CL HKEX now sits second globally for IPO fundraising in the first half of 2026, a result that would have drawn skepticism eighteen months ago. The city's capital markets have quietly outperformed the narrative written about them, and yuan bond futures arriving in August deepen that record. For a financial center that spent years reading its own obituaries, the first half of 2026 reads like a rebuttal.-- CL

MB Peace was signed at Versailles on Friday, which is either historically resonant or historically illiterate depending on your read of the last century. By the time the ceremony concluded, Ukraine had launched its largest drone strike on Moscow and U.S. Marines had opened fire in the South China Sea. Markets celebrated the signal; they tend not to wait for the conditions.-- MB