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By Alun John, Ankur Banerjee and Manya Saini SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) -Fear over credit quality in U.S. regional banks rippled through markets on Friday, dragging global financial stocks lower and reviving memories of the crisis of confidence that shook sentiment just over two years ago. The selloff hit Wall Street’s main indexes, with futures pointing to a weaker open, deepening investor anxiety that was already heightened by escalating U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed worries about the global economic outlook. The banking sector's exposure to two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on its bonds and sparked a global bank stocks rout. Investors are now trying to assess whether recent issues in U.S. credit markets will have a similar effect, as an overnight selloff on Wall Street rippled across Asia and Europe and shone a spotlight on the recent AI-led surge in broader stock markets that some fear could have created a bubble. Some analysts said, at this stage, the concerns around U.S. regional banks appeared idiosyncratic rather than a sign of something more systemic. "Pockets of the U.S. banking sector including regional banks have given the market cause for concern," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. "This includes Zions flagging an unexpected loss on two loans and Western Alliance alleging a borrower had committed fraud. FINANCIAL STOCKS HIT GLOBALLY Some top U.S. banks fell in premarket trading on Friday, capping a week of solid earnings from Wall Street's top banks on a downbeat note. Bank of America and Citigroup declined 0.33% and 0.4% each. "What we see in the banks selling off overnight in the U.S., Asia wakes up to it, Europe wakes up to it, and so it spreads," said TD Securities head of global macro strategy James Rossiter. European banks fell almost 3%, with Deutsche Bank and Barclays sliding around 6%, and Societe Generale down 4.6%, after financial firms in Asia, especially Japanese banks and insurers sank. In pre-market U.S. trading, the SPDR S&P regional banking ETF was up 1%, a day after the benchmark tumbled 6%, its steepest one-day selloff in six months. Strong earnings from Truist Financial, Regions Financial, and Fifth Third bolstered investor sentiment, sending most U.S. regional banks higher in premarket trading. Zions Bancorp, at the heart of the investor scrutiny, recovered some lost ground, after closing down 13%. Western Alliance was also up 1.2% in early premarket trade after losing roughly 11% on Thursday. "Despite growing hopes of further rate cuts this year, attention is turning to the underlying health of the economy, as emerging credit losses amongst America’s regional banks raised further questions about lending practices," said Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown. The U.S. KBW Regional Banking Index closed down 6.3% on Thursday. The latest selloff came after Zions said it would take a $50 million loss on two commercial and industrial loans from its California unit, while Western Alliance disclosed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Attorneys for Cantor denied the allegations. Such disclosures would not typically impact broader markets, but drew attention as they followed the collapse of two U.S. companies, FirstBrands and Tricolor. Those failures rattled investors who are worried about risks in private credit, a booming but less regulated market where companies have borrowed heavily in the past few years. Credit impairments in private debt have been rising and default rates have hit 5.5%, said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, citing the latest available data for the second quarter. "At the same time, it has also been striking that where credit events have occurred, this has gone hand-in-hand with a weakening of covenants and investor protections, inferring larger losses on default than have historically been the case," he added. Still, the gloom spread across other pockets of the financial sector, weighing on mortgage lenders, buy-now-pay-later firms, and brokerages. Analysts say that any cracks in credit on Wall Street are likely to spill over into other areas of the financial sector. BNPL lenders Affirm and Klarna fell 2.3% and 0.4% respectively, while consumer finance firm SoFi declined 1.3%. Robinhood and Interactive Brokers fell 2.6% each. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this week about credit markets: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned." BROADER MARKET IMPACT "The market is clearly priced for perfection," said Bo Pei, analyst at US Tiger Securities. "This leaves sentiment vulnerable, so even isolated negative headlines can trigger outsized reactions like what we saw yesterday." European bank shares are up some 40% year-to-date, while world stocks have risen 16%, as investors flocked to companies that might benefit from the AI boom. Gold meanwhile hit a fresh record high, set for its best week in over 17 years. "The market has been concerned on a bubble brewing on private credit for the past few months," said Alan Devlin, Global Financials Research Analyst, Impax Asset Management. "The market is basically shooting first, asking questions later." (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore and Alun John in London and Manya Saini in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland, Stella Qiu, Dhara Ranasinghe, Jose Joel, Pritam Biswas and Medha Singh. Editing by Mark Heinrich, Mark Potter and Nick Zieminski)

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By Suzanne McGee (Reuters) -The U.S. exchange-traded fund market is churning out new products at an unprecedented clip, creating concerns about a bubble developing – causing some investors to become more selective about which funds to support and question how many can survive. The ETF industry has exploded in size in response to regulatory changes in 2019 that allowed actively managed funds and those using derivatives to roll out new products more swiftly, while a recent regulatory decision to approve the creation of an ETF share class is likely to generate a fresh wave of products. But that rapid growth has prompted caution from some in the industry about supporting all of these new ETFs.    "We're certainly at an unsustainable level of launches, and we're going to have to start seeing product rationalization and closures," said Drew Pettit, U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup, who said the product class could be heading toward a bubble.  The explosion of product has encouraged asset managers to come up with new offerings that push the limits of what the SEC has been willing to approve in the past. Over the last ten days, a group of asset managers that specialize in offering leveraged ETFs tied to individual stocks have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue leveraged funds seeking to provide three times and even five times daily upside of a handful of individual stocks. Risk guidelines laid down by the SEC in late 2020 under then-chairman Jay Clayton had capped leverage at two times. The SEC itself on Thursday said it is "unclear" whether the new filings will be approved. Ryan Sullivan, head of buy-side Americas at FTSE Russell, an index provider, who has spent some 20 years in the ETF arena, said that financial advisers were now getting more picky about which ETFs to advise clients to buy.  "Operationally, it has never been easier to launch a new ETF, but the flip side is that having a successful launch is only getting more difficult," he said.   For most of those two decades he has worked on ETF products, he said, an ETF with $50 million to $100 million in assets typically would be on the radar screen of most financial advisers. "Now they're saying: 'Don't call me until you have the first $200 million or so'," Sullivan said. Whether the ETF industry can sustain its current torrid growth rate also relies on the market-makers, trading firms such as Citadel Securities and Jane Street Capital that buy or sell throughout the day to help ensure tight trading spreads. "Market-makers are already raising the caution flag, saying that they need to be pickier about the funds that they support because they only have so much time," said Gavin Filmore, chief revenue officer of Tidal Investment Group, an ETF issuer that works with asset managers to launch new funds.  Senior executives working for three different ETF service providers, none of whom were willing to speak on the record, citing client confidentiality, are adamant that the ETF industry does not face a capacity crunch, but they acknowledge that rapid growth creates challenges.  There is more "selectivity," said Cory Laing, managing director of Citadel Securities Institutional Equity.  Jane Street Capital, another large marketmaking firm, did not return calls seeking comment. LAUNCH TSUNAMI  Concerns are growing about the sheer number and size of products being launched in the $13 trillion U.S. market. In the first nine months of 2025, some 794 new ETFs made their debut, topping the 746 launches recorded for the whole of 2024, which itself marked a fresh record. Asset managers are on pace to roll out more than 1,000 new products in the U.S. before the end of the year. On Monday, the flow of new investor dollars into U.S. ETFs year-to-date topped $1 trillion, a milestone that took until December to reach in 2024. Matthew Bartolini, global head of research strategists at State Street Investment Management, said flows for 2025 as a whole almost certainly will smash last year's record of $1.1 trillion and could reach as high as $1.4 trillion. So far, there is little incentive for asset managers to ease up on the pace of ETF launches. Many are trying to launch model portfolios and need new ETFs to fill in some gaps. "And then, if someone has a good idea and it works, you have at least 20 copycat ETFs," said Greg Stumm, CEO of American Beacon Partners, a distribution platform for ETFs. The launches are raising concerns for Dan Sotiroff, an analyst at Morningstar.  "There are all these leveraged single-stock ETFs, and then people are adding options to those to generate income," Sotiroff said. One frequently cited source of concern by ETF industry analysts is the leveraged single-stock ETFs, which have exploded in number. In a report published on Sunday, JPMorgan equity derivatives analysts calculated that selling related to these products contributed to the market selloff last Friday. Still, others believe there are more than enough investment dollars to absorb the product. Sean O'Hara, CEO of Pacer ETFs, said his firm forges ahead with only 10% to 25% of the new product ideas it considers, and is impatient with those who fret that the ETF market is in a bubble just because there are now more ETFs than publicly traded stocks.  "After all, there are more words than there are letters in the alphabet," he points out. (Reporting by Suzanne McGee in Rhode Island; Editing by Megan Davies and Matthew Lewis)

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(Reuters) -Apple has landed U.S. broadcast rights to Formula 1 in a five-year deal that would help the tech giant bolster its streaming service with one of the country's fastest-growing sports, following the success of its Brad Pitt-starrer "F1: The Movie". The two sides did not disclose the financial details of the deal on Friday. CNBC reported it was for $140 million a year, much higher than the $90 million Walt Disney-owned ESPN was paying per season for F1, which it has broadcast since 2018. Apple's deal begins next year. The iPhone maker will stream F1 on Apple TV, its critically acclaimed streaming service that won 22 Emmy Awards this year but lacks the scale to compete with industry leaders such as Netflix and Disney+ despite billions of dollars in investment. F1 joins Apple's growing sports lineup, which includes Major League Soccer and "Friday Night Baseball." Live sports have become a key battleground in the streaming industry as platforms compete for costly rights that attract loyal fans, reduce churn, and increase ad revenue. "We're thrilled to expand our relationship with Formula 1 and offer Apple TV subscribers in the U.S. front row access to one of the most exciting and fastest-growing sports on the planet," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services. As part of the agreement, Apple TV will host all practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and Grands Prix. Select races and all practice sessions throughout the season will also be available to watch for free in the Apple TV app. The deal follows the box office success of the Apple-produced F1 film, which has grossed more than $628 million worldwide, according to IMDb's Box Office Mojo. The movie will make its global streaming debut on Apple TV on December 12. Formula 1 added nearly 90 million new fans last year, with China showing the biggest percentage rise following the sport's post-COVID return to Shanghai, according to Nielsen Sports data. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and Alan Baldwin in London; Additional reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Leroy Leo)

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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss BOSTON (Reuters) -Activist investor HoldCo Asset Management has built a sizable position in Eastern Bankshares and wants the storied Boston financial institution to put itself up for sale, instead of buying up other banks, according to people familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters. HoldCo, which built its 3% stake in Eastern in recent months, is pressing for a sale, possibly to its much larger neighbor northeast super-regional M&T Bank. It also wants Eastern's management to stop its "poor allocation of capital," which includes three acquisitions made in five years and multiple securities restructurings, said the people who are familiar with HoldCo's thinking but can't discuss it publicly. The acquisitions ate up nearly all of the excess capital that Eastern received when it transformed from a mutual bank, founded in 1818, to a publicly traded company in 2020 when it raised $1.8 billion through its initial public offering, HoldCo argues. HoldCo blames Eastern's former chief executive and board chairman, Robert Rivers, and directors for mismanagement, arguing they have little expertise in buying banks but acquired three companies in four years the people said. A representative for Eastern and for Rivers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-headquartered hedge fund, which oversees some $2.6 billion in assets and invests primarily in financial institutions, is ready to talk to Eastern's management but is also poised to ratchet up pressure and possibly launch a proxy fight to throw out directors, the people said. Eastern, which has a market value of $3.8 billion, currently has 15 directors and five, including Rivers who was elevated to executive chairman last year, will stand for election in 2026. "Nothing would please us more than a consensual resolution, but a proxy contest and any and all other options are on the table," the firm's founders Vik Ghei and Misha Zaitzeff said in documents seen by Reuters. Zaitzeff has already served on the board of another Boston-based bank, Berkshire Hills Bancorp, as part of a 2021 settlement between the hedge fund and bank. PUSHING FOR SALE HoldCo is taking aim at Eastern two weeks after playing a role in an $11 billion deal where Fifth Third will buy Comerica. For months, the hedge fund had pushed Comerica to sell itself and in September turned up the heat by threatening to nominate five directors to its board. Bank mergers and acquisitions, while notoriously tough because of regulatory requirements, are expected to pick up now, analysts said, noting the Trump administration is expected to be more lenient than the Biden administration in approving possible deals. Eastern is Boston's leading local bank with more than 100 branches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut and what analysts call loyal small business and retail customers whose families have banked there for decades. It also has low deposit costs, making it a potentially attractive target for bigger banks to buy. While Eastern cites its acquisitions as strengths that helped assets swell to $30 billion next month from $12 billion in 2019 and strengthen its foothold in wealth management, HoldCo disagrees. The firm argues that recent purchases of Century Bancorp, Cambridge Bancorp and HarborOne Bank, which will be finalized next month, have hurt shareholders and that they would have been better off if management had done nothing. "Had Eastern refrained from M&A and Securities Restructurings, it would conservatively have $13.90 per share of excess capital today versus a stock price of $17," the document said, adding "meaning that paying a special dividend today would allow shareholders to basically own this bank for free." While HoldCo criticizes Rivers for his actions, he wields great power in Boston. Boston Magazine ranked him as No. 7 on its Most Influential Bostonians 2025 list, ahead of Fidelity Investments' Abigail Johnson and New England Patriots President Jonathan Kraft. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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By Stine Jacobsen and Bhanvi Satija COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Shares of weight-loss drug makers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly fell on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the price of Novo's popular Ozempic treatment would be lowered.  Although Ozempic is approved to treat diabetes, it shares the same active ingredient – semaglutide – as the Danish drugmaker's blockbuster obesity treatment Wegovy. In the United States, Ozempic has been frequently used as a so-called off-label treatment for obesity and often served as a generic reference to weight-loss drugs. Since taking office in January, Trump has been striving to narrow the gap between U.S. and foreign drug prices. Under its "most favored nation" policy, the U.S. government will require drugmakers to charge patients in the U.S. no more than in other wealthy nations. INVESTORS BRACED FOR PRICE CUTS Novo's shares fell to a near three-week low of 342.3 crowns and were last down 6% at 344.7 crowns. Shares in rivals dropped as well, with Eli Lilly down 4% and Zealand Pharma down 5%. In U.S. pre-market trading, Viking Therapeutics was down nearly 6%, and Altimmune down 1%. BMO Capital markets analyst Evan Seigerman said that the market reaction to Trump's comments seemed exaggerated. Trump's made the comments during a White House event on Thursday, where he announced a deal with Germany's Merck to cut the cost of some drugs needed for in-vitro fertilisation in exchange for protection from future tariffs. Trump was asked by reporters to identify the drug that he said earlier at the event would be made less expensive. "I was referring to Ozempic, or – I was referring to – the fat loss drug?…. They'll be much lower," Trump said. A Novo spokesperson said the company was in discussions with the Trump administration over the most favored nation order.  UBS analysts said they had already factored potential U.S. price cuts into their forecasts. "If the prices mentioned by President Trump end up being the negotiated prices then this would be more than captured by our numbers," they wrote. J.P. Morgan analysts also said investors were prepared for price cuts for semaglutide, which is among the list of 15 drugs selected for a U.S. price negotiation programme. Mehmet Oz, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was at the event on Thursday, said that the agency had not yet finished negotiating the price for the GLP-1 class of drugs, which includes Ozempic, Wegovy, and Lilly's Mounjaro. (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Bhanvi Satija in London and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru. Editing by Terje Solsvik and Mark Potter)

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By Alun John, Ankur Banerjee and Manya Saini SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) -Fear over credit quality in U.S. regional banks rippled through markets on Friday, dragging global financial stocks lower and reviving memories of the crisis of confidence that shook sentiment just over two years ago. The selloff hit Wall Street’s main indexes, with futures pointing to a weaker open, deepening investor anxiety that was already heightened by escalating U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed worries about the global economic outlook. The banking sector's exposure to two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on its bonds and sparked a global bank stocks rout. Investors are now trying to assess whether recent issues in U.S. credit markets will have a similar effect, as an overnight selloff on Wall Street rippled across Asia and Europe and shone a spotlight on the recent AI-led surge in broader stock markets that some fear could have created a bubble. Some analysts said, at this stage, the concerns around U.S. regional banks appeared idiosyncratic rather than a sign of something more systemic. "Pockets of the U.S. banking sector including regional banks have given the market cause for concern," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. "This includes Zions flagging an unexpected loss on two loans and Western Alliance alleging a borrower had committed fraud. FINANCIAL STOCKS HIT GLOBALLY Some top U.S. banks fell in premarket trading on Friday, capping a week of solid earnings from Wall Street's top banks on a downbeat note. Bank of America and Citigroup declined 0.33% and 0.4% each. "What we see in the banks selling off overnight in the U.S., Asia wakes up to it, Europe wakes up to it, and so it spreads," said TD Securities head of global macro strategy James Rossiter. European banks fell almost 3%, with Deutsche Bank and Barclays sliding around 6%, and Societe Generale down 4.6%, after financial firms in Asia, especially Japanese banks and insurers sank. In pre-market U.S. trading, the SPDR S&P regional banking ETF was up 1%, a day after the benchmark tumbled 6%, its steepest one-day selloff in six months. Strong earnings from Truist Financial, Regions Financial, and Fifth Third bolstered investor sentiment, sending most U.S. regional banks higher in premarket trading. Zions Bancorp, at the heart of the investor scrutiny, recovered some lost ground, after closing down 13%. Western Alliance was also up 1.2% in early premarket trade after losing roughly 11% on Thursday. "Despite growing hopes of further rate cuts this year, attention is turning to the underlying health of the economy, as emerging credit losses amongst America’s regional banks raised further questions about lending practices," said Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown. The U.S. KBW Regional Banking Index closed down 6.3% on Thursday. The latest selloff came after Zions said it would take a $50 million loss on two commercial and industrial loans from its California unit, while Western Alliance disclosed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Attorneys for Cantor denied the allegations. Such disclosures would not typically impact broader markets, but drew attention as they followed the collapse of two U.S. companies, FirstBrands and Tricolor. Those failures rattled investors who are worried about risks in private credit, a booming but less regulated market where companies have borrowed heavily in the past few years. Credit impairments in private debt have been rising and default rates have hit 5.5%, said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, citing the latest available data for the second quarter. "At the same time, it has also been striking that where credit events have occurred, this has gone hand-in-hand with a weakening of covenants and investor protections, inferring larger losses on default than have historically been the case," he added. Still, the gloom spread across other pockets of the financial sector, weighing on mortgage lenders, buy-now-pay-later firms, and brokerages. Analysts say that any cracks in credit on Wall Street are likely to spill over into other areas of the financial sector. BNPL lenders Affirm and Klarna fell 2.3% and 0.4% respectively, while consumer finance firm SoFi declined 1.3%. Robinhood and Interactive Brokers fell 2.6% each. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this week about credit markets: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned." BROADER MARKET IMPACT "The market is clearly priced for perfection," said Bo Pei, analyst at US Tiger Securities. "This leaves sentiment vulnerable, so even isolated negative headlines can trigger outsized reactions like what we saw yesterday." European bank shares are up some 40% year-to-date, while world stocks have risen 16%, as investors flocked to companies that might benefit from the AI boom. Gold meanwhile hit a fresh record high, set for its best week in over 17 years. "The market has been concerned on a bubble brewing on private credit for the past few months," said Alan Devlin, Global Financials Research Analyst, Impax Asset Management. "The market is basically shooting first, asking questions later." (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore and Alun John in London and Manya Saini in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland, Stella Qiu, Dhara Ranasinghe, Jose Joel, Pritam Biswas and Medha Singh. Editing by Mark Heinrich, Mark Potter and Nick Zieminski)

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(Reuters) -Medical device maker Boston Scientific said on Friday it will buy the remaining equity in privately held Nalu Medical for about $533 million in cash, expanding its portfolio of treatments for chronic pain. Boston Scientific has been a strategic investor in Carlsbad, California-based Nalu Medical since 2017, supporting its development of neurostimulation technologies for chronic pain. The deal gives Boston Scientific access to Nalu's neurostimulation device, designed to deliver targeted relief to adults living with chronic pain in areas such as the shoulder, lower back and knee, through peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS). PNS is used primarily to treat chronic pain that has not responded well to other treatments, like medication or physical therapy. The therapy uses mild electrical impulses to interrupt pain signals before they reach the brain and features a miniaturized, battery-free implantable pulse generator, powered wirelessly by a small, externally worn therapy disc and controlled via a smartphone app. Nalu's device received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's clearance in 2019. In a late-stage trial, 79% of the patients using the system reached an average pain relief of 64% at six months. Nalu's "Medical technology complements our existing therapies — including spinal cord stimulation, basivertebral nerve ablation and radiofrequency ablation — enabling us to deliver advanced pain relief options to a wider variety of patient populations," said Jim Cassidy, president of neuromodulation at Boston. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026. Boston said the deal is expected to be immaterial to its profit in 2026, but slightly accretive in 2027, and increasingly beneficial thereafter. (Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Shinjini Ganguli)

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(Reuters) -Huntington Bancshares reported a rise in its third-quarter profit on Friday, as the regional U.S. lender benefited from increased interest income and fees across all divisions. Shares of the Columbus, Ohio-based bank rose 1.8% in premarket trading. The results come amid renewed scrutiny of U.S. banks' credit quality after two auto-industry bankruptcies and revelations of credit fraud, which have dragged lender stocks lower in recent weeks. Provision for credit losses was $122 million for the three months ended September 30, up from $106 million a year earlier. Its net interest income – the difference between what a bank earns as interest on loans and pays out on deposits – jumped 11% to $1.51 billion during the period, reflecting lower funding costs. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month for the first time this year, providing lenders and borrowers relief on the cost of capital. Huntington's results mirror those of peers Citizens and PNC Financial, whose profits also jumped on higher interest income. Noninterest income climbed 20% from a year ago, led by a 21% jump in capital markets and advisory fees as dealmaking made a triumphant comeback during the quarter that saw markets achieve multiple record highs. Customer deposit and loan fees rose 19% to $102 million, benefiting from higher loan commitment fees. Net income attributable to the bank rose to $629 million, or 41 cents per share, from $517 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier. Huntington's stock is down more than 5.5% year to date, compared with a 6.4% decline in the KBW Regional Banking index. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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(Reuters) -Meta said on Friday it will let parents disable their teens' private chats with AI characters, adding another measure to make its social media platforms safe for minors after fierce criticism over the behavior of its flirty chatbots. Earlier this week, the company said its AI experiences for teens will be guided by the PG-13 movie rating system, as it looks to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content. U.S. regulators have stepped up scrutiny of AI companies over the potential negative impacts of chatbots. In August, Reuters reported how Meta's AI rules allowed provocative conversations with minors. The new tools, detailed by Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, will debut on Instagram early next year, in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, according to a blog post. Meta said parents will also be able to block specific AI characters and see broad topics their teens discuss with chatbots and Meta's AI assistant, without turning off AI access entirely. Its AI assistant will remain available with age-appropriate defaults even if parents disable teens' one‑on‑one chats with AI characters, Meta said. The supervision features are built on protections already applied to teen accounts, the company said, adding that it uses AI signals to place suspected teens into protection even if they say they are adults. A report in September showed that many safety features Meta has implemented on Instagram over the years do not work well or exist. Meta said its AI characters are designed not to engage in age-inappropriate discussions about self-harm, suicide or disordered eating with teens. Last month, OpenAI rolled out parental controls for ChatGPT on the web and mobile, following a lawsuit by the parents of a teen who died by suicide after the startup's chatbot allegedly coached him on methods of self-harm. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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(Reuters) -Regions Financial reported a rise in third-quarter profit on Friday, benefiting from stronger capital markets and higher income from interests, sending its shares up about 1% in premarket trading. Dealmaking rebounded in the third quarter, marking a year that analysts are calling a turning point for global mergers and acquisitions, as boardrooms advanced pending purchases and signed big-ticket transactions. Mega deals reached around $1.26 trillion during the quarter, a 40% jump over from a year ago. Regions Financial's capital markets income stood at $104 million during the three months ended September 30, compared with $92 million a year ago. The gain mirrors larger rivals such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America benefiting from a rebound in dealmaking. The Birmingham, Alabama-based bank's net interest income, the difference between what banks pay customers on deposits and earn as interest on loans, rose 3.2% to $1.26 billion. The company expects full-year NII to rise about 3% to 4% from a year ago, lowering the higher end of its prior forecast. Net income available to common shareholders rose to $548 million, or 61 cents per share, during the quarter, from $446 million, or 49 cents per share, a year ago. (Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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