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Musk's Tesla compensation hit $158B last year, Jane Street paid employees an average $2.7M last year, OpenAI's CFO pushed back on revenue concerns, Berkshire boosted its cash pile in its first quarter under new CEO Abel, and Spirit Airlines officially ceased all operations after years or struggles following blocked merger deals.

Of course, Twitter was having a field day with memes targeting the politicians behind Spirit's demise.

Mizuho's head of macro strategy Dominic Konstam shared an insightful perspective on the outlook ahead amid the oil market disruptions and a Fed chair succession. Read it here.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 5/1/2026 market close.

Learn more about the Litquidity portfolios and subscribe to the strategies on Autopilot.*

Markets

  • US stocks rose further on Friday as traders digested major earnings alongside the Iran situation 

    • S&P and Nasdaq hit fresh ATHs

    • S&P gained for a fifth-straight week in its longest streak since 2024

  • Global bonds are all staging a come-back rally

    • Global investment grade bonds gained 1.3% in their best month since August

    • Global high-yield bonds gained 2.3% in their best month since 2023

    • Munis rose 1.15% in their best month since 2014

    • EM bond spreads fell to the lowest since 2013

Earnings

  • Berkshire Hathaway beat Q1 operating earnings estimates on strong insurance underwriting results; the firm's cash pile jumped to a record $397B as it offloaded a net $8.1B of equity stakes under new CEO Abel (WSJ)

  • Ares missed Q1 estimates as a slump in dealmaking offset a record $30B fundraising haul (BBG)

  • ExxonMobil beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates but posted a dramatic fall in profit despite surging oil prices due to the Iran war (CNBC)

  • Chevron beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates but posted a dramatic fall in profit despite surging oil prices due to the Iran war (CNBC)

  • TPG posted a Q1 loss as revenue fell amid slowing exits due to credit, software, and Iran war disruptions as it sits on $73B of dry powder (WSJ)

  • What we're watching this week:  

    • Today: Palantir

    • Tuesday: AMD, Supermicro, PayPal, Shopify, KKR, Pfizer

    • Wednesday: Walt Disney, Uber, Kraft Heinz, Snap, CVS

    • Thursday: McDonald's, Coinbase, CoreWeave

  • Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

  • Kimi Antonelli as the first-ever rookie F1 World Champion was on nobodies cards

  • Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market

Headline Roundup

  • Trump signaled dissatisfaction with Iran's latest peace proposal (BBG)

  • US will guide neutral ships through Hormuz (BBG)

  • Traders hedge for both cuts and hikes after Fed division (BBG)

  • Big Tech earnings show split between AI winners and losers (BBG)

  • S&P 500 earnings beat back Wall Street's wall of worry (BBG)

  • Traders grapple with two-sided tail risk as stocks regain highs (BBG)

  • 'No margin for error' sparks hedging rush in EM bonds (BBG)

  • S&P weighs new rules to speed up index inclusion for mega IPOs (BBG)

  • PE investor body sounds alarm on 'conflict vehicles' (FT)

  • States are considering banning PE law firm acquisitions (WSJ)

  • Average Jane Street employee pay hit $2.7M last year (FT)

  • Investors praise Greg Abel in first post-Buffett Berkshire AGM (BBG)

  • Musk's Tesla compensation hit $158B last year (BBG)

  • Tesla made $570M in sales from SpaceX and xAI last year (BBG)

  • Lore of Sam Altman is being tested like never before (WSJ)

  • OpenAI CFO pushed back on revenue concerns (BBG)

  • Cboe will cut 20% of staff (WSJ)

  • US foreclosure filings hit the highest since Covid (WSJ)

A Message from Mizuho

At the start of the year, investors were focused on a familiar set of questions. The timing of rate cuts, a leadership transition at the Federal Reserve, and a shift toward a more forward-looking, growth-oriented framework were expected to define the outlook. Markets were actively debating how aggressive the Fed might be in easing, with expectations tied in part to Kevin Warsh potentially succeeding Jerome Powell.

That narrative has since been disrupted. The escalation of the Iran conflict has pushed energy prices and inflation risk back to the center of the macro conversation. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world's oil and liquified natural gas travels, forced a broad reassessment of the growth outlook and led to a meaningful repricing across global rates markets.

Read more

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

  • GameStop is preparing a takeover bid for $45B-listed eBay

  • Francisco Partners is in talks to acquire Canadian merchant payment processing JV Moneris from RBC and Bank of Montreal for $2B

  • A consortium led by Indian steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal and biotech tycoon Adar Poonawalla will acquire Indian cricket team Rajasthan Royals in a $1.65B deal

  • Dutch cloud computing firm Nebius agreed to buy AI optimization startup Eigen AI in a $643M stock-and-cash deal

  • PE firm GTCR is launching Avelis Holdings, a commodity and industrial markets data analytics platform, with $500M of initial capital 

  • Japanese trading house ​​Sumitomo will divest its 54% stake in the Ambatovy Madagascar nickel project and take $450M hit

  • Pickleball Inc., the parent company of Major League Pickleball and PPA Tour, raised $225M at a $750M valuation from Apollo's sports fund and Dundon Capital Partners to roll up several pickleball assets in America

  • Jindal Steel International paused talks to acquire a stake in German industrial engineering conglomerate Thyssenkrupp's steel unit

  • Meta acquired Assured Robot Intelligence in a humanoid robots push

  • Uber acquired Hong Kong rival FlyTaxi

  • Genstar-backed youth sports management platform PlayMetrics acquired youth sports app SportsEngine from Comcast-spinoff Versant Media Group at a reported $500M valuation 

  • MLS team Vancouver Whitecaps FC hasn't found a buyer after being up for sale for more than a year

VC

  • AI startup Standard Intelligence raised a $75M funding round led by Sequoia and Spark Capital

  • Fun, a crypto-to-fiat payments infrastructure startup, raised a $72M Series A led by Multicoin Capital and SignalFire

  • Reppo Labs, a decentralized prediction markets and Datanets protocol for human-vetted AI training data, raised a $20M strategic investment led by Bolts Capital

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems is seeking to raise $4B at a $40B valuation in its IPO

  • EQT and Hg-backed European software group IFS is preparing a potential $17B Europe IPO in the next two years 

  • Novo-backed coagulation-focused biotech Hemab Therapeutics raised $301M in an upsized IPO priced at the top of a marketed range for a $764M market cap

  • Depression-focused biotech Seaport Therapeutics rose 10% in its trading debut after raising $255M in an upsized IPO for a $1B market cap

  • Uzbek gold mining giant NMMC paused London and Uzbekistan IPO plans

  • EQT is exploring a Denmark IPO of its 49% stake in hearing aid maker WS Audiology

  • World's third-largest fish feed producer Biomar will IPO in Denmark

Debt

  • UK will enter talks to join EU's $106B loan to Ukraine 

  • Semiconductor packaging firm Amkor sold $1B of 0% convertible senior bonds

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

  • Spirit Airlines ceased all operations 

  • Dubai food conglomerate IFFCO will go into provisional liquidation amid struggles with $2B of debt 

  • Oaktree and L Catterton-backed boat retailer West Marine is preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure debt and leases

Funds / Secondaries

  • Tech investor Coatue launched a new venture called Next Frontier to buy land for data centers, potentially investing tens of billions of dollars in the effort

  • Peter Thiel's Founders Fund raised $6B for a new fund to invest in late-stage companies

  • Reverence Capital-backed RIA rollup Osaic Holdings raised a $2B CV led by Ares and Lexington Partners

  • Brown University cut its stake in a Blue Owl private credit fund by more than half in Q1

Crypto Sum Snapshot

  • Coinbase and banks reached a deal on key provision of crypto bill

  • Tether slowed gold purchases for USDT reserves in Q1 

  • Trump's net worth tripled to $6.5B with help of crypto since 2024 election

Crypto Sum compiles the most important stories on everything crypto. Read it here.

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*DISCLAIMER: Investment advice provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC ("Autopilot"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing carries risks, including loss of principal. As always, be smart out there. Litquidity is compensated to promote AutoPilot. Compensation details available upon request.