Capital Markets

A 50/50 joint venture between OKX and ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has filed to launch 24/7 tokenized US stock trading under the SEC's proposed five-year innovation exemption, the first major attempt by anyone to use that exemption. The initial list will have 63 stocks, including Strategy, Apple, Nvidia, Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle and major banks. Trading would run continuously, 24/7 365, through Uniswap liquidity pools on OKX's X layer and in USDC, USDG and USDT pairs, with users holding assets in self-custodial wallets subject to identity verification, AML and KYC. Unlike Robinhood-style representations, the tokens must be backed one for one by an actual share held through a registered broker dealer, and investors would receive dividends and voting rights just like on any stock. Companies have 30 days to object to having their stock tokenized.

Morgan Stanley is making a mark in the Bitcoin ETF market as it has maintained a long streak of steady Bitcoin purchases regardless of the unstable market conditions. The bank's Bitcoin stash is piling up, with a $1 Billion milestone now in view. The buying has continued through unstable market conditions, underscoring the firm's persistent accumulation of Bitcoin ETF exposure.

Cboe Global Markets has extended its exclusive licensing agreement with S&P Dow Jones Indices for another 25 years, through 2051, securing continued trading in S&P 500 Index (SPX) options. SPX options recorded a record 970.6 million contracts in 2025, with average daily volume of 3.9 million contracts, up 25% year over year. Cboe has expanded the SPX product suite with new expirations, structures and products, and the company and S&P DJI may explore products such as tokenized options contracts. Cboe also expects revised royalty terms to begin in 2027, which could increase costs. The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 18.72X, below the industry average of 19.35X, and carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

LPL Financial LLC announced that Praxis Financial Partners advisors Scott Christian, Cecil Loyd, Jay Gentry and Matt Dion have joined its broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisor platform, bringing approximately $1.1 billion in advisory, brokerage and retirement plan assets from Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network. Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, Praxis is a planning-focused wealth management practice serving business owners, corporate retirees, executives and multigenerational families across 24 states, tracing its roots to 2013 when Christian and Loyd launched the firm. The team said it chose LPL after evaluating more than a dozen firms, citing greater flexibility, advanced planning capabilities, access to emerging technology and support for its long-term independence and succession strategy. LPL Chief Growth Officer Marc Cohen said the four advisors had built Praxis with a clear sense of purpose and a disciplined, planning-first approach. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. supports more than 32,000 financial advisors and approximately 1,100 financial institutions, custodying roughly $2.6 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets.

Ares Secondaries funds have expanded their investment in Sabey Data Center Properties, LLC, bringing their total commitment to more than $500 million. The additional investment builds on Ares' minority equity investment in SDCP announced in July 2026. SDCP owns and operates hyperscale and enterprise data center campuses in top-tier United States markets totaling 275 megawatts, with an expansion pipeline expected to reach approximately 737 megawatts by 2033. Kevin Verdi, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at National Real Estate Advisors, said the follow-on investment reflects continued conviction in SDCP's long-term value proposition and growth trajectory. Tim Mirick, President of Sabey Data Center Properties, said the additional commitment reflects confidence in the platform's strength and its ability to develop and operate mission-critical infrastructure. Jamie Sunday, Co-Head of Real Estate Secondaries at Ares, said the firm continues to see significant runway for growth.

TeraWulf said Monday it executed an amended and restated electric service agreement with Kentucky Power, an American Electric Power company, raising contracted power capacity at its Muskie Data Campus in eastern Kentucky from 500 megawatts to 1 gigawatt. The amendment moves planned delivery of Muskie's second 500 MW phase forward from 2030 to 2029, while the first 500 MW phase remains targeted to begin ramping in 2028. TeraWulf acquired Muskie in May 2026 for phased development as an AI and high-performance computing campus, and Kentucky Power is developing a 765-kV / 345-kV substation connected to the regional transmission network to serve the site. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Prager said securing the next 500 MW and moving its planned delivery into 2029 gives the company greater flexibility to meet prospective customers' deployment needs. The company added that it continues to evaluate the campus's potential to support up to 2 GW over time, subject to additional utility planning, infrastructure, and agreements.

Kentucky Power has finalized an amended agreement that would double its contracted electric demand with TeraWulf Inc. to 1 gigawatt at the Muskie Data campus in Grayson, Kentucky, up from 500 megawatts. If approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the deal is expected to provide $100 million in winter bill credits funded by TeraWulf for Kentucky Power's residential customers over the first 10 years of the contract, amounting to roughly $25 per month during the winter heating season for a typical residential customer, with credits beginning in 2029. The agreement also advances planned delivery of the second 500-megawatt phase from 2030 to 2029, subject to Commission approval and Kentucky Power's construction schedule. TeraWulf has agreed to pay all applicable service charges plus the estimated financing costs of Kentucky Power's planned 760-megawatt combined-cycle generation facility at Big Sandy, so that costs of serving the added demand are not shifted to existing customers. Kentucky Power, an operating company in the American Electric Power system serving about 163,000 customers in 20 eastern Kentucky counties, plans to file the amended contract and seek related regulatory approvals later this year.

Intercontinental Exchange has launched the first tanker freight futures on the TD34 Gulf of Oman to China and TD15 West Africa to China Very Large Crude Carrier routes, alongside two new cash-settled container freight average price options. The tanker contracts are cash-settled futures based on Baltic Exchange price assessments, designed to let customers hedge those routes as they navigate restricted access through the Strait of Hormuz. The container options, FAN Asia to North Europe and FAW Asia to U.S. West Coast, are indexed to NYSHEX's Freight Indices and build on the equivalent freight futures ICE launched in April 2026. The new contracts extend ICE's freight complex to more than 90 contracts across over 30 global routes spanning wet and container freight, as average daily volume across ICE's freight markets is up 33% year-to-date. Jeff Barbuto, SVP and Global Head of Oil Markets at ICE, said the market can now manage the full chain of risk, the commodity and the cost of moving it, in one place, as events like the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz continue to affect both.

Ratings giant S&P Global Ratings announced on October 4 that it has launched a risk assessment service for DeFi, or decentralized finance, lending operations. The new service, called Vault Risk Assessment, or VRA, provides independent assessments of "vaults" that pool investor funds and lend them out. It offers a forward-looking, relative assessment of the risk that investors' holdings will suffer losses, and unlike ordinary credit ratings, it does not assess yield levels. According to the company, assets under custody in lending vaults reached about 10 billion dollars as of September 2026, expanding roughly 6.7 times over two years from about 1.5 billion dollars in September 2024. VRA examines the credit quality of the assets being managed, mismatches between withdrawal demand and fund recovery, and the risks of the managers who set investment policy, and further evaluates them from six perspectives, including the blockchain, the lending mechanism, and the vault's security and governance. The company already assesses the ability of stablecoins to maintain their price pegs, and with VRA it will address the risk of losses associated with lending operations, aiming to support institutional investors in selecting investments and managing risk.

Coinbase Global CEO Brian Armstrong said Citigroup has partnered with Coinbase to enable stablecoin payments for large institutional clients, calling the tie-up proof the crypto giant "has come a long way" since 2012. Under the partnership, Citi's institutional clients, including multinational corporations, will be able to accept stablecoin payments from customers at checkout through the bank's merchant-processing services, while Coinbase customers can use Citi's banking capabilities and automatically convert incoming cash into stablecoins. Armstrong recalled that getting a bank to work with Coinbase at its founding was "nearly impossible," and thanked Citi for the arrangement. Stablecoins are a key and rapidly growing revenue component for Coinbase, which shares interest income on reserve assets backing USDC with Circle Internet Group and monetizes customer balances on its platform; USDC held in Coinbase products hit an all-time high of $20 billion in the second quarter, more than 30% of all USDC in circulation. Coinbase shares finished Friday down 3.32% at $183.

NB Private Equity Partners Limited announced it purchased 25,223 of its own Class A Shares on the London Stock Exchange on 2 October 2026, at prices between £14.96 and £14.79, under the general authority granted by shareholders on 11 June 2026 and its share buy-back agreement with Jefferies International Limited. All Class A Shares bought back will be cancelled, leaving 37,502,593 Class A Shares outstanding, with a further 3,150,408 Class A shares held in treasury. The company said the market should use the figure of 37,502,593 voting rights when determining whether it is required to notify its interest in, or a change to its interest in, the company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. NBPE is a closed-end investment company domiciled in Guernsey that invests in direct private equity investments alongside private equity firms globally, with NB Alternatives Advisers LLC, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Neuberger Berman Group LLC, as its investment manager.

S&P Global Ratings, a division of S&P Global, has launched its vault risk assessment, a new analytical approach delivering independent, forward-looking insights into the risks associated with digital asset lending vaults, according to a statement on Sunday. The framework provides independent risk transparency for on-chain investment vehicles, extending S&P Global's offerings across the DeFi space. Digital asset lending vaults are investment vehicles that operate on a blockchain, pooling investor deposits and deploying them according to defined strategies much like managed fixed-income funds. Total deposits in vaults reached $10 billion as of September 2026, up sharply from $1.5 billion two years earlier.

Redemption requests fell from the prior quarter in the flagship private credit funds of U.S. asset manager Blue Owl Capital. According to an investor letter the firm published on the 2nd, redemption requests for the July-September quarter across two of its funds totaled 4.2 billion dollars, down from 4.7 billion dollars in the previous quarter. At its flagship Blue Owl Credit Income fund, known as OCIC, redemption requests in the July-September quarter amounted to 16.8 percent of outstanding shares, down from 18.8 percent in the prior quarter. OCIC manages 35.1 billion dollars in assets, making it the second-largest non-traded business development company in the industry. At Blue Owl Technology Income, known as OTIC, which focuses on the technology sector, redemption requests in the July-September quarter came to 1.1 billion dollars, equivalent to 39 percent of outstanding shares, roughly flat from 1.1 billion dollars and 38.1 percent in the previous quarter. The decline in redemption requests is a fresh sign that the private credit industry may be emerging from the worst of the redemption pressure.

Citi announced an expanded collaboration with Coinbase to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts and enable institutional stablecoin payment acceptance via Spring by Citi, initially in the United States. The collaboration links Coinbase's digital asset infrastructure with Citi's regulated banking network and creates an industry-first automatic fiat-to-stablecoin conversion feature. Coinbase Global also reported that Chief Accounting Officer Jennifer Jones plans to retire after a successor is appointed. The company's narrative projects $8.5 billion revenue and $2.1 billion earnings by 2028, requiring 8.3% yearly revenue growth and a $0.8 billion earnings decrease from $2.9 billion today, with a $383.46 fair value implying 110% upside to its current price. Some of the most optimistic analysts already expected Coinbase to reach about US$9.3 billion of revenue and US$2.2 billion of earnings.

BlackRock has significantly expanded its Bitcoin holdings after a month of consistent inflows through its Bitcoin funds, with more than $1.5 billion in Bitcoin now topping the asset manager's holdings. The leading asset management firm built the position over that one-month stretch of steady inflows into its Bitcoin funds. The figure marks the scale of BlackRock's Bitcoin exposure following the sustained buying.

Robinhood has rolled out new AI trading agents that let users connect a chatbot such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI and direct it to place trades, Fortune Finance & Crypto Editor Jeff John Roberts said on Fortune Daily with Ellie Austin. Roberts said users can log into Robinhood, name the agent, and instruct it to buy shares such as Tesla. He framed the launch as the first arrival of a feature he expects every other company to add within the next couple of years, rather than an immediate overhaul of investing. Roberts warned of unintended consequences from letting agents trade while users sleep, including herd behavior if many agents converge on the same stock, and said that while guard rails exist, not everyone will use them.

Invesco reported second-quarter revenues of $1.33 billion, up 20.3% year on year and in line with analysts' expectations, as the 16 custody bank stocks tracked by the roundup collectively beat consensus revenue estimates by 3.2%. Invesco beat analysts' EBITDA estimates while assets under management came in line, and its stock is up 1% since reporting, trading at $30.43. Hamilton Lane posted the group's biggest estimate beat, with revenues of $275.3 million, up 56.5% year on year and 21% above expectations, though its shares are down 6.6% at $88.65. StepStone Group delivered the weakest performance against estimates, with revenues of $300.6 million, up 26.6% year on year but 3.9% below expectations, and its stock is down 11.1% at $44.72. SEI Investments reported revenues of $641.6 million, up 14.7% and 0.7% above expectations, with its stock up 5.7% at $104.35, while Ridgepost Capital posted revenues of $81.28 million, up 11.5% and 3.6% above expectations, though its shares are down 16.9% at $7.51. On average, custody bank share prices are down 3.8% since the latest earnings results.

Chaince Securities, LLC has been engaged as the exclusive sales agent for Magic Empire Global Limited's at-the-market equity offering program of up to US$100 million in Class A ordinary shares. The engagement is made under an At-the-Market Offering Agreement dated September 30, 2026, under which Magic Empire Global, a British Virgin Islands-incorporated holding company operating in Hong Kong through subsidiaries as a corporate finance advisory services provider, may sell shares from time to time through Chaince as sales agent. Sales, if any, may be made by any method permitted by law deemed to be an at-the-market offering under Rule 415(a)(4) of the Securities Act of 1933, including directly on the Nasdaq Capital Market, at prevailing market prices and subject to minimum price and other execution parameters set by the company. Chaince will not purchase shares as principal, there is no minimum offering amount, and the company is not obligated to sell any shares under the agreement. Magic Empire Global intends to use any net proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes, with the shares offered under an effective shelf registration statement on Form F-3 initially filed with the SEC on September 8, 2026, and declared effective on September 17, 2026, plus a prospectus supplement dated September 30, 2026.

Robinhood has housed its autonomous trading technology in a distinct entity, Robinhood Labs LLC, while keeping brokerage operations in Robinhood Financial LLC, creating a legal firewall that could become a blueprint for other broker-dealers deploying agentic commerce. Robinhood Labs LLC is explicitly not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, futures commission merchant, or money transmitter, and company disclosures state it does not provide investment advice, hold customer funds, or execute transactions, with the user agreement requiring customers to assume all risk for trades executed by AI agents and for any use of their data by third-party LLM providers. Robinhood reports that over 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts since their May 2026 launch, with agents using tools nearly 30 million times per day, though these figures remain self-reported and have not been independently verified. The strategy operates in a regulatory vacuum: the 2026 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report acknowledged the rise of AI agents but maintained that existing rules remain technologically neutral, FINRA Rule 3110 requires reasonably designed supervisory systems without specific guidance on corporate separation, and the SEC has remained silent on using a non-broker subsidiary to shield a parent from autonomous agents. Registered Investment Advisers are currently prohibited from using AI agents to manage client money under existing fiduciary standards, yet retail users on platforms like Robinhood can grant autonomous trading authority to agents, and while Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, eToro, and Webull face competitive pressure to respond, none have publicly announced a similar corporate separation. The primary regulatory lever that could dismantle the template is SEC Rule 15c3-5, the Market Access Rule, which requires risk management controls to remain under the direct and exclusive control of the broker-dealer with market access, and the alter-ego doctrine could also pierce the liability shield if courts find the Labs entity is merely an alter-ego of the brokerage.

Charles Schwab is positioned to beat earnings estimates again in its next quarterly report, according to Zacks Investment Research. The company has averaged a surprise of 4.38% over the past two quarters, reporting $1.62 per share against an estimate of $1.53 in the most recent quarter, a surprise of 5.88%, and $1.43 per share against a consensus of $1.39 in the prior quarter, a surprise of 2.88%. Charles Schwab currently carries a Zacks Earnings ESP of +0.58% and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), a combination that Zacks research shows produces a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. The next earnings report is expected to be released on October 15, 2026.

T. Rowe Price is positioned to beat consensus estimates again in its next quarterly report, according to Zacks Investment Research. The financial services firm has topped earnings estimates in each of its last two reports, with an average surprise of 4.16%. In the most recent quarter, T. Rowe reported earnings of $2.57 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.52 per share, a surprise of 1.98%, after beating the prior quarter's $2.37 per share estimate with earnings of $2.52 per share, a surprise of 6.33%. T. Rowe currently carries an Earnings ESP of +2.93% and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), a combination that Zacks research shows produces a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time.

KBRA has assigned preliminary ratings to 10 classes of mortgage-backed notes from New Residential Mortgage Loan Trust 2026-NQM10, a $494.0 million non-prime RMBS transaction sponsored by Rithm Capital Corp., the publicly traded real estate investment trust formerly known as New Residential Investment Corp. The underlying mortgages in the pool were primarily originated by NewRez LLC at 56.6%, and all loans will be serviced by Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing, a brand and affiliate of NewRez LLC. The transaction is collateralized by a pool of 897 residential mortgages seasoned approximately two months, with borrowers carrying a non-zero weighted average original credit score of 757, a weighted average original loan-to-value of 72.5% and a weighted average combined loan-to-value of 72.5%. KBRA said its rating approach incorporated loan-level analysis of the mortgage pool through its Residential Asset Loss Model, an examination of third-party loan file due diligence results, cash flow modeling of the transaction's payment structure, reviews of key transaction parties and an assessment of the legal structure and documentation.

Rithm Capital Corp. announced the closing of a joint venture with a fund managed by DRA Advisors LLC for ownership of 1301 Avenue of the Americas, a flagship asset in the New York City office portfolio of Elecor Properties, Rithm's real estate operating platform. Rithm, through Elecor, will continue to hold majority ownership of the asset and operate the building on behalf of the joint venture, with terms of the transaction not disclosed. The 45-story, 1.7 million-square-foot Midtown Manhattan tower is currently fully leased, with major tenants including KeyBank, Piper Sandler, Crédit Agricole, and O'Melveny & Myers LLP, and features a recently renovated 32,000-square-foot private club, The Aurelian. Rithm acquired Elecor and its portfolio of Class A office buildings in New York and San Francisco in December 2025, and said it intends to pursue similar capital partnerships across the portfolio going forward. Newmark Group acted as exclusive real estate advisor and HSF Kramer served as legal counsel to Rithm.

CME Group said its average daily volume rose 22% year over year to 31.8M contracts in September, a record for the month. Third-quarter ADV of 29.4M contracts grew 16% year over year, with both September and Q3 volumes topping prior records set in 2024. For the year to date, ADV of 31.8M contracts increased 12% from a year ago. Within the overall totals, interest rate ADV increased 22% year over year to 16.2M contracts, equity index ADV gained 16% to 8.1M contracts, and energy ADV grew 37% to 3.1M contracts. CME Group stock edged up 0.1% in premarket trading.

The Federal Reserve's September rate hike could provide another earnings tailwind for Morgan Stanley's Wealth Management business, with the 25-basis-point increase in the federal funds target range to 3.75-4.00% potentially supporting yields on client cash and lending balances and lifting net interest income. Morgan Stanley enters the higher-rate backdrop from a position of strength, as Wealth Management revenues rose 15% year over year to $17.4 billion in the first half of 2026 while net interest income increased 16% to $4.4 billion, and asset management revenues climbed 17% to $10.3 billion. Net new assets reached a record $266.5 billion during the period. Even before the Fed's September move, Morgan Stanley had expected a modest sequential rise in Wealth Management net interest income in the third quarter, with further improvement supported by loan growth and deposit mix. The benefits are unlikely to be entirely one-sided, however, since higher deposit costs could limit spread expansion and persistently elevated rates could soften lending demand and pressure equity and bond valuations. Among peers, JPMorgan's Asset & Wealth Management business posted first-half revenues up 15% year over year to $13.2 billion with assets under management of $5.14 trillion, up 18%, while Goldman Sachs' Asset & Wealth Management revenues rose 15% year over year to $8.7 billion even as private banking and lending revenues declined on a lower net interest margin tied to Marcus deposits.

Apollo Global Management has moved further into energy and industrial assets, with its backed Eagle Creek Renewable Energy partnering with Relevate Power to grow small hydropower assets, and with Apollo completing its acquisition of Nippon Sheet Glass. The Eagle Creek and Relevate Power agreement covers both expansion and day-to-day management of distributed hydro facilities, while the Nippon Sheet Glass deal starts a new management setup and growth phase for the glass producer. Apollo Global Management, a US-based diversified financial group with a market value of about $68.5b, channels capital into credit, private equity, infrastructure and real assets. The firm is also rumored to be reshaping assets including Energos Infrastructure and rolling out Daily Pricing across US$850b of credit. Analysts continue to flag thinner recent profit margins and an uneven dividend record even as the deals support expectations of higher origination volumes.

Piper Sandler Companies announced it is establishing a new infrastructure debt advisory team in its London office, led by industry veteran Stewart Robinson. Hugo Muller and Anish Shah have been hired as directors, and the team will be fully integrated into the firm's energy, power and infrastructure group, focused on advising infrastructure companies on debt financing and capital raising transactions. Robinson most recently served as a managing director and EMEA head of debt advisory at Nomura International Ltd., and previously held roles at Cantor Fitzgerald, Societe Generale, Royal Bank of Canada and Barclays Capital. Muller and Shah were previously executive directors in the debt advisory team at Nomura in London, and together bring over 20 years of debt financing experience focused on infrastructure and energy. Paul Leece, managing director and global head of infrastructure, said the team's experience across debt advisory, private placements, project bonds and infrastructure financing will strengthen the firm's integrated offering.