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(Reuters) -Tesla has begun selling its Cybertruck in Qatar, the U.S. electric vehicle maker said in a post on X on Friday, following the launch of its operations in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. The move underscores Tesla’s drive to widen its international reach as it faces slowing demand and intensifying competition in its core U.S. and Chinese markets. Tesla entered Saudi Arabia in April, unveiling the Cybertruck and a refreshed Model Y at an event in Riyadh. The company said it would support regional sales with online ordering, pop-up showrooms, Supercharger stations and service centers. The Saudi debut marked a symbolic reconciliation after a rift between Elon Musk and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which backed away from his 2018 “funding secured” plan to take Tesla private. Tesla first entered the Middle East in 2017 with a launch in the United Arab Emirates. Qatar now joins the UAE and Saudi Arabia as part of its first wave of Cybertruck sales outside North America. The company does not break out sales by regions for the Cybertruck model in its quarterly deliveries reports. However, a U.S. recall filing in March showed 46,096 Cybertrucks had been built between November 2023 and early this year. Tesla also faces strong regional competition from Chinese automakers BYD and Zeekr, as well as U.S. rival Lucid, which is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Elon Musk-led company posted record deliveries in the third quarter driven by a rush of U.S. buyers trying to grab a $7,500 tax credit before it expired on September 30. However, analysts expect a sharp slump in the fourth quarter as the incentive for EV purchases vanishes. (Reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

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(Reuters) -The U.S. government has shut down, but that hasn't prevented stocks from hitting more record highs, fully confident that bullish rate cuts will keep momentum going. The one hitch is a complete lack of visibility when it comes to what is actually happening in the economy right now.   Here's your weekahead from Alden Bentley in New York, Rocky Swift in Tokyo and Alun John, Dhara Ranasinghe and Amanda Cooper in London. 1/ DOLLAR BEARS SHARPEN THEIR CLAWS  The dollar starts this final quarter of 2025 in fairly decent shape. Having fallen in the first two quarters, as U.S. exceptionalism came under fire, the greenback ended Q3 with a 1% gain against major rivals.  It's still down 10% so far this year, although its stabilisation has bought some calm to the almost $10 trillion-a-day FX markets.  On the plus side, immediate threats to Federal Reserve independence – a potential source of dollar stress – have abated for now. On the negative, labour market weakness adds to Fed rate-cuts bets.  Dollar bears may not hibernate for long – especially if a U.S. government shutdown is lengthy. The yen, in particular, looks favourable – say FX experts – while the euro could still hit that $1.20 milestone it came so close to last month. 2/ WHO NEEDS DATA? Next week's U.S. data calendar is light, so further market disruption from the government shutdown should be minimal and the U.S. Treasury will hold a normal auction of notes and bonds. The market will likely make do without Tuesday's U.S. International Trade report, and Friday's private University of Michigan preliminary October sentiment index.  The Treasury sells $58 billion in three-year notes on Tuesday, $39 billion of the 10-year note Wednesday and $22 billion in 30-year bonds on Thursday. The bond market can't yet compute possible fiscal implications of an indefinite furloughing of federal workers. But with the benchmark 10-year yield above 4%, demand could remain solid. An early taste of third-quarter results comes with Delta Airlines and Levi Strauss among others on Thursday, before the earnings parade kicks off with Wall Street's biggest banks the following week. 3/ SHOT IN THE ARM  Battered global pharmaceutical stocks have got a boost from the deal between Pfizer and the U.S. to lower prescription drug prices in the Medicaid programme in exchange for tariff relief. U.S. President Donald Trump had taken aim at the sector over high U.S. medicine prices, sending drugmaker shares to multi-decade lows. But investors now bet the more benign agreement will open the door for more deals.  U.S. healthcare stocks are up 5.6% this week, set for their biggest weekly gain in over three years, while European peers are up 7.6%, on track for their best week since 2008.  Now it's time to wait to see if these deals materialise and justify that optimism.  The U.S. has also slapped tariffs on imported timber as well as kitchen cabinets and furniture, while Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on all films produced overseas that are then sent into the U.S. 4/ BARRELLING ON Oil is struggling under the weight of hefty global supplies that only seem to be getting bigger, while demand cannot seem to keep pace. The International Energy Agency says there could be an implied surplus of over 3 million barrels per day in 2026, compared with an expected excess of 600,000 bpd this year. The OPEC+ group, which includes OPEC and other exporters including Russia, meets at the weekend and is expected to accelerate the pace at which it is unwinding the curbs on output that imposed during the pandemic.  At around $65 a barrel, crude is worth roughly half what it was when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The wildcard for forecasters, producers and consumers alike will remain, as always, geopolitics. 5/ DIRECTION DOWN UNDER The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will almost certainly cut rates next week. The question is: by how much? The RBNZ cut rates to a three-year low of 3% in August. Data last month showed New Zealand's economy contracted 0.9% in the second quarter, due to tariff uncertainty and a weak housing market. Money markets have fully priced in a quarter-point cut to 2.75% when the RBNZ meets on October 8, but the chances of a half-point reduction have grown to 44.5% from about 25% a week ago. Policy divergence between the RBNZ and the Reserve Bank of Australia, which kept rates unchanged in September, could spell further weakness in the kiwi, which is already at a three-year low against its Antipodean counterpart. (Compiled by Amanda Cooper; Graphics by Vineet Sachdev; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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(Reuters) -Tesla has now begun selling its Cybertruck in Qatar, the U.S. electric vehicle maker said in a post on X on Friday, following the launch of its operations in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. The Elon Musk-led carmaker marked its first foray into the Middle East in 2017 with a launch in the United Arab Emirates. (Reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham in Bengaluru)

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By Arpan Chaturvedi NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Three cabinet colleagues of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are promoting use of apps by domestic rivals to Google Maps, WhatsApp and Microsoft, in the strongest backing yet for "Made in India" products amid trade tension with the United States. After the United States imposed a 50% tariff on Indian imports in August, Modi has pushed for use of "swadeshi" products, or those made in India. While many industry executives have made public calls to support Indian products, Modi made a direct appeal last month for Indians to scrap daily use of foreign goods. Information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw gave a media presentation on highway projects this week he said was put together employing Zoho, a domestic rival to Microsoft's PowerPoint, and without use of Google Maps. "The map is from MapmyIndia, not Google Maps," the minister said with a smile, referring to an Indian provider. "It's looking nice, right? Swadeshi." Last week, Vaishnaw made a video clip testing Zoho software and asked people to adopt indigenous products in a post on X that drew 6.2 million views. ASPIRATIONAL UPGRADE American brands are everywhere in India, and they are seen as an aspirational upgrade by millions. While government and private offices use Microsoft products, many travellers rely on Google Maps to find their way about, and WhatsApp counts India as its biggest market, with more than 500 million users. The three U.S. companies did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Zoho offers cheaper alternatives to cloud-based software tools made by Microsoft. The Indian firm's billionaire co-founder, Sridhar Vembu, is famed for an unconventional approach of locating business operations in rural villages. The firm's messaging app, Arattai, or "chat" in India's southern Tamil language, has gained sudden popularity, thanks to the efforts of Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. "So proud to be on @Arattai, a #MadeInIndia messaging platform that brings India closer," Goyal said in an X post this week. There were more than 400,000 downloads of the app last month, compared to fewer than 10,000 in August, data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows. Its daily active users crossed 100,000 on September 26, an increase of 100% on the day. TOUGH TO REPLACE GLOBAL BRANDS Indian companies find it difficult to replace global brands, since they often cannot match their financial clout and reach. In 2021, Indian ministers promoted X-like social media platform Koo amid compliance-related disagreements with the American platform. But the Indian company shut last year for lack of funding. "Only state patronage will not be enough," warned Dilip Cherian, a co-founder of Indian public relations firm Perfect Relations. "What brands like Zoho need to succeed is a unique differentiating factor, deep pockets and strong protection against survelliance." (Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Clarence Fernandez)

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TOKYO (Reuters) -Taiwan's Yageo has succeeded in its $740 million unsolicited bid to buy Japan's Shibaura Electronics as a majority of shareholders tendered to its bid of 7,130 yen ($48.32) per share, it said in a filing on Friday. The bid's success concludes a long running tussle that was closely watched by investors as a test case for Japan's openness to unsolicited takeover bids as well as Japanese authorities' willingness to permit foreign ownership in strategic industries. Yageo passed a five-month-long national security review in September, a process necessitated by Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act as Shibaura's thermistor sensor business falls under the act's "core" national security category. Yageo had agreed to all conditions set forth by the Japanese government, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters without disclosing details. Yageo, the world's largest maker of chip resistors, outbid Japanese components maker Minebea Mitsumi, which had been brought in by Shibaura as a white knight and offered 6,200 yen per share. (Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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TOKYO (Reuters) -Taiwan's Yageo has succeeded in its $740 million unsolicited bid to buy Japan's Shibaura Electronics as a majority of shareholders tendered to its bid of 7,130 yen ($48.32) per share, it said in a filing on Friday. The bid's success concludes a long running tussle that was closely watched by investors as a test case for Japan's openness to unsolicited takeover bids as well as Japanese authorities' willingness to permit foreign ownership in strategic industries. Yageo passed a five-month-long national security review in September, a process necessitated by Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act as Shibaura's thermistor sensor business falls under the act's "core" national security category. Yageo had agreed to all conditions set forth by the Japanese government, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters without disclosing details. Yageo, the world's largest maker of chip resistors, outbid Japanese components maker Minebea Mitsumi, which had been brought in by Shibaura as a white knight and offered 6,200 yen per share. (Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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(Corrects length of security review to seven months from five in paragraph 3) TOKYO (Reuters) -Taiwan's Yageo has succeeded in its $740 million unsolicited bid to buy Japan's Shibaura Electronics as a majority of shareholders tendered to its bid of 7,130 yen ($48.32) per share, it said in a filing on Friday. The bid's success concludes a long running tussle that was closely watched by investors as a test case for Japan's openness to unsolicited takeover bids as well as Japanese authorities' willingness to permit foreign ownership in strategic industries. Yageo passed a seven-month-long national security review in September, a process necessitated by Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act as Shibaura's thermistor sensor business falls under the act's "core" national security category. Yageo had agreed to all conditions set forth by the Japanese government, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters without disclosing details. Yageo, the world's largest maker of chip resistors, outbid Japanese components maker Minebea Mitsumi, which had been brought in by Shibaura as a white knight and offered 6,200 yen per share. (Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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By Yantoultra Ngui SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Artificial intelligence startups are attracting record sums of venture capital, but some of the world's largest investors warned that early-stage valuations are starting to look frothy, senior investment executives said on Friday. "There's a little bit of a hype bubble going on in the early-stage venture space," said Bryan Yeo, group chief investment officer at Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, as part of a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Asia Summit 2025 in Singapore. "Any company startup with an AI label will be valued right up there at huge multiples of whatever the small revenue (is)," he said. "That might be fair for some companies and probably not for others." In the first quarter of 2025, AI startups raised $73.1 billion globally, accounting for 57.9% of all venture capital funding, according to PitchBook. The surge was driven by funding rounds like OpenAI's $40 billion capital raising, as investors raced to catch the AI wave. "Market expectations could be way ahead of what the technology could deliver," Yeo said. "We're seeing a major AI capex boom today. It is masking some of the potential weaknesses that might be going on in the economy." Todd Sisitsky, president of alternative asset manager TPG, said the fear of missing out is dangerous for investors, though he added that views were divided on whether the AI sector had formed a bubble. Some AI firms are hitting $100 million in revenue within months, he said, while others in early-stage ventures command valuations at between $400 million and $1.2 billion per employee. He said that was "breathtaking." (Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus.)

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By Alexander Marrow and Dominique Patton LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) -Ageing brands and declining sales could make Coty's makeup business a hard sell, raising the prospect of piecemeal deals or lower than expected proceeds that might complicate the group's plans to cut debt and invest in growth. Coty said on Tuesday it had launched a review of its mass-market Consumer Beauty business, a prelude to a possible sale or spinoff of some brands in a bid to cut debt, reverse shrinking cash flow, and focus on more profitable fragrances.  The business, home to the CoverGirl and Rimmel brands, generates around $1.2 billion in annual revenues, but has been losing market share to competitors with faster innovation cycles and more accessible price points. WHO COULD BUY COTY'S CONSUMER BEAUTY BRANDS? "It's hard for these brands because they don't look new to today's consumers. And newness is important, especially in colour cosmetics," said Morningstar analyst Dan Su. Barclays analysts described the division as a "tough asset to sell". They said it could be worth anywhere between $690 million and $950 million. Buyers this year have shown strong interest in smaller, fast-growing brands like Hailey Bieber's makeup and skincare line Rhode, snapped up by retailer Elf Beauty for $1 billion, and the vitamin A-based skincare business Medik8 bought by L'Oreal for an estimated $1 billion. Buyout firms could look at the division, much as private equity house KKR bought a majority stake in Coty's professional and retail haircare business, Wella, in 2020.  "I expect piecemeal deals rather than a one-shot sale," Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and CIO at Running Point Capital Advisors, naming private equity firms Permira and L Catterton among possible suitors. Coty said it did not comment on speculation. L Catterton declined to comment. Permira did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Coty's Consumer Beauty business reported an 8% drop in sales in the year ended June 30. Morningstar analysts expect another high-single-digit percentage decline this financial year, as it struggles to compete with social media influencers launching their own brands and selling on fast-growing online channels. Coty's in-house manufacturing has made it slower to innovate when compared to firms like Elf that use third-party producers, resulting in market share that is slipping over time, said Bank of America analyst Anna Lizzul. "It's a melting iceberg situation," she said. COTY CAME LATE TO SHIFTING FRAGRANCE TRENDS Coty became a beauty industry giant after buying Procter & Gamble's perfume, hair care and makeup businesses for $12.5 billion in 2015. After divesting from hair and now possibly consumer cosmetics, fragrance will be its primary focus. Its newly combined fragrance division accounts for 69% of Coty's sales and, with categories growing between 2% and 9%, is performing far better than Coty's consumer cosmetics.  But it relies heavily on licences, and about 14% of them are due to expire in the next three-and-a-half years, said BofA. The blockbuster licence for Gucci fragrances, which analysts believe runs until 2028, brings in about $500 million a year, BofA estimates – almost double Coty's free cash flow of $277.6 million in its last financial year.  Selling the makeup business could bring in money for what some analysts think is much-needed investment. "It would have probably helped to do this strategic review 10 years ago," said Alfonso Emanuele de Leon, a beauty industry veteran and partner at FA Hong Kong Consultancy. "Most importantly, when it was getting clear that the fragrance market was moving towards conceptual, experiential brands." Top sector player L'Oreal has invested in niche Chinese fragrance brands To Summer and Documents, Estee Lauder in fellow Chinese brand Melt Season, and Spanish rival Puig acquired a majority stake in Sweden's Byredo. Coty should have recognised that its fragrance segment was shrinking and made acquisitions too, Emanuele de Leon said. "They can still do it, it's just going to be more expensive and maybe too late because the wave has already reached the shore." (Reporting by Alexander Marrow and Dominique Patton; additional reporting by Abigail Summerville. Editing by Lisa Jucca and Mark Potter)

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(Reuters) -Nissan is recalling 19,077 electric vehicles in the United States due to a potential fire risk linked to overheating during quick charging, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Friday. (Reporting by Ruchika Khanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

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