Copy of Alphabet On Pace To Dethrone Nvidia As Most Valuable Company; Trump’s Handpicked Envoy Of CEOs Accompany Him To China; And Dangote Refinery’s $50Bn IPO
- Dipo Owolabi
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Today's set of headlines is really about where capital, power, and attention are moving right now. Alphabet’s valuation is creeping toward Nvidia’s lead as investors reward a more diversified AI story, Trump is bringing a heavyweight business delegation to China to chase trade and purchase deals, Dangote is targeting a potential $50 billion listing for his refinery, and Jane Street is turning market volatility plus AI-linked stakes into a record trading haul. The common thread is leverage who has it, who wants more of it, and how that changes the numbers. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat! |
Markets as of 11th May 2026.. Cells in RED mean that the value is down, cells in Green mean the value is up.
MAJOR HEADLINES
Alphabet Could Pass Nvidia As World’s Most Valuable Company
Alphabet is now close enough to Nvidia that a lead change is no longer just a talking point. Per Yahoo Finance, Alphabet’s market cap had climbed to about $4.81 trillion as of May 7, while Nvidia stood at about $5.05 trillion, leaving a gap that is still real but much narrower than it was earlier in the year. Nvidia still leads for now, but Alphabet’s faster year-to-date rise has turned this into a genuine race rather than a distant chase.
As reported by Yahoo Finance, the reason Alphabet is being treated as a legitimate contender is that it has multiple highly profitable businesses supporting it rather than depending on one dominant engine. That matters because Alphabet’s strength spans search, YouTube, cloud, and other high-margin businesses, while Nvidia’s near-term valuation is far more tied to how long the AI chip boom can keep accelerating. In a market that is starting to question whether AI demand can stay this strong, that diversification gives Alphabet a different kind of resilience.
The near-term takeaway is that this race is about durability as much as size. Nvidia still benefits from extraordinary demand for AI accelerators, but its stock has been more volatile, including a sell-off in early May, while Alphabet has been rewarded for proving that AI growth can sit inside an already profitable empire rather than resting on one flagship product line. If that pattern continues, the market-cap lead could flip without needing a dramatic collapse in Nvidia only a continued narrowing of the gap. Yahoo Finance
Trump’s Handpicked Envoy Of CEO’s To Accompany Him To Meet President Xi
Trump’s China visit is shaping up as a full-scale business diplomacy mission, with Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Culp of GE Aerospace, and Kelly Ortberg of Boeing all joining the trip, according to Reuters. The delegation also includes executives from Meta, BlackRock, Blackstone, Micron, Mastercard, Qualcomm, Visa, Cargill, Coherent, and Illumina, while Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins was invited but could not attend because of earnings. That makes the trip one of the most loaded corporate delegations to travel with a U.S. president in recent memory.
The agenda is equally significant. Reuters says the U.S. and China are expected to discuss new trade and investment forums, and China could announce purchases tied to Boeing aircraft, U.S. agriculture, and energy. Boeing in particular is hoping for a huge breakthrough: industry sources say the talks could include 500 737 MAX jets plus dozens of widebody aircraft powered by GE engines, a deal that would be Boeing’s first major China order since 2017 and potentially the single largest airplane order in history.
Just as important is who is not going. Reuters says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is not part of the trip, and the White House is putting more emphasis on agriculture and commercial aviation than on AI chips for this visit. That tells you a lot about the administration’s priorities: this is less a Silicon Valley summit and more an attempt to convert diplomatic access into concrete commercial wins. If the Boeing deal lands, the trip will be remembered not just as a political handshake but as a business transaction with enormous dollar value. Reuters
Dangote is targeting a $50 billion valuation for Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE ahead of a planned stock market listing later this year. BusinessDay says the refinery could sell up to a 10% stake, which would imply an offering of about $5 billion, and a senior Dangote Group executive confirmed that the valuation target matches internal expectations. The project is centered on the 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery in the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos, which has already become Africa’s largest single-train refinery.
That valuation is being anchored by operating scale, not just ambition. BusinessDay reports that the refinery has already changed Nigeria’s downstream fuel dynamics by supplying Premium Motor Spirit, diesel, and aviation fuel at commercial scale, and the business has also expanded into petrochemicals. It is now developing additional industrial projects, including linear alkyl benzene production for detergent manufacturing aimed at Nigerian and African markets.
The bigger market implication is that a successful listing could become one of the largest in Nigeria’s history and deepen local participation in the country’s energy sector. BusinessDay says analysts believe the deal could test the depth of Africa’s capital markets, while the company has also signaled that Nigerians may soon be able to buy shares directly in the refinery business. If priced near the target, this would not just be a flotation; it would be a major referendum on how investors value large-scale African industrial assets. Business Day |
Jane Street’s Trading Brought In $16 Billion In Q1
Jane Street just posted a first-quarter trading haul of $16.1 billion, a record that shows how powerful the current volatility environment has been for elite trading firms. Reuters says the firm’s profits more than doubled to $10.3 billion, while revenue rose more than 40% from the same period last year. The quarter was boosted not only by choppy markets, but also by the rising value of Jane Street’s stakes in high-growth AI names such as Anthropic and CoreWeave.
The firm’s model helps explain why it keeps outperforming. Reuters says Jane Street used medium-frequency trading strategies that hold positions for minutes to days, had 3,500 employees, and accessed more than 200 trading venues worldwide without taking outside capital. That means the firm can deploy balance-sheet flexibility when other market players are forced to pull back, which is exactly the kind of setup that thrives when geopolitical shocks and AI-driven repricing create repeated market dislocations.
The broader context makes the quarter even more striking. Reuters said market jitters intensified during the first quarter because of the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran, worries about oil supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, and the broader uncertainty around AI winners and losers. Jane Street also generated a record $39.6 billion in net trading revenue in 2025, so this latest result is not an outlier; it is part of a much larger run that has cemented its position at the top of global trading. Reuters
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