UBS said in its HOLT Global Review dated Sept. 21, 2026 that volatility in U.S. technology stocks has climbed back to levels associated with the internet bubble era, even as investors remain heavily concentrated in large-cap tech. The bank highlighted a median 3-month rolling realized volatility of 0.69 for semiconductors, 0.5 for the broader technology sector, and 0.4 for software and services. By comparison, financials stood at 0.17, while the median for all sectors excluding financials was 0.26. The report argues that the tailwind from loose monetary conditions has faded and that companies dependent on external financing now face tighter scrutiny. UBS also pointed to a sharp rise in hyperscaler capital spending, which it said could dilute cash flow return on investment, or CFROI, especially as yields move higher. It estimated that hyperscaler capex rose from less than 5% of total U.S. capital spending in 2015 to more than 30% in 2026, with the absolute amount increasing from under $100 billion to above $1.2 trillion. UBS said defensive areas such as consumer staples and healthcare, along with selected value stocks in Europe and the UK, now offer relative appeal. It also warned that highly leveraged U.S. companies and stocks facing both CFROI pressure and demanding valuations may be more exposed if inflation stays above expectations and central banks tighten policy further.

PANews’ weekly funding roundup showed that the blockchain sector recorded nine financing deals worldwide between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20, with disclosed funding topping $223 million. Stablecoin payments stood out as the busiest crypto segment of the week, with Velocity, dtcpay and Fin.com each securing fresh capital to build settlement, fiat on-and-off-ramp and banking backend infrastructure. Investors in those rounds included Visa, Circle, Ripple, Coinbase Ventures and SBI, pointing to continued capital flows beyond stablecoin issuance and into payment rails and compliance-heavy infrastructure. The largest checks, however, were written in AI infrastructure. Crypto data provider Kaiko expanded its latest round to $110 million with S&P Global leading, while AI compute infrastructure company Crusoe completed a $3.9 billion Series F at a post-money valuation of about $30.9 billion. Nvidia also committed $2 billion to Brookfield Asset Management’s global AI infrastructure fund. Elsewhere, the report covered funding across tokenized securities, RWA-backed finance, DePIN, AI chips, enterprise AI software, robotics and venture funds, showing how capital remained concentrated in infrastructure layers rather than consumer-facing narratives.

A consortium of 10 banks has extended a $22 billion chip-backed loan to Crux AI, according to Dealroom.co, citing Bloomberg News. The financing will be used to purchase custom Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, from Google. Crux AI is the artificial intelligence cloud joint venture announced in May by Blackstone and Alphabet, and the project officially launched last week. In addition to the debt package, Crux AI has already received a $5 billion equity investment from Blackstone. Google is supplying the TPUs, along with software and services tied to the buildout. The project is targeting its first 500 megawatts of capacity in 2027. Named lenders in the banking group include Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Scotiabank. The report outlines both the scale of the financing and the structure behind one of the larger AI infrastructure buildouts now moving ahead.

Federal Reserve Chair Waller reshaped the market debate at the post-rate-hike press conference by repeatedly describing the move as removing a "dose of accommodation," rather than pushing policy into clearly restrictive territory. In his framework, even with the target range raised to 3.75%-4%, policy still carries a stimulative tilt. He also brushed aside neutral rate estimates as academically useful but operationally irrelevant for current decisions, a stance that challenges a policy reference point the Fed has relied on since the Bernanke era. That combination is forcing Wall Street to rethink both the likely number of additional hikes and the policy framework behind them. CME FedWatch data showed the probability of another hike in October climbing to about 58% from 42% a week earlier. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America both added to their tightening expectations, with BofA also calling for another increase in December. Futures imply a 2027 year-end rate of 4.635%, pointing to three to four more hikes. Analysts from Evercore ISI, BNP Paribas Securities, and Natixis Investment Managers said Waller’s language signaled a more hawkish stance, while also suggesting the market may need to adapt to a system that places less weight on r* and more emphasis on money supply and broad nominal conditions.

Crypto market data provider Kaiko has raised $110 million in a funding round led by S&P Global, with BNP Paribas, Nasdaq, Royal Bank of Canada, Bpifrance, and Susquehanna also participating. The company said the new capital will be used to improve its data services and broaden its product lineup. Headquartered in New York, Kaiko provides market data, indices, and reference rates to more than 150 cryptocurrency exchanges and decentralized protocols. The company had previously partnered with S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch the S&P Kaiko Digital Asset Indices brand, extending its presence in digital asset benchmarks and data products.

Real-world asset markets eased slightly in the latest weekly window, but user growth kept accelerating. PANews said RWA on-chain market capitalization stood at $38.53 billion as of Sept. 18, down 0.75% from a month earlier, while the number of asset holders climbed to 4.436 million, up 85.84%. Stablecoins also stayed on an upward track, with total market capitalization reaching $303.35 billion and monthly transfer volume rising to $7.03 trillion. The week’s biggest regulatory development came from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which approved a temporary, conditional Innovation Exemption for tokenized National Market System stocks. The move allows limited trading on certain blockchain-based venues and gives the agency a way to collect market data before writing longer-term rules. Hong Kong, meanwhile, said it wants to support issuance and trading of gold and other suitable RWAs on licensed platforms, while the European Central Bank, the U.K., Thailand and India each advanced separate tokenization or digital currency initiatives. On the industry side, SWIFT launched a tokenized deposit cross-border payments pilot with 17 banks, Ondo’s broker-dealer unit joined DTCC’s Fund/SERV network, Aave prepared a dedicated RWA lending market on Avalanche, and Centrifuge rolled out a tokenized high-yield corporate bond fund with New York Life Investment Management. Funding activity also stayed focused on tokenization infrastructure and stablecoin settlement rails, with tZERO, Velocity, dtcpay and Fin.com all announcing fresh capital.

The Bank of Japan is set to announce its target rate on Sept. 18, and several institutions are lining up behind the view that a 25-basis-point increase is the most likely outcome. Reuters, citing surveyed economists, said the policy rate is expected to reach 1.5% by the end of March next year and 1.75% in the second quarter of 2027, with most economists seeing the terminal rate at least that high. BNP Paribas expects a move to 1.25% now, followed by additional hikes in December and next March. Goldman Sachs described the decision as effectively locked in and said another increase could come as early as December. TD Securities projected a longer tightening path to 2.25%, while MUFG said markets already expect both a hike and a signal of more to come. Several of those institutions also warned that if the BOJ fails to deliver sufficiently hawkish guidance, the yen could come under pressure, with TD pointing to a possible move into the 157-160 range.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and chief investment officer of Maelstrom, said on The Rollup podcast that Ethereum is currently his fund’s largest position, with smaller allocations to EtherFi and Ethena. His case for ETH is not that it is the strongest protocol on a technical basis, but that it remains the most disliked large-cap crypto asset while still avoiding the kind of protocol risk that could wipe out smaller tokens overnight. He pointed to Ethereum’s failure to reclaim its 2021 $5,000 high as part of the setup rather than a warning sign. Hayes also used the interview to outline a broader macro view. He said the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has been rising, but not on the scale seen in 2020 or 2009, which in his view helps explain why Bitcoin has moved from $63,000 to $80,000 rather than much further. For a sharper acceleration in liquidity, he argued, policymakers need political cover in the form of a genuine crisis. The market signal he keeps watching is EUR/JPY. Hayes linked yen strength to Japanese institutions selling dollar assets and needing dollar funding, while tying euro weakness to stress around French banks, the U.S. repo market, and the constraints of the euro system. In his scenario, a drop in EUR/JPY from 182 to 140 or even 120 would create severe pressure on the French banking system and open the path he associates with Bitcoin reaching $250,000 or $500,000.