Wall Street turned cautious ahead of the U.S. July nonfarm payrolls report, with the three major stock indexes ending lower, Treasury yields climbing and the dollar testing the 100 level. Oil jumped after Iran advanced a draft rule for transit in the Strait of Hormuz, while LME copper neared historic highs after the Democratic Republic of the Congo moved to ban exports of copper-cobalt concentrates. At the same time, investors reassessed AI-related spending and guidance risk after sharp sell-offs in application software and memory names. The market is also watching a widening split in payroll forecasts, ranging from 18,000 to 83,000 new jobs. That dispersion has raised the stakes for Friday’s data as traders weigh the odds of a September rate hike. St. Louis Fed President Musalem said the probability of inflation staying above target has increased and signaled support for higher rates, while the Financial Times reported that Warsh could also push for a September hike if inflation runs hot in coming weeks. Within equities, SpaceX and several space-linked names outperformed, while Western Digital, SanDisk, AppLovin and Datadog were hit hard after earnings-related disappointments. Alphabet’s $25 billion bond sale, backed by roughly $115 billion in orders, added to supply pressure in long-dated Treasuries and sharpened concerns over how AI infrastructure spending may weigh on free cash flow.

WuBlockchain, citing RootData, reported that 64 crypto venture financing deals were publicly disclosed in July 2026, up 4.9% from 61 in June but down 42.3% from 111 a year earlier. Total disclosed funding reached about $2.299 billion, rising 85.9% month over month from $1.237 billion in June while falling 62.3% from $6.096 billion in July 2025. Sector distribution showed DeFi accounting for 23.4% of projects, CeFi 17.2%, and AI 15.6%, with smaller shares for NFT/Game, L1/L2, RWA/DePIN, and Tool/Wallet. Among the largest rounds, Crypto.com secured a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities at a $20 billion valuation, while tokenization platform Securitize completed a public listing through a merger with a Cantor-backed SPAC that raised about $400 million. Ionic Digital also raised $400 million in new capital at a $2 billion pre-money valuation. Other notable deals included Augustus at $180 million, Alpaca at $135 million, Prime Intellect at $130 million, Gauntlet at $125 million, EDX Markets at $76 million, Flex at $70 million, and Venice AI at $65 million.

The US 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.197%, its highest level since July 2007, narrowing the gap with a 5.25% threshold flagged by BMO as a risk point for equity valuations.

Bank of Montreal established the BMO Institute for Applied AI and Quantum, led by Kristin Milchanowski. AI has reduced false AML alerts by 10% and cut adverse media search time from 180 to 20 minutes. The bank also plans a 24/7 tokenized cash platform with CME and Google Cloud.

Blask says Canada’s 2025 online gambling activity is estimated at $9.5 billion, with offshore operators still dominating every province except Ontario ahead of the World Cup.

BMO plans to launch tokenized cash and tokenized deposit capabilities with CME Group and Google Cloud for institutional trading, margin, and settlement, using a permissioned ledger designed for round-the-clock value transfer.

Taiwan's financial regulator has agreed to evaluate a reform that would replace the current 1,000-share trading lot with a single-share unit, pledging a written report within one month. The change aims to align with global standards.

Alphabet will hold its second-quarter 2026 earnings call on July 22 at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, or 4:30 a.m. Beijing time on July 23, with earnings materials due before the call. Investors are expected to focus on the company’s AI capital expenditure guidance, return on investment, Google Cloud growth, search advertising performance, and changes in cloud backlog. Several institutions remain constructive on the setup. BofA analyst Justin Post said Google Cloud and Search are still the most important supports for the quarter, while BMO raised its target price ahead of the report and pointed to data center expansion, backlog, and continued AI training and inference demand as drivers of cloud growth. At the same time, both flagged risks tied to higher hardware costs and uncertainty around Gemini’s product cadence and commercialization path. Other views are more cautious. HSBC is focused on whether customers could shift to lower-cost AI models and whether hardware inflation will keep pressuring Alphabet’s spending plans. CTA and finance professor Damir Tokic argued Alphabet could become the first mega-cap tech company to cut AI capex expectations, citing weaker free cash flow, higher financing costs, and still-unproven returns on AI investment.