AI cloud giant CoreWeave was up in premarket trading on Wednesday after reporting that its second-quarter revenue doubled, driven by surging demand from hyperscalers for AI compute capacity.

The company, which rents out high-powered computing capacity needed to run and build AI, reported after the bell Tuesday that its second-quarter revenue came in at $2.6 billion, up 112% from $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2025. It’s guiding for third-quarter revenue of between $3.4 billion and $3.6 billion.

But the company is still not profitable. Operating expenses for the quarter also more than doubled year-on-year and marginally exceeded revenue, per the results. CoreWeave was last seen up 18% in premarket trading. At Tuesday’s close, it was up 26% since the start of the year.

Its revenue backlog for the quarter stands at $104 billion as of June 30, which doesn’t include $25 billion in new customer commitments for the third quarter.

“CoreWeave reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage,” CoreWeave’s CEO Michael Intrator said in the release. “Customer demand is accelerating, as enterprise adoption broadens and we continue to deepen our technology platform.”

Intrator is appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” at 9 am ET on Wednesday.

CoreWeave has taken on significant debt as it races to build AI infrastructure.

Operating expenses rose to $2.6 billion from $1.2 billion a year earlier. That left CoreWeave with an operating loss of $49 million, compared with operating income of $19 million a year earlier.

For the full year, the company forecasts revenue of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion and adjusted operating income of $960 million to $1.15 billion.

Some of its second-quarter highlights include winning customers such as Bentley Systems, Grammarly, Isomorphic Labs, and Sunday Robotics.

It also deepened major commercial partnerships with Jane Street, committing $1 billion in strategic investments, while Meta said it would spend an additional $21 billion with CoreWeave during the quarter.

Saudi Aramco on Tuesday reported a jump in second-quarter profit, following a period of severe disruption through the Strait of Hormuz amid the sprawling Middle East conflict.

The world’s largest oil company posted adjusted net income of 125.2 billion Saudi riyal ($33.4 billion) over the April to June period, beating analyst expectations of $31.59 billion.

The results come as oil supermajors have reported blowout quarterly profits, benefitting from higher fossil fuel prices amid hostilities between the U.S. and Iran.

The more than five-month-old conflict, which was already expanding beyond its main fronts, has embroiled further countries in the Middle East in recent days, notably the likes of Iraq and Egypt.

Aramco has responded to the Iran war by leveraging its 1,200-kilometer (746 miles) East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, to maintain exports at a maximum capacity of 7 million barrels per day.

Key highlights from Q2:

• Cash flow from operating activities came in at $25.4 billion in the second quarter.
• Gearing ratio of 6.2% at the end of June, compared to 4.8% at the end of the first quarter.
• Aramco said it continues to utilize its East-West pipeline to increase supply flexibility.

“Despite the unprecedented supply disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, we continued to demonstrate our ability to maintain business continuity by capitalizing on our diverse asset base and multi-decade planning, including strategic infrastructure such as the East-West Pipeline, storage capacity, and export terminals,” Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser said in a statement.

“That enabled us to sustain production and exports while advancing key projects, despite the challenging regional environment,” he added.

Aramco’s board said a second-quarter base dividend of $21.9 billion would be paid over the next three months.

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Wall Street is banking heavily on exchange-traded funds that give investors artificial intelligence exposure, according to J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

The firm’s “Guide to ETFs,” which came out this month, finds it’s a top five theme by assets under management — even as volatility hit the group in the second quarter.

“Many [themes] are morphing towards AI and the ecosystem surrounding AI,” Jon Maier, the firm’s chief ETF strategist, told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.

Maier, who led the insights team that published the report, also highlighted an overlapping relationship between AI-themed ETFs and infrastructure.

“It’s all kind of feeding into the AI story … the applications, the energy [and] the AI models,” he said.

Go with the flow? ETFs vs. mutual funds

JPMorgan’s Guide to ETFs also found that mutual fund overall inflows are meaningfully tapering off while more money is flowing into ETFs.

“That’s only going to continue,” said Maier, who added the report’s data showed negative inflows into mutual funds overall during the past several years.

He also suggests that ETFs have become more attractive to retail investors because of the tax benefits.

“They typically don’t pay a capital gain [tax],” he said.

Maier contends mutual funds are a different story.

“Imagine if you bought a mutual fund in 2022 and you’re down 20%, 30%, 40%, depending on what part of the market you bought, and you still got a capital gain of 6%. You’re not happy,” he said.

UniCredit is aiming to exercise control of Commerzbank in the fourth quarter, the CEO of the Italian bank told CNBC in an exclusive interview.

Speaking with CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition,” UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel said the bank is happy with its position in Commerzbank, with the bank now closing in on full control of the German lender, having upped its stake to 48%.

Orcel said the Italian bank is firing on all cylinders, having raised its full-year guidance after posting its best-ever second-quarter and first-half results Thursday.

Asked when a full acquisition could take place, Orcel told CNBC’s Carolin Roth that certain steps still need to happen.

“With respect to the normal regulatory environment and antitrust, and what would allow us to take ownership of tendered shares and therefore exercise control, we think now potentially in Q4, maybe later, and that would mark the moment when we go in.”

“That would mark the moment when we go in,” the CEO said, adding that they would not wait for the AGM in May.

He said that the two banks remain “very different,” adding that a number of alignments need to occur before any full merger takes place.

Shares in UniCredit were 2.3% lower in morning trade. Commerzbank shares were down 0.7%.

In a statement, Commerzbank said its position remains unchanged. “Only a constructive approach can create value for all stakeholders,” the bank said.

UniCredit’s swoop for Commerzbank has been one of Europe’s most closely-watched takeover tussles in recent years.

The Italian bank took an initial 9% stake in 2024, before ramping it up to about 30% in March, fueling expectations of a full takeover, a prospect fiercely resisted by Commerzbank management.

The German Finance Ministry weighed in on the increasingly bitter wrangle Thursday, saying that it was “now up to the two banks to talk to each other.”

The comments, which followed CNBC’s interview, signal a reversal of the German government’s opposition to the deal, though the ministry said it was opposed to UniCredit’s “aggressive approach.”

The German government holds a 12% stake in Commerzbank.

Also responding to CNBC’s interview, Commerzbank’s deputy chair and works council head Sascha Uebel called on each party to “act like adults.”

In its second-quarter results statement, UniCredit said the Commerzbank deal has evolved from “an attractive financial investment” to a “strategic transaction of substantial industrial value creation.”

The Italian bank’s net profit fell 13% to 2.9 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in the second quarter, or 3.1 billion euros when excluding one-off hedging and certain other funding costs relating to the increased stake in Commerzbank.

Its full-year net profit target has been upgraded to more than 11 billion euros.

Singapore’s economy expanded 5.7% in the second quarter, topping market expectations, on the back of strong growth in the manufacturing sector.

Growth was higher than the 5.5% expected by economists polled by Reuters, but lower than the revised 6.3% seen in the first quarter, according to a release from the country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The goods sector expanded 10.4% from the 8.4% in the previous quarter, while growth in the services sector slowed to 4.6% from 6.2% in the first quarter.

“Singapore’s 2Q26 advance GDP estimates indicate that the economy remained resilient despite the shock stemming from tensions in the Middle East,” said Chua Han Teng, senior economist at DBS Bank said in a note.

He expects robust trade-related performance and tailwinds from domestic construction to continue into the next few quarters, but warned that GDP was likely to moderate going forward due to high base effects.

In May, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry projected that GDP growth for 2026 at 2%-4%, “although downside risks have risen significantly as a result of the US-Israel-Iran conflict,” it said.

The advance GDP data comes as Singapore’s central bank prepares to announce its quarterly monetary policy decision later this month.

Instead of using interest rates, the city-state manages monetary policy by influencing the Singapore dollar’s value against the currencies of its main trading partners within an undisclosed trading band, known as the Singapore dollar nominal effective exchange rate, or S$NEER.

The Singapore dollar traded at 1.294 against the greenback, marginally weaker after the data release.

The GDP data also comes as inflation in the city-state held steady at 1.8% in May, its joint-highest level since September 2024.

The MAS said in its CPI release that global energy prices remain elevated compared to 2025, forecasting that full-year inflation at 1.5%–2.5%.

After a year-long bear market, an almost 20% decline year-to-date, and sell-offs after four of its past four earnings reports, options traders are striking a decidedly bullish tone heading into Netflix‘s earnings on Thursday.

Call volumes doubled puts in back-to-back sessions Friday and Monday, with almost three times as many calls bought versus puts by midday Monday, according to data from ThinkOrSwim. At the same time, one of the most popular trades was selling at-the-money puts.

The technical picture may be helping. At around $75, Netflix is trading about on par with where the stock was when it ended its pursuit of Warner Brothers Discovery in February. It was around this level in late 2021 that Netflix began a sharp, 80% selloff before a multi-year recovery that peaked at $134 in June last year.

“Netflix is now testing a rising 200-week moving average as well as the $70 prior resistance-turned-breakout level from late 2021,” Todd Gordon, founder and CIO at Inside Edge Capital, said in an email. “Should this $70 technical support hold, it may be time to consider changing the channel back to NFLX.”

Options pricing currently implies a 7.6% swing after earnings, compared to the average realized move of 7.4% the past year, according to Cboe LiveVol data. Netflix stock has fallen after four of its last four reports, after rallying three times a row in its preceding three reports.

Media watchers have pointed to a lack of engagement as the company has yet to have a major breakout hit in the last quarter. According to Nielsen, Netflix’s share of TV vieweship touched its lowest level in over a year. 

“Netflix has not had a breakout hit this year,” Rich Greenfield, co-founder and TMT analyst at LightShed Partners, said in a text. “Nielsen stats show they are growing engagement in the U.S. but with sub growth viewership per sub is down modestly. New ad-supported users likely watch less than older ad-free users so mix shift likely explains some of it as well as rising competition.”

The most popular contract by volume Monday was the 75-strike put expiring on Friday, thanks in part to one big seller who brought in just shy of $150,000 selling 500 of those puts. Among the 20,000 transactions on that put contract on Monday, 15,000 were likely sales, according to SpotGamma data.