Newsletter · · Ashutosh Agarwal

Oura Pulls Its IPO as Credit Markets Start Cracking and Paramount Prices a Record Bond Deal - The Capital-Markets Reopening - Week of October 6, 2026

The Capital-Markets Reopening for the week of October 6, 2026 (podcasts published September 29 to October 6). Oura pulled its roughly 2 billion dollar IPO, Anthropic's leaked prospectus points to a record raise above 75 billion dollars, Paramount financed Warner Bros. Discovery with a 52 to 53 billion dollar bond deal, and the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.34 percent as credit spreads widened.

The Capital-Markets Reopening

Week of October 6, 2026: Oura Pulls Its IPO as Credit Markets Start Cracking and Paramount Prices a Record Bond Deal

Week of September 29 – October 6, 2026

TL;DR

  • The IPO window shut on everyone except Anthropic. Smart-ring maker Oura pulled its roughly $2 billion IPO hours before it was due to price. It is the third postponement in three weeks, and long-only fund managers "passed" (Bloomberg Intelligence, September 29). Meanwhile Anthropic's leaked prospectus points to a record IPO of more than $75 billion at $1.8–2 trillion, with an investor day on October 14 and trading targeted for Thanksgiving week (The AI Daily Brief, October 2). Podcasts name Goldman and Morgan Stanley as the likely lead banks, but that is unconfirmed.

  • Debt underwriting had a historic week, but the cost of borrowing is rising. Paramount financed Warner Bros. Discovery with "the largest corporate bond deal of all time," about $52–53 billion, and the deal closes today (Squawk on the Street, October 5). But investment-grade spreads had their biggest weekly widening since March (Key Wealth Matters, October 2). A spread is the extra yield a company pays over the government. Spreads on the riskiest junk bonds have reached about 950 basis points (9.5 percentage points) (RenMac, October 2).

  • The 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.34%, its highest since 2002, and bank stocks are now in a correction. The KBW Bank Index is down about 14% from its August peak, and investors asked to pull 39% of a Blue Owl private-credit fund (Eurodollar University, October 5). A weak jobs report (29,000 new jobs) cut the odds of an October Fed hike from 70% to about 20% (Squawk on the Street, October 2). Bank third-quarter results start around October 13.

What's new

How to read this. Speakers who work inside the business they're discussing are marked operator/insider. Everyone else (journalists, strategists, outside investors, commentators) is marked pundit. Items are ranked by how useful they are for someone trading these seven stocks. Every podcast below aired between September 29 and October 6.

1. The IPO market split in two: Oura couldn't get done, Anthropic can't come soon enough

Oura was supposed to start trading on Nasdaq on Tuesday, September 29. On Monday evening, hours before pricing, it pulled the deal, "citing uncertainty in the market."

Anthony Hughes, the equity capital markets reporter at Bloomberg News (pundit), gave the clearest account on Bloomberg Intelligence, "Smart Ring Maker Oura Becomes Latest Company to Delay US IPO" (September 29). Investors "didn't like... the valuation, but also the structure of things like the lockup." A lockup is the period when insiders are barred from selling their shares after the IPO. The roadshow, the week of investor meetings before pricing, was "pretty slow going." The long-only funds that banks most want in an IPO "were hesitating... we know passed and many of them passed." Oura was "probably looking at pricing below range" and chose to walk away instead.

His bigger point:

"We've seen three postponements now in three weeks... the sellers of these assets are wanting more for them than the buyers are prepared to pay. And that's basically that disconnect has widened."

The detail on what was being sold makes it worse. On The Rundown (September 29), Public.com's Zaid Admani (pundit) noted:

  • About three-quarters of the shares on offer came from existing investors cashing out, not new shares raising money for the company.
  • Oura itself was expected to net only about $500 million.
  • That money would have gone almost entirely to taxes on employee stock options.
  • Oura has 5.7 million paying subscribers, and nine-month revenue rose 74% to $1.21 billion.

The valuation figures vary by source. The Rundown cited about $13.5 billion, while The Heart of Healthcare (October 5) cited 50 million shares at $40–45, or about $2.2 billion at a $15.6 billion fully diluted value (a count that includes options and other future shares).

The book was reportedly about four times oversubscribed, meaning orders came in for roughly four times the shares on offer. That sounds healthy but isn't. "Four X oversubscription is not a lot," said the host of The Morning Market Briefing (September 29) (pundit). Bill Ackman (pundit on this topic) said on Bloomberg Talks (September 30) that he didn't "understand the Aura delay" if the deal really was oversubscribed. Most others concluded the quality of demand simply wasn't there at that price.

Then there's Anthropic. Reuters obtained the company's draft prospectus (its S-1 filing), and the podcasts spent the week on it. On Squawk on the Street (September 29), CNBC's Carl Quintanilla (pundit) laid out the numbers:

  • Revenue "grew 12x last year to nearly $4.6 billion"
  • A $42 billion net loss in 2025
  • More than $500 billion of planned infrastructure spending
  • A possible valuation "more than $2 trillion"

On The AI Daily Brief (October 2), Nathaniel Whittemore (pundit) relayed Bloomberg's reported timeline:

  • An investor day on October 14 for institutional investors who may buy into the IPO
  • Marketing to begin the week of November 9
  • First trading "early on the week of Thanksgiving"
  • A target valuation of $1.8–2 trillion, "taking in more than the $75 billion raised by SpaceX"

That would make it the largest IPO in history.

Who gets the fees? Two podcasts named the banks, and both should be treated as unconfirmed. On Best Stocks Now (October 2), Bill Gunderson (pundit) said "Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are thought to be the lead agents." The Elon Musk Podcast (October 2) (pundit) said Anthropic was "selecting NASDAQ, with Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley leading the charge."

Bloomberg's Hughes summed up the split: "the buy side is pretty eager for Anthropic, just not very eager for most other IPOs that are out there." He suggested many investors are holding cash back for it.

Why it matters: the fees from equity underwriting (ECM, the business of selling new stock) are now concentrated in one deal. If Anthropic raises $75 billion or more, even a small fee percentage is a very large payday for the lead banks, and it lands in the fourth quarter. Everything else on the calendar is being postponed. That favors Goldman and Morgan Stanley, which reportedly have the Anthropic lead roles, over banks that depend on a broad flow of mid-sized IPOs. It is also a single point of failure. OpenAI has pushed its own IPO to next year: Sam Altman (operator) said "the pressures of being newly public" don't fit this moment (Bloomberg Talks, September 29).

2. The biggest corporate bond deal ever just priced, and Paramount–Warner closes today

On Squawk on the Street, 10AM Hour (October 5), David Faber (pundit, CNBC) set out how Paramount is paying for Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount was wiring the money on Monday, ready to close Tuesday at $31.01 a share. The extra cent is the ticking fee, a penalty that started October 1 because the deal ran late.

The financing:

  • "The largest corporate bond deal of all time only last week... $52 plus, $53 billion in bonds"
  • "Another $47 billion in equity" from Larry Ellison, RedBird, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi
  • New shares priced at $12, the bottom of a $12–16 range
  • Existing Skydance holders get 10-year warrants (the right to buy more stock) at $12, good up to $30
  • Debt of "some six and a half plus times EBITDA" (EBITDA is a standard measure of operating profit), with at least $6 billion of cost cuts promised

Faber's verdict: "It will not necessarily be easy."

The legal side is finished too. The judge overseeing the state lawsuit "signed off on the settlement" (Streaming Into the Void, October 5). Senator Cory Booker accused the state attorneys general of "totally capitulating." One host (pundit) said that when Wall Street read the terms, "everybody went, that's it?"

The terms do carry one structural penalty: if Paramount misses its 30-films-a-year promise, it must sell Miramax and pay $30 million for every film it falls short (Stuck In Development, September 29).

Why it matters: this is one of the largest single debt-underwriting fee events on record. None of the podcasts named the bond bookrunners, the banks that run the sale. Last week's reporting tied the bridge loan to Bank of America, Apollo and Citi, none of which are on our list. So treat this as evidence that the debt market is deep and open for big, well-structured deals, not as a confirmed win for GS, MS or JEF.

3. AI borrowing keeps coming, but buyers want more yield to take it

On Unhedged, "Hyperscale my debt!" (October 1), FT markets reporter Emily Herbert (pundit) shared Goldman Sachs data:

  • "Investors have lent AI-related groups about $500 billion" so far this year
  • The hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and the other giant cloud companies) account for "about $200 billion of that"
  • The FT expects "about a trillion dollars of debt" from the hyperscalers through 2030

They are borrowing well beyond the dollar market. Amazon issued "14 billion euros... in one go," Alphabet sold a 100-year sterling bond, and they have "pretty much invented a global Australian dollar corporate bond market out of nowhere," said the FT's Rob Armstrong.

The price of that borrowing is rising. Herbert said the hyperscalers now pay "increasingly quite a bit more than the government." On Fidelity Answers (September 30), Fidelity's fixed-income team (pundits, though they are bond buyers) put numbers on it:

  • Tech has gone from "20 basis points inside" the average investment-grade spread "to about 10 basis points outside."
  • Tech is now about 10% of all investment-grade issuance, up from 2–3%.
  • One manager is holding very little of it because "the range of outcomes is just very, very large."

On Alpha Exchange (October 6), Harley Bassman (pundit) put hyperscaler borrowing at $750 billion. He called these borrowers "totally rate insensitive. They can borrow at $6, $8, $10, $12," meaning interest rates of 6% to 12%. His reason: "only one or two of them are going to live," so price doesn't stop them.

Why it matters: for the underwriters (GS and MS especially), deal volume is what pays, and volume is still rising. Wider spreads don't hurt fees unless they shut the market, and so far they haven't. The risk sits further down the quality ladder (item 4).

4. Cracks in credit: spreads widen, private credit redemptions rise, bank stocks correct

Nearly every bond podcast this week said the same thing in different words.

  • Investment grade: spreads widened "by about five basis points... the biggest widening we've seen in a week since March," to "the widest level in six months." High yield was on track for its fifth straight weekly loss, and Meta's credit default swaps (insurance against default) were wider "than it's been in years" (Key Wealth Matters, October 2, pundits).
  • High yield: Saxo's John Hardy (pundit) said the Bloomberg high-yield spread was 303 basis points, up from about 265 a week earlier. An Oracle 2036 bond implies a 7.5% yield against about 5% for a Treasury of the same maturity (Saxo Market Call, September 29). High-yield spreads rose "eight days in a row" (Schwab Market Update, October 5).
  • The riskiest junk: RenMac's Jeff deGraaf (pundit) put CCC-rated debt at "about 952 basis points" over BB-rated debt, or about 680 if you strip out four very stressed issuers. His conclusion: "this is starting to impact... the credit markets... and the aggregate demand and the economy" (RenMac, October 2).
  • Private credit: investors in the roughly $5 billion Blue Owl Technology Income Corp "asked to withdraw 39% of the fund's share in the third quarter," slightly more than the quarter before. Meanwhile "the KBW Bank Index has fallen roughly 14% from its August peak, putting bank stocks firmly into a correction" (Eurodollar University, October 5, Jeff Snider and Steve Van Metre, pundits with a known bearish lean).
  • AI and private credit together: Apollo was reportedly negotiating to raise a loan backed by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 from $5.4 billion to $9 billion, and SoftBank's latest dollar bonds yield 9.75% (Unf*cking The Republic, October 5, pundit). Ed Zitron (pundit) pointed to a $35 billion private-credit package for Broadcom chips leased to Anthropic, where Anthropic "is only responsible for $5 billion in the event of its insolvency." He also noted $252 billion of non-cancellable compute commitments to Microsoft, Google and Amazon, which he called "counterparty risk... at scale" (the risk that the other side of a contract can't pay) (Monetary Matters, October 1).

There was a counterpoint. On The Dividend Cafe (October 5) (pundit), the host said "redemptions from retail ownership of private credit have slowed. Fundamentals seem rather good," and that asset gathering at alternative managers "has remained strong." And on ETF Edge (October 5), JPMorgan Asset Management's Priya Misra (pundit) said the last "25, 30 basis points" of the Treasury selloff "seems a bit overdone." The stress is concentrated at the bottom of the credit ladder for now.

Why it matters: a 14% drop in bank stocks while the 10-year rises is unusual, because higher rates are supposed to help banks. The market is pricing credit losses and a slower deal market ahead of earnings. Jefferies is the most exposed to the lower-quality end. Moelis and Evercore's restructuring teams are the eventual beneficiaries.

5. M&A is still being announced, and a Moelis banker says activists are pushing it

The week had real announced deals:

  • Schneider Electric–PTC, about $23 billion. Faber said the price was "over 42%" above PTC's last close. It is financed with "€5 and €6 billion worth of new equity" plus "another $16, $17 billion of new debt" (Squawk on the Street, 9AM Hour, October 5). That is another large financing package for underwriters.
  • C.H. Robinson–RxO, $5.8 billion in cash and stock. C.H. Robinson CEO Dave Bozeman (operator/insider) said the deal "gives $300 million in net cost run synergies" (annual savings from combining) and called it "steamship to front door" (Squawk on the Street, 10AM Hour, October 5).
  • AMD–World Labs, about $8 billion in stock, with Fei-Fei Li becoming AMD's chief scientist (Squawk on the Street, September 29).
  • Nubank eyeing Monzo at a reported $8–12 billion (20VC, October 1).

On the same Squawk podcast, Jim Cramer (pundit) worried that "we're coming to the quarter, and there's no one talking M&A." Faber's reply is the most honest read on the deal pipeline this week:

"Bankers are always trained when they're talking to reporters... to sort of say the pipeline's looking good. The lawyers tend to be a little more straightforward. But I think things are fairly active. Whether they get to the finish line, Jim, is always the key question. And rates may have an impact, certainly, on deals that require a great deal of debt."

He added that antitrust is "usually not seen as a huge gating issue" right now.

On The Deal, "Activist Investing Today: Moelis' Wadler on Activist Engagement and M&A" (September 30), where Craig Wadler, a managing director at Moelis who advises companies on activist defense (insider), said:

"As the M&A cycle has continued to increase in terms of the frequency of transactions, activists have been getting... more vocal... whether it's a sale of the company in its entirety or sale of a division or spin-out of a division or some form of a breakup... the vibrancy of the M&A market is allowing for more transactions to take place."

He said companies are now running "a review of the portfolio" before activists force one.

Why it matters: the pure advisers (Evercore, Moelis) get paid on deals that close, and Faber's "whether they get to the finish line" is the exact risk. Wadler's point is a quieter positive: activist pressure creates breakups and sales regardless of the IPO window.

6. Exchanges: ICE moves into tokenized stocks, and U.S. markets go to 23.5 hours on December 6

Two developments matter for ICE and Nasdaq beyond listings.

  • ICE's crypto joint venture. OKX ICE, a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange, "has notified the US SEC that it plans to launch a tokenized stock trading venue" starting with "more than 60 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange." Tokenized stocks are digital tokens on a blockchain that track a real share. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the venture's co-chair, said the goal is to "show how 24-7 on-chain markets can make trading and settlement more efficient" (Thinking Crypto, October 6, pundit relaying the announcement; also covered on Daily Crypto News, October 5).
  • Nearly round-the-clock trading. On Morgan Stanley's own Thoughts on the Market (October 1), Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys (Morgan Stanley insider, research) noted that "U.S. equity markets are going 23.5 on December 6th," closed only from 8 to 9 p.m., "on a pathway to 24-7 ultimately." His team's base case has tokenized real-world assets (stocks, bonds and funds on a blockchain) growing "from roughly $40 billion today to about $2.3 trillion by 2030."

Also on the exchange side, Bill Ackman (operator of his own fund, speaking as an investor) said Pershing Square bought ICE at 17 times earnings for a business you could "own... 24 times earnings today." He called it "an amazing business with an incredible track record" (Bloomberg Talks, September 30).

Why it matters: longer trading hours and tokenized venues mean more trading sessions, more data to sell, and new products, all recurring revenue that doesn't depend on the IPO window. Oura's withdrawal cost Nasdaq a listing this week, and Anthropic reportedly picked Nasdaq (unconfirmed). The exchanges look like the steadiest earners in this group while the IPO calendar is lumpy.

The debate

Is this a durable, multi-year reopening of capital markets, or a fragile head-fake?

The durable case. The machinery is working where it counts. A $52–53 billion bond deal, the largest ever, cleared the market in a week of rising rates (Squawk on the Street, October 5). AI-related borrowers have raised about $500 billion this year, and the hyperscalers are opening whole new currency markets to keep borrowing (Unhedged, October 1). Strategic M&A keeps coming: Schneider–PTC at $23 billion, C.H. Robinson–RxO at $5.8 billion, AMD–World Labs at about $8 billion. A Moelis banker says activists are adding to the flow (The Deal, September 30). The biggest IPO in history is on the calendar for November, and the buy side is "pretty eager" for it (Bloomberg Intelligence, September 29). The weak jobs report also took pressure off the Fed: October hike odds fell from about 70% to about 20% (Squawk on the Street, October 2). Antitrust is not slowing deals.

The fragile case. Take Anthropic out and the IPO market is failing. That makes three postponements in three weeks, and a profitable, fast-growing company couldn't get long-only investors to commit (Bloomberg Intelligence, September 29). The fourth-quarter equity fee pool now rests on one company that lost $42 billion last year and has $518 billion of spending commitments, $413 billion of them non-cancellable (Monetary Matters, October 1). Credit is turning, from investment grade at a six-month wide to the riskiest junk near 1,000 basis points (Key Wealth Matters; RenMac). Private-credit investors are lining up for the exits, and bank stocks are already down about 14% from their peak (Eurodollar University, October 5). The 10-year hit 5.34%, the highest since 2002, after rising more than 85 basis points in the third quarter alone (Brew Markets, October 1). Faber's own words: "Whether they get to the finish line... is always the key question."

My read. The fragile camp gained ground this week. Last week's question was whether Oura would prove the window was open for good companies. It didn't. The window is now open for exactly one company, Anthropic. Debt is the healthier half of the business, but the price of debt is rising at the low end, and that is where leveraged buyouts and sponsor exits live. Stock prices are doing what the podcasts describe: banks down 14% from August while the Nasdaq hits records. The deciding events are close. Bank results start around October 13, Anthropic meets investors on October 14, and the Fed meets later this month. If Anthropic's investor day goes well and spreads stop widening, the reopening story survives into 2027. If either goes badly, the fourth-quarter fee pool shrinks to bonds and the M&A deals already announced.

Stocks in play

Goldman Sachs (GS).

  • Bull: Podcasts named it as a likely lead bank on Anthropic, which would be the largest IPO ever, at more than $75 billion (Best Stocks Now, October 2; Elon Musk Podcast, October 2, both unconfirmed). Its own data shows about $500 billion of AI-related borrowing this year (Unhedged, October 1). A jumpy bond market usually helps trading revenue. CNBC noted the stock has risen roughly 400% under David Solomon, with John Waldron discussed as his successor (Squawk on the Street, September 29).
  • Bear: The equity fee pipeline outside Anthropic is postponing. Bank stocks are in a correction, and RBC's Lori Calvasina (pundit) said the capital-markets group of stocks "remains expensive" (Squawk on the Street, October 5).
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Third-quarter results (earnings season starts around October 13): debt-underwriting fees, trading revenue and the advisory backlog. Then Anthropic's October 14 investor day.

Morgan Stanley (MS).

  • Bull: Also named as a likely Anthropic lead (unconfirmed). Its research team expects 23.5-hour trading from December 6 and growth in tokenized assets to $2.3 trillion by 2030, which plays to its wealth platform (Thoughts on the Market, October 1).
  • Bear: The same exposure to a thin IPO calendar. Its own analyst flagged that "much of the recent AUM growth has come from markets rather than from net new client flows" and that "fees do remain under pressure" across wealth and asset management. AUM is assets under management.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Third-quarter equity-underwriting revenue and wealth net new assets (new client money coming in).

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

  • Bull: A new tokenized-stock venue with OKX, starting with 60+ NYSE names (Thinking Crypto, October 6). Heavy bond-market volatility supports its fixed-income data business. Ackman owns it as a "super durable" compounder bought at 17 times earnings (Bloomberg Talks, September 30).
  • Bear: 30-year mortgage rates jumped to about 7.28%, the largest weekly rise since October 2022 (Key Wealth Matters, October 2). That hurts its mortgage-technology business. If Anthropic lists on Nasdaq, the year's biggest listing goes elsewhere.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: SEC response to the OKX ICE filing; the December 6 extended-hours launch.

Nasdaq (NDAQ).

  • Bull: Reportedly the listing venue for Anthropic (unconfirmed, Elon Musk Podcast, October 2). Also moving to 23.5-hour trading on December 6.
  • Bear: It lost the Oura listing to the postponement, and NScale went to the NYSE last week. Crypto and tokenized competitors are building 24/7 venues of their own.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Confirmation of Anthropic's exchange; extended-hours volumes after December 6.

Evercore (EVR).

  • Bull: Strategic M&A keeps getting announced (Schneider–PTC, C.H. Robinson–RxO), and antitrust is "usually not seen as a huge gating issue" (Squawk on the Street, October 5). Rising private-credit stress points to future restructuring and liability-management work (helping companies rework their debt).
  • Bear: A pure adviser. Faber's "whether they get to the finish line" and "rates may have an impact... on deals that require a great deal of debt" go straight at its revenue.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Third-quarter advisory revenue and deal completions.

Moelis (MC).

  • Bull: Moelis' Craig Wadler (insider) says activism is driving more sales, spin-offs and breakups (The Deal, September 30). It is also the purest restructuring play as CCC spreads approach 1,000 basis points (RenMac, October 2) and private-credit redemptions continue.
  • Bear: Restructuring fees come later. In the meantime, sponsor-backed deals and IPO exits, which it relies on, are stalling.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Restructuring's share of revenue; any default in the CCC segment.

Jefferies (JEF).

  • Bull: Leveraged-finance capacity in a junk market where BB and single-B spreads are still near historic tights (ETF Edge, October 5).
  • Bear: The most exposed of our names to the part of credit that is breaking: CCC debt, private-credit-linked financing and stressed issuers. Bank stocks are correcting.
  • Catalyst / number to watch: Leveraged-loan and high-yield issuance volumes in October.

Read-throughs

Boutique advisers (EVR / MC / JEF). Deals are being announced, but mostly by big strategic buyers using stock and investment-grade debt: Schneider (Squawk on the Street, October 5), C.H. Robinson (cash and stock), AMD (all stock). That favors large-deal advisory franchises over sponsor-dependent ones. Activism is a growing source of sell-side and breakup mandates (The Deal, September 30). Cross-border financial-institutions M&A showed up too, with Nubank eyeing Monzo at $8–12 billion. One 20VC host said Monzo "want to sell for sure" because it is "way too small to be significant in a US public market" (20VC, October 1).

Leveraged-finance and private-credit lenders. This is where the stress is building. Blue Owl Technology Income Corp got requests to withdraw 39% of its shares (Eurodollar University, October 5). Apollo is upsizing a SoftBank-backed loan to $9 billion while SoftBank pays 9.75% on its dollar bonds (Unf*cking The Republic, October 5). AI chip leases are being financed with private credit, where the end borrower's liability is capped (Monetary Matters, October 1). The other side: high-yield spreads at 303 basis points are "not particularly high stress levels in the longer-term perspective" (Saxo Market Call, September 29), and retail private-credit redemptions "have slowed" (The Dividend Cafe, October 5).

PE sponsors cashing out. It was a bad week. Oura's IPO was about 75% existing investors selling, and the market wouldn't take it at the asking price (The Rundown, September 29). That is the textbook sponsor-exit structure, and it failed. Bloomberg's Hughes said sellers "are wanting more for them than the buyers are prepared to pay." Listed alternative vehicles are struggling too: Ackman's Pershing Square USA raised $5 billion and has "fallen 25%," trading at a 25-cent discount to every dollar of net asset value (Bloomberg Talks, September 30). On 20VC, one investor argued that for many late-stage companies "it is not a question of can they be public? It's just what price do they get and are they happy with it" (20VC, October 1).

Exchange listings and data revenue (ICE / NDAQ). Listings were weak (Oura postponed), but the structural story moved forward: 23.5-hour trading from December 6 (Thoughts on the Market, October 1) and ICE's tokenized-stock venue filing (Thinking Crypto, October 6). Bond-market volatility is running high. The ICE BofA MOVE index, which measures bond-market swings and is an ICE data product, broke into "the 110s-plus" according to TFTC (October 5). That supports trading volumes and data subscriptions.

Macro and rates. The 10-year reached 5.34% on October 1, the highest since 2002, after rising more than 85 basis points in the third quarter (Brew Markets, October 1). It closed the week at 5.28% (Schwab Market Update, October 5). The Fed raised its target range to 3.75–4% on September 16 in a unanimous vote. Federated Hermes' Sue Hill (pundit) concluded "Chair Warsh has hawk feathers" (The Treasury Update Podcast, October 5). Then September payrolls came in at just 29,000, and odds of an October hike fell sharply (Squawk on the Street, October 2). Kenny Polcari (pundit) said earnings season starting October 13 needs "strong earnings guidance for 2027" for markets to function at 5% rates (The Investopedia Express, October 5).

What changed vs. last week

Last week's issue was built on a "K-shaped" IPO market, where quality companies get funded and story stocks don't. Oura was the test case, at $15.6 billion. Goldman's record $2.3 trillion investment-grade bond forecast was the strongest data point, and Paramount–Warner had just settled. Here is what moved:

The Oura test failed. Last week we called Oura the deciding data point: "a real business growing 123%" that Scott Galloway predicted would be "really well received." It never priced. Long-only investors passed, and the company refused to cut the price (Bloomberg Intelligence, September 29). That contradicts last week's view that the window was "open for quality." This week it was open only for Anthropic.

Anthropic slipped back into the calendar. Last week we wrote that the Anthropic fee "has already slipped." This week Bloomberg reported a firm timetable (investor day October 14, marketing from November 9, trading Thanksgiving week), with a raise above $75 billion (The AI Daily Brief, October 2). That is a clear positive update for GS and MS if the reported lead roles hold.

Paramount–Warner moved from "settled" to "closing today," with the financing now visible. Last week we had a $49 billion bridge loan to be refinanced. This week it was refinanced with a $52–53 billion bond deal, the largest ever (Squawk on the Street, October 5). A correction to last week's "no divestitures": the settlement does include a contingent Miramax sale if Paramount misses its film quota (Stuck In Development, September 29). The judge has signed off.

Credit went from "private-credit problem" to "credit problem." Last week's evidence was mostly private-credit fund gates (B-Cred, OBDC). This week public markets joined in: investment-grade spreads at a six-month wide, CCC near 950 basis points, and the bank index down 14% from August. The bearish camp's line, from Eurodollar University: "it's not even private credit anymore."

Rates went higher, then the Fed outlook eased. The 10-year moved from 5.1–5.16% last week to a 5.34% peak. But last week's "about four hikes" priced in futures was cut back after the weak jobs report, with October hike odds falling from about 70% to about 20%. Goldman's Robert Kaplan argued last week that markets were pricing too many hikes, and this week's data supported him.