Here's a quick overview of the main events of the day:
Moonshot AI released the Kimi K3 model, sending AI stocks into negative territory worldwide.
Telecom Italia today launched a tender offer from Poste Italiane for €10.8 billion.
Honeywell completed the acquisition of Johnson Matthey's catalyst business for £1.3 billion.
Iran has ended the ceasefire, and the US has launched its seventh night of attacks following losses in Jordan.
Trump remains silent on further action; the total number of American casualties has risen to 17.
Z.ai and MiniMax plunged by 28% and 16%, respectively, after the release of Kimi K3.
Overseas Investments
The capital markets were shaken on Friday by a report from Beijing that evoked memories of last year's "DeepSeek moment." The Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI released a new model, Kimi K3, which, according to internal benchmarks, rivals the strongest products from OpenAI and Anthropic—it outperforms them in several categories and is only behind the Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol models, according to a company announcement cited by Bloomberg. Global markets immediately reacted with sell-offs: shares of the Chinese AI rival Z.ai fell by 28%, MiniMax Group by 16%, and Alibaba—as an investor in Moonshot and as the owner of AI cloud platforms—lost four percent despite a simultaneously announced partnership with Apple. Moonshot AI, whose backers are Alibaba and Tencent, was valued at over $20 billion in May during a $2 billion funding round. On Sunday, Bloomberg reported, citing sources close to investors, that the company had sent out a shareholder document to prepare for a listing in Hong Kong within six months—the breakthrough of Kimi K3 is an incentive to enter the public markets as quickly as possible.
In Italy, today marks the start of the key phase of the largest telecommunications acquisition in the country in a decade. The state-controlled postal service Poste Italiane is launching a tender offer to acquire the remaining shares of Telecom Italia (TIM) that it does not yet own, at €0.635 per share, for a total value of approximately €10.8 billion (about $12.4 billion), according to a company announcement. The tender period will last until September 11, 2026. The TIM board unanimously approved the offer on Saturday, July 18, as financially fair and positively assessed the business prospects of the transaction; the Italian regulator CONSOB authorized it three days earlier. Poste, which is two-thirds owned by the Italian state, aims to build a national digital champion combining postal, data, and telecommunications services.
In the industrial sector, the American company Honeywell Technologies today announced the completion of the acquisition of the catalyst technology division of the British chemical group Johnson Matthey for £1.325 billion in cash, according to a press release from the company. The transaction will strengthen Honeywell's position in clean energy, hydrogen production, and industrial decarbonization.
Significant Events with Global Impact
```Iran responded to the U.S. strikes with ballistic missiles and drones in Jordan over the weekend, resulting in the deaths of two U.S. service members and one missing person, according to CENTCOM, Reuters, and AP. In response, Iran announced on Saturday that it was suspending a memorandum of understanding with the United States, effectively burying the ceasefire agreement that the two countries reached in June. The U.S. has launched its seventh consecutive night of airstrikes in Iran aimed at degrading its ability to threaten shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran reports that over 50 people have been killed and over 500 injured—the attack on a desalination plant caused water shortages for 10,000 people. The total number of U.S. casualties since the beginning of the conflict has reached 17, with Bloomberg reporting on Sunday that Trump has not yet provided a clear outlook on further action. Oil markets have reacted nervously: oil prices rose on Monday morning as investors once again priced in the risk of a closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Tradingeconomics.com