BlackRock Inc

Analysts at JPMorgan Chase said Bitcoin could receive stronger price support than gold if hedging activity tied to exchange-traded funds declines. According to the bank, gold ETFs have already recovered the outflows seen since the start of 2026, while Bitcoin ETFs have recouped only about half of their outflows, and demand for Bitcoin ETFs has weakened recently, meaning Bitcoin has more room to recover than gold if conditions improve. Behind this is renewed attention on currency debasement trades after the Federal Reserve's meeting in late July, but that trade has lost momentum over the past week, weighed down by rising real interest rates and the lack of progress in the U.S. Senate on the crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act. Short interest in the ETFs differs sharply: short interest in BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, is near its highest level of 2026, while short interest in the gold ETF SPDR Gold Shares is below its historical average. For IBIT, the ratio of put option open interest to call option open interest is also higher than for GLD, and JPMorgan analysts concluded that under the current market structure, where IBIT has more short interest than GLD, an unwind of positions could support Bitcoin more than gold if hedging demand declines.

TotalEnergies has entered into a partnership agreement with Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of BlackRock, covering its interests in some oil and gas infrastructure assets in Africa. Under the deal, GIP will make a US$1.8 billion capital contribution, and TotalEnergies will pay GIP a throughput-based tariff over a period of up to 15 years. Chief Financial Officer Jean-Pierre Sbraire said the agreement strengthens the company's relationship with GIP and crystallizes the value of some of its midstream infrastructure assets in Africa. TotalEnergies is a global integrated energy company with more than 100,000 employees active in about 120 countries.

BlackRock, Inc. has increased its total holding in ChemoMetec A/S to 15.00%, crossing the 15 per cent threshold under Section 38 of the Danish Capital Markets Act. The Danish cell-counting instrument maker announced the change in a major shareholder disclosure dated 16 September 2026, stating that BlackRock reached the level on 14 September 2026. The announcement was made pursuant to Section 30 of the Capital Markets Act. ChemoMetec, founded in 1997 and listed on Nasdaq OMX Copenhagen, develops, manufactures and markets instruments for cell counting and other measurements for the pharmaceutical, biotech and agricultural industries worldwide.

The Clarity Act, which would regulate cryptocurrencies broadly, stalled in the US Senate on the 15th. A motion to advance the bill failed to secure enough votes, and crypto exchange Coinbase Global ended trading down 10%, while stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group fell more than 11%, and Bitcoin briefly dropped 5.3% to fall below $75,000. The odds of the bill becoming law had already fallen sharply in recent months as prominent Democratic lawmakers came out against it one after another. Had it passed, market participants would have gained a clearer grasp of the legal framework, but much of that work will now be left to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, whose rules are easily changed by future administrations. Robbie Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, said the bill's failure has no impact on current plans or strategy, while others point to greater uncertainty for investments not yet executed, such as acquisitions and new business ventures.

BlackRock has once again raised its recommendation on emerging-market, or EM, equities to overweight, arguing that limited access to the resources needed to expand the artificial intelligence industry, along with strong earnings, will help these stocks outperform the broader market. South Korea and Taiwan form the backbone of the semiconductor and memory chip supply chain, while Latin America offers investors exposure to the commodities and infrastructure needed to expand AI investment. The return to an overweight call marks a reversal from June, when BlackRock cut its EM equity recommendation from overweight to neutral, warning that concentrated AI-related positioning and leverage levels, particularly in South Korea, meant the risks investors had to bear were not worth the expected returns. It said the unwinding of leverage in the South Korean stock market after severe selling pressure in July was one of the factors supporting this renewed overweight on EM equities. Still, several factors could affect the call, including whether rising earnings growth and cheaper valuations can offset risks from higher borrowing costs, elevated oil prices and geopolitical tensions. BlackRock also believes a weaker dollar and recovering capital inflows will support emerging markets. Most analysts' estimates indicate that earnings for companies in the MSCI Emerging Markets index will grow more than 34% over the next 12 months, above the roughly 20% expected for the MSCI USA index, while EM stocks trade at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 10 times.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed concerns that the chip giant is fueling its own demand by financing the companies and infrastructure projects that deploy its technology, telling Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference on Thursday, "Is that circular? If that is, let's do more of that." Pressed by Goldman Sachs analyst Jim Schneider on Nvidia's guarantees and financial backing for AI labs and cloud providers, Huang pointed to the $500 billion infrastructure financing platform Nvidia launched with six financial institutions including BlackRock to mobilize third-party capital, and said Nvidia commits relatively little of its own money, adding, "We put in one and 100 comes back in." Huang said Nvidia can see around $100 billion of contracted customer demand behind the projects it helps finance, describing it as "lined-up contracts" and "real stuff," and called the strategy necessary to build a global network of newer cloud providers that serve as distribution channels for Nvidia's architecture. Nvidia disclosed $99 billion of equity investments as of July 26 and another $25 billion of future investment commitments, including a $2 billion investment in cloud provider CoreWeave in January, and has agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion so OpenAI can lease an Ohio data center campus that will run on Nvidia chips, with total guarantees potentially reaching $108.5 billion. Skeptics including short seller Jim Chanos, who challenged Huang directly this week, and Michael Burry, who warned in July that circular spending had reached "biblical proportions," argue the growing financial role makes it harder to separate underlying chip demand from demand enabled by Nvidia's own capital, while Polymarket gives Nvidia a 79% chance of finishing 2026 as the world's largest company by market capitalization. Nvidia's second-quarter revenue jumped 106% year over year to $96.2 billion, with data center revenue up 117% to $89 billion.

South Korea's central bank has called for greater monitoring of overseas derivative products linked to South Korean semiconductor stocks, after these products grew rapidly and could add to volatility in the domestic financial market, particularly when hedge funds employ high levels of leverage. A semi-annual monetary policy report submitted to parliament on Thursday said that the unprecedented volatility in the Kospi index between January and July was driven significantly by the concentration of the South Korean stock market in semiconductor shares, portfolio adjustments by foreign investors, and the build-up and unwinding of leveraged positions domestically. Overseas hedge funds contributed to the volatility by building large positions in South Korean chip stocks with borrowed money, or leverage, before rushing to unwind them during the sharp stock market slump in July. The central bank cited the example of the US-based Situational Awareness fund, which focuses on artificial intelligence investments and was reported to have used leverage of as much as four times in building and reducing investments in memory chip makers worldwide. The warning comes as demand surges for overseas investment products linked to South Korean chip stocks. A US-listed BlackRock South Korea equity ETF, with SK Hynix accounting for roughly a quarter of its portfolio, saw record inflows of 2.8 billion dollars in just one week in July, while the market value of Hong Kong-listed leveraged ETFs referencing Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix surged more than twentyfold in the first half of the year, reflecting the rapid popularity of products that amplify returns through leverage. The central bank said global banks that enter into Total Return Swaps with ETF managers to hedge must buy and sell South Korean stocks in the actual market, as well as futures and options, which could further amplify volatility in domestic share prices. This risk became clear in July, after a single unusual transaction in SK Hynix shares triggered the forced closure of positions worth nearly 60 million dollars in overseas crypto markets. Although the central bank did not identify this as a direct example in its report, the incident underscores the risks from the growing interconnectedness between South Korean chip stocks, ETFs, derivatives, and overseas financial markets.

As on-chain finance implementation advances, N.Avenue club held a roundtable on August 19 to discuss the current state of stablecoins, tokenized assets, and financial infrastructure. Circle's Gazzia Parsons stated that stablecoins and tokenized deposits are complementary, and that Japan is a promising market. Startale's Takashi Tezuka indicated a policy of adopting a blacklist method for the secondary circulation of JPYSC, and providing base currencies integrated with chains such as Soneium and Strium. BlackRock's Yuki Tanaka explained that tokenized MMFs, as assets that operate 24/7, are expanding in use from operating cash to investment cash, and potentially to collateral in the future. The discussion also shared challenges related to DvP and AML/CFT, confirming that the sector is moving beyond pilot projects and into the implementation phase. The next session will be held on September 17, themed 'Wallets and Payment UI'.

BlackRock has agreed to sell a majority stake in the Jessup power plant to Equinor, transferring control of the asset from a BlackRock subsidiary as electricity demand from regional data centers rises. The deal highlights BlackRock's focus on reshaping its infrastructure portfolio around energy assets linked to digital and AI growth, with Equinor becoming the lead owner. BlackRock, a US-based investment manager with a market cap of about $189.7 billion, often reallocates capital across energy assets as power customers seek long-term reliability. For investors, this sale looks like a portfolio reshuffle, freeing balance sheet capacity while maintaining exposure to long-term energy and data center demand through other vehicles. The key datapoint to watch is how BlackRock's reported alternatives and infrastructure assets under management move in upcoming quarterly results, indicating whether capital from deals like Jessup is redirected into higher-fee AI and tokenization-linked platforms.