A chip that does twice the work on the same power budget is effectively free capacity. Qualcomm already has a marquee customer lined up. Meta Platforms signed a multi-generation agreement to use the Dragonfly C1000 in its data center servers. Volume production is slated for the second half of 2028. AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Email address Subscribe free We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime. Microsoft is also expected to deploy Qualcomm’s High Bandwidth Compute chips, known as HBC. And additional hyperscalers, still unnamed, are likely to start contributing to Qualcomm’s custom-chip revenue before 2026 wraps up. Along the way, the company is projecting $5 billion in data center revenue for fiscal 2027 as a stepping stone toward the $15 billion-plus goal. The broader numbers moved too. Qualcomm raised its non-handset revenue target for fiscal 2029 to $40 billion. Its previous target was $22 billion, so the new figure nearly doubles it. Why Qualcomm needs a second act By fiscal 2029, the company projects smartphones will account for only about one-third of its total revenue. The rest is supposed to come from data centers, automotive, IoT, industrial applications, robotics, and edge AI platforms. A crowded field of rivals The server CPU market has long been dominated by Intel and AMD. Nvidia is also in the mix through its Vera chip. Efficient Arm-based designs have been gaining ground as cloud providers look for alternatives to traditional x86 processors. Qualcomm’s argument centers on energy efficiency and cost. In environments where power is the bottleneck, it believes its chips can win on total economics rather than raw horsepower alone. What this means for investors and the chip market The after-hours jump of more than 12% suggests the market was not fully pricing in Qualcomm’s data center potential before Investor Day. The Meta deal does a lot of heavy lifting here. Plenty of chip companies announce server ambitions. Far fewer show up with a hyperscaler customer signed to a multi-generation agreement. Add Microsoft’s expected HBC deployment, and Qualcomm has two of the largest buyers of compute in its corner. The C1000 does not hit volume production until the second half of 2028. The fiscal 2027 projection of $5 billion in data center revenue offers an early checkpoint for whether the $15 billion-plus target for fiscal 2029 is achievable.

The chipmaker raised its fiscal 2031 revenue target to between $70 billion and $90 billion, and its stock jumped nearly 8% intraday Marvell Technology gave Wall Street a growth story it could not ignore. …

The chipmaker raised its fiscal 2031 revenue target to between $70 billion and $90 billion, and its stock jumped nearly 8% intraday Marvell Technology gave Wall Street a growth story it could not ignore. At its Investor Day on October 6, 2026, CEO Matt Murphy laid out a fiscal 2031 revenue target of between $70 billion and $90 billion. For context, the company’s expected fiscal 2026 revenue is $8.2 billion. Murphy is pitching a business roughly an order of magnitude larger within about five fiscal years, and investors seemed willing to hear him out. Shares of Marvell (MRVL) climbed nearly 8% intraday after the presentation. The numbers behind the hype The long-range target did not arrive in a vacuum. It followed Marvell’s fiscal Q2 2027 report, which showed record quarterly revenue of $2.74 billion. That figure was up 37% year-over-year. The real engine was the data center. That segment brought in $2.17 billion in the quarter, a 46% increase from a year earlier. Advertisement Data-center sales made up 79% of total revenue. Management also lifted its full-year view. Marvell now sees fiscal 2027 revenue of approximately $12 billion, which would represent about 45% growth year over year. AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Email address Subscribe free We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime. Within that, the company anticipates data-center growth of nearly 60%. The medium-term target moved too. Marvell revised its fiscal 2028 revenue guidance up to approximately $20 billion, from a prior estimate of around $18 billion. What Marvell actually sells The company identified three main growth drivers: AI connectivity, custom silicon and optical solutions. AI connectivity refers to the hardware that links thousands of processors so they can work as one giant computer. Training large AI models requires constant, high-speed communication between chips, and bottlenecks there can waste expensive compute. Custom silicon means designing chips tailored to a specific customer’s workloads. Large cloud operators increasingly want processors built for their own needs instead of buying only off-the-shelf parts, and Marvell helps design and build them. Optical solutions use light instead of electrical signals to move data. Over longer distances and at higher speeds, optics can carry more information with less power, which matters when data centers are scaling up rapidly. Why the long-term target matters A $70 billion to $90 billion fiscal 2031 range is notably wide. The $20 billion spread between the low and high ends is larger than the company’s entire fiscal 2028 target. What this means for investors and the AI trade With data centers making up 79% of revenue, the stock’s fortunes are now tightly linked to AI capital spending. The most useful checkpoints will be the next few quarterly reports. Investors will want to see whether Marvell stays on track for approximately $12 billion in fiscal 2027 revenue and nearly 60% data-center growth. Progress toward the roughly $20 billion fiscal 2028 target will be the next real test.

“President Donald Trump’s meme coin saw a brief price spike as the crypto firm behind it promoted a major perk for investors: a ‘gala dinner’ attended by the president himself,” the Washington Sun reports. …

“President Donald Trump’s meme coin saw a brief price spike as the crypto firm behind it promoted a major perk for investors: a ‘gala dinner’ attended by the president himself,” the Washington Sun reports. “But as the company encouraged the public to purchase… “President Donald Trumps meme coin saw a brief price spike as the crypto firm behind it promoted a major perk for investors: a ‘gala dinner’ attended by the president himself,” the Washington Sun rep…

BofA strategists suggest limited-risk equity derivatives as a way to ride the Nasdaq 100's AI-driven climb without full exposure to a potential bust Bank of America has a message for investors nervous about the …

BofA strategists suggest limited-risk equity derivatives as a way to ride the Nasdaq 100's AI-driven climb without full exposure to a potential bust Bank of America has a message for investors nervous about the tech megacaps pushing the Nasdaq 100 to record highs: you can still join the party, as long as you book a ride home in advance. The bank’s strategists argue that equity derivatives offer a way to capture the rally while sidestepping the damage if it turns out to be a bubble. The bubble warning, by the numbers BofA analysts, with work on the theme led by Michael Hartnett, have been drawing comparisons between today’s AI-fueled market and the 2000 dot-com bubble. The bank’s Bubble Risk Indicator, or BRI, for the Nasdaq 100 and the broader tech sector has climbed to a range of 0.72 to 0.8. Higher readings mean the conditions that tend to precede corrections are building. The analysts say the current setup resembles the market roughly six months before the March 2000 dot-com peak. There is an important difference, though. Only 18 stocks in the S&P 500 scored above the 0.8 BRI threshold, and together they represent just 3.2% of the index weight. At the height of the dot-com boom, somewhere between 50 and 100 stocks cleared that bar. Advertisement Why volatility is flashing late-1990s signals VIXEQ, a gauge tied to single-stock volatility, is up 46% year to date. The VIX, Wall Street’s better-known fear index for the S&P 500, has risen 13% over the same stretch. BofA notes that this kind of divergence is reminiscent of the late 1990s, when single names lurched around even as headline indexes kept marching higher. AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Email address Subscribe free We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime. The analysts also flagged the effect of high interest rates. Tech and AI-linked assets have kept rising while other sectors lagged significantly. The money behind the AI trade AI-related capital expenditures by US hyperscalers are forecast at approximately $795 billion for 2026. The projection for 2027 is about $1.08 trillion. BofA’s playbook: call spreads, not concentrated bets Rather than buying the megacaps outright, BofA’s strategists suggest limited-risk derivatives, particularly call spreads. A call spread works like a capped bet. An investor buys a call option, which pays off if a stock or index rises above a set price. At the same time, they sell another call at a higher price, which helps pay for the first one but caps the potential gain. The result is a position with a known, limited cost. If the rally continues, the investor profits up to a ceiling. If the bubble pops, the most they lose is what they paid for the trade, not a large chunk of a stock portfolio. According to the research, these trades could be structured on Nasdaq 100 exposure or on semiconductor sector ETFs, the corner of the market most directly tied to the AI spending boom. What this means for investors Capped upside means investors give up some gains if the AI rally turns into a full melt-up. Options also carry their own complexities, including timing risk: a position can expire worthless if the market stalls, even if the long-term thesis proves right. With just 18 stocks above the 0.8 BRI threshold and only 3.2% of S&P 500 weight in that zone, the risk is narrower than in 2000. If that number begins expanding toward the 50 to 100 range seen at the dot-com peak, it would suggest the euphoria is spreading beyond the AI leaders. A 46% jump in VIXEQ against a 13% move in the VIX shows stress building at the company level. The projected climb from roughly $795 billion in 2026 to about $1.08 trillion in 2027 is a vote of confidence from the companies doing the spending. Any sign that hyperscalers are pulling back would hit the exact stocks driving the Nasdaq 100.