Business 19 July 2026

Anthropic could go public as soon as October — beating OpenAI to Wall Street

Anthropic, maker of Claude, has banks lining up investor meetings for an IPO that could come as early as October, ahead of OpenAI.

The race to take AI’s giants public has a new frontrunner. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude models, already has bankers scheduling meetings between investors and its executive team — the classic step before a market debut — and, according to the US financial press, the IPO could happen as soon as October.

When is Anthropic’s IPO?

No date is locked in, but the calendar points to autumn: the company filed confidentially with the US regulator in June and now has Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and JPMorgan working on the deal. If the plan holds, it would rank among the biggest tech listings ever — the latest private round valued the company near a trillion dollars.

The juiciest detail is the running order. OpenAI, for years the face of the sector, has pushed its own debut to 2027 — leaving its younger rival a window to become the first major generative-AI company traded on Wall Street. The timing is no accident either: several financial outlets report Anthropic’s annualized revenue has overtaken OpenAI’s for the first time this year, a sign the commercial battle is tighter than ever.

Investor appetite will be tested in a jumpy market — last week, all it took was OpenAI announcing more efficient models for chip stocks to slump, and the competition isn’t easing up, with China closing in through open models. The company’s official announcements are at anthropic.com.

October is close. If Anthropic keeps to the schedule, Wall Street gets its first real test of what generative AI is actually worth.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: TechCrunch / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

View of the bay and high-rise skyline of Luanda, Angola's capital

Business 18 July 2026

Angolan investment in Portugal has nearly doubled — and now tops what Portugal holds in Angola

Angola's stock of direct investment in Portugal hit 4,525.7 million euros at the end of 2025, up 152% since 2021, exceeding Portuguese investment in Angola by 2,115 million euros.

For decades the story only ran one way: Portuguese companies investing in Angola. Bank of Portugal figures show the current has reversed — Angola's stock of direct investment in Portugal reached 4,525.7 million euros at the end of 2025, and now exceeds what Portuguese companies hold in Angola by 2,115 million euros. That 4.5 billion represents a jump of 50.9% in a single year and 152% since 2021 — the stock has more than doubled in four years. Among the…

Business 18 July 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Business 18 July 2026

Apple is worth more than Nvidia again — and the 5-trillion mark is in sight

Apple overtook Nvidia to become the world's most valuable company at 4.88 trillion dollars, reclaiming the top spot for the first time since April 2025.

Apple closed out Friday as the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of 4.88 trillion dollars — just ahead of Nvidia's roughly 4.86 trillion after the chipmaker slid 3.5% on the day. It's the first time since April 2025 that the iPhone maker has held the crown, and the next symbolic bar is already visible from here: 5 trillion. Less through its own fireworks, more through a rotation working its way across Wall Street. After years of…

Business 17 July 2026

The IMF gave Portugal's banks a pass — and SMEs may feel the squeeze

The IMF's FSAP review of Portugal's financial system finds solid banks but flags exposure to housing and sovereign debt. Consultants warn SME lending is about to get stricter.

Good news first: the toughest exam Portugal's financial system faces came back positive. The FSAP report — the IMF's financial sector assessment, published on Friday by the Banco de Portugal — concludes that Portuguese banks weathered the last few years well, through the pandemic, the interest-rate climb and geopolitical turbulence, with adequate capital, liquidity and profitability. Two vulnerabilities, neither a shock to anyone who follows the…

Business 17 July 2026

Food prices in Europe now have a bigger enemy than war — this summer's heatwaves

This summer's heatwaves are set to push eurozone food prices up more in 2027 than the Iran conflict, says Oxford Economics. The ECB found the 2022 heatwave added 0.67 points to European food inflation — with southern Europe hit hardest.

Next year's supermarket bill is being written right now, in fields baking under the sun. Economists are warning that this summer's heatwaves are now a bigger threat to Europe's food prices than the war in Iran — because damaged harvests are set to outweigh the fading effect of pricier oil and fertiliser. Because they ruin production long before it reaches a shelf. The warning comes from Oxford Economics, via senior economist Tomas Dvorak, and the European…

Business 16 July 2026

Coca-Cola halted Fairlife production in the US — ransomware reached the factory floor

Coca-Cola temporarily suspended production at its Fairlife dairy brand in the United States after a ransomware attack hit systems connected to production. Canadian operations were not affected.

Not a breakdown, not a strike: a cyberattack stopped the lines. Coca-Cola told US regulators on Thursday that Fairlife, its milk and protein-drinks brand, has temporarily suspended production in the United States after ransomware reached company systems — including ones tied to production. According to the filing submitted to the SEC, Fairlife identified unauthorised third-party access to a portion of its systems as part of a ransomware event. The…

Business 16 July 2026

Fuel prices in Portugal rise fast and fall slowly — the government now wants answers, and may cap margins

Portugal's energy minister has given regulator ERSE 20 working days to explain how fuel prices are formed, and for the first time admits capping profit margins if serious market distortions show up.

Every driver in Portugal has asked it at the pump: why does a litre of fuel jump the moment oil rises, yet take weeks to ease when oil falls? Now the government is asking the same question — in writing, with a deadline, and with an unprecedented threat attached. In a letter to the president of energy regulator ERSE, Pedro Verdelho, environment and energy minister Maria da Graça Carvalho gave the watchdog 20 working days to explain how fuel prices are…

Business 16 July 2026

Trade Republic now issues Portuguese IBANs — and pays 3% to rattle the banks

Trade Republic has opened a Portuguese branch: clients get a PT50 IBAN and 3% annual interest on uninvested cash. MB Way integration is under study.

Trade Republic is everywhere in Portugal's financial news this Thursday, and for good reason. The German digital bank has officially opened a Portuguese branch, which means its Portuguese clients trade in their German IBAN for a national one starting with PT50 — the small detail that makes all the difference when your employer or landlord side-eyes a foreign account number. Alongside the new plates, the offer that made traditional banks wince stays put:…

Business 16 July 2026

Glovo Portugal is getting a new owner — sold to a US fund as part of the Uber-Delivery Hero deal

Glovo's Portugal operation is one of 14 businesses Delivery Hero is selling to SSW Partners for about 1.4 billion euros, as Uber moves to buy the German delivery giant for 12.9 billion.

The yellow backpack weaving through Portuguese streets is getting new bosses. Glovo's Portugal operation has been bundled into a package of 14 businesses that Delivery Hero, the brand's owner, is selling to US fund SSW Partners — a side piece, but a meaningful one, in the chess game that sees Uber buying the German delivery giant. SSW Partners, a New York investment fund, which will pay roughly 1.4 billion euros for operations in 14 markets — among them…

Business 15 July 2026

Portugal's airports handled 7.1 million passengers in May and broke the record again

Portuguese airports handled 7.1 million passengers in May 2026, up 2.9% year-on-year and an all-time high, according to INE. Lisbon alone accounts for half the country's traffic.

Seven point one million people went through Portugal's airports in May. In one month. In a month that isn't even peak season. It is an all-time high, up 2.9% on last May, and it confirms what anyone who has tried to clear security at Lisbon at seven in the morning already suspected: this is not slowing down. 7.1 million, counting departures, arrivals and direct transits, across 23,800 commercial landings, plus 22,100 tonnes of cargo and mail. An average…

Business 15 July 2026

Portugal's economy sped up in the second quarter, says the finance minister. The recovery-fund bill is what slows everything else

Miranda Sarmento told parliament that consumption, investment and exports all accelerated in Portugal's second quarter of 2026. The catch: recovery-plan loans are eating the budget headroom.

If you were braced for bad economic news, Wednesday did not deliver any. Miranda Sarmento went to parliament and said the second-quarter data is frankly positive, with consumption, investment and exports all picking up speed. The statistics office's flash estimate only lands at the end of the month, so this is still a promise rather than a fact — but it is the Government's own read, and those tend to be cautious when they can afford to be. The picture the…

Business 15 July 2026

Fertiliser prices went through the roof, so Brussels just handed Portugal €162 million

The EU Council is letting Portugal move up to €162.2 million into direct payments for farmers squeezed by fertiliser costs. Now Lisbon has until the end of August to work out what to do with it.

Portugal has just won €162.2 million of room to put money straight into farmers' pockets. It isn't new money falling from the sky — it's permission to move what already exists, and in Brussels that is usually worth nearly as much. The Council of the European Union approved a regulation letting member states pull funds from other parts of their CAP strategic plan, such as rural development, and redirect them into the direct payments that land in producers'…

Business 12 July 2026

Meta plans to double computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027

An internal memo reveals Meta plans to double its AI computing power by 2027, with record spending and a new gigawatt-scale data centre in Canada.

Meta is preparing the biggest infrastructure expansion in its history: according to an internal memo that surfaced this week, the company plans to double its total computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by 2027, with 7 gigawatts coming online this year alone. For perspective, one gigawatt is roughly the output of a nuclear power plant — and Meta wants fourteen of them just to train and serve AI models. This year's outlay is running at the very top of the…

Business 12 July 2026

Banking jobs in Portugal hit highest level since BES collapse: 782 new posts in a year

Employment in Portuguese banking reached its highest level since the 2014 BES collapse, with 782 net jobs added in a year — even as branches keep closing.

After a decade of shrinking, Portuguese banking is hiring again in earnest: over the past year the sector added 782 jobs in net terms, lifting employment to its highest level since the collapse of BES in 2014. It is a remarkable turn of the cycle for an industry that spent years as a byword for restructuring and redundancy packages. Not for the counters — for the technology. Banks are beefing up digital, data and cybersecurity teams, and responding to the…