Market Maker

Application season is underway, and if you’re targeting investment banking, understanding what’s actually happening in M&A can give you a real advantage in interviews.

In this episode, Anthony Cheung and Stephen Barnett break down the huge resurgence in global dealmaking in 2026, why mega-deals are dominating, which sectors and banks are benefiting, and how interest rates, AI and valuations are shaping the outlook.

Most importantly, we explain how to turn that knowledge into better interview answers: which deals to research, how to structure your response and how to demonstrate genuine commercial understanding rather than simply memorising headlines.

(00:00) Investment Banking Interview Prep
(01:48) The M&A Boom
(04:47) Why Mega Deals Are Surging
(10:52) What Drives M&A?
(17:46) Merger Arbitrage
(19:41) The Hottest Sectors
(24:04) Which Banks Are Winning?
(26:15) How to Target Your Applications
(30:21) Stephen's Favourite Episode
(33:26) Anthropic IPO Prediction
(34:46) Impact of US Mid-Terms
(41:23) Number One Advice

Oil is back above $100 a barrel, food prices are climbing and central banks are once again facing pressure to raise interest rates. Is the world heading towards a second wave of inflation?

In this episode, Anthony Cheung and Piers Curran explain why the latest inflation threat goes far beyond the headline oil price. China is returning to the crude market just as conflict continues to disrupt global energy supplies, while refinery problems are pushing petrol and diesel prices even higher.

At the same time, food commodities including wheat, rice, coffee, sugar and cocoa are rising as war, extreme weather and supply disruption hit global production. We look at how those higher costs eventually reach the supermarket checkout and why a £100 UK weekly shop from 2020 could soon cost around £150.

Finally, we break down what this means for the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and other central banks, why bond yields are rising, and whether higher inflation could force interest rates to stay higher for longer.

(00:00) Is Inflation Coming Back?
(01:33) Why Oil Is Above $100
(05:57) The Trump Oil Problem
(07:11) Petrol Prices Surge
(12:43) How Oil Traders React
(15:58) Food Inflation Returns
(22:44) Why Food Prices Are Rising
(23:59) Interest Rates Going Higher?
(28:47) The Stagflation Risk
(31:36) The £150 Weekly Shop

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, paying around 86x revenue for one of the most important platforms in open-source AI.

In this episode of the Market Maker Podcast, Anthony Cheung and Stephen Barnett break down what Hugging Face actually does, why Nvidia wants it, and how the deal fits into Jensen Huang’s wider strategy to control more of the AI ecosystem.

We look at Hugging Face’s journey from a failed chatbot to the “GitHub of AI”, why open-source AI is becoming increasingly important, and whether Nvidia’s growing influence should concern regulators and developers. We also look at the parallels with Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub and the extraordinary returns generated by some of Hugging Face’s earliest investors, including NBA star Kevin Durant.

A deep dive into the strategy, valuation and economics behind one of the biggest AI deals of the year.

(00:00) Nvidia Buys Hugging Face
(08:23) Why Nvidia Moved Now
(15:56) Who Made Billions?
(18:59) What Is Hugging Face?
(27:42) How Hugging Face Started
(30:19) The $12.9bn Valuation
(32:31) Nvidia’s AI Strategy
(44:04) Kevin Durant’s 240x Return

Can governments really control financial markets, or can they simply delay the inevitable?

Japan has spent nearly $100 billion trying to support the yen, with the US taking the extraordinary step of joining the intervention. But despite the firepower, the forces driving the currency, interest rate differentials, the carry trade and Japan’s economic fundamentals, haven’t simply disappeared.

In this episode, Anthony Cheung and Piers Curran explain how FX intervention actually works, why governments and central banks step into financial markets, and why intervention often treats the symptom rather than the underlying cause.

We also revisit the extraordinary 2015 Swiss franc collapse, when the Swiss National Bank abandoned its currency floor and triggered one of the most dramatic moves in modern FX history, before looking at the US Treasury market and the attempts to bring rising long-term bond yields under control.

From the Japanese yen to US Treasuries, this is a practical guide to what happens when governments decide to fight the market and why the market often has the final say.

(00:00) Can Governments Control Markets?
(07:26) Why the Yen Is So Weak
(15:24) The Yen Carry Trade
(17:59) The Intervention Explained
(19:41) Symptom or Disease?
(21:14) Japan’s $100bn Intervention
(27:11) The Swiss Franc Collapse
(41:10) The US Bond Market Problem
(45:51) What Could Break Next?
(52:49) What Happens Next?

Stripe has just made one of the biggest AI acquisitions yet, buying OpenRouter for around $7.5 billion — a company that was valued at just $1.3 billion only months earlier. So what exactly is Stripe buying, and why has OpenRouter become so valuable so quickly?

In this episode of the Market Maker Podcast, Anthony Cheung and Stephen Barnett break down OpenRouter’s extraordinary rise, how its platform connects businesses to hundreds of different AI models, and why the economics of AI could increasingly favour the platforms routing intelligence rather than the companies building the models themselves.

We also unpack the remarkable story of Stripe, founded by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, which now processes payments equivalent to around 1.6% of the entire global economy. We explore how Stripe became a critical part of the internet’s financial infrastructure, and why its latest acquisitions point to much bigger ambitions across AI, payments and agentic commerce.

From venture capital and AI valuations to network effects, business moats and the future of online commerce, this is the business behind Stripe’s $7.5 billion bet on the AI economy.

(00:00) Stripe’s $7.5BN AI Bet
(02:30) The OpenRouter Deal
(05:01) From Startup to $7.5BN
(09:29) How Venture Capital Works
(11:13) What Is OpenRouter?
(16:32) Building a Billion-Dollar Startup
(22:21) What’s OpenRouter’s Moat?
(28:19) Why Stripe Bought OpenRouter
(33:20) The Rise of Agentic Commerce
(37:12) The Story of Stripe
(40:07) How Stripe Makes Money
(44:35) Stripe’s Acquisition Strategy
(47:13) Have We Reached Singularity?