Seoul Sold the AI Rebound | A Cash Exit for a Bond Platform | Brent Topped $111 | Blockade Bets Look Past October

Stock futures slipped early Tuesday after South Korea sold off the AI rebound.

Nasdaq-100 futures fell about 0.6%, S&P 500 futures slipped about 0.1%, and Dow futures were little changed. On Monday, the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.1% and the S&P 500 rose 0.4%. South Korea's Kospi fell 3.73% on Tuesday, led by SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. The 10-year Treasury yield ended Monday at 5.15%. Brent rose about 1.8% to above $111, gold slipped to near $4,140, and bitcoin traded near $81,500.

One BlackRock (BLK) fund took in more money on Monday than all U.S. spot bitcoin funds did combined, net of withdrawals. Its iShares Bitcoin Trust drew $665.2 million, while every other U.S. spot bitcoin fund had outflows or no flows. Bitcoin drifted lower overnight.

Wall Street bought the rebound.

Seoul sold it.

Orders for AI equipment kept rising, while a new AI listing broke on its first day.

ABB, the Swiss electrification group, booked record orders of $12.1 billion in the third quarter. Its data-center orders more than doubled. Earnings per share of 65 cents came in about 18% below consensus. ABB tied the weaker result mainly to a non-cash charge on a currency hedge for a pending acquisition. Its shares fell more than 5% in Zurich early Tuesday.

Elice, a Korean data-center company, priced its Kosdaq listing at the top of its range and raised about $151 million. It closed its first day about 32% below its offer price. CoreWeave, a heavily indebted AI cloud provider, traded about 4% lower before the U.S. open.

SpaceX spent $18.4 billion on capital projects in the second quarter. That is more than the roughly $12.9 billion of third-quarter revenue analysts expect. It reports after Tuesday's close, on two business days' notice.

Orders Held, Listings Did Not

ABB's orders show customers still paying for data-center equipment. Elice's buyers paid a top-of-range price and lost about a third on day one. Both happened on the same morning, a sign that demand for equipment and appetite for funding operators can diverge. SpaceX's report shows whether revenue is catching up with spending. If its quarterly spending again exceeds revenue, the financing question reaches a company worth more than $2 trillion.

A listed buyer agreed to pay mostly cash for a private platform, and a power fund filled up.

Tradeweb agreed to buy Trumid, a venture-backed corporate bond trading platform, for about $1.97 billion. About $1.89 billion is cash, mostly from cash on hand, and $82 million is Tradeweb stock. About $220 million of the price is for tax assets. Tradeweb priced the business at $1.75 billion, or 19.4 times Trumid's 2026 adjusted EBITDA. That multiple counts $60 million of expected cost savings. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

Blackstone (BX) closed its fifth energy transition fund at its $8.7 billion hard cap. That is about 55% more than its predecessor, which closed at $5.6 billion. The fund has backed three platforms for new power generation and transmission.

A Cash Exit Below the Last Round

Trumid's backers get a fixed price, mostly in cash, without waiting for a listing. Before the savings, the price is roughly 58 times Trumid's EBITDA, on a simple estimate. About two-thirds of the EBITDA behind Tradeweb's 19.4 times figure is savings that Tradeweb, not the sellers, would capture. Trumid was valued at about $2.4 billion in its last funding round, in 2021, so the price is about 18% below that. Blackstone's investors, meanwhile, committed more than last time to assets that serve rising power demand.

Two price pressures are building outside the U.S.

Brent rose above $111 early Tuesday, four days after Washington waived tariffs aimed at buyers of Russian crude. Yemen's Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi energy sites, including an Aramco facility at Yanbu. Yanbu is a Red Sea export outlet that avoids the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi authorities have not confirmed any damage. The only new supply Washington has pointed to is Russian diesel.

China's factory-gate prices rose 5.0% in September from a year earlier, while consumer prices rose 0.9%. Factories' input costs rose 6.9%, and exports rose 29.6% in value.

Prices From Abroad

The Gulf threat is to crude, while Washington's new supply so far is diesel. China's factories are charging more while its households see little inflation. Exports growing that fast can carry higher prices to trading partners. The Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan all meet within 10 days. Any Saudi confirmation of damage at Yanbu would reach the route that has kept Gulf crude moving.

On Polymarket, the contract on a U.S. announcement ending the blockade of Iran by Oct. 31 fell below 10 cents overnight.

By about 7:40 a.m., it was quoted at 9 to 10 cents, and the Dec. 31 version near 36 cents. Both pay only on an official U.S. announcement. Partial carve-outs and conditional pledges do not count. Pakistan's army chief is due in Tehran on Tuesday, and Qatar said talks continue.

Polymarket's contract on a Flávio Bolsonaro win in Brazil's Oct. 25 runoff held near 77 cents overnight. It had lost about 10 points in a week. Kalshi's last traded at 79 cents. Three polls published Monday all had Flávio narrowly ahead. On Oct. 16, the cost of hedging against a weaker real hit its highest since 2011, Valor reported.

Timing and Damage

The blockade contracts price an announcement after October well above one this month, even as mediators travel. Each carries less than $150,000 of liquidity, so a few orders can move them. Brazil's prediction markets ask who wins. Currency options price how much a surprise could cost. Neither price is evidence of the outcome.

Tuesday opens with Seoul selling the AI rebound that Wall Street bought on Monday.

ABB booked record data-center orders as a Korean data-center listing broke on its first day. Tradeweb agreed to pay mostly cash for Trumid, below Trumid's 2021 valuation, and Blackstone filled a bigger power fund. Brent rose above $111 after Houthi claims that Saudi Arabia has not confirmed. SpaceX reports after the close.

Capital moves early. Coverage catches up. The gap between the two is worth watching.