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By Manya Saini and Pritam Biswas (Reuters) -After a turbulent week in which some regional U.S. banks flagged bad loan and fraud issues, investors scrutinized lenders' earnings reports for signs of wider strain across the sector. Zions Bancorporation posted a third-quarter profit increase on Monday, helped by stronger interest income, despite the $50 million fraud-related charge-off it announced last week. Private credit carries the highest risk of losses, given the high growth rate and light regulation, Zions CEO Harris Simmons told analysts on Monday evening, although he does not expect big bank losses from private credit exposure. Since the 2023 banking crisis, investors have had little patience for uncertainty, analysts said. Even isolated loan or fraud troubles now trigger broad-based selloffs as traders rush to reduce exposure. "Years of easy credit and low transparency have left investors uncertain about where risks truly lie; even small negative surprises can spark outsized repricing," said Tim Hynes, global head of Credit Research at Debtwire. The KBW Regional Banking Index has dropped 4.8% this year, lagging the KBW Bank Index, which tracks large-cap banks and is up 15.9% so far in 2025. Last week, bank stocks seesawed sharply after Zions disclosed $50 million in losses tied to commercial and industrial loans and Western Alliance initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Cantor has denied the allegations. Zions' higher third-quarter profit, despite the loan losses by its California division, lifted the bank's shares 2.9% in after-market trading. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF rose 2.49% on Monday. HBT Financial reported $19.8 million of net income, slightly higher than in the year-ago quarter, with nonperforming assets at 0.17% of total assets, the same percentage a year earlier. Its shares rose 4.15% after it agreed to merge with CNB Bank in a deal valued at $170.2 million. Jefferies shares rose 4.25% after sharp drops last week. The bank was caught up in the First Brands collapse, though executives have said the investment bank was "defrauded" and any losses are absorbable. Among regional lenders, Washington Trust Bancorp's net income was stable at $10.8 million compared to the year-ago period. The bank had warned that its third-quarter profit would be hit by $11.3 million in loan losses. 'ADDITIONAL COCKROACHES' Even before problems surfaced at Zions and Western Alliance, investor confidence had taken a hit from the twin bankruptcies of auto parts maker First Brands and subprime lender Tricolor. Fifth Third booked a $178 million loss last week tied to the bankruptcy of Tricolor, while JPMorgan Chase wrote off $170 million. "Asset quality metrics across banks have been deteriorating but have held up better than we expected. Losses have been low, so these recent numerous larger loan problems have raised fears of a broader deterioration," said Michael Driscoll, credit rating officer, Global Financial Institutions Ratings at Morningstar DBRS. "But one of the lessons from 2023 regional bank failures was that banks' funding can unravel faster than in the past if sizable issues emerge."  But many, including Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence, have downplayed comparisons to the 2023 regional banking crisis, when Silicon Valley Bank's failure sparked a broader turmoil. "We view recent weakness in the bank group as being driven by three key reasons," Deutsche Bank analysts said. "These include a number of idiosyncratic credit events occurring over a short period of time, less near-term focus over credit overall and mixed messaging from the banks." Large Wall Street banks last week also described the recent stress as idiosyncratic, but investors worry that problems emerging in quick succession point to deeper cracks in credit quality. "A wave of additional 'cockroaches' could reset risk tolerance across markets, pressuring valuations and tightening financial conditions further," Hynes said.  Analysts said markets have taken note of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's recent comment about the potential for more cases like First Brands, amplifying investor anxiety about weaknesses in the industry's more opaque corners. "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned of this one," Dimon said last week. (Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer and Joel Jose; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Richard Chang)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -The United States and Australia have extended financial support to several Australian companies as part of a wide-ranging critical minerals agreement signed on Monday with an aim of countering China's hold over the industry. Under the agreement signed by U.S. President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the two countries pledged to invest at least $1 billion each over the next six months in mining and processing projects and to set a price floor for critical minerals, a step long sought by Western miners. The governments would also help advance a plan by U.S. aluminium producer Alcoa to build a gallium plant alongside its alumina refinery in Western Australia that could provide up to 10% of global gallium supply. Gallium, a raw material used in the production of alumina, is a critical mineral essential to technology, especially the semiconductor industry and defence sectors. Australia said in a statement that it would provide up to $200 million in concessional equity financing for the project, which includes offtake rights for the Australian government, while the U.S. would also make an equity investment with offtake rights. Alcoa in August signed a joint development agreement with Japan Australia Gallium Associates (JAGA), a venture between the Japanese government and Sojitz Corp, for the project. The company said that once it finishes feasibility work, a special purpose vehicle owned by the U.S. and Australian governments and Alcoa is expected to enter a joint venture with JAGA to construct the plant, which Alcoa would operate. Separately, the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) announced it sent seven Letters of Interest (LOIs) totalling more than $2.2 billion to advance U.S.-aligned critical minerals projects in Australia. The LOIs were issued to Arafura Rare Earths, Northern Minerals, Graphinex, Latrobe Magnesium, VHM, RZ Resources and Sunrise Energy Metals. They represent the next phase in securing the minerals that power American manufacturing, national security, and other strategic industries, EXIM said in a statement. Shares of Northern Minerals rose 15%, Latrobe Magnesium jumped 27% and VHM were 29% higher in opening trade in Australia on Tuesday, compared to a broader market gain of 0.4%. (Reporting by Melanie Burton in Sydney; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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By Sumit Saha and Shariq Khan (Reuters) -Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan on Monday began soliciting shipper commitments for a proposed pipeline system that will move fuel from the Texas refining hub to bolster supplies in Arizona and California as a spate of refinery closures stokes supply concerns. If constructed, the new pipelines could help ease the strain on West Coast fuel supply from the planned closures of Phillips 66's Los Angeles refinery by the end of this year and Valero Energy's Benicia refinery next year. Together, those refineries produce about 20% of California's fuel requirements and help meet the needs of neighboring states. The planned closures have caused a scramble by regulators to find alternative means of supply. The system proposed by Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan will include the construction of a new pipeline from Borger, Texas, to Phoenix. The companies will also reverse the direction of flows on an existing Kinder Morgan pipeline that currently delivers fuel from Colton, California, to Phoenix, they said in a joint statement. Flows will also be reversed on the Phillips 66-operated Gold Pipeline, which currently delivers products from Borger, Texas, to St. Louis, Missouri. Reversing it will help deliver more fuel from Midwestern U.S. refineries into the proposed new pipeline system from Borger to Arizona, called the Western Gateway Pipeline, the companies said. "This is potentially huge news for motorists in California, Las Vegas, Arizona and great news for refiners in the Gulf," GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said on social media platform X. California drivers pay the highest gasoline prices in the Lower 48 U.S. states and fuel prices were expected to rise further from the planned refinery closures.  The new pipeline system could allow Gulf Coast refiners to raise capacity to feed these pipelines, especially in politically advantageous states, De Haan said. Last month, Magellan Pipeline, a subsidiary of ONEOK, also began gauging interest in a new pipeline system to transport refined products from Houston and southern Oklahoma to delivery locations in El Paso, Texas, and the Phoenix area. (Reporting by Sumit Saha in Bengaluru and Shariq Khan in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -The United States and Australia have extended financial support to several Australian companies as part of a wide-ranging critical minerals agreement signed on Monday with an aim of countering China's hold over the industry. Under the agreement signed by U.S. President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the two countries pledged to invest at least $1 billion each over the next six months in mining and processing projects and to set a price floor for critical minerals, a step long sought by Western miners. The governments would also help advance a plan by U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa to build a gallium plant alongside its alumina refinery in Western Australia, the company announced in a statement. Alcoa in August signed a joint development agreement with Japan Australia Gallium Associates (JAGA), a venture between the Japanese government and Sojitz Corp, for the project. It said on Monday that once it finishes feasibility work, a special purpose vehicle owned by the U.S. and Australian governments and Alcoa is expected to enter a joint venture with JAGA to construct the plant, which Alcoa would operate. The parties would provide capital to the special purpose vehicle and receive gallium offtake in proportion to their interests. The plant would be expected to produce 100 metric tons of gallium annually, Alcoa said. Gallium, a raw material used in the production of alumina, is a critical mineral essential to technology, especially the semiconductor industry and defense sectors. Reg Spencer, mining analyst at Canaccord, said the move was a positive development that could boost the prospects of Australia-listed companies. Meanwhile, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) announced it sent seven Letters of Interest (LOIs) totaling more than $2.2 billion to advance U.S.-aligned critical minerals projects in Australia. The LOIs were issued to Arafura Rare Earths, Northern Minerals, Graphinex, Latrobe Magnesium, VHM, RZ Resources and Sunrise Energy Metals. They represent the next phase in securing the minerals that power American manufacturing, national security, and other strategic industries. (Reporting by Anshuman Tripathy in Bengaluru and Melanie Burton in Sydney; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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(Reuters) -BHP Group's first-quarter iron ore output came in a little lower than estimates on Tuesday, as planned maintenance, including rebuilding of a piece of equipment at Port Hedland, weighed on production at its Western Australian operations. The world's largest listed miner said iron ore production from its Western Australia mine operations on a 100% basis was 70.2 million metric tonnes (Mt) in the three months ended September 30, compared with a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 71.55 Mt. BHP had recorded iron ore output from its Western Australian operations of 71.6 Mt a year earlier. Sales from the operations were broadly in line with the prior year, with BHP reporting a 5% sales rise of higher-value lump. The major rebuild of Car Dumper 3 at Port Hedland, which reduced volumes by 4.3 million tonnes on a 100% basis, was completed about 8% ahead of schedule, BHP said. Car Dumper 3 is a massive machine that unloads iron ore from trains for export and has been rebuilt to extend its life, boost reliability, and keep operations running smoothly after years of heavy use. BHP kept its fiscal 2026 output forecast for Western Australia iron ore unchanged at between 284 Mt and 296 Mt. The group's total copper production for the quarter gained 4% to 493.6 kilo tons and the company kept its 2026 output estimates unchanged. BHP added that both stages of Canada's Jansen potash project were making solid progress, with Stage 1 being 73% complete and on track to start production in 2027. The Stage 2 has reached 13% completion. (Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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(Reuters) -BHP Group's first-quarter iron ore output came in a little lower than estimates on Tuesday, as planned maintenance, including rebuilding of a piece of equipment at Port Hedland, weighed on production at its Western Australian operations. The world's largest listed miner said iron ore production from its Western Australia mine operations on a 100% basis was 70.2 million metric tonnes (Mt) in the three months ended September 30, compared with a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 71.55 Mt. BHP had recorded iron ore output from its Western Australian operations of 71.6 Mt a year earlier. Sales from the operations were broadly in line with the prior year, with BHP reporting a 5% sales rise of higher-value lump. The major rebuild of Car Dumper 3 at Port Hedland, which reduced volumes by 4.3 million tonnes on a 100% basis, was completed about 8% ahead of schedule, BHP said. Car Dumper 3 is a massive machine that unloads iron ore from trains for export and has been rebuilt to extend its life, boost reliability, and keep operations running smoothly after years of heavy use. BHP kept its fiscal 2026 output forecast for Western Australia iron ore unchanged at between 284 Mt and 296 Mt. The group's total copper production for the quarter gained 4% to 493.6 kilo tons and the company kept its 2026 output estimates unchanged. BHP added that both stages of Canada's Jansen potash project were making solid progress, with Stage 1 being 73% complete and on track to start production in 2027. The Stage 2 has reached 13% completion. (Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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By Roberto Samora SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Danish shipping company Maersk is testing a blend of Brazilian ethanol with methanol and marine diesel – known as "bunker" – for its vessel engines as part of its efforts to further decarbonize operations, the company announced on Monday. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT The initiative could open a new market for Brazil's ethanol industry while helping to reduce the maritime shipping sector's carbon footprint, which currently accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. BY THE NUMBERS Maersk, which represents 15% of the global maritime shipping market, is testing a blend with 10% of ethanol. If the whole industry adopted the fuel mix, it could create demand for 50 billion liters of ethanol globally per year. Brazil's expected production this year is around 35 billion liters. KEY QUOTES "This is the first time ethanol is being burned in a two-stroke engine that's four stories tall – it's a completely different scale of research and level of concern," said Danilo Veras, VP of Regulatory Policies at Maersk Latam. CONTEXT Maersk, which aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, chose the Brazilian ethanol for the test because it comes from existing sugarcane areas or, when corn-based, mostly from the same fields as soybeans, lowering potential impacts for deforestation, according to Veras. WHAT'S NEXT Maersk will complete ethanol blend tests in methanol-powered vessels by October 23, followed by bunker fuel testing. If successful, the company would begin negotiations with major Brazilian ethanol producers, including Raizen, Copersucar, Inpasa, FS and Atvos. (Reporting by Roberto Samora; Writing by Fernando Cardoso; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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By Greg Bensinger, Shubham Kalia and Deborah Mary Sophia SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon.com said on Monday that a cloud computing unit at its data center in northern Virginia had largely contained fallout from a widespread internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web's most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Amazon said it had addressed the underlying issue and was close to a resolution, but some users were still complaining of lingering difficulties using services such as digital wallet Venmo and video calling site Zoom. The disruption knocked workers from London to Tokyo offline and halted others from conducting normal everyday tasks like paying hairdressers or changing their airline tickets. It was the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown. Amazon did not address a request for more clarity about why that particular data center keeps being impacted, instead pointing to an online statement that said the matter had been "fully mitigated." The problems stemmed from what is known as the Domain Name System, or DNS, which prevented applications from finding the correct address for AWS's DynamoDB API, a cloud database relied upon to store user information and other critical data. After hours of disruptions, many applications were gradually coming back online in the afternoon in the U.S. But AWS acknowledged that elevated errors were still affecting several services. There were "tons of broken internal services still now as individual resolution and repair occurring," read language from an internal problem ticket describing the outage and reviewed by Reuters. Lambda, one of AWS's computing services, was experiencing errors due to issues with an internal subsystem, AWS had said earlier. "We are taking steps to recover this internal Lambda system," it said. Earlier, AWS said the root cause of the outage was an underlying subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers used to distribute traffic across several servers. The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network." EC2 refers to Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS. Businesses use EC2 to run virtual servers to develop, launch and host applications. AWS had said earlier in the day it was seeing signs of recovery for EC2 use at a few data centers. It was taking similar measures at the remaining locations and expects the problems to subside, AWS added, without providing a specific timeline. While some apps like Reddit and Roblox had largely stabilized, according to outage tracking website Downdetector, others, including Snapchat and Duolingo, were showing a resurgence in issues seen earlier in the day. Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said software developers need to build better fault tolerance into their code. He said AWS provides tools developers can use to protect themselves in the event of a problem at one of any of its sprawling network of data centers, and developers can also create backups with other cloud providers.  "When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later," Birman told Reuters. ISSUE ORIGINATED FROM AWS SITE KNOWN FOR PREVIOUS OUTAGES AWS provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals and is the world's largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google Cloud. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms – ranging from food delivery apps to gaming platforms and airline systems – that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS said on its status page that Monday's outage originated at its US-EAST-1 location in northern Virginia, its oldest and largest for web services. The site suffered outages in 2021 and 2020. According to documentation on the AWS website, the US-EAST-1 site is often the default region for many AWS services.  "FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURES" The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and their reliance on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch wreaking havoc on business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures," said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at European cybersecurity firm ESET. In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were all hit, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. Ookla, which owns Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. "For major businesses, hours of cloud downtime translate to millions in lost productivity and revenue," said Ryan Griffin, U.S. cyber practice leader at insurance broker McGill and Partners. Wall Street was largely unfazed, sending Amazon shares 1.6% higher to $216.48. FROM SNAPCHAT TO VENMO: OUTAGE TAKES DOWN APPS Ookla said at least a thousand companies were affected by the outage. Snapchat last had over 7,500 reports on Downdetector, lower than the peak of more than 22,000 but still higher than the 4,000 outage instances at around 7:00 a.m. ET. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit, although Downdetector last showed a decrease in severity. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games; Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage as well, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jaspreet Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Joe Bavier, Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

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By Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Ernest Scheyder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals agreement aimed at countering China on Monday at a meeting marked by Trump's jab at Australia's envoy to the United States over past criticism. China loomed large at the first White House summit between Trump and Albanese, with the U.S. president also backing a strategic nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific. While Trump and Albanese greeted each other warmly, the U.S. president expressed ire about past criticism of him by Australia's U.S. ambassador Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister. Rudd in 2020 called Trump "the most destructive president in history," later deleting the comment from social media. Trump said he was not aware of the critical comments and asked where the envoy was now. Upon seeing him across the table, Trump said, "I don't like you either, and I probably never will." The visit otherwise appeared to go smoothly, with Albanese and Trump signing a minerals deal that Trump said had been negotiated in recent months. Albanese described it as an $8.5 billion pipeline "that we have ready to go." A copy of the agreement released by both governments said the two countries will each invest $1 billion over the next six months into mining and processing projects as well as set a minimum price floor for critical minerals, a move that Western miners have long sought. A White House statement on the agreement added that the investments would target deposits of critical minerals worth $53 billion, although it did not provide details on which types or locations.  "In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them," Trump told reporters. EXIM ANNOUNCES OVER $2.2 BILLION IN INVESTMENTS The U.S. Export-Import Bank, which acts as the U.S. government's export credit agency, later announced seven letters of interest totaling more than $2.2 billion to advance critical minerals projects in Australia. It said the letters went to Arafura Rare Earths, Northern Minerals, Graphinex, Latrobe Magnesium, VHM, RZ Resources, and Sunrise Energy Metals. EXIM said the projects span a range of critical minerals essential to advanced defense systems, aerospace components, communications equipment, and next-generation industrial technologies. The investments would help support the re-industrialization of America’s high-tech manufacturing base, while helping to "counter China's export dominance and ensure Western supply-chain resilience," it said. Additionally, the Pentagon plans to build a gallium refinery in Western Australia. China blocked gallium exports to the United States last December. The United States has been looking to boost its access to critical minerals around the world as China takes steps to strengthen control over global supply. Trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated ahead of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea next week. The term critical minerals applies to a range of minerals, including rare earths, lithium and nickel. China has the world's largest rare earths reserves, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, but Australia also has significant reserves. The minerals are used for products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars. TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR SUBMARINE DEAL Albanese got welcome support from Trump for the A$368 billion ($239.46 billion) AUKUS agreement, reached in 2023 under then-President Joe Biden. Under the deal, Australia is to buy U.S. nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 before building a new submarine class with Britain. While Trump has been eager to roll back Biden-era policies, he signaled his intent to back the AUKUS submarine agreement, months after his team launched a review of the deal over concerns about the ability of the United States to meet its own submarine needs. Navy Secretary John Phelan told the meeting the United States and Australia were working closely to improve the original AUKUS framework for all three parties "and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement." Trump said these were "just minor details," adding that "there shouldn't be any more clarifications, because we're just – we're just going now full steam ahead, building." Ahead of Monday's meeting, Australian officials emphasized that their country is paying its way under AUKUS, contributing $2 billion this year to boost production rates at U.S. submarine shipyards, and preparing to maintain U.S. Virginia-class submarines at its Indian Ocean naval base from 2027. The delay of 10 months in an official meeting since Trump took office had caused some anxiety in Australia as the Pentagon urged the Australian government to increase defense spending. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month. The rare earths agreement came a week after U.S. officials condemned China's expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains. Resource-rich Australia, wanting to extract and process rare earths, put preferential access to its strategic reserve on the table in U.S. trade negotiations in April.  As part of the rare earths agreement, Trump and Albanese agreed to cut permitting for mines, processing facilities and related operations in order to boost production. The deal called for cooperation on the mapping of geological resources, minerals recycling and efforts to stop the sale of critical minerals assets "on national security grounds." This was an oblique reference to China, which has bought major mining assets across the planet in the past decade, including the world's largest cobalt mine in Congo, from U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan in 2016. $1 = 1.5368 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney, Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland, Jarrett Renshaw and David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Ernest Scheyder in Houston; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Colleen Jenkins, Will Dunham and Nick Zieminski)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services on Monday recommended investors vote down plans for AI company CoreWeave to buy infrastructure company Core Scientific in what was billed as a $9 billion deal. Investors will vote on October 30. ISS wrote that Core Scientific has achieved considerable success as a standalone company and could continue going it alone. CoreWeave, which offers cloud infrastructure for artificial-intelligence capabilities, proposed to acquire Core Scientific, which offers computing power, in an all-stock deal with an implied value of $20.40 when it was announced in early July. Soon after, investor Two Seas Capital said it would vote against the deal, citing concerns with the sale process, deal structure, and valuation. It said the fixed exchange ratio left Core Scientific shareholders vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of CoreWeave shares. CoreWeave's shares have fallen since July, thereby reducing the deal's value. On Monday, Core Scientific's stock price jumped over 5% in post-hours trading after having closed trading at $18.81, signaling investors may prefer to have the company stay independent. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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