Stocks

On February 8, 2026, Elon Musk's net worth was reported at $845 billion, making him the first individual to exceed $800 billion. A $1.25 trillion SpaceX takeover of xAI left him with about 43% of the combined company, a stake valued at more than $530 billion. Tesla shareholders also approved a performance-based pay package that could reach $1 trillion.

Tokenized equities are approaching $1 billion in value, with three venues—Ondo, Backed/Kraken, and Securitize—holding over 93% of market share. In December 2025, the SEC advanced a DTCC tokenization pilot and clarified broker‑dealer custody, while monthly transfers reached $2.4 billion and Ethereum, Solana, and Algorand led chain distribution.

Form 13F reports for Q4 2025 are expected on February 14, with the SEC deadline rolling to February 17 due to the weekend and Presidents' Day. Crypto participants hope the disclosures might flag large ETF or equity position changes tied to the October 10 sell-off, when over $19 billion in leveraged bets were liquidated within roughly 24 hours.

On February 6, 2026, the United States and India concluded a trade agreement that will gradually cut Indian tariffs on large gasoline-powered American luxury cars from 110% to 30% and remove all import duties on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In return for lower US tariffs, India pledged to buy $500 billion in American goods, but foreign electric vehicles such as Tesla models remain excluded from the tariff relief unless manufacturers commit to local production. The deal underscores India's preference for supporting domestic EV manufacturing while giving traditional high-end combustion vehicles greater access to its market.

On February 7, 2026, gold traded around $4,966 while Bitcoin hovered just below $70,000. The two assets have shown low correlation since 2019, and major gold rallies have often preceded Bitcoin advances. GLD holdings rose to roughly 34.9 million troy ounces alongside strong precious‑metal ETF inflows in January.

Bitcoin fell more than 40% over the past month to a year-to-date low of $59,930 on Friday, over 50% below its October 2025 peak near $126,200. Analysts highlight leveraged Hong Kong options trades tied to IBIT, banks’ structured-note hedging, and miner cost lines around $58,160–$72,700 as factors that could pressure price near $60,000.

21Shares submitted an amended S-1 for the proposed 21Shares Ondo Trust, keeping its Ondo-linked ETF effort active as regulators review tokenization vehicles. Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas highlighted the update on February 6, 2026. ONDO traded around $0.256, up about 4% on the day but roughly 15% lower over the week.

Vitalik Buterin has argued that Ethereum’s Layer 1 now scales well enough that Layer 2 networks should prioritize advanced features over pure throughput, while ENS has canceled its Namechain L2 to keep ENSv2 fully on mainnet. MetaMask has integrated tokenized U.S. stocks, ETFs, and commodities via Ondo Finance, and perpetual DEXs recorded $70 billion in trading volume on February 5, their second-largest day on record. These moves highlight Ethereum’s evolving scalability roadmap and the growing link between decentralized markets and traditional financial assets.

On February 7, 2026 in Beijing, new figures showed the People's Bank of China increased its gold reserves for the 15th straight month, lifting holdings from 74.15 million to 74.19 million fine troy ounces. The value of these reserves climbed from about $319.5 billion to roughly $369.6 billion as bullion prices, which had briefly neared $5,600 per ounce in January before correcting to around $4,960, remained elevated despite softer overall gold demand in China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1,207 points, or 2.47%, to finish at 50,115.67, marking the first time the index has ended a session above the 50,000 level. The rally broadened beyond technology into financial and industrial stocks, while Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the benchmark could eventually hit 100,000.