Bank of America raises JPMorgan Chase’s price target to $420, noting the stock still has upside potential after its strong earnings report.

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 a Reuters report, three sources disclosed that Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi movement to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the U.S. attacks Iran’s power infrastructure, which would pose a new major threat to global energy supplies. The plan has been discussed within Iran’s leadership, and the information has been conveyed to Iran’s Houthi allies. Sources added that the Houthis have recently received Tehran’s request, though they did not provide further details on how the request was communicated, nor confirm whether it was made following U.S. President Donald Trump’s Tuesday threat to strike Iran’s power infrastructure. (Source: Jinshi)

ARK Invest Research Director Lorenzo Valente published a paper refuting a16z crypto’s view that “traditional finance will adopt blockchain rather than DeFi”, arguing that institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi infrastructure in the future. Valente noted that public blockchains have outperformed private chain projects in real-world development, citing the growth of tokenized assets on open networks like Ethereum as evidence. He also argued that crypto-native firms such as Circle and Coinbase are better positioned than traditional financial institutions to build next-generation financial infrastructure. a16z crypto had previously stated that banks and asset management institutions would not directly adopt DeFi, but would instead opt for blockchain technologies that meet existing compliance, governance, and operational requirements—including features like tokenization and atomic settlement—while retaining permissioned systems and institutional control. Sentora co-founder Jesus Rodriguez also took issue with a16z’s stance, arguing that institutions could adopt DeFi’s underlying infrastructure and layer on compliance, custody, and other enterprise-level controls on top of it.