Wall Street Weekly: July 3, 2026 — Friday Close

Bending Spoons was the cleanest IPO signal of the week: the Milan-based software acquirer priced above range, raised about $1.68 billion, and closed its first Nasdaq session up 39.7% at a roughly $25.7 billion market cap. 1 The rest of the tape was mixed rather than euphoric. Sinda fell about 10% in its NYSE debut, Lime finished up 4.1%, and ITG traded up 10.7% after pricing below range. 2 3 4

The broader capital-markets backdrop stayed open. Global announced M&A reached $2.8 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 48% year over year, while global startup funding reached $510 billion in H1, above the $440 billion recorded for all of 2025. 5 6 For buy-side and corporate-finance readers, the more immediate work is calendar management: Baker Hughes / Chart has a July 10 EC Phase I deadline, the Fertitta / Caesars go-shop expires around July 11, WBD / Paramount has EU deadlines on July 14 and July 22, and big-bank Q2 earnings begin July 14. 7 8 9 10

The IPO window broadened this week, but the reception was not uniform. Four operating-company listings priced or began trading inside the window, and the SPAC market added several new blank-check vehicles. 1 2 3 4 11

Bending Spoons S.p.A., the Milan-based owner of Vimeo, AOL, Brightcove, and Eventbrite, gave the week its largest new-listing print. CEO Luca Ferrari said the company has identified more than 1,000 reasonable acquisition targets and is "very active," but he said the company could not announce specific transactions. 1 Renaissance Capital senior strategist Matt Kennedy cautioned that Bending Spoons has "a very different profile compared to most software IPOs in the pipeline," which keeps the read-through narrower than a full software-IPO reopening call. 1

The SPAC pipeline also stayed active. Ares Acquisition Corp III priced on June 30, raising $395 million including overallotment; Osprey Acquisition Corp III priced a $261 million IPO on July 1; Viking Acquisition Corp II and Meridian3 Industrials priced a combined $375 million on July 2; and Titan Acquisition Corp / OpenPayd filed an F-4 tied to a planned Nasdaq listing under ticker OP. 11

SPCX remains a carry-forward item rather than a fresh IPO. Nasdaq confirmed that SpaceX will join the Nasdaq-100 on July 7, with estimates of passive ETF demand around $4.3 billion; the stock was near $153.23 at the June 27 close, above the $135 IPO price but below the earlier $225 intraday high. 14

H1 M&A data made the macro point, but the week's actionable items were more specific: three new or closed transactions, two EU remedy timetables, and one live go-shop.

The H1 tape was historically large but concentrated. LSEG data cited by Yahoo Finance / ADVFN put global announced M&A at $2.8 trillion in H1 2026, up 48% year over year and the strongest first half since records began in 1980; deal count fell 9% to about 24,000, while 47 transactions above $10 billion accounted for more than $1.3 trillion. 5 Goldman Sachs led the league table with $1.115 trillion across 209 deals, followed by JPMorgan at $686 billion across 192 deals and Morgan Stanley at $575 billion across 175 deals. 5

The two most immediate regulatory gating items are in Brussels. Baker Hughes / Chart remains in EC Phase I under case M.12161, with commitments submitted June 19 and a provisional July 10 deadline; Baker Hughes has continued to expect a July close, subject to approval. 7 20 Paramount Skydance offered remedies for its $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, including divestiture of its film-distribution joint venture with Universal Pictures; the EC extended the Phase I deadline to July 22, and the separate Foreign Subsidies Regulation case has a July 14 provisional deadline. 9 21

Fertitta / Caesars remains a spread and process watch. Fertitta Entertainment agreed to acquire Caesars Entertainment at a $17.6 billion enterprise value, the go-shop runs through approximately July 11, CZR was trading around $29 versus the $31 offer price, and no competing bid had surfaced during the monitoring window. 8 Treat that item as lower-confidence than the EC docket items because the summary did not include a fetched primary filing.

This was a compliance-heavy week, with AML controls, disclosure duties, retail commodity platforms, bank enforcement orders, and prediction markets all in the scan.

The Merrill Lynch order is the cleanest large-bank compliance item. SEC materials cited by InvestmentNews said Merrill used Bank of America's Event Processor software and generally investigated only event groups with risk scores of 20 or higher, even though internal analysis showed certain lower-scored groups could also require SAR filings. 22 Bank of America said it maintains rigorous AML practices and continues to review and enhance its systems. 28

The FirstEnergy ruling is the most important disclosure-duty item. Judge J. Philip Calabrese dismissed the SEC's civil securities-fraud case against former CEO Charles "Chuck" Jones and wrote that the SEC was trying to use federal securities law to enforce "a disclosure regime where none presently exists." 23 The decision addresses the SEC's civil claim; Jones still faces state and federal criminal charges and has pleaded not guilty. 27

Susquehanna Investment Group filed a private suit in SDNY on June 29 against 100 John Doe defendants, seeking more than $70 million after alleged trading ahead of China's May 22 crackdown on Futu Holdings and UP Fintech / Tiger Brokers. 29 The complaint alleges trading in 200,000 short-dated put options, about $12 million of premiums, and more than $100 million of profit; this is a private lawsuit rather than a regulator-filed enforcement action. 29

The banking-agency docket had both new restrictions and terminations. The Federal Reserve issued a consent cease-and-desist order against Small Business Bank of Lenexa, Kansas, and terminated enforcement actions against BNP Paribas S.A. and Jiko Group on July 2, according to the available press report. 30 The OCC terminated Patriot Bank's January 14, 2025 formal agreement on June 30, stating that the bank's safety and soundness and legal compliance no longer required the agreement to continue. 31

Prediction markets stayed in the regulatory file. A Benzinga-distributed report cited Politico reporting that the CFTC had opened a broad investigation into Polymarket after bipartisan pressure from Senators John Curtis and Adam Schiff and after a reported third-party vendor hack estimated at nearly $3 million. 32 Because the source chain is indirect, this belongs in monitoring rather than as a confirmed CFTC enforcement action.

No bulge-bracket bank earnings were released during this coverage window; the available calendar places the major-bank Q2 reporting dates on July 14-16. 10 The bank story is still active because stress-test capital returns are out, Q2 reporting dates are set, and several senior moves landed before earnings season.

Goldman Sachs kept its constructive equity view into earnings season. Ben Snider, Goldman's chief U.S. equity strategist, reiterated an S&P 500 year-end target of 8,000, with 2026 EPS forecast at $340 and 2027 EPS forecast at $385; he also estimated hyperscaler AI capex at $754 billion in 2026 and $905 billion in 2027. 40 Snider called Q2 earnings a "critical test" for U.S. stocks because the 2026 rally has been driven mainly by earnings growth rather than multiple expansion. 40

Private-market financing remained top-heavy. Crunchbase reported $510 billion of global VC funding in H1 2026, including $205 billion in Q2 across more than 5,000 startups; OpenAI and Anthropic together accounted for $217 billion, or 43% of H1 funding. 6 Airwallex closed a $320 million Series H at an $11 billion post-money valuation, up from $8 billion at its December 2025 Series G, with Addition leading and Amex Ventures, Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird Ventures, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, and Washington University participating. 41

Selected people moves were concentrated in banking, research, and trading technology. Dan Ives left Wedbush Securities, where he was MD and global head of technology research, to start a new investment-banking venture; Wedbush said its IVES and IVEP ETFs would continue operating. 42 JPMorgan promoted Amanda Sharman, Josh Sutton, Alex Gaudy, and Jessica Murray across EMEA ECM roles as Citi continued to recruit around JPMorgan's capital-markets bench. 43 Mohsen Azarbadegan left Goldman Sachs after 16 years to join Citadel as head of commodities electronic-trading engineering in London. 44 Christopher Krieg, a former Exane partner and BNP Paribas MD in New York, returned to Deutsche Bank; his new title was not disclosed. 45