Oct 2 (Reuters) – * ORACLE INVESTIGATING HACKS OF ITS CUSTOMERS' E-BUSINESS SUITE – BLOOMBERG NEWS Source text: https://tinyurl.com/4zy38y4d Further company coverage:
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By Jamie McGeever ORLANDO, Florida, Oct 2 (Reuters) – TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist Stock markets around the world leaped to new highs on Thursday, propelled by optimism around the AI boom and hopes for further U.S. interest rate cuts, as investors shrugged off the U.S. government shutdown which entered its second day. More on that below. In my column today I look at why the U.S. government shutdown is the last thing the Federal Reserve needs right now – visibility around the labor market and inflation for data-dependent policymakers was already limited, and this just reduces it even more. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. 1. With the U.S. government dark, alternate sources show a sluggish September for jobs 2. Prolonged U.S. government shutdown could raise market risks 3. Sign of the times as Swiss buy euros not dollars: Mike Dolan 4. OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation after share sale to SoftBank, others, source says 5. China's 'new economy' shines through cloudy growth outlook: Raychaudhuri Today's Key Market Moves * STOCKS: Record highs for S&P 500, Nasdaq, world stocks, Europe, euro zone, Britain, South Korea, Taiwan. MSCI All Country index is now up 18 of the last 22 trading sessions. * SHARES/SECTORS: Biggest S&P 500 sector gainer is materials, +1%; biggest decliner energy, -1%. Broader semiconductor index +2% to new high. Coinbase shares +7%, Tesla -5%. * FX: Dollar snaps 4-day losing streak, gains most vs NOK as oil price slides. Bitcoin at 10-week high above $121,000. * BONDS: U.S. Treasury yields drift to 2-week lows in thin, shutdown-dominated trade. Curve bull flattens a couple of basis points. * COMMODITIES: Oil down another 2% to new 4-month lows, gold and silver hit fresh peaks. Today's Talking Points: * The AI Emperor – clothes or no clothes? OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has reached a valuation of $500 billion following a recent share sale, making it the most valuable private company in the world. That's up sharply from its current valuation of $300 billion. Where next? $1 trillion? It's a landmark moment but raises familiar questions about whether the AI boom is a bubble. AI-related capex spending in the U.S. is soaring but a lot is on imports, so is actually an offset to GDP growth. And the bar for future returns is high. But as long as the music is playing, investors will keep dancing. * What's going on with oil? Oil prices are sliding. Fast. Brent and WTI crude futures are down nearly 10% in the last week, scraping four-month lows of $64.00 and $60.40 a barrel, respectively, as oversupply concerns grip the market. OPEC+ countries meet this weekend and could agree to raise oil production by up to 500,000 barrels per day in November, sources tell Reuters. That would be triple the increase for October. Oil's disinflationary momentum is building. * De-dollarization – a bit of a myth? IMF figures this week showed that the dollar's share of global foreign exchange reserves in Q2 dipped to 56.3% – the lowest since at least the euro's launch in 1999 – from 57.7% in Q1. But adjusted for exchange rates, the dollar's share held steady, the IMF said. According to Goldman Sachs, it actually rose for the second quarter in a row, and as capital flows expert Brad Setser notes, the official sector's nominal dollar holdings in recent years have been "basically constant". So no de-dollarization then, at least from central banks. U.S. government shutdown gives Fed last thing it needs – even less visibility After the Federal Reserve resumed its interest rate-cutting cycle last month, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that incoming U.S. economic data would play an even more critical role than usual in determining the central bank's next steps. But the government shutdown means the Fed may now be walking blind. "We're in a meeting-by-meeting situation, and we're going to be looking at the data," Powell told reporters after the 25-basis-point cut on September 17, adding: "There are no risk-free paths now." Those paths have just gotten a whole lot riskier. The government shutdown that began on Wednesday could delay the release of a large chunk of economic data, meaning the Fed's ability to accurately assess the labor market and inflation situation – which was already limited – will now be much worse. That, in turn, could make the market rethink its own conviction about the near-term rate outlook. Key employment and inflation data are set to be delayed, namely weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department, and all-important monthly non-farm payrolls and CPI inflation reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The September payrolls and CPI inflation reports are due for release this Friday and October 15, respectively. They would probably be the biggest single influences in rate setters' decisions at the October 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee policy meeting. As Rabobank analysts note, thick with understatement, this is "very inconvenient" for the Fed as these two data points could potentially tilt the balance between the hawks and the doves on the FOMC. The FOMC's September 'dot plot' showed a median estimate of two more rate cuts this year, but it wouldn't take much to change that. The split of views showed that nine of the FOMC's 19 members expect only one more cut – or none – by December. There is a clear polarization of views. Does a shutdown strengthen the doves' hand? DATA QUALITY DOUBTS GROW A quarter-point cut in October is already fully priced into rates futures markets. Another "insurance" cut, as Powell described September's move, would make sense – better to avoid the risk of falling behind the curve and being forced to ease more aggressively later. This is particularly true in the event of a prolonged shutdown, which could put a 50-basis-point cut on the table in October or December. Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist Ryan Sweet estimates that even a partial shutdown reduces GDP growth by 0.1-0.2 percentage points per week. To put that into context, the longest shutdown on record of over 35 days in President Donald Trump's first term would reduce fourth-quarter real GDP growth by 0.5-1.0 percentage points. But there's also a compelling case for not easing at all, never mind pouring fuel on the fire with cuts made in a haze of uncertainty rather than on data-led evidence, as Powell has insisted upcoming decisions will be based. The hawks' base case appears to be strengthening – GDP growth is running close to 4% on an annualized basis, inflation is nearly a percentage point above target and showing few signs of cooling, and Wall Street is at record highs. It's unclear whether a government shutdown of a few days, or even weeks, would weaken the hawks' narrative. One thing that most policymakers and economists do agree on is that the quality and reliability of U.S. economic data are deteriorating, in no small part due to falling response rates to surveys. This leads to skewed or inaccurate results, and more and bigger revisions. Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that standard errors are 26% higher on average today than in 2015-2019, and have increased for eight out of 10 government surveys they review. Labor market data appear to have been affected most by falling survey response rates, they note. "This is an old problem, and old solutions continue to be relevant today: gather more data," Anna Kovner, director of research at the Richmond Fed, concludes in an article published on Wednesday. That, of course, will have to wait, probably until long after the shutdown is over. Is patchy data preferable to no data at all? We could be about to find out. What could move markets tomorrow? * Australia PMI (September) * Japan PMI (September) * Japan unemployment (August) * Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda speaks * UK PMI (September) * Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and …
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By Sinéad Carew and Niket Nishant (Reuters) -Wall Street's three major indexes marked record closing highs with modest gains on Thursday, largely thanks to support from the technology sector, while investors cautiously monitored private labor market data on the second day of a U.S. government shutdown. The benchmark index rose very slightly, with its valuation already at its highest level since 2020, while the Nasdaq, up 0.4%, was the biggest gainer on the day, with help from heavyweight technology companies including AI chip leader Nvidia, Apple and Broadcom. With no official government data available because of the shutdown, investors were monitoring information from other sources. A report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said U.S. employers announced fewer layoffs in September but that hiring plans so far this year were the lowest since 2009. This followed the previous day's weaker-than-expected ADP National Employment Report. "The market is looking at all of that against the backdrop of what was already weak job data in recent months to try to gauge the real path forward for the labor market from here," said Jim Baird, chief investment officer with Plante Moran Financial Advisors. The lackluster jobs data so far has led traders to bet widely that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates two more times this year, including a cut at the end of October. However, the Labor Department had to delay its September nonfarm payroll report because of the government shutdown. While the shutdown was not a shock and investors have been soothed by the knowledge that such closures have typically not hurt the market in the past, Baird noted that it still caused worries. "Given how polarized the two (political) parties are right now, and both seem to be staking out their respective positions, it wouldn't be surprising if this one drags out a little bit longer," he said. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 78.62 points, or 0.17%, to 46,519.72. The S&P 500 gained 4.15 points, or 0.06%, to 6,715.35 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 88.89 points, or 0.39%, to 22,844.05. The gains marked two closing highs in a row for the S&P 500 and the Dow, while the Nasdaq narrowly missed a record close on Wednesday. Earlier in the session, the S&P and the Nasdaq indexes had hit intraday record highs. The S&P 500's forward price-to-earnings ratio has climbed to 23.1. The tech sector finished up 0.5% and was the biggest boost to the S&P 500 with a lot of help from chip stocks. The broader semiconductor index closed up 1.9% and also registered a record closing high. Materials was the biggest percentage gainer among the benchmark's 11 major industry sectors, adding 1%. Energy was the biggest percentage loser of the group, falling 1%. Consumer discretionary, while not the biggest percentage loser, was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 due largely to a selloff in shares of Tesla, which ended down 5% for its biggest one-day percentage loss since late July. The electric vehicle maker gave up early gains after a strong quarterly deliveries report, because some analysts flagged risks to sales in the upcoming quarters due to the withdrawal of the $7,500 federal tax credit. Shares of credit bureaus Equifax and TransUnion fell 8.5% and 10.6%, respectively, after FICO launched a program that could allow mortgage lenders to gain access to credit scores without relying on the bureaus. FICO shares surged almost 18% after the news. Occidental Petroleum said it would sell its petrochemical division to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion, sending shares of the oil and gas producer down 7.3%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.16-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 530 new highs and 93 new lows. On the Nasdaq, 2,706 stocks rose and 1,971 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.37-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 37 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 140 new highs and 67 new lows. On U.S. exchanges, 18.77 billion shares changed hands compared with the 18.83 billion 20-day moving average. (Reporting by Sinéad Carew and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Niket Nishant and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Matthew Lewis)
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By Milana Vinn (Reuters) -Boutique investment bank Cascadia Capital is expanding into technology M&A as it hires a veteran technology banker and prepares to open a Silicon Valley office, the firm’s executives told Reuters. The bank has appointed Jonathan Cantwell, previously a partner and head of software investment banking at GP Bullhound, as head of its new technology group. Cantwell will lead recruitment for the new office and build out the firm's advisory practice for companies in the enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors. Cantwell, who previously advised on deals including PeakAI in its sale to UiPath and Compendium in its sale to Oracle at GP Bullhound, said Cascadia will continue to focus on growth-stage companies with an enterprise value of up to $2 billion. "We're at this inflection point where there's a lot of high-growth software and AI companies that are going to be looking for good advisors that have a track record and experience," Cantwell said in the interview. "So, we think it's a good time to come out with a new practice and pick up on some of the deals that I've done over the last few years … there's more to do in the categories including enterprise automation, data analytics, and enterprise applications," he added. Cascadia, led by CEO Michael Butler, a former Morgan Stanley executive, plans to establish an office in Silicon Valley and scale its technology team to approximately 20 M&A bankers. The firm said it has begun hiring for the new group in conjunction with Cantwell's appointment. Bob Diamond, CEO of Atlas Merchant Group and former chief executive of Barclays and Credit Suisse, said Atlas provided an eight-figure-investment to Cascadia back in 2022, to support the firm’s growth at the right time. Atlas is currently a significant minority investor in Cascadia. “You have the importance of software, the importance of AI, you have the blurring of the distinction in financial services between digital assets and traditional finance,” Diamond said. “It couldn’t be a better time” to expand into tech, he added. Cascadia Capital currently operates M&A advisory practices in several other industries, including food, beverage and agribusiness; consumer; industrials; and business services. (Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Nick Zieminski)
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Oct 2 (OPTA) – Results and fixtures for the UEFA Europa League on Thursday (start times are CET) League Stage ———————————————————— Roma (0) 0 Lille (1) 1 Bologna (1) 1 Freiburg (0) 1 Celtic (0) 0 Sporting Braga (1) 2 Viktoria Plzeň (2) 3 Malmö FF (0) 0 Fenerbahçe (2) 2 Nice (1) 1 FCSB (0) 0 Young Boys (2) 2 Panathinaikos (0) 1 Go Ahead Eagles (0) 2 Ludogorets Razgrad (0) 0 Real Betis (1) 2 Brann (1) 1 Utrecht (0) 0 Basel v Stuttgart in play Porto v Crvena zvezda in play Feyenoord (0) 0 Aston Villa (0) 2 Genk (0) 0 Ferencváros (1) 1 Maccabi Tel Aviv (1) 1 Dinamo Zagreb (2) 3 Nottingham Forest v Midtjylland in play Olympique Lyonnais (1) 2 Salzburg (0) 0 Celta de Vigo v PAOK in play Sturm Graz (2) 2 Rangers (0) 1
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By Heather Schlitz CHICAGO, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Chicago Mercantile Exchange cattle futures fell on profit-taking on Thursday, though hopes for the border reopening to Mexican cattle imports have also put a damper on prices. On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it had approved Dectomax-CA1, an injectable anti-parasitic medication, to prevent and treat screwworm in cattle. However, Mexico saw a nearly 32% increase in confirmed screwworm cases, according to the latest monthly government data, as a concentration of cases moves north. "It's starting to weigh on feeder cattle," Karl Setzer, partner at Consus Ag, said. CME December live cattle fell 1.025 cents to end at 233.475 cents per pound. CME November feeder cattle fell 5.2 cents to end at 352.40 cents per pound. CME December hogs closed 0.225 cent lower to end at 86.675 cents per pound. A lack of buying interest has weighed on lean hog futures. Wholesale beef prices have mostly continued a seasonal decline. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported choice cuts of beef fell by $5.37 to end at $363.10 per hundredweight as of Thursday morning. Select cuts fell by $2.36 to $344.53. Commodity markets may be left without further USDA data in the coming days after a U.S. government shutdown started on Wednesday, amid political deadlock over short-term funding measures. (Reporting by Heather Schlitz. Editing by Alan Barona)
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By Dan Catchpole (Reuters) -Boeing is expanding plans to replace striking St. Louis-area workers who assemble fighter jets and munitions with new hires through year's end, management announced on Thursday in an internal memo shared with Reuters. Roughly 3,200 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 837 have been on strike since August 4. The first group of replacement workers for munitions production and assembly mechanics will begin training on Friday, according to the memo from Boeing Vice President Dan Gillian. Boeing is also evaluating moving some work to third parties, Gillian said. Boeing declined to comment on the memo or say how many replacement workers would start training. Union officials and members said the move was largely a bluff, noting their jobs require weeks to several months of training, and getting a security clearance needed for many of the defense jobs can take up to six months. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders urged Boeing in a letter sent on Wednesday to end the eight-week-long strike. "Do the right thing," Sanders said in his letter to Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg. "Sign a fair contract." Boeing management has said the company will not significantly increase its offer, which workers rejected. Sanders, an independent from Vermont who often votes with Democrats, along with Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, used a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday to slam Boeing's stance in labor talks. The committee was reviewing President Donald Trump's nominations to key labor positions, including Boeing's chief labor counsel Scott Mayer to the National Labor Relations Board. "The concept of fairness is an elusive one," Mayer said when asked by Hawley what would be a fair resolution to the strike. Mayer said he was not speaking for the company. Hawley and Sanders criticized Boeing for giving recent CEOs substantial compensation packages, but holding out against the IAM's proposals. "Fairness may be elusive, but that doesn't look like fairness to me," Hawley said. Boeing's board approved $22 million in compensation for Ortberg in 2025. The IAM estimates its proposal would cost Boeing $40 million a year on average. (Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle, Editing by Alistair Bell and Nia Williams)
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By Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge GENEVA, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Police sprayed tear gas on protesters in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday evening who were marching in support of the Gaza flotilla, eyewitnesses told Reuters, which the police confirmed. "We were retreating and suddenly got heavily gassed," a eye witness told Reuters, describing a burning sensation in their eyes and difficult breathing. Israel's interception of the flotilla sparked protests in Geneva and Bern, as well as in Italy and Colombia on Thursday. Israeli forces intercepted around 40 boats carrying aid and more than 400 foreign activists, including some Swiss nationals, and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, to Gaza A photo shared with Reuters by a eyewitness in Geneva showed a large plume of white smoke coming from a street filled with protesters, which they described as tear gas. A second eyewitness told Reuters that they saw a large white vehicle spray water on the front line of protesters, which a video shared by the Swiss national broadcaster RTS also showed. Alexandre Brahier, spokesperson for the Geneva police said that around 3,000 people, mostly adults and young men had joined the protest. "We had to use control measures including tear gas and water canons," he said, adding that protesters were not carrying dangerous arms but were "throwing things", causing some damage to property spraying graffiti. Such confrontations are rare for Switzerland although pro-Gaza protests have been gathering momentum in recent weeks. "Large protests are to be expected in big cities but it’s not every day that we need to resort to control measures like this," Brahier added. Mobile phone footage shared with Reuters show flares being thrown amidst the crowd, as hundreds of people moving down a crammed street in central Geneva. (Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two U.S. agencies said Thursday they will investigate the collision of two Amazon Prime Air delivery drones with the boom of a crane in Tolleson, Arizona. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration both said they will investigate the incident that occurred on Wednesday. Amazon in November 2024 announced it had begun drone deliveries in the West Valley of the Phoenix Metro Area in Arizona from its same-day site in Tolleson and said Thursday it has temporarily paused Prime Air drone operations in Arizona. Amazon spokesman Terrence Clark said the company was aware of the incident and "currently working with the relevant authorities to investigate." Amazon says customers who live near the Tolleson site can purchase an eligible item weighing 5 pounds or less and have it delivered by drone in under an hour. In 2023, Amazon began delivering by drone prescription medications in partnership with Amazon Pharmacy to customers in College Station, Texas. In August, the U.S. Transportation Department proposed new rules to speed deployment of drones beyond the visual line of sight of operators, a key change needed to advance commercial uses like package deliveries. "It's going to change the way that people and products move throughout our airspace… so you may change the way you get your Amazon package, you may get a Starbucks cup of coffee from a drone," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. Amazon has a goal of delivering 500 million packages annually by drone by the end of 2030. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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THE STATE DEPARTMENT DAYBOOK Friday, October 3, 2025 —– The daybook editor is Timothy Ryan (reachable at 202-843-6282 or Tim.Ryan@TR.com or DCDaybook@yahoo.com). Subscribers: For any problems in receiving daybook content, call 1-800-435-0101 and hit option 5. Content is intended for guidance purposes only and should not be cited on the record. —– —– SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO'S SCHEDULE (early schedule) Attends closed meetings at the State Department and the White House. —– —– The Reuters State Department Daybook October 3, 2025 REUTERS
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