Markets · page 3

Chris Hughes: Recordati shows private equity’s self-dealing problem

• CVC’s Fund VII has held 47% of Milan-listed drugmaker Recordati since a 2018 deal with the founding family, but a clean exit proved elusive.
• In May a consortium led by CVC’s Fund IX and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert agreed to buy the whole company for €10.7bn. The board backed it, but the independent directors called the price inadequate, and activist Palliser says a small top-up still is not fair.
• Columnist Chris Hughes argues the price looks skewed to the buyer; if the deal fails, Fund VII may have to sell its shares in the market at a discount.

Other side: Hughes himself notes such deals are not wrong in themselves if each side has independent governance, and the buyer brings fresh co-investors.

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Summary based on Bloomberg Opinion. Read the full story ↗

Money managers brace as a record El Niño forms

• Forecasters see a very strong El Niño likely lasting into early 2027; Pictet’s Katie Self says it is almost certain to be the most extreme on record, with knock-on effects everywhere.
• It is already fanning droughts and floods: India had its weakest monsoon in more than a decade, food commodity prices are rising, and economists are revising inflation and deficit forecasts.
• T. Rowe Price uses custom models to shield its $165bn emerging-market portfolio, and an Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute note names Indonesia, Brazil and Colombia as the most exposed sovereigns.

Other side: El Niño cycles are not new and markets have lived through them; forecasters see the odds of a strong event fading through the first half of 2027.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

Anthropic's IPO filing: hot growth, a huge loss and a narrowing window

• WSJ reports Anthropic's draft prospectus shows a first-half net loss of $80.7bn, mostly an accounting charge tied to the value of its convertible notes rather than cash spent running the business.
• Revenue is growing far faster than computing costs, but a big share comes from a handful of customers, and the firm signals it could spend up to $750bn on compute, partly through deals still being negotiated.
• An FT Unhedged column argues the listing window, now pencilled in for November, is narrowing as markets wobble, borrowing costs rise and questions grow over who is liable when AI agents cause harm.

Watch next: Most of the loss is a non-cash accounting charge and revenue still outpaces costs, so the headline may overstate the strain. The sharper test is reliance on a few customers.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

CoreWeave's bond yield and CDS: an early warning for AI debt?

• Some CoreWeave bonds fell sharply in mid-October, pushing the yield on its 2031 notes above 16%. The coupon is unchanged, but new buyers now demand a far bigger return for the risk.
• The cost of five-year credit default swaps, insurance that pays out if a borrower fails to pay, hit a record 1,194.5 basis points on 15 October.
• ET Prime explains that rises in both signals show confidence weakening. Before the 2008 crisis, rising bank CDS gave early warning; the worry now is stress spreading to AI lenders, suppliers and stocks.

Watch next: CoreWeave's November results. Markets often reprice risky debt without a crisis, the firm reports a large contracted backlog, and no one has forecast a default.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

France's debt trouble and a lopsided world economy: lessons for India

• A Mint editorial traces France's student protests to fiscal strain: debt near 120% of GDP, a deficit above 5%, and a pension bill governments failed to rein in, as borrowing costs rise worldwide.
• A Mint analysis of IMF data finds growth concentrated: 32 economies supplied over 95% of global growth in 2026, with China, India and the US together giving nearly 60%.
• It argues AI investment is offsetting the drag from the West Asia war and costly oil, but warns India, a net debtor, needs a stronger current account to stay resilient.

Other side: Debt ratios alone can mislead: a faster-growing economy can carry more borrowing, and street protests usually have many causes beyond the budget.

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Summary based on Mint. Read the full story ↗

Microsoft's exit from an Nscale lease is a reality check for neoclouds

• Microsoft pulled out of leasing capacity at Nscale's planned data centre in Essex, which may not get power until after 2030, as Nscale targets a New York listing at a $35bn valuation.
• An FT Lex column says neoclouds need power, chips and upfront financing at once, so their big order books carry heavy execution risk; Anthropic and Microsoft fill most of Nscale's backlog.
• Valued on peers' multiples, Lex argues, Nscale is worth far less, while bigger players with ready capacity stand to win.

Other side: The Essex site was a small slice of Microsoft's spending with Nscale, and its other contracts may hold; one cancelled lease need not sink the model.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Larry Ellison borrowed against his shares to fund his son's Warner bid

• WSJ reports Larry Ellison dropped a plan to sell Oracle stock and instead widened loans from several big banks, pledging shares in Oracle, Tesla, SpaceX and Paramount Skydance to help fund his son David's Warner Bros. takeover.
• Oracle says 413 million of his shares, worth around $58bn, now back his personal debts, more than a year earlier.
• Borrowing lets the very rich keep their stock and avoid locking in taxable gains, a strategy dubbed "buy, borrow and die". Oracle's board says he can repay without selling pledged shares.

Other side: Pledged stock can force selling if prices slump, but Oracle reviews the pledges every quarter and most of his stake is not tied to borrowing.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

War's hidden squeeze: a sulphur shortage pits EV batteries against food

• ET Prime explains that refineries give out sulphur as a by-product, so with Gulf refineries cut off by the US-Iran war and Russian plants hit, sulphur is short, and nobody can make more on purpose.
• Its acid is needed for phosphate fertiliser and EV battery materials. Buyers who can pass on costs keep running: in China, battery-material plants ran near full while fertiliser plants ran at about a third of capacity.
• Export curbs by Russia, China, India and others deepened the squeeze. The hit to harvests may show up a season later; India has told refiners to supply fertiliser makers first.

Watch next: Ships through Hormuz. If the strait reopens soon and the weather is kind, stockpiles and leaner fertiliser grades may soften the blow; nobody yet knows how big the harvest hit will be.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

India can build anything, and its founders are starting to

• Pixxel founder Awais Ahmed argues India must build rockets, chips and materials as well as apps, noting China’s share of world manufacturing rose from under 3% in 1990 to 32%.
• He points to the government’s ₹1 lakh crore research fund, whose first 19 managers have ₹7,131 crore committed. YourStory reports Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala telling TechSparks that India can develop any technology and should back young risk-takers.
• Inc42’s tracker says over 70 new-age tech companies are now listed, worth over $173bn combined, and over 60 are profitable.

Other side: Ahmed himself says deep-tech founders must meet rigorous standards, because patience is no licence for endless experimenting. Will results arrive as fast as the optimism?

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Summary based on X, YourStory and Inc42. Read the full story ↗

Ares and Gemes: AI debt looks safer than it is

• Ares’ Fall 2026 ‘In The Gaps’ says insurers, long the market’s most cautious investors, now hold venture-style risk packaged as investment-grade bonds funding the AI build-out.
• Ares traced 100+ financings back to eight names, from Meta and Oracle to OpenAI and Anthropic, and notes chip resale values are assumed anywhere from 10% to 60%.
• Orlando Gemes’ LinkedIn summary adds early warnings: Meta-linked Beignet bonds hit a record low near 94.4, and Oracle sent a force majeure notice on its Project Jupiter campus.

Other side: Gemes says none of this is a default yet, Oracle calls its notice precautionary and Blue Owl says its commitments are unchanged. Is this a structural flaw, or partly just rates?

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Summary based on LinkedIn and Ares. Read the full story ↗

France is on fire, but something more dangerous burns below

• The Economic Times says France’s debt is about €3.5tn, close to 120% of GDP, and its 10-year yield near 4.9% is the highest in over two decades, about 140 basis points above Germany’s.
• The 2027 budget seeks €43bn in cuts and tax rises, while interest payments are projected at €91.2bn, more than education or defence.
• Pension costs take 32% of the education ministry’s budget, so protests over schools collide with the need for austerity.

Other side: The piece notes France is not facing automatic default: long debt maturities and a diversified investor base give some cover, and the IMF calls the rise manageable for now.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

America’s $10tn AI data-centre boom is starting to fray

• The FT reports that America’s data-centre build-out, projected at more than $10tn, is running into delays, local opposition and nervous lenders.
• At least 47 large projects have been delayed, withdrawn or blocked this year, and higher borrowing costs are squeezing the newer “neocloud” builders that must finance construction.
• Investors began repricing risk this week: CoreWeave’s debt and shares fell, planned listings stalled, and doubts grew over whether the labs’ revenues can cover the bills.

Watch next: Whether lenders keep funding the newer builders or only the strongest names. Delays are not cancellations, and the big labs’ hunger for computing power has not vanished.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Sebi’s gold-fund curbs leave a gap as savers pile into bullion

• Mint reports that Sebi has told mutual funds to stop taking fresh money into gold fund-of-funds from 16 October, apparently to ease pressure on the rupee, while gold ETFs are untouched.
• Experts say that leaves a back door: ETFs hold about 66% of the industry’s gold assets, and buyers with a demat account can simply switch. Gold imports fell 27% to $19.27bn in April to September.
• A Mint column by Rajrishi Singhal raises the bigger worry: household gold and silver investment rose 32.3% in two years to March 2025, with drought, inflation and rising rates still to come.

Other side: Fund routes are a small slice of India’s gold demand, so the curbs were never going to be decisive. Even so, a modest nudge can matter if it signals that more is coming.

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Summary based on Mint. Read the full story ↗

FT column: not every billionaire is a policy failure

• In an FT column, Tej Parikh argues the slogan “every billionaire is a policy failure” is too blunt: how a fortune was made matters more than its size.
• He notes that UBS counts about 70% of the world’s billionaires as self-made, and says the real problems are rent-seeking, inheritance and tax loopholes such as “buy, borrow, die”.
• Wealth taxes, he warns, can drive out founders and deter investment, with California voting next month on a one-off 5% levy. He prefers tighter donation rules, antitrust and closed loopholes.

Other side: Critics would say even self-made fortunes concentrate political power, and that loopholes are hard to close in practice, which is why some favour taxing wealth directly.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Nilesh Shah: Hindustan Zinc shows what IDBI Bank's sale could achieve

• Kotak AMC's Nilesh Shah says the government sold about 45% of loss-making Hindustan Zinc, with control, to Vedanta two decades ago for around ₹769 crore, and kept roughly 29%.
• Dividends on the stake it kept have exceeded the sale price, he says, and that stake is now worth over ₹62,000 crore, while the company became the world's largest integrated zinc producer.
• He contrasts IDBI, which stayed public, needed repeated capital top-ups and is valued at ₹90,000 crore, with ICICI, which went private and is worth ₹9.88 lakh crore.

Other side: One success picked with hindsight proves little: how much of Zinc's gain came from new owners and how much from its market? A bank holds public deposits, so its risks are different.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

Tesla's flying Roadster dazzles, but key details are missing

• At a SpaceX test site in Texas, Tesla showed a Roadster that can lift off, using cold-gas thrusters said to be derived from SpaceX technology. Its price, and where it could legally fly, were not announced.
• The flight-capable version is invite-only and not approved for public roads; a two-seat version is described as road-ready. Tesla promises record-setting acceleration.
• Elon Musk says production starts in 2028, after a 2020 target slipped. Some buyers who paid deposits of up to $250,000 are still waiting; analysts see a brand halo more than a revenue driver.

Watch next: Whether a production car ships in 2028. Even at tiny volumes, a halo product can lift a brand and pull buyers into cheaper models.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

IMF: an AI bust would hit growth in rich and poor countries alike

• AI dominated the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok. Data-centre investment is powering US growth, and Asian exports of chips and servers are booming, masking weak consumer spending.
• The IMF ran scenarios without picking one: an AI productivity boom, a boom slowed by supply bottlenecks, and a bust in which investors sour, US investment falls, stocks drop and the dollar weakens. The bust could cut global growth by up to 1.3 percentage points in 2028.
• It also flagged AI-assisted cyberattacks on banks as a new risk to stability. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva expects some disappointment, because new technology takes time to spread.

Other side: The IMF stresses these are scenarios, not forecasts, and it also sketched an upside case. Fed chair Kevin Warsh sees AI as a long-run boost to supply that need not stoke inflation.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

CoreWeave shows the AI trade's weak spot: the borrowers

• Rising Treasury yields and fresh doubts about AI profits hit CoreWeave hard this week: its shares were down as much as 28% at one point, and some of its bonds traded at levels investors treat as distressed.
• The Nvidia-backed chip renter relies on borrowing to grow, carries at least $35 billion of debt and has a speculative-grade rating, unlike cash-rich Microsoft and Alphabet, which barely moved.
• Shares rebounded after Nvidia's Jensen Huang said CoreWeave was getting stronger. Analysts say it can still raise money through loans secured on customer contracts and through equity.

Other side: Demand for AI computing is still surging, Bank of America just raised its revenue forecasts, and long customer contracts can carry a borrower through a rough patch.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Buffett's hedge-fund bet: fees, not skill, decide the race

• ET Prime's series on Buffett's shareholder letters reaches 2016, when he publicly offered to bet that a cheap S&P 500 index fund would beat any five hedge funds over ten years. Only Ted Seides of Protégé Partners took him on.
• Nine years in, the index fund had compounded at 7.1% a year against 2.2% for Seides's five funds-of-funds. Buffett reckoned roughly 60% of what those funds did earn went to the two layers of managers.
• The letter's other lessons: a buyback helps the owners who stay only if shares are bought below their worth, paying for deals in stock can cost far more than cash, and investors should hold cash for rare panics.

Other side: Some managers do beat the market for decades, as Buffett himself concedes, and an index fund rides every bubble the market does.

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Summary based on The Economic Times (ET Prime). Read the full story ↗

J.P. Morgan: India is becoming investors’ default non-AI bet

• J.P. Morgan’s Rajiv Batra argues India is increasingly the default pick for investors who want emerging-market exposure without the AI trade. India is about 12% of the MSCI EM index, against about 25% for China.
• Foreign investors bought about $2.5bn in July and $3bn in August, yet own just 17.6% of large caps, a decade-plus low. Domestic institutions have been net buyers for 37 straight months.
• The bank expects FY27 earnings growth of about 10.4–11% and GDP growth of 6.5–7%. The risks it flags: oil well above $90, rising global yields and a stronger El Niño. Published 15 September.

Other side: Being the non-AI market cuts both ways. If AI stocks keep running, India lags, and a sustained oil spike would test the story fast.

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Summary based on J.P. Morgan. Read the full story ↗

IMF: three risks keep global finance on edge

• The IMF says markets have stayed resilient since April, but risks to financial stability are still elevated. It names three: a sharp correction in AI-linked stocks, a sudden rise in government bond yields, and cyber attacks.
• Policy is turning: 14 of 33 major central banks have raised rates since the second quarter, against 2 in the first. In its stress test, bank capital would fall about 1.5 points, yet weak banks now hold 22% of global bank assets.
• Its advice is to curb leverage behind the AI boom, steady public debt, and strengthen cyber defences.

Other side: Banks overall pass the stress test, and the IMF rates the AI risk as unchanged since April, so this is a warning about weak spots rather than a forecast of a crash.

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Summary based on International Monetary Fund. Read the full story ↗

IDBI sale would be India’s 13th strategic disinvestment

• The proposed ₹52,878 crore sale of a 60.72% stake in IDBI Bank to Canada’s Fairfax would be the government’s 13th strategic disinvestment in a decade, and its largest, ahead of HPCL (₹36,915 crore) and Air India.
• Not every deal brought in cash. Some were transfers between state-owned firms, one raised no exchequer proceeds, and of Air India’s ₹18,000 crore price the Tatas paid ₹2,700 crore in cash and took over ₹15,300 crore of debt.

Watch next: Whether the Fairfax deal closes and how much of the price is cash. Private owners may also run weak state firms better, which is part of the policy case.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

Australia’s biggest IPO in 30 years is cancelled amid AI jitters

• Data-centre firm Firmus cancelled a planned raise of almost $5bn, which would have been Australia’s largest IPO in 30 years, citing market volatility. It plans a private raise and a US listing next year.
• Airtrunk and SoftBank’s SB Energy have also delayed, and timing for the Anthropic and OpenAI listings is uncertain. Rising rates, jumpy markets and local backlash to data centres are blamed.
• Nscale still hopes to list within weeks.

Watch next: Whether Nscale lists on schedule, and whether Anthropic’s investor day restores confidence.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Blackstone’s Jon Gray: India is the second-easiest place to list

• Blackstone’s chief operating officer says India is the firm’s best-performing market and it wants to double its investment there to $100bn in five years, from about $50bn now.
• Gray concedes that wars, energy costs, rising rates and heavy AI spending may squeeze asset multiples, but calls India’s pullback a better entry point for a patient investor, citing growth above 7% and a young population.
• He points to liquid markets, including a $1bn-plus share sale in August, and says Indian IT firms are turning into AI deployment partners.

Other side: A big investor talks its own book: Blackstone gains if Indian valuations and listings stay strong. Public-market money moves faster, and Gray concedes it can be fickle.

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Summary based on The Economic Times. Read the full story ↗

Bank of America pays $1.2bn over weak money-laundering controls

• US regulators fined Bank of America about $1.2bn after finding weak systems for spotting and reporting financial crime, including money laundering by Chinese underground bankers and suspicious activity near the southwest border.
• Officials say the bank failed to report more than $5bn of suspicious activity, and that tests ordered after a 2024 Treasury order exposed further gaps.
• The bank says it has spent billions on compliance and will book a $1.2bn non-deductible charge in Wednesday’s third-quarter results; shares slipped in after-hours trading.

Other side: The bank says it has worked with regulators for years and spent billions on controls, and criminal networks adapt faster than supervisors, so some failures may reflect an arms race rather than neglect.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Rising sickness and disability claims strain Britain’s budget

• WSJ says Britain has seen an unusual surge in sickness and disability claims: about seven million people now claim, many for mental-health conditions that are hard to verify.
• The yearly bill, excluding healthcare, tops £100bn and keeps rising, while Britain’s borrowing costs are the highest in the G7 and investors punish any sign of weak fiscal discipline.
• An earlier attempt to tighten eligibility was dropped after a backlash and a bond sell-off; the new Labour leadership promises reform without “crude cuts”, with a budget due later this month.

Other side: Some of the rise may reflect genuine need and better recognition of mental-health conditions, and hard cuts could push vulnerable people into hardship rather than into work.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Brands, not platforms, fund the creator economy

• The FT finds that platform payouts are only part of the creator economy; the big money comes from brands that sponsor or commission content, and agencies and talent managers are racing to broker it.
• For many creators, brand deals make up about 80% of earnings. Rates climb once an account passes roughly 100,000 followers and gets an agent, and average video views now matter more than follower counts.
• YouTube pays most clearly, having shared $100bn with partners from 2022 to 2025, while TikTok, Instagram and X pay less but offer reach. Brands also fear creator misbehaviour and unclear expectations.

Other side: The money is uneven and platform payouts are patchy, and campaigns that look good on paper may not convert, as marketers themselves warn.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Andy Kessler: how the AI data-centre boom ends

• The WSJ columnist argues that today’s brute-force AI, giant models on costly chips in power-hungry data centres, will go the way of mainframes: still sold, but no longer where the growth is.
• He says the “factor of 10” shift has begun: comparable Chinese open-weight models charge about 90% less per token than leading US labs, and compressed models now run on PCs and phones with no token costs.
• If prices fall 90%, demand must rise 900% just to stand still, so he warns of data-centre halts and debt defaults, and asks whether 2027 is peak data centre.

Other side: Cheaper tokens can unlock new uses, and Kessler himself says training, science and agents still need big chips, so the build-out could slow without collapsing.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Gerard Baker: voters think the US economy is worse than it is

• The WSJ’s editor at large argues that, as in 1992, perceptions rather than data are driving voters ahead of next month’s midterms, which Republicans expect to lose badly.
• A Quinnipiac poll gives Trump 31% approval on the economy, lower than Biden scored in June 2022, when inflation was at a 40-year high and output was shrinking, even though inflation and unemployment are lower today.
• He grants that prices remain far above 2020 levels and that tariffs and a war-driven rise in energy prices feed bills, but says AI investment may be starting a long boom.

Other side: After years of increases, households judge price levels, not the inflation rate, and fuel costs have climbed again, so the ‘misperception’ may be a fair reading of stretched budgets.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Diamonds may not be forever, at least in value

• A standard one-carat natural diamond averaged about $3,898 in September 2026, down 51% from $8,007 in September 2021, according to Rapaport data.
• Lab-grown stones, chemically identical, were in 61% of engagement rings sold in 2025, The Knot’s study finds; a comparable lab stone costs about $450, against $2,800 to $3,200 for a natural one.
• The market is splitting: mid-range natural stones are most exposed, larger and rarer gems are holding up, and De Beers is halting its Venetia mine for more than two years to curb supply.

Watch next: Rapaport’s one-carat index was flat in August after 13 months of falls, and De Beers’ supply cut could put a floor under prices.

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Summary based on InvestmentNews. Read the full story ↗