Facade of The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, City of London, UK

The Bank of England (Getty Images)

QUID GAME

Lending the UK government a few quid hasn’t been this lucrative for decades

UK bond yields are soaring as investors demand higher returns to lend to the UK government.

1/8/25 8:58AM

Buying bonds is usually seen as a safe, boring bet; somewhere to securely stick cash that isn’t earmarked for a more exciting or higher-risk investment — and buying government bonds is especially so. Returns for buying German bonds, for example, hovered near zero percent for the best part of a decade.

But investors lending money to the UK government for 30 years can now earn as much as 5.35% a year — a record-high yield not seen since 1998 — while the yield for buying a 10-year gilt (what the UK calls its government bonds) has also hit its highest level since 2008 this morning.

UK 30-Year Bond Yields Soar, Chart — Sherwood News

While soaring yields may seem like a win for investors, they’re rather a warning sign, as sovereign yields offer some signal on investors’ confidence in that country’s economy. In France, for example, recent budget turmoil pushed yields higher than those of corporate giants like LVMH and L’Oréal, which, though an imperfect comparison, made lending to the French government look riskier than backing its luxury handbags and cosmetics makers.

Gilty of oversupply?

The UK’s rising yields reflect concerns about the nation’s budget: there are simply too many bonds and not enough people who want to buy them, with Tuesday’s sale of £2.25 billion in new 30-year gilts by the UK’s Debt Management Office at a record 5.2% yield. That offering was part of the government’s staggering £297 billion bond-issuance plan for this year — the second-largest on record, which is set to fund public investments by the new Labour government.

However, the market appears hesitant to absorb such a flood of gilts. Investors are wary of the country’s debt pile as growth stagnates (or stops altogether) and inflation stubbornly stays above the Bank of England’s 2% target, dampening hopes for any near-term rate cuts.

Across the pond, US yields have also risen over the last three months, with the US 10Y trading at 4.71% this morning.

Helena Cheng2h

Nvidia and SK Hynix strike multiyear partnership on memory chips, AI data center build-out

Nvidia shares are modestly higher after it announced a multiyear partnership with SK Hynix on memory chips and building out AI data centers.

The agreement secures a long-term pipeline of memory chips for Nvidia. At the center of the partnership is the integration of SK Hynix’s high-bandwidth memory chips into Nvidia’s newly unveiled Vera central processing units. The Vera processor is Nvidia’s first stand-alone data center microprocessor designed to compete directly against traditional enterprise server lines.

The collaboration is also structured to reshape how semiconductors are manufactured. Under the terms of the agreement, SK Hynix will implement Nvidia’s CUDA-X library and PhysicsNeMo framework directly into its memory design and manufacturing workflows.

The announcement happened during a high-profile visit to Seoul by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who arrived on June 5 to align with core infrastructure partners. Over the weekend, Huang met with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung, and other top South Korean technology executives during a dinner meeting, according to Nvidia’s blog posts and Reuters.

Last week, SK Hynix told investors that its proposed US listing has received strong backing, which would potentially give US investors an alternative way to play the memory chip crunch.

Helena Cheng4h

FuelCell Energy rises as AI data center pipeline overshadows Q2 miss

FuelCell Energy shares rebounded into positive territory during premarket trading, reversing an initial dip sparked by Q2 results that showed widening net losses and a year-over-year revenue decline.

Key numbers:

Revenue of $35.6 million (compared to analyst estimates of $40.56 million).
An adjusted loss per share of $1.45 (estimate: a $0.50 loss).

That revenue number marks a 5% decrease from the $37.4 million generated during the same quarter last year.

The company’s net loss expanded to $78.7 million, or $1.45 per share, compared to a loss of $38.8 million in the prior-year period. Management attributed the deeper loss primarily to a $42.6 million one-time impairment expense linked to essential equipment upgrades at its Groton Project facility.

While a 9.9% drop in total backlog initially added to the shares’ downward momentum, investors appeared to quickly pivot their attention to the company’s forward-looking metrics. FuelCell highlighted a 267% sequential jump in its sales pipeline, which has reached 4 gigawatts. The surge is driven by demand for its packaged 12.5-megawatt utility-grade power block solution tailored specifically for the booming AI data center market.

To support this high-growth data center strategy, FuelCell announced a major capacity expansion at its Torrington, Connecticut, manufacturing facility. The company plans to raise its annualized production ceiling from 350 MW to 500 MW, an infrastructure upgrade estimated to cost between $200 million and $275 million over the next 24 months.

Driven by the AI data center narrative, FuelCell Energy’s stock has risen over 130% year to date.

J. Edward Moreno6h

Lilly says its next-gen GLP-1 shot drove 28.3% weight loss, reduced comorbidities

Eli Lilly has risen around 4% in premarket trading after reporting impressive trial results for its next-generation weight-loss drug over the weekend.

According to the results unveiled on Saturday, Lilly’s experimental weight-loss shot, retatrutide, helped patients lose 28.3% of their body weight at 80 weeks. That’s more than tirzepatide, Lilly’s weight-loss shot currently considered the most effective in the market, which helped people lose 26% of their weight over 88 weeks.

Retatrutide is a triple agonist, meaning it mimics three different hormones that promote weight loss, compared to one by Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide and two by tirzepatide. Lilly says it helps preserve more muscle mass than other weight-loss shots and also helped improve knee osteoarthritis pain and obstructive sleep apnea.

Lilly has said it would submit the drug for approval this year with the goal of getting it out to market in 2027. The jab could be the next big moneymaker for Lilly, which currently sells the most lucrative drug in the world but has had an underwhelming rollout of its oral weight-loss pill, which came to market earlier this year.

Retatrutide is already quite popular among those who experiment with peptides, or unapproved injectable drugs often sold online “for research purposes only.” For gym bros trying to attain a certain physique, a drug that has shown it can melt fat while preserving muscle is enticing.

But in a market full of knockoff drugs, will retatrutide enthusiasts pay full price for the drug when it officially goes to market?

Claire Yubin Oh8h

Marvell and Flex rise on S&P 500 inclusion announcement

Chipmaker Marvell Technology and electronics manufacturer Flex are jumping 7% and 3%, respectively, in premarket trading on Monday after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late on Friday that the two companies are set to join the S&P 500 benchmark index.

Replacing Pool Corp. and Campbell’s in the S&P 500, Marvell and Flex’s addition will be effective from June 22, per a press release from the provider, which assesses and updates the index on a quarterly basis.

Marvell has been one of the leading candidates for inclusion across the last few quarterly index rebalances. The company has ballooned into a $230 billion chip giant of late, thanks to the wider AI boom, investors chasing momentum, and, yes, Jensen Huang. Flex, which has been part of the S&P MidCap 400 Index since 2024, has also grown recently, having played a part in the data center boom with a portfolio that spans across infrastructure and cooling systems.

With today’s premarket movement taken into account, MRVL has now risen almost 40% in the last week alone.

Tasha Matsumoto

6/5/26

Stocks tumble amid AI sell-off as a blowout jobs report dampens hope of a rate cut this year

The S&P 500 broke its streak of nine consecutive weekly gains, while the Nasdaq 100 had its worst day since April 2025.

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