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Brent closed up 4% at $104.28 after Trump pledged no attack on Iran before 3 November. As long as oil is above $70, we read such pledges as talk.

Weekly jobless claims fell to 197,000, the fourth week in a row under 200,000, a run last seen in 1969. American employers are not firing, but they are not hiring much either.

The WTO doubled its 2026 goods trade forecast to 3.9%, and AI goods drove almost half the growth. The productivity gains are hard to see. The borrowing is not.

Jared Kushner and Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev talked about a US stake in the idle Nord Stream pipelines, Reuters reported. Germany says it does not want them back.

AI agents that shop for us will make the biggest platforms stronger, ING says. Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse agent, Shopify has let it in, and Amazon's ad business shows why.

Musk asked if Mukesh Ambani is ‘the real boss of India’ as Starlink waits to launch there. Jio and Airtel hold 77% of India's mobile users. The government denies any bias.

Mortgage rates rose for a seventh week: the 30-year fixed averaged 7.40%, the highest since November 2023, as Treasury yields climbed. Here is what it costs.

The American Express money laundering fine is $350m: regulators found its bank missed about $13bn of suspect activity over a decade, from 2014 to 2025.

PepsiCo earnings: third-quarter revenue rose 5.6%, but PepsiCo cut its 2026 profit forecast as sales in North America stalled and input costs kept rising.

Tesco results for the half year: adjusted operating profit rose 6.3% to £1.78bn, and Tesco raised its profit forecast for the year and its buyback to £950m.

Tariffs and inflation: NY Fed economists find tariffs added 2.9 points to US goods inflation at the peak. Without them, goods prices would have fallen slightly.

The ECB minutes for September show every member backed the rise to 2.50% and saw inflation risks to the upside, but they chose to promise nothing for October.

The Fed minutes show most officials expect another rate rise by the end of 2026. Since then, inflation and hiring came in softer, but long yields kept rising.

Samsung earnings guidance puts third-quarter operating profit at 107.4tn won, about $76bn, almost nine times last year's, as AI demand keeps memory chips short.

Levi Strauss earnings rose on $79m of tariff refunds after the Supreme Court ruling. Without them, operating profit was flat on the year and US sales fell 1%.

Paramount closed its Warner Bros. Discovery takeover and is now Skydance. It paid about $78bn in cash, funded by $47bn of equity and $41.4bn of secured bonds.

The RBI raised the repo rate by 25bp to 5.50% and moved to calibrated tightening, its first rise since February 2023, as it sees inflation near 6% this winter.

Heating oil prices will average $5.26 a gallon this winter, up 34%, the EIA says. Oil-heated homes face a 21% higher bill; gas and propane users pay less.

The US trade deficit jumped to $105.6bn in August, the widest since March 2025, as imports of crude oil, gold and chips rose much faster than exports.

Why is the euro falling? French bond yields jumped, Spain called a snap election, and the euro hit $1.1204, its lowest since May 2025. The figures behind it.

UK mortgage rates are at three-year highs: the average five-year fix is 6.00% and sub-5% fixed deals have almost gone, as gilt yields and BoE rate bets climb.

Schneider Electric will pay $205 a share in cash for PTC, the design software maker. Its shares fell 10% on the news, while PTC's still trade below the offer.

A chart pairing 1987 with 2026 says rising yields end in a crash. Since 1962 the 10-year has jumped 100bp by October in nine years, and only 1987 crashed. The real risk is real yields.

Since 1946, more S&P 500 bear markets have ended in October than in any other month. Today the index is 1% from a record, yet 182 of its stocks are in a bear market of their own. PepsiCo is one.

Official Brazil election results give Flávio Bolsonaro 47.03% of valid votes and Lula 45.16%. Neither passed 50%, so they meet in a run-off on 25 October.

The Super Intelligence Force puts Trump's spy chief, the FTC chairman and two others in charge of coordinating AI policy. It follows an industry accord.

Most economists expect Wednesday's RBI policy decision to lift the repo rate to 5.50%. Inflation hit 4.82% in August, and the RBI sees it peaking near 6%.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose 11bp in the week, to its highest Friday close since 2002, even as weak jobs data cut the odds of a Fed rise. Real yields did it.

G7 leaders agreed to release 100m barrels of oil and diesel over four months. About 75m was still owed from March. Then Trump ruled out a diesel export ban.

Seven OPEC+ countries held their combined November target at 31m barrels a day. OPEC's own data show its members pumped 28% less in the spring than in 2025.

The consultancy beat its own forecast, booked $22.2bn of new work and expects growth of 3% to 6% next year. Its shares had lost about a third of their value this year on fears that AI would shrink demand.

Chinese refiners have halted exports of diesel, petrol and jet fuel to rebuild stocks at home. Europe is discussing a 50m-barrel diesel release. Diesel already sells for about $90 a barrel more than crude.

Energy prices were 18.8% higher than a year ago in September, and inflation reached its highest since 2023. Core inflation rose only to 2.5%, and markets see little chance of an ECB rise this month.

Hiring fell short of forecasts and the two months before were revised down by 60,000. Futures now give a Fed increase on 28 October about a one-in-five chance. Two-year yields fell 7bp.

This year's chip rally rests on a few leaders. China is building its own chips, memory and software to replace them. Nvidia barely moved, but a DeepSeek scare cost it $593bn in a day last year.

OpenAI accused Moonshot of copying its models, and Anthropic warned that a free Chinese model can build working exploits. Both say they oppose a ban. Their rivals sell for far less.

An early independent test ties Google's new model with OpenAI's best, behind Anthropic. Google may not need to lead. It sells computing power to its rivals, and owns part of one.

Revenue rose 379% to $54.2bn and the gross margin reached 87%. Micron expects supply to be much tighter in 2027 and 2028. The shares, up 273% this year, rose 3%.

Sales fell 4% and Nike expects them to fall by a high single digit for the year. The shares dropped 8% after hours. At the guided profit, the dividend costs more than Nike earns.

Core PCE prices rose 0.2% in August, less than forecast, and revisions lowered the path. Futures now give an October increase about a 35% chance, down from 71% on Monday.

The shares are down more than 40% this year and Nike has left the S&P 100. Analysts expect sales to fall again. Small investors are more patient than Wall Street.

He resigned to lead his party’s list in the election on 25 October. If it wins, he runs Serbia from the prime minister’s office. The size of the result matters as much as the winner.

Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft have cut thousands of jobs and named AI as a reason. Apple cut just over 200. John Ternus now wants fewer managers and flat headcount, and he has looked at what AI could do instead.

John Stankey calls a SpaceX mobile network “not a viable strategy” and bets another $3bn on fibre. Starlink has 12 million subscribers, and four in ten US homes still cannot get fibre.

The prime minister says Britain “could go all the way” back into the EU. Polls this year put support for membership at 60%. Reform UK, the party of Brexit, is level with Labour.

Five EU countries want to start sending rejected asylum seekers to countries outside the bloc next year, with Rwanda first. Rwanda also takes US deportees. Asylum claims are already down by a third.

Novo Nordisk will pay up to $2.6bn for an early-stage weekly pill from Hengrui. Its shares are down more than 70% from the peak, as Lilly wins in America and generics undercut Novo abroad.

Kpler put Middle East crude exports at 16.3 million barrels a day in September, the most since February. Brent fell 2.6% on the news, yet it stays far above its pre-war level.

Diesel’s premium over crude reached a monthly record in September. BloombergNEF expects Africa and Asia to account for 95% of new refining capacity to 2030, led by Nigeria’s Dangote.

The smart-ring maker cited uncertainty in the market. Anthropic’s listing could be the largest ever, and companies that can afford to wait are keeping out of its way.

GPT-6.1 Astra failed OpenAI’s own safety tests on the eve of DevDay. Anthropic overtook OpenAI this spring on revenue and valuation, and hired some of the best-known researchers in the field.

Physical crude went from $88 to $131 a barrel between 25 August and 15 September.

The first increase since 2023 took the target range to 3.75% to 4%. The median official expects another quarter point before the end of the year.

Short yields moved first as the Fed turned to rate increases. The gap between 10-year and 2-year yields fell to 20bp, the smallest since March 2025.

Brent futures rose more than 3% on 28 September, to about $107, after the US president rejected a proposal to reopen the strait within a week.

Both central banks raised rates in September. The dollar gained anyway, because Fed officials expect to go further.

The extra yield on US high-yield bonds over Treasuries rose from 2.66 to 2.93 percentage points in four trading days.

The index closed 1.5% below its August high on 28 September, and the VIX stayed below 18 through 22 September.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose 54bp in a month. The market price of inflation moved 1bp.