Private Markets Sector

AI Financial Corp has sold its Canadian unit, ALT5 Sigma Canada, to New York-based Prime Delta for a $12 million secured promissory note and 11.6 million shares of Prime Delta stock, according to SEC filings reported by channelnewsasia.com. Under the terms, AI Financial receives $1 million of the note next week, with the remainder paid over time. The divestment comes three weeks after a previous deal to sell the Canadian subsidiary to Perpetuals.com fell through. The transaction also reunites former legal foes: AI Financial, formerly known as ALT5 Sigma, sued Prime Delta last year over data misappropriation before settling in December without admissions of wrongdoing. AI Financial's stock has collapsed from over $9 in August 2025 to roughly 44 cents on Friday, leaving the company with a market capitalization of about $61 million. That collapse followed an August 2025 transaction where the firm raised $750 million by selling shares and deployed $717 million into World Liberty Financial tokens, a deal that funneled over $500 million to the Trump family.

T. Rowe Price added dogecoin to its actively managed crypto ETF, allocating 1.26% of the portfolio to the memecoin. According to coindesk.com, the $1.9 trillion asset manager launched the fund (TKNZ) in July as the market's first actively managed multi-token spot crypto ETF. Portfolio manager Blue Macellari selects between five and 15 tokens based on blockchain technology, ecosystem growth, and market momentum rather than strict market-cap weighting. Bitcoin and ether constitute roughly 60% of the fund, with Binance Coin holding the third-largest slot. T. Rowe Price charges a 0.75% management fee under a temporary waiver effective through May 2027. Macellari uses high-volume memecoin trading as an operational stress test to evaluate network settlement speeds and transaction costs ahead of institutional stablecoin adoption. The fund's investable universe is structured to expand as more digital assets qualify under the SEC generic listing standards finalized last year.

The S&P 500 advanced 3.6% this week to cross 7,700 for the first time, powered by a record options volume that pushed the Cboe Volatility Index to its lowest level since January. According to cnbc.com, single-day trading in S&P 500 index calls reached 4 million contracts on Tuesday, surpassing the previous record set in May by 10%. Zero-day-to-expiry contracts accounted for 2.4 million of those trades. When investors buy massive call volume, market makers who sell those options must immediately purchase the underlying equities to stay delta-neutral, creating a mechanical buy-side feedback loop that pushes stock prices up and volatility down. Consequently, the overall put-to-call ratio plunged to 0.83, well below its historical average above 1. Derivatives activity now dictates price floor and ceiling levels. Heavy concentration at the SPY ETF 760-strike put level—holding 94,000 open contracts—provides market-maker hedging support on dips, while 114,000 open calls at the 785-strike cap upside momentum. The surge spilled directly into tech equities, lifting the iShares Semiconductor ETF by more than 7% and the Corgi Lithography & Semiconductor Photonics ETF by 13% over the week. Fundamentals reinforced the derivatives squeeze. S&P 500 second-quarter earnings are on pace to grow 47%, the strongest expansion rate since 2021.