Ares Management’s dry powder reached a record $170 billion as of June 30, 2026, representing about 25% of its $671.3 billion in assets under management. The firm raised more than $36 billion in new capital during the quarter, while direct lending totaled just $8.2 billion, or 16% of the trailing-year pace. Pathfinder Fund III closed at $8.5 billion, about 31% above its target.

Amazon shares surged 15% in a single session after non-recurring profits, including a $53.4 billion gain tied to its Anthropic stake, lifted EPS to $5.75. Apple reported 16% revenue growth to a quarterly record, but weak September guidance sent the stock down 9.7%, erasing about $472 billion in market value. Over the same period, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 5.20%, its highest since 2007, with real rates accounting for 57% of the level, alongside a rare joint push for a rate hike by three Federal Reserve officials.

Soaring copper prices are pushing downstream users to switch faster to aluminium, and Goldman Sachs forecasts the copper-to-aluminium price ratio will reach a record 4.5:1 in 2026 while aluminium could fall to $2,350 a tonne. Chinese refined copper demand fell about 8% in late 2025, while data-centre grid bottlenecks and permitting delays are weighing on near-term copper demand. Longer term, AI data centres could consume 1.1 million tonnes of copper a year by 2030 and UBS estimates a 2026 deficit above 400,000 tonnes, supporting a bullish structural view even as 2026 copper price forecasts have moderated.

China’s official manufacturing PMI rose to 50.3 in June, above the 50-point threshold and higher than the market forecast of 50.1, marking a second straight month of expansion. The pickup was driven mainly by exports of AI infrastructure and green-energy products, which helped offset weak domestic demand. The data points to external demand supporting industrial output, offering a marginal positive for global supply chains and commodity demand. However, the report provides no evidence beyond the single-month reading, and pressures on consumption and the property sector remain.

A Michigan judge ruled that the state attorney general’s lawsuit challenging Kalshi’s sports event contracts must proceed in state court and barred the company from offering the contracts to Michigan residents while the case continues. The decision rejected Kalshi’s bid to move the dispute to federal court under the Commodity Exchange Act and questioned whether sports prediction contracts qualify as CFTC-regulated swaps. The same judge also denied preliminary injunction requests from Polymarket and Robinhood over similar contracts earlier in the month. The case underscores a growing clash between federal commodities oversight and state gambling enforcement, raising compliance pressure for brokerages and platforms expanding into prediction markets.

In June 2026, the “Magnificent Seven” erased a combined $2.3 trillion in market value as investors fretted over massive AI-related capital spending. Microsoft fell 20% over the month, Nvidia slid about 13%, and Apple and Amazon each declined around 8%. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars for AI chip purchases and data-center construction, with some of the spending financed through borrowing. Industrywide AI-linked capital expenditures are projected to reach $700 billion in 2026, up roughly 70% year over year, pushing the group’s 12-month forward free-cash-flow outlook well below 2024 levels.