This Week's Highlights: The Federal Reserve's Hawkish Turn Heats Up, SpaceX and OpenAI Sprint Toward IPO, NVIDIA's Earnings Soar Again

BlockBeats News. On May 23, this week, global markets saw violent fluctuations around three main themes: “Escalation of the Middle East situation + the Fed’s hawkish return + an AI capital frenzy.” The US dollar and US Treasury yields surged sharply, while gold, crude oil, and tech stocks repeatedly swung. AI giants such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic concentrated their push toward IPOs, and global risk assets entered a high-volatility phase.

At the macro level, Kevin Warsh officially took the oath as Chair of the Federal Reserve and stressed that he would promote a “reform-oriented” Fed. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s April meeting minutes showed that most officials believed inflation risks had reignited, and further rate hikes might be needed if necessary. Market expectations for “keeping high interest rates for longer” quickly heated up, and the yield on the 30-year US Treasury briefly rose to the highest level since 2007.

The Middle East situation continued to be the market’s key variable. Although US-Iran negotiations were close to an agreement, both sides were still in a “negotiating while applying pressure” state. The continued disruption risk from navigation through the Strait of Hormuz kept perturbing global energy markets. Some merchant vessels were forced to reroute, and oil prices surged and plunged multiple times during intraday trading. The market began to reprice energy inflation and geopolitical risk.

In the technology and AI sector, SpaceX has officially filed its IPO prospectus. The company plans to list on Nasdaq as early as the end of June at the fastest, and its fundraising size may reach between $50 billion and $75 billion, with a valuation of about $1.25 trillion. It is expected to become one of the largest IPOs in history. The prospectus disclosed for the first time that the company’s 2025 revenue will reach $18.7 billion, up 33% year over year. However, due to a surge in AI and data center investment, the company expects an approximately $4.9 billion net loss for the full year.

OpenAI was also reported to have secretly submitted an IPO application as early as this week at the fastest, targeting a valuation exceeding $1 trillion. Anthropic, meanwhile, plans to go public in the second half of 2026. A wave of capitalizing the AI industry chain is accelerating across the board.

Nvidia continues to be the core engine of the AI bull market. The company’s latest quarterly revenue reached $81.6 billion, up 85% year over year. Data center business revenue nearly doubled to $75.2 billion, and it also provided guidance for the next quarter that far exceeded market expectations. Jensen Huang said that the Rubin AI system will begin mass production in the second half of the year, and that the Blackwell and Rubin chips in the coming years are expected to create $1 trillion in revenue.

At the same time, concerns about valuation risks in the US stock market are also beginning to surface. The Shiller CAPE (Shiller price-to-earnings ratio), which measures long-term valuation levels, has risen to about 40 times—its highest level since the internet bubble. With AI bellwether stocks highly concentrated today, the market is worried that the tech-stock rally may be repeating the “extreme centralization” trend from the 1999 internet bubble phase.

On the regulatory front, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, together with eight other departments, issued the 《Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Rectification of Illegal Cross-border Securities and Futures Fund Business Activities》, stating clearly that within two years it will fully clean up illegal cross-border business by overseas institutions. Futu, Tiger Securities, and Changqiao Securities were all heavily punished. Among them, Futu is proposed to be fined 1.85 billion yuan. After the news was released, shares of related China-concept brokerages fell sharply.

In the crypto market, Nasdaq received approval from the US SEC to launch Bitcoin index options products. Grayscale submitted revised documents for its third version of the Hyperliquid ETF, with the code GHYP. Michael Saylor also gave an opening for the first time, saying that Strategy “does not rule out selling some Bitcoin in 2026,” which has drawn market attention.

In addition, the latest 13F holdings of the fund under Duan Yongping were revealed. In Q1, it significantly increased positions in Tesla, Nvidia, and Pinduoduo, while also newly opening positions in crypto concept stocks such as Circle, showing that AI and digital assets remain among the core directions of global capital.