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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to halt key parts of a judge's order requiring Alphabet's Google to make major changes to its app store Play, as the company prepares to appeal a decision in a lawsuit brought by "Fortnite" maker Epic Games. The justices turned down Google's request to temporarily freeze parts of the injunction won by Epic in its lawsuit accusing the tech giant of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps. A federal appeals court in July upheld the lower judge’s sweeping order against Google. (Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to halt key parts of a judge's order requiring Alphabet's Google to make major changes to its app store Play, as the company prepares to appeal a decision in a lawsuit brought by "Fortnite" maker Epic Games. The justices turned down Google's request to temporarily freeze parts of the injunction won by Epic in its lawsuit accusing the tech giant of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps. A federal appeals court in July upheld the lower judge’s sweeping order against Google. (Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

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(Reuters) -Goldman Sachs raised on Monday its December 2026 gold price forecast to $4,900 per ounce from $4,300, citing strong Western exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows and likely central bank buying. "We see the risks to our upgraded gold price forecast as still skewed to the upside on net, because private sector diversification into the relatively small gold market may boost ETF holdings above our rates-implied estimate," Goldman said. Spot gold was trading around $3,960 per ounce, as of 0130 GMT on Tuesday, after hitting a fresh high of $3,977.19 earlier in the day. Gold has climbed 51% so far this year on strong central bank buying, increased demand for gold-backed ETFs, a weaker dollar and growing interest from retail investors seeking a hedge against rising trade and geopolitical tensions. Goldman expects central bank buying to average 80 metric tons in 2025 and 70 tons in 2026, saying emerging market central banks are likely to continue the structural diversification of their reserves into gold. Western ETF holdings are expected to rise as the U.S. Federal Reserve is seen lowering the funds rate by 100 basis points by mid-2026, analysts at Goldman Sachs said. "In contrast, noisier speculative positioning has remained broadly stable. Following the large September increase, the level of Western ETF holdings has now fully caught up with our U.S. rates-implied estimate, suggesting the recent ETF strength is not an overshoot," it said. (Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Rae Wee SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Political upheaval in Japan and France gripped currency and bond markets for a second day running on Tuesday, while global shares stuttered despite a multi-billion dollar chip-supply deal between AMD and OpenAI. The weekend election of fiscal and monetary dove Sanae Takaichi as leader of the ruling party in Japan propelled the Nikkei to yet another record high early in the session, as her likely appointment as the country's next premier stoked bets on a revival in big spending and loose monetary policy. The yen meanwhile struggled on the weaker side of the 150 per dollar level and sank to a two-month low, while Japanese government bonds slid, pushing yields higher. An auction of 30-year Japanese debt later on Tuesday will offer an early test of investor tolerance for Takaichi's expected expansionist policies. "Investors appear to be pricing in Takaichi's embrace of Abenomics into their expectations for her leadership," said Amova Asset Management's chief global strategist Naomi Fink, referring to the economic approach of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "With term premiums already rising, particularly at the long end of the yield curve, investors may push back against any perception of excessive fiscal largesse." In France, the shock resignation of Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister threw the nation deeper into political crisis and unnerved markets. French OAT futures fell slightly in the early Asian session after bonds tumbled on Monday, while the euro came under pressure and dipped 0.06% to $1.1706. "(President Emmanuel) Macron could try to put together a new cabinet for the National Assembly's approval. But in the interim, Macron is likely to come under a lot of pressure to dissolve the National Assembly and move toward completely new legislative elections," said Thierry Wizman, global FX and rates strategist at Macquarie Group. EUROSTOXX 50 futures were up 0.05%, while FTSE futures eased 0.15%. SEARCHING FOR GOOD NEWS The political jolts across major economies, made no better by a U.S. government shutdown, gave investors little to cheer about, with the overall mood sombre, overshadowing enthusiasm about artificial intelligence. AMD will supply AI chips to OpenAI in a multi-year deal that would bring AMD tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT creator the option to buy up to roughly 10% of the chipmaker. Still, Nasdaq futures were down 0.18% in Asia and S&P 500 futures eased 0.16%, failing to extend a run from their record closing highs on Monday. Markets in Hong Kong and China were closed for a holiday. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan swung between gain and loss to last trade flat. In currencies, the U.S. dollar was on the front foot, helped in part by weakness in the yen and euro. Sterling was down 0.08% to $1.3475. The Aussie fell 0.13% to $0.6609. "A buoyant USD despite the U.S. shutdown has probably wrong-footed some and intrigued many insofar as it flies in the face of received wisdom that the USD weakens into shutdowns," said Vishnu Varathan, head of macro research for Asia ex-Japan at Mizuho. "Recent evidence from comparable shutdowns in December 2018 and October 2013 suggest that USD declines were considerably reversed within two weeks out of the shutdown. And so, the case to go big on bearish USD bets is less compelling." Elsewhere, oil prices steadied on Tuesday, with Brent crude futures up 0.11% to $65.54 a barrel, while U.S. crude rose 0.06% to $61.73. [O/R] Spot gold rose to an all-time high of $3,977.19 an ounce, while bitcoin similarly hovered near a record peak, as investors turned to alternative assets as a store of value. (Reporting by Rae Wee; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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By Rocky Swift TOKYO (Reuters) -The yen weakened to a two-month low against the dollar on Tuesday as attention in Japan turned to who may join the cabinet of fiscal dove Sanae Takaichi after her party leadership victory. The Japanese currency set a new all-time low against the euro as domestic bond yields jumped ahead of a debt auction that will test demand under what is expected to be a more expansionist administration led by Takaichi as prime minister. Takaichi was considered to be the most dovish among five candidates in Japan's Liberal Democratic Party race on Saturday to replace hawkish Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The yield on the 30-year Japanese government bonds rose to an all-time high ahead of the debt auction. The euro remained on a fragile footing following the resignation of France's prime minister and European Central Bank officials said a rate cut may be necessary. Traders will be on watch for speeches from Federal Reserve policymakers later in the day as a U.S. government shutdown squelches other data signals. As markets await more clarity on how Takaichi will structure her government, Japanese officials may try to talk the yen down now that it has breached the 150 level against the dollar, said Bart Wakabayashi, the Tokyo Branch Manager of State Street. "It's a very important level, psychologically and economically," Wakabayashi said. "From an economic and corporate competitive perspective, where is the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance comfortable? I do believe it's at a lower level, and there should start to be comments coming out." The yen slid 0.2% to 150.59 on the dollar and earlier touched 150.62, the weakest level since August 1. Japan's currency also skidded to 176.35 per euro, a fresh all-time low. The euro slid against the dollar and the pound in the previous session after France's new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his government resigned on Monday. The ECB may need to reduce borrowing costs slightly if the risk of inflation going too low increases, but interest rates are appropriate now, the central bank's top brass said on Monday. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, added 0.05% to 98.17. The euro was little changed at $1.1705.  The White House on Monday backed off President Donald Trump's assertion that government employees were already being laid off due to the shutdown, but warned job losses could result as the standoff looked set to stretch into a seventh day. The shutdown delayed last Friday's closely watched monthly jobs report for September and is set to postpone other key releases until the government reopens. Market attention is now focused on the Fed itself for signs of the timing and extent of more easing. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and newly installed fellow Governor Stephen Miran are due to speak later on Tuesday, while Wednesday brings minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting for September. The Fed is widely expected to cut rates by 25 basis points at its October 28-29 meeting, following data that showed a weakening labor market. (Reporting by Rocky SwiftEditing by Shri Navaratnam)

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By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) -New Zealand's business confidence in the third quarter worsened as inflation pressures ticked up, a private think tank said on Tuesday. A net 18% of firms surveyed expected general business conditions to improve compared with 22% optimism in the previous quarter, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's (NZIER) quarterly survey of business opinion showed. Christina Leung, principal economist at NZIER, told a press conference that even though businesses are expecting better times for both their own businesses and the broader economy, they remain cautious when it comes to hiring, investment and overall cost and pricing. On a seasonally adjusted basis, 15% expected business conditions to improve versus 26% optimism recorded in the previous period. The survey's measure of capacity utilization fell to 89.1%, from the previous quarter's 89.4%. The survey noted that cost and pricing indicators suggest an intensifying of inflation pressures in the third quarter with a net 11% of firms reporting they had raised prices. In the previous quarter a net 1% of firms reported they had reduced prices. Leung added the survey suggests economic growth in the third quarter was unchanged, with the potential that there was a small contraction in growth. New Zealand’s economy contracted 0.9% in the second quarter and has shrunk in three of the last five quarters. Weakness in the economy will support the idea that the central bank will cut the cash rate further at its meeting on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has indicated it will cut the cash rate, currently at 3.0% by 50 basis points before the end of the year. A Reuters poll sees the central bank cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points when it meets on Wednesday, but several economists expect the bank to cut the cash rate by 50 basis points. Leung added NZIER’s core view is that the central bank will cut the cash rate by 25 basis points but if they were leaning towards a 50-basis-point cut, “I don’t think there is anything in here that would stop them.” (Reporting by Lucy Craymer in Wellington; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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By Deepa Seetharaman and Kenrick Cai SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -OpenAI touted new partnerships to incorporate its AI products across diverse industries at its developer conference on Monday, aiming to drive the strong momentum it has enjoyed among consumers to its enterprise business. "You should expect a huge focus from us on really leaning into enterprise," CEO Sam Altman told journalists at a press conference following his keynote at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. The company revealed a flurry of collaborations with companies including Spotify, Zillow and Mattel while debuting a set of fresh tools to help developers build new applications. That included a way for other apps to plug into ChatGPT and allow a user to ask questions or perform tasks in the app. One engineer gave a live demo showing how someone could use ChatGPT to generate a readymade playlist in Spotify, or ask Zillow to narrow down a list of properties to just show those with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Executives said this was the start of a broader vision of transforming ChatGPT into a central portal where users can access a broader range of services. "What you're going to see over the next six months is an evolution of ChatGPT from an app that is really, really useful into something that feels a little bit more like an operating system," ChatGPT head Nick Turley said. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, underscored that OpenAI was "committed to building the best enterprise platform." News of OpenAI's partnerships led shares of some of its partners like Zillow and Figma to climb initially, a sign of how the ChatGPT maker's imprimatur has become a way to legitimize companies' positioning in AI. Earlier on Monday, shares of AMD surged more than 34% after it signed a deal supplying chips to OpenAI. Spotify said in a press release about its partnership that it would not share user data with OpenAI to train models. Asked if the same policy applied to the other deals, Turley said it would abide by the preferences users selected in their data settings. OpenAI had always planned to target the enterprise market, but its AI models were not previously ready for the higher demands of business-use cases, Altman said. "We needed to let the models get better. The models are there now," he said, adding that the company had selected "a few active early partnerships." Brockman said the work that went into its models' self-claimed gold medal performance at the International Mathematical Olympiad would generate benefits for enterprises in other ways. OpenAI and other tech giants such as Alphabet and Microsoft have courted enterprise AI deals to help justify massive spikes in spending, though the returns across the industry have so far failed to match investment, recent surveys showed. The ChatGPT-maker outlined ambitious new plans in the last month to build $1 trillion or more of computing capacity and launched a viral AI-video-generating app called Sora, which has shot to the top of Apple's app rankings. All this has made OpenAI a massive money-losing operation to date. Altman said it was "not in my top 10 concerns, but we obviously someday have to be very profitable." Monday's moves are the latest in a stream of announcements for OpenAI, which sparked the modern AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT about three years ago. Many of Altman's ambitions are bold and expensive even by Silicon Valley standards, sparking some concerns among tech investors about whether or not AI investments are a bubble. Altman said during the question-answer session that many areas of the AI industry are "kind of bubbly," but that "real value will get created." (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman and Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Pooja Desai and Christopher Cushing)

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PARIS (Reuters) -French prosecutors said on Monday they are investigating tech giant Apple's voice assistant Siri after receiving a complaint from a tech researcher accusing the company of illicit data collection. The probe, which was first reported by the news website Politico, has been entrusted to a police force specialised in cybercrime, the prosecutors' office in Paris said without providing further details. Tech researcher Thomas Le Bonniec told Reuters that he was the source of the complaint, which was filed by French human rights organisation, the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme (LDH). LDH had previously said the complaint accused Apple of collecting, recording and analysing Siri conversations without users' consent. It did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. "The opening of a criminal investigation … sends a clear message: fundamental rights matter, and there are organisations and people determined to uphold them," Le Bonniec said. Apple told Reuters on Monday that it had tightened Siri privacy controls in 2019 and again this year. It pointed to a January post on its website in which it said conversations with Siri were never shared with marketers or sold to advertisers. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Alessandro Parodi; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Joe Bavier)

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By Anjana Anil (Reuters) -Oil prices were steady on Tuesday, with sentiment toward a smaller-than-anticipated OPEC+ output hike dulled by weakening global demand and the potential for a supply glut. Brent crude futures gained 1 cent, or 0.02%, to $65.48 a barrel by 0014 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was unchanged at $61.69 a barrel. Both contracts settled more than 1% higher in the previous session. "Crude oil prices gained after OPEC announced a smaller than expected production rise. The oil market has been anticipating a large rise in quotas for the group's members as they met to discuss their supply agreement over the weekend," ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes wrote in a note to clients. "This staved off fears of an even bigger surplus than the one the market is anticipating in coming months." On Sunday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and some smaller producers – known as OPEC+ – decided to increase its collective oil production by 137,000 barrels per day starting in November. The group has increased its oil output targets by more than 2.7 million bpd this year, equating to about 2.5% of global demand. Geopolitical factors have kept a floor under prices, with conflict between Russia and Ukraine impacting energy assets and creating uncertainty over Russian crude supply. Russia's Kirishi oil refinery halted its most productive distillation unit, CDU-6, following a drone attack and subsequent fire on October 4, with its recovery likely to take about a month, two industry sources said on Monday. Still, oil prices have come under pressure as investors see a likelihood of a supply surplus as output increases from both OPEC+ and non-OPEC+ producers. Moreover, any slowdown in demand due to weak economic growth triggered by U.S. trade tariffs is likely to exacerbate the surplus, analysts said. (Reporting by Anjana Anil in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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(Reuters) -Rio Tinto said on Tuesday it will invest $733 million, alongside joint venture partners Mitsui and Nippon Steel Corp, to develop new iron ore deposits at the West Angelas hub in Western Australia's Pilbara region. (Reporting by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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