Iran secretly ordered the Houthi armed group to blockade the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the U.S. attacks Iran's power facilities.

According to Fortune, prediction market startup Pascal has closed a $9 million Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures, with its valuation undisclosed. The firm previously raised a $6 million seed round in August last year, backed by Wintermute Ventures and DBA. Pascal launched in June this year and remains in private beta. Its product is positioned close to a perpetual contract trading platform, allowing users to trade on future events, with a focus on low fees, faster execution speeds, and tools for professional traders and institutions. The company also plans to mitigate the issue of "phantom fills" (apparent trades that fail to finalize settlement) and boost liquidity through incentives.

Morgan Stanley forecasts that the year-on-year growth rate of DRAM contract prices will peak in the fourth quarter of 2026, after which it may decline sharply. It will be difficult to replicate the previous scenario of a four-fold annual increase, and the valuations of storage companies (12-month forward price-to-book ratio) are awaiting revaluation.

Alpaca, an API broker providing stocks, options and cryptocurrencies to developers, announced it has closed a $135 million funding round led by Peak XV, with participation from Elefund, Opera Tech Ventures and Unbound. The new capital will be used to expand its agency-first brokerage infrastructure for tokenized markets and AI-native financial services. Alpaca’s total funding has reached $435 million, including debt financing primarily from Payward, parent company of global digital asset platform Kraken, and BMO.

US initial jobless claims for the week ending July 11 totaled 208,000, against a market forecast of 217,000, while the prior week's reading was revised from 215,000 to 216,000. (Jinshi)

Kairun Co., Ltd.’s investment progress announcement released on the evening of the 16th unexpectedly revealed the latest market valuation of leading domestic AI enterprise DeepSeek. Calculated based on the announcement data, DeepSeek’s post-money valuation for this financing round has climbed to around 351 billion yuan. A reporter confirmed with sources close to DeepSeek that following the completion of this round, the company has now initiated its second round of financing; however, whether it will pursue a listing on the STAR Market by the end of the year remains undecided.

According to CNBC, Bank of America reiterated its 'Buy' rating on JPMorgan Chase stock and raised its price target for the firm from $408 to $420, implying roughly 21% upside from Wednesday’s closing price, following JPMorgan’s release of strong second-quarter results. JPMorgan’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) for the second quarter came in at $6.14, beating Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $5.85; revenue totaled $52.42 billion, also exceeding the forecast of $50.19 billion. Bank of America analyst Ebrahim Poonawala noted that JPMorgan holds advantages in capital markets operations, AI capital expenditure, digital asset adoption, operating leverage, and capital flexibility, with its large-scale investments spanning branches, wealth management, and online banking in the UK and Europe. JPMorgan’s management also stated that the U.S. real economy has shown resilience amid multiple macroeconomic shocks. Bank of America believes that the resilience of consumers and businesses to the high-interest rate environment may continue to support JPMorgan’s performance and stock price. The stock has rallied nearly 8% so far this year.