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US data center transaction valuation

 

Transaction date Assets Buyer / capital partner Seller / contributor Stake acquired Transaction value Capacity Implied price per GW
Jun. 29, 2026 Three Northern Virginia hyperscale facilities: two in Manassas and one in Sterling Digital Realty Blackstone-affiliated funds Blended 64%: 80% of two sites and 50% of one US$3.5bn equity consideration; US$7.8bn 100% gross asset value, including assumed debt and remaining capex 0.288GW US$27.1bn/GW on gross asset value
Jul. 28, 2026 Meta El Paso campus, Texas BlackRock/GIP/HPS funds Meta contributes land and construction in progress BlackRock 80%; Meta retains 20% US$14bn total fitted-infrastructure development cost; Meta contributed US$2.3bn of assets and BlackRock contributed US$4.9bn cash at closing 1.0GW US$14.0bn/GW
Oct. 21, 2025 Meta Hyperion initial campus development, Louisiana Blue Owl-managed funds Meta contributes land and construction in progress Blue Owl 80%; Meta retains 20% US$27bn total development cost; Blue Owl initially contributed about US$7bn cash and Meta received a US$3bn distribution ~2.0GW initial phase ~US$13.5bn/GW
Oct. 1, 2024 New Equinix xScale campuses across the U.S. GIC and CPP Investments New-build JV with Equinix; no conventional seller GIC 37.5%; CPP 37.5%; Equinix 25% More than US$15bn of total investable capital, including future debt More than 1.5GW ~US$10bn/GW, based on headline figures
Apr. 15, 2024 Equinix SV12x, San Jose, California PGIM Real Estate Equinix contributes/develops project PGIM 80%; Equinix retains 20% US$600m JV/project capitalization >0.028GW <US$21.4bn/GW
Oct. 15, 2025 Aligned Data Centers platform across North and South America AIP, MGX and BlackRock’s GIP Macquarie-managed funds and co-investors 100% equity US$40bn enterprise value ~5GW operational and planned ~US$8.0bn/GW

The World Cup curse

A widely cited study covering World Cups from 1950–2006 found that the U.S. market lost an average 2.58% during the tournament’s defined “effect period,” versus an average gain of 1.21% over comparable-length periods outside World Cups.

The 2022 Crash: During the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the global stock market fell by 4.6% and the S&P 500 dropped by 5.4%.

Why might it happen?

1. Losses hurt more than victories help.
Fans become significantly more pessimistic after elimination, but investors do not become equivalently optimistic after an ordinary victory. During the knockout stage, every match creates one disappointed country, so the negative mood effects may accumulate globally.

2. Investors are distracted.
When a national team is playing, investors watch football instead of markets. Research covering 15 countries during the 2010 and 2014 World Cups found that trading volume could fall by as much as 48% during national-team matches. Domestic markets also temporarily reacted less to global-market news.

The current 2026 World Cup looks fine so far, although Nasdaq is weak in recent days.

The weakness started when US restarted strike on Iran over the Jul 11-12 weekend, after US team’s exit on Jul 6 (defeated by Belgium).

 

Index June 10 July 17 World Cup return
S&P 500 7,266.99 7,457.69 +2.62%
Dow Jones 49,918.78 52,146.42 +4.46%
Nasdaq Composite 25,169.50 25,520.24 +1.39%
Russell 2000 2,835.46 2,962.22 +4.47%

 

China’s Jim Cramer?

This Weibo guy, called Feng Ge (Brother Feng), said on July 8 that he can’t withstand the loss and cut positions (in tech mainly).

The next day July 9 stock market came back strong.

On the very strong July 9, he said he bought back (fully invested).

Then on Jul 10 stock market was in a bloodbath.

After Jul 10 close, he said he wouldn’t quit this time – tech is the future and will rise again.

On July 15, he commented that innovative drugs is interesting, which marked the end of a few weeks rally of HK biotech/healthcare stock.

On Jul 16, he commented that “tech has bottomed” / “correction is done”, which is actually the peak of the day.

China’s retail investors have found their Jim Cramer.

 

Opportunity cost vs sunken cost

Interesting that retail investors care much more about sunken cost than opportunity cost.

For one thing, sunken cost can be easily measured – how much you bought and how much is the unrealized p/l.

Opportunity cost is harder to measure, as you need to constantly have a view on various things.

Perhaps money market fund rate is the most obvious opportunity cost rather than S&P 500, although I believe the latter is more important.

However easiness to measure shouldn’t matter.

As I think sunken cost can be ignored while opportunity cost should be the only thing that matters.

Except that you think you are playing poker with multi round game theory – easy to fold makes you more likely to be bluffed in future.

民谣黄金时代

the year when the song become widespread / well-known

2012 – 董小姐 – 宋东野

2013 – 天空之城 – 李志

2014 – 南山南 – 马頔

2015 – 奇妙能力歌 – 陈粒

2016 – 成都 – 赵雷

2017 – 消愁 – 毛不易

2018 – 盗将行 – 花粥

2017 已经被资本主导的选秀节目影响

2018 之后已经被抖音/短视频影响/接管，因为要受众最大的话，最流行的不一定是最初的那种民谣了

SK Hynix 2q investment profit is more than 1q operating profit

For 1q26, SK Hynix posted ₩51.6 trillion won profit before tax.

Among that ₩51.6tn, ₩37.6tn is operating profit and ₩9.88tn is investment valuation gain, mostly related to Kioxia.

SK hynix owns convertible bonds that can be converted into substantially all the voting rights of BCPE Pangea Cayman2, and that vehicle holds the 77.4 million Kioxia shares, which is about 14% of Kioxia.

Kioxia’s closing share price was ¥19,080 on March 31, 2026 and Kioxia closed at ¥89,680 on June 30.

77.4m×(¥89,680-¥19,080)×₩9.5194=₩52tn​

52 trillion won of Kioxia investment paper gain in a quarter.

The Kioxia investment gain alone is more than 1q26 operating profit of ₩37.6tn.

While Bain Capital needs to sell as a PE fund, SK Hynix can hold much longer.

China’s recycled rocket

“Recovered” is not yet the same as “reused”.

1/ China recovered the first stage, not the entire rocket.

2/ Only after a successful second flight with that same booster can China demonstrate operational reuse.

The first stage contains most of the rocket’s engines and represents a large share of its manufacturing cost.

Net-based capture system: rocket does not need to carry conventional landing legs, their deployment mechanisms, and as much associated structural reinforcement throughout the flight.

However, the heavy landing legs is more reusable outside of earth more easily I assume – especially for the first time for a planet.

 

Model pricing comparison

Meta’s pricing is amazing – it targets eliminate Claude’s gross profit if Muse Spark capability can catch up.

Model Input ($/1M tokens) Output ($/1M tokens)
Meta Muse Spark 1.1 $1.25 $4.25
Claude Sonnet ~$3 ~$15
Claude Opus ~$5 ~$25

With cached input.

Model Input ($/1M) Cached Input ($/1M) Output ($/1M) Cached discount
Meta Muse Spark 1.1 $1.25 $0.15 $4.25 88%
Claude Sonnet $3.00 $0.30 $15.00 90%
Claude Opus $5.00 $0.50 $25.00 90%

However, compare that with DeepSeek.

Model Input / 1M Cached input / 1M Output / 1M
DeepSeek V4 Flash RMB 1 / $0.15 RMB 0.02 / $0.003  RMB 2 / $0.3
DeepSeek V4 Pro  RMB 3 / $0.44 RMB 0.025 / $0.0037 RMB 6 / $0.89

Zhipu could see some trouble…

 

Model Input / 1M Cached input / 1M Output / 1M
Zhipu GLM-5.2 RMB 8 / $1.18 RMB 2 / $0.3 RMB 28 / $4.13
Meta Muse Spark 1.1 $1.25 $0.15 $4.25
DeepSeek V4 Pro  RMB 3 RMB 0.025 RMB 6

Also recall that I was mentioning the bifurcation in AI models and AI infra.

Which Buffett stock performed well during doc-com bubble?

1/ Washington Post

In 2000, the company spent about $125 million developing Kaplan, online education and Washingtonpost.com.

Kaplan became a success.

Kaplan revenue grew roughly 76% in two years, while it swung from a meaningful loss to profitability. Test preparation benefited as the weak job market sent more people back to graduate school, while Kaplan Higher Education produced record enrollment, revenue and operating income.

 

2/ H&R Block

Core tax business is a recurring, mostly cash-paid service that was largely insensitive to technology spending or stock-market valuations.

H&R Block owned Option One, a large non-prime mortgage originator. As the Federal Reserve cut rates following the dot-com collapse, refinancing activity surged. << an early subprime-housing trade

 

3/ Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo surged in 2000 as money rotated away from expensive technology stocks toward reasonably valued, profitable financial companies. Even after its 20% decline in 2001, an investor entering at the end of 1999 still made roughly 24% through 2002, versus a 38% loss for the S&P 500.

Its underlying banking businesses also remained healthy: Wells Fargo reported growing net interest income and improving earnings in parts of its business during 2002.