You don’t have permission to access “http://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2025/11/community-banks-margins-expanding-credit-quality-holding-now” on this server.
Reference #18.c8a0d517.1764380911.7902b9ae
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.c8a0d517.1764380911.7902b9ae
Over canapés of beef and stilton pie, bone marrow gravy and mushy peas, the financiers at JP Morgan’s New York headquarters held their champagne flutes aloft for a toast: “His majesty the king”.
Just days before Rachel Reeves’s budget – amid the chancellor’s efforts to soothe business fears and bond market jitters – Jamie Dimon, the Wall Street banking company’s boss was hosting a birthday celebration for King Charles at it’s new $3bn (£2.3bn) Manhattan headquarters.
Despite the union jack emblazoned on the skyscraper, the king was not there. Varun Chandra, the prime minister’s envoy, however, was among the 400 guests. Dispatched, according to the Financial Times, to reassure the JP Morgan boss of Labour’s pro-business stance.
This week – hours after banks were spared a tax rise in Reeves’s £26bn budget – Dimon unveiled plans to build a 279,000 sq metre (3m sq ft) tower in London’s Canary Wharf district, with a caveat that a “continuing positive business environment in the UK” was required.
It is understood that planning issues and long-term considerations are more important for the bank than any one budget. But the episode still highlights how financial services has won a prized status in government, amid ferocious City lobbying to ensure it was one of the few off-limits sectors in Reeves’s smorgasbord tax-raising budget.
For months Labour has been rolling out the red carpet for Wall Street and City financiers, amid a far broader campaign to woo bankers and company bosses after the party’s pre-election love-in with industry turned sour.
Norman Blackwell, the former chair of Lloyds Banking Group, who also advised Margaret Thatcher on policy in the 1980s, said Reeves had “work to do” to rebuild the confidence of the City after her £40bn tax-raising 2024 budget.
“Before the election they talked as though they would be a party that would recognise the importance of wealth creation in the economy by business and entrepreneurs. Everything they have done in government has gone in the opposite direction.
“They have increased taxes on business, increased regulation in the labour market, [and] the threat to high earners and non-doms. If you look at the numbers of entrepreneurs and rich people leaving the country – they have convinced people that they do not value and will not support entrepreneurs.”
Despite the reprieve for banks, he said the budget was still unlikely to help much because it would do little to boost UK growth. “It’s a budget that takes the economy in the wrong direction, and is in that sense self-defeating in terms of growth and future government revenue.”
Much of the rationale behind the rearguard action is pragmatic. Reeves sees the City as critical to the government’s growth mission, with financial services among the eight critical sectors backed in Labour’s industrial strategy. Finance contributes almost a tenth of UK GDP, employs 1.2 million people, and brings in more than £40bn a year for the exchequer.
In Birmingham earlier this autumn, the chancellor hosted a gala dinner for 300 financiers and business chiefs – putting on a ballet and a spoken-word poetry reading on the eve of its first regional investment summit. Sponsored by HSBC, Lloyds, Eon, KPMG, and IBM, the event the next day at Edgbaston cricket ground secured more than £10bn of investment in Britain.
However, Labour’s proximity to the boardrooms of the Square Mile does not sit comfortably with the party’s own MPs and voters for whom the memories of the 2008 financial crisis still sting. Most people – including a majority of those considering voting for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – would have backed a windfall tax on banks at the budget.
“The chancellor’s failure to levy a windfall tax on the banking sector in the budget is a damning indictment of the stronghold the sector continues to have over our politics,” said Sara Hall, a co-executive director at the campaign group Positive Money.
“It is very concerning that whilst the public is asked to contribute more to fix our crumbling public services, banks got off scott free – it’s high time we have a proper public conversation about the sector’s lobbying and influence.”
Last month Reeves hosted Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon in No 11 Downing Street, with the head of the Wall Street firm advising her against increasing bank taxes. Politico reported he ripped up his briefing notes to focus exclusively on the issue, a detail denied by the bank.
This week, after the budget, Goldman announced that it would expand its Birmingham office and hire 500 staff, in a move that would more than double its workforce in the UK’s second-largest city.
after newsletter promotion
The story could have been different. Reeves had been actively considering a multibillion-pound bank windfall tax to help repair the public finances and fund the removal of the two-child benefit limit.
In August a paper by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank estimated Reeves could rake in as much as £8bn, in a report triggering a sell-off in UK banking shares and prompting the industry to lobby harder.
Reeves’s office was furious with the IPPR report suggesting a windfall tax, and subsequent share price reaction. However, insiders said the Treasury had requested to see the report in advance of its publication.
The Guardian also understands bank profits – inflated by the Bank of England’s quantitative easing scheme – were examined by Treasury officials on the instruction of ministers in the buildup to the budget.
“We get whiplash in meetings with HMT at times,” said one senior banker.
“One minute they’re [senior officials] incredibly nervous about inward investment, the next they’re suggesting that major structural problems are businesses’ fault. Narratives like lenders are the real handbrake on growth creep in. I think they’ve come to realise that the City can’t be taken for granted. London’s one of many financial centres for global banks.”
London’s high-paid corporate lawyers were also among those who expressed relief after the budget, after escaping a threatened tax on their earnings. Reports suggested Reeves was looking at scrapping an exemption for limited liability partnership members from national insurance – a move that would have raised £2bn.
Mark Evans, the president of the Law Society, a body representing lawyers, this week welcomed the reprieve, saying it would have been damaging to the UK economy and claiming that law firms would not have been able to invest, hire, and contribute to growth.
Banking industry figures said the sector pays a 28% headline rate of corporation tax, above the standard 25% rate charged on company profits, in addition to a 0.1% levy on bank’s balance sheets. “It’s hard to say we don’t pay a fair share, as we pay more,” said one bank lobbyist.
However, banks have still managed to rake in record profits, benefiting from rising interest rates and the winding down of the Bank’s quantitative easing scheme. In total, Positive Money estimates banks made £24.1bn in the first half of 2025 alone, amounting to almost £1bn a week.
Speaking earlier this autumn, Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said getting banks to pay a little more to help rebuild Britain was common sense. “Banks have done very well out of the British people. It’s only right that they use their bumper profits to pay a bit more in tax to invest in our hospitals, schools and local councils.”
The Treasury was approached for comment. JP Morgan declined to comment.
Our Toronto office advised certain members of the board of directors of Deveron Corp., a leading agriculture services and data company in North America, on its entry into a share and asset purchase agreement with Rock River Laboratory Inc. and its affiliates.
The transaction, valued at $36.4 million, includes the sale of all Deveron’s assets, including its 66.6% equity interest in A&L Canada Laboratories East, Inc., together with the remaining ownership held by minority vendors.
This strategic transaction enables Deveron to retire significant secured debt obligations, settle earnout payments, and restructure convertible debentures, while ensuring continuity for A&L East’s operations under Rock River’s ownership.
More details are available here.
Brugada, P. & Brugada, J. Right bundle branch block, persistent ST segment elevation and sudden cardiac death: a distinct clinical and electrocardiographic syndrome. A multicenter report. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 20, 1391–1396 (1992).
Monasky, M. M. et al. Genotype-phenotype correlation in a family with Brugada syndrome harboring the novel p.Gln371* nonsense variant in the SCN5A gene. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 20, 5522 (2019).
Milman, A. et al. Profile of patients with Brugada syndrome presenting with their first documented arrhythmic event: data from the Survey on Arrhythmic Events in BRUgada Syndrome (SABRUS). Heart Rhythm 15, 716–724 (2018).
Rimmerman, N. et al. N-palmitoyl glycine, a novel endogenous lipid that acts as a modulator of calcium influx and nitric oxide production in sensory neurons. Mol. Pharm. 74, 213–224 (2008).
Bradshaw, H. B., Raboune, S. & Hollis, J. L. Opportunistic activation of TRP receptors by endogenous lipids: exploiting lipidomics to understand TRP receptor cellular communication. Life Sci. 92, 404–409 (2013).
Amarouch, M. Y. & El Hilaly, J. Inherited Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes: focus on molecular mechanisms underlying TRPM4 channelopathies. Cardiovasc. Ther. 2020, 6615038 (2020).
Alom, F. et al. Possible antagonistic effects of the TRPC4 channel blocker ML204 on M(2) and M(3) muscarinic receptors in mouse ileal and detrusor smooth muscles and atrial myocardium. J. Vet. Med Sci. 80, 1407–1415 (2018).
Szentandrássy, N. et al. Effects of rosiglitazone on the configuration of action potentials and ion currents in canine ventricular cells. Br. J. Pharmacol. 163, 499–509 (2011).
Pieroni, M. et al. Electroanatomic and pathologic right ventricular outflow tract abnormalities in patients with Brugada Syndrome. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 72, 2747–2757 (2018).
Bonny, A. et al. C-reactive protein levels in the Brugada syndrome. Cardiol. Res Pract. 2011, 341521 (2011).
Li, A., Tung, R., Shivkumar, K. & Bradfield, J. S. Brugada syndrome-Malignant phenotype associated with acute cardiac inflammation? HeartRhythm Case Rep. 3, 384–388 (2017).
Gijsbers, K. et al. GCP-2/CXCL6 synergizes with other endothelial cell-derived chemokines in neutrophil mobilization and is associated with angiogenesis in gastrointestinal tumors. Exp. Cell Res. 303, 331–342 (2005).
Torán, J. L. et al. CXCL6 is an important paracrine factor in the pro-angiogenic human cardiac progenitor-like cell secretome. Sci. Rep. 7, 12490 (2017).
Bahudhanapati, H. et al. Increased expression of CXCL6 in secretory cells drives fibroblast collagen synthesis and is associated with increased mortality in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Eur. Respir. J. 63, 2300088 (2024).
Shandelya, S. M., Kuppusamy, P., Herskowitz, A., Weisfeldt, M. L. & Zweier, J. L. Soluble complement receptor type 1 inhibits the complement pathway and prevents contractile failure in the postischemic heart. Evidence that complement activation is required for neutrophil-mediated reperfusion injury. Circulation 88, 2812–2826 (1993).
Lazar, H. L. et al. Beneficial effects of complement inhibition with soluble complement receptor 1 (TP10) during cardiac surgery. Circulation 116, I-83–I-88 (2007).
Milman, A. et al. Gender differences in patients with Brugada syndrome and arrhythmic events: data from a survey on arrhythmic events in 678 patients. Heart Rhythm 15, 1457–1465 (2018).
Li, Q., Wang, P., Ye, K. & Cai, H. Central role of SIAH inhibition in DCC-dependent cardioprotection provoked by netrin-1/NO. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 899–904 (2015).
Juang, J.-M. J. et al. Validation and disease risk assessment of previously reported genome-wide genetic variants associated with Brugada Syndrome. Circ. Genom. Precis. Med. 13, e002797 (2020).
Van Hemelrijck, M., Shanmugalingam, T., Bosco, C., Wulaningsih, W. & Rohrmann, S. The association between circulating IGF1, IGFBP3, and calcium: results from NHANES III. Endocr. Connect. 4, 187–195 (2015).
Ezzili, C., Otrubova, K. & Boger, D. L. Fatty acid amide signaling molecules. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 20, 5959–5968 (2010).
Riccio, A. et al. mRNA distribution analysis of human TRPC family in CNS and peripheral tissues. Brain Res. Mol. Brain Res. 109, 95–104 (2002).
Bröker-Lai, J. et al. Heteromeric channels formed by TRPC1, TRPC4 and TRPC5 define hippocampal synaptic transmission and working memory. EMBO J. 36, 2770–2789 (2017).
Du, S. L., Jia, Z. Q., Zhong, J. C. & Wang, L. F. TRPC5 in cardiovascular diseases. Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 22, 127–135 (2021).
Liu, T., Zhao, H., Li, J., Korantzopoulos, P. & Li, G. Rosiglitazone attenuates atrial structural remodeling and atrial fibrillation promotion in alloxan-induced diabetic rabbits. Cardiovasc. Ther. 32, 178–183 (2014).
Launay, P. et al. TRPM4 is a Ca2+-activated nonselective cation channel mediating cell membrane depolarization. Cell 109, 397–407 (2002).
Nilius, B. et al. Voltage dependence of the Ca2+-activated cation channel TRPM4. J. Biol. Chem. 278, 30813–30820 (2003).
Tarifa, C. et al. Spatial distribution of calcium sparks determines their ability to induce afterdepolarizations in human atrial myocytes. JACC Basic Transl. Sci. 8, 1–15 (2023).
Clapham, D. E. TRP channels as cellular sensors. Nature 426, 517–524 (2003).
Vutthikraivit, W. et al. Worldwide prevalence of Brugada Syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Cardiol. Sin. 34, 267–277 (2018).
Barc, J. et al. Genome-wide association analyses identify new Brugada syndrome risk loci and highlight a new mechanism of sodium channel regulation in disease susceptibility. Nat. Genet. 54, 232–239 (2022).
Priori, S. G. et al. Executive summary: HRS/EHRA/APHRS expert consensus statement on the diagnosis and management of patients with inherited primary arrhythmia syndromes. Europace 15, 1389–1406 (2013).
Priori, S. G. et al. 2015 ESC Guidelines for the management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death: the Task Force for the Management of Patients with Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Endorsed by: Association for European Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology (AEPC). Eur. Heart J. 36, 2793–2867 (2015).
Al-Khatib, S. M. et al. 2017 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death: Executive Summary: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society. Circulation 138, e210–e271 (2018).
Verweij, N. et al. The genetic makeup of the electrocardiogram. Cell Syst. 11, 229–238.e225 (2020).
Nauffal, V. et al. Monogenic and polygenic contributions to QTc prolongation in the population. Circulation 145, 1524–1533 (2022).
Ferkingstad, E. et al. Large-scale integration of the plasma proteome with genetics and disease. Nat. Genet. 53, 1712–1721 (2021).
Sun, B. B. et al. Plasma proteomic associations with genetics and health in the UK Biobank. Nature 622, 329–338 (2023).
Võsa, U. et al. Large-scale cis- and trans-eQTL analyses identify thousands of genetic loci and polygenic scores that regulate blood gene expression. Nat. Genet. 53, 1300–1310 (2021).
Chen, Y. et al. Genomic atlas of the plasma metabolome prioritizes metabolites implicated in human diseases. Nat. Genet. 55, 44–53 (2023).
Willer, C. J. et al. Discovery and refinement of loci associated with lipid levels. Nat. Genet. 45, 1274–1283 (2013).
Barton, A. R., Sherman, M. A., Mukamel, R. E. & Loh, P.-R. Whole-exome imputation within UK Biobank powers rare coding variant association and fine-mapping analyses. Nat. Genet. 53, 1260–1269 (2021).
Evangelou, E. et al. Genetic analysis of over 1 million people identifies 535 new loci associated with blood pressure traits. Nat. Genet. 50, 1412–1425 (2018).
Chen, J. et al. The trans-ancestral genomic architecture of glycemic traits. Nat. Genet. 53, 840–860 (2021).
Soranzo, N. et al. Common variants at 10 genomic loci influence hemoglobin A₁(C) levels via glycemic and nonglycemic pathways. Diabetes 59, 3229–3239 (2010).
Yengo, L. et al. Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for height and body mass index in ∼700000 individuals of European ancestry. Hum. Mol. Genet. 27, 3641–3649 (2018).
Malik, R. et al. Multiancestry genome-wide association study of 520,000 subjects identifies 32 loci associated with stroke and stroke subtypes. Nat. Genet. 50, 524–537 (2018).
Nikpay, M. et al. A comprehensive 1000 Genomes-based genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease. Nat. Genet. 47, 1121–1130 (2015).
Shah, S. et al. Genome-wide association and Mendelian randomisation analysis provide insights into the pathogenesis of heart failure. Nat. Commun. 11, 163 (2020).
Kurki, M. I. et al. FinnGen provides genetic insights from a well-phenotyped isolated population. Nature 613, 508–518 (2023).
Pattaro, C. et al. Genetic associations at 53 loci highlight cell types and biological pathways relevant for kidney function. Nat. Commun. 7, 10023 (2016).
Forgetta, V. et al. Rare genetic variants of large effect influence risk of type 1 diabetes. Diabetes 69, 784–795 (2020).
Xue, A. et al. Genome-wide association analyses identify 143 risk variants and putative regulatory mechanisms for type 2 diabetes. Nat. Commun. 9, 2941 (2018).
Purcell, S. et al. PLINK: a tool set for whole-genome association and population-based linkage analyses. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 81, 559–575 (2007).
Hemani, G., Tilling, K. & Davey Smith, G. Orienting the causal relationship between imprecisely measured traits using GWAS summary data. PLoS Genet. 13, e1007081 (2017).
Skrivankova, V. W. et al. Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology using Mendelian randomization: the STROBE-MR Statement. JAMA 326, 1614–1621 (2021).
Giambartolomei, C. et al. Bayesian test for colocalisation between pairs of genetic association studies using summary statistics. PLoS Genet. 10, e1004383 (2014).
Tofighi, D. & MacKinnon, D. P. RMediation: an R package for mediation analysis confidence intervals. Behav. Res. Methods 43, 692–700 (2011).
Du, L. et al. Dockey: a modern integrated tool for large-scale molecular docking and virtual screening. Brief. Bioinform. 24, bbad047 (2023).
Zhang, Q. et al. Increase in CO(2) levels by upregulating late sodium current is proarrhythmic in the heart. Heart Rhythm 16, 1098–1106 (2019).
Tomek, J., Nieves-Cintron, M., Navedo, M. F., Ko, C. Y. & Bers, D. M. SparkMaster 2: a new software for automatic analysis of calcium spark data. Circ. Res 133, 450–462 (2023).
Tomek, J. et al. Development, calibration, and validation of a novel human ventricular myocyte model in health, disease, and drug block. eLife 8, e48890 (2019).
Xu, H. Code for “N-palmitoyl glycine differentially modulates TRPM4 and TRPC5 and is causally linked to Brugada syndrome”. Zenodo, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17536545 (2025).
By Emily Bary
Meta and Microsoft shares have struggled for momentum over the past three months but rode improving market sentiment this week
Shares of Meta and Microsoft, led by Mark Zuckerberg and Satya Nadella, respectively, staged resurgent performances this week.
During a big week for Big Tech, Meta Platforms and Microsoft shares notched their largest weekly gains in over six months. Is sentiment meaningfully flipping for those beaten-down plays?
The rallies in Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) came as the broad-market mood improved, reflecting investors’ growing expectation that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its December meeting. A rate cut is seen as favorable for technology stocks, and especially for the artificial-intelligence trade. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP closed the week 4.9% higher, while the S&P 500 SPX climbed 3.7%.
Meta’s stock advanced 9% on the week to seal its best weekly performance since May 2. The week’s gain snapped a stretch of four consecutive weekly declines and outperformed Alphabet’s stock (GOOG) (GOOGL), the new market darling.
See also: These two ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks could be the strongest survivors of an AI apocalypse
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s 4.2% rise was enough for its strongest weekly performance since May 2, as well. Within the “Magnificent Seven” grouping of large technology stocks, all but Nvidia (NVDA) landed in positive territory for the week. Tesla’s stock (TSLA) was the biggest gainer, up 10%.
The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF MAGS staged a 5.2% rise on the week, snapping a streak of three consecutive weekly drops. But Citi analysts noted Monday that the “Magnificent Seven” have started to behave less like a monolithic group lately.
Meta and Microsoft shares have generally struggled for momentum in recent months, with Meta off 13.7% over a three-month span and Microsoft down 3.5%.
Don’t miss: Is the ‘Magnificent Seven’ over? Focus on these three stocks in particular.
In the aftermath of Meta’s third-quarter earnings report, investors began to more heavily scrutinize the company’s heightened artificial-intelligence spending given what’s seen to be a murky path to monetization. Whereas Microsoft, Amazon.com (AMZN) and Alphabet have cloud businesses that can financially benefit from the AI boom, Meta doesn’t. The company says that AI has helped it improve creative tools for advertisers and content recommendations for users, but Wall Street isn’t sure that other bets, like a chatbot, will pay off.
Don’t miss: Meta’s stock has been under heavy pressure. Now the company is undergoing a shakeup.
BNP Paribas analyst Nick Jones, who initiated coverage of Meta shares with a bullish rating earlier this week, agreed that success in large language models looks far from certain but praised the company’s monetization potential beyond that.
Read: Meta’s stock finds a new defender, who predicts 30% upside from here
Microsoft’s stock pressure has been somewhat more puzzling for Wall Street analysts, though they’ve come up with some theories, many of which relate to close partner OpenAI. First investors were worried that OpenAI would diversify away from Microsoft, but lately the concern has been that OpenAI might not even be the future of artificial intelligence, as Alphabet’s efforts gain steam.
In a volatile year, shares of Microsoft are now up 16.7% on a year-to-date basis, a performance that ranks third within the “Magnificent Seven” and is roughly in line with the S&P 500’s 16.5% gain. And shares of Meta, which as recently as last week flirted with a wipeout of all their 2025 gains, are now ahead 10.7% on the year.
-Emily Bary
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-28-25 1316ET
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
(Bloomberg) — US stocks advanced in thin trading after a technical outage at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange disrupted premarket activity. Bonds edged lower.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% in a post-holiday shortened session and was back within spitting distance of all-time highs. Volume was more than 25% below the 30-day average as Friday trading closed at 1:00 p.m. Earlier, a data-center fault had affected multiple markets, with the issue lasting longer than a similar outage in 2019. The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.8% with Intel Corp. among its biggest gainers. Amazon.com Inc. shares gained 1.8% and Walmart Inc. hit a record on what’s traditionally one of the biggest US shopping days of the year.
Subscribe to the Stock Movers Podcast on Apple, Spotify and other Podcast Platforms.
Foreign-exchange markets, which had continued to traded throughout the day, saw no major volatility after the EBS platform reopened at 7:00 a.m.
“The spillover from the Thanksgiving holiday and the fact there is no US data may on the face of it lessen the impact,” said Daniel Noorian, head of execution and quantitative services at Liquidnet.
The CME halt was caused by a cooling system malfunction at a data center in the Chicago area, according to facility operator CyrusOne.
“Some market participants will take advantage of possible differences in prices,” said Guillermo Hernandez Sampere, head of trading at asset manager MPPM. “The majority will pause trading for risk reasons until the issues are resolved, otherwise losses are possible.”
For US stocks, expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates faster than initially anticipated fueled a late-month rebound.
The biggest weekly advance in five months capped off a choppy November after swollen technology stock valuations stirred up unease on Wall Street. The gain buoyed the broader barometer of US stocks as it notched a seven-month winning streak. But investors rotating away from artificial intelligence winners and into defensive sectors like health care led the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 to log its first monthly loss since March.
The broader US stocks gauge had been down as much as 4.7% in November barely more than a week ago, as worries over stretched technology valuations rattled traders. Money markets were assigning roughly an 80% chance of a Fed cut in December before the CME disruption hit.
“For now, the data supports the soft landing, and that contributed to the continued equity rally ahead of Thanksgiving,” wrote Tom Essaye of the Sevens Report. “However, there remain a lot of economic unknowns right now and there are simmering risks that the economy is not as strong as investors believe given the lack of government data in recent months.”
Essaye said there could be risk-off money flows in December if upcoming data disappoint. Next week, statistics-starved investors will be watching for Challenger, Gray & Christmas job cuts and ADP’s private-payrolls reports as well as a reading of the Fed’s favored inflation gauge on Friday.
Moves across global equities were muted amid thin volumes. Europe’s Stoxx 600 edged up 0.2%, while an Asian gauge trimmed gains after a four-day rally. Yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.02% while the dollar held steady.
In commodities, oil was on track for a fourth monthly decline as traders looked ahead to this weekend’s OPEC+ meeting and assessed how a possible Ukraine peace agreement might influence an already oversupplied market.
Gold traders faced a volatile session as the CME outage rippled through trading. The disruption affected activity across contracts including gold futures and Comex options, often used to hedge exposure to London prices. Spot bullion resumed a climb as trading was restored, advancing more than 1%.
What Bloomberg Strategists Say…
Gold’s main drivers — central-bank buying, Fed rate cuts, a weaker dollar, concerns about the US central bank’s independence, and a loyal crew of ETF holders — all remain in place. There’s also concern in the background about swelling debt burdens in several developed economies and, by extension, the standing of fiat currencies.
— Jake Lloyd-Smith Energy and Commodities Editor, Singapore
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% as of 1 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.8% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6% The MSCI World Index rose 0.5% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1% The euro was little changed at $1.1602 The British pound was little changed at $1.3235 The Japanese yen was little changed at 156.23 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 0.8% to $90,683.7 Ether rose 0.1% to $3,037.02 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 4.02% Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.69% Britain’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 4.44% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.4% to $59.47 a barrel Spot gold rose 1.4% to $4,217.17 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.on.
–With assistance from Subrat Patnaik, James Hirai, Sujata Rao, Macarena Muñoz and Christian Dass.
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
CME blamed the outage, which halted trading for more than 11 hours, on a cooling failure at a data centre in Chicago.
Global futures markets were thrown into chaos for several hours after CME Group, the world’s largest exchange operator, suffered one of its longest outages in years, halting trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.
By 13:35 GMT on Friday, trading in foreign exchange, stock and bond futures as well as other products had resumed, after having been knocked out for more than 11 hours because of an outage at an important data centre, according to LSEG data.
list of 4 itemsend of list
CME blamed the outage on a cooling failure at data centres run by CyrusOne, which said its Chicago-area facility had affected services for customers, including CME.
The disruption stopped trading in major currency pairs on CME’s EBS platform, as well as benchmark futures for West Texas Intermediate crude, Nasdaq 100, Nikkei, palm oil and gold, according to LSEG data.
Trading volumes have been thinned out this week by the United States Thanksgiving holiday, and with dealers looking to close positions for the end of the month, there was a risk of volatility picking up sharply later on, market participants said.
“It’s a black eye to the CME and probably an overdue reminder of the importance of market structure and how interconnected all these are,” Ben Laidler, head of equity strategy at Bradesco BBI, said.
“We complacently take for granted that much of the timing is frankly not great. It’s month-end, a lot of things get rebalanced.”
“Having said that, it could have been a lot worse; it’ll be a very low-volume day. If you’re going to have it, there would have been worse days to have a breakdown like this,” he said.
Futures are a mainstay of financial markets and are used by dealers, speculators and businesses wishing to hedge or hold positions in a wide range of underlying assets. Without these and other instruments, brokers were left flying blind, and many were reluctant to trade contracts with no live prices for hours on end.
“Beyond the immediate risk of traders being unable to close positions – and the potential costs that follow – the incident raises broader concerns about reliability,” said Axel Rudolph, senior technical analyst at trading platform IG.
A few European brokerages said earlier in the day they had been unable to offer trading in some products on certain futures contracts.
Regulators are tracking the situation, with both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission confirming they are aware of the issue and conducting ongoing surveillance.
CME is the biggest exchange operator by market value and says it offers the widest range of benchmark products, spanning rates, equities, metals, energy, cryptocurrencies and agriculture.
Average daily derivatives volume was 26.3 million contracts in October, CME said earlier this month.
The CME outage on Friday comes more than a decade after the operator had to shut electronic trading for some agricultural contracts in April 2014 due to technical problems, which at the time sent traders back onto the floor.
More recently, in 2024, outages at LSEG and Switzerland’s exchange operator briefly interrupted markets.
CME’s own shares were up 0.4 percent in premarket trading.
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is a former global head of equity capital markets at Bank of America and is now a managing director at Seda Experts.
It’s that time of year again: investment banks are announcing their latest slate of managing directors.
The ritual is as fraught as it is familiar. I still remember when my boss called me into his office 24 years ago to say I’d been promoted. It felt like a huge career breakthrough, but soon after the list of new MDs was published, a colleague warned me the bank would pay me less that year, knowing the title alone would keep me happy. I thought he was joking but it turned out that he was right.
Investment banks devote enormous resources each year to the MD promotion cycle. For anyone unfamiliar with investment banks, managing directors sit at the top of the hierarchy, above analysts, associates, vice-presidents, and directors. Outside the C-suite, it is the highest title at most firms, although a few banks have an additional tier of partners or senior MDs. So gaining the MD rank can be the defining moment in a banking career.
Yet it remains unclear whether the elaborate selection process — replete with committees, revenue trackers, 360-degree performance reviews, and senior leadership sign-off — leads to better decisions or simply creates the appearance of fairness.
At one level, the promotion process has impeccable rigour. A committee of senior MDs is convened, each assessing two or three candidates each. Candidates submit about 10 internal references, though committee members conduct their own checks. The committee factors in revenue scorecards, peer feedback and broader considerations such as regional representation, diversity, and coverage across different parts of the firm. The system is built to look unimpeachably meritocratic.
But anyone who has sat on these committees knows that politics and personalities inevitably intrude. Senior MDs quietly lobby for their protégés, and top leadership can override the committee’s recommendations. Last-minute decisions to promote office favourites occasionally happen.
Judging candidates is genuinely hard; comparing them is harder. How do you benchmark a Houston-based energy M&A banker against a German debt capital markets originator? Their skills, markets and revenue profiles bear almost no resemblance, and yet the system demands you rank them. One may make the cut, the other not.
The questions asked in the promotion committee highlight the salient issues. Is this person indispensable or replaceable? Do they have their own client franchise, or are they a supporting player to a rainmaker? How valuable is their “seat” at the bank? How likely are they to leave if passed over for promotion? These are perennial questions, and they also reveal how much of the process rests on finely balanced, ineradicably subjective judgments.
Across most big investment banks, only one-third to one-half of eligible directors make the jump to managing director in a given year. The title still carries weight, but at first the job barely changes. You don’t manage more people and the work looks much the same. After my own promotion, the only immediate difference was that I could put “managing director” on the pitch-book team page.
The real change is subtle and accrues over time. You gain the ability to say no without giving a long justification, the freedom to leave the office for a long lunch or a school play, and the authority to schedule calls around your own calendar instead of someone else’s. Those are valuable powers.
Later, compensation and influence begin to diverge. Some MDs build a franchise and flourish; others plateau and stagnate; a few crash and burn. The title just opens a door.
It’s easy to be cynical about the whole thing but one moment has stayed with me. A senior colleague and I video-called a banker based in a small Asian market to deliver happy promotion news. He was talented and hardworking, but operating in a place with limited revenue potential. So his MD prospects had always been on a knife-edge.
When he heard the decision, tears welled up in his eyes. He spoke with unfiltered joy about what promotion meant to him and his family — proof that his contributions were appreciated, that his work really mattered to his colleagues and clients, that he was respected by his peers.
That moment reminded me that, for all the processes and politics, MD promotion still taps into something deeply human: the need for recognition. For many, that validation matters as much as — and sometimes more than — money. The managing director title may bring baubles and benefits, but its true value lies in what it means to those who earn it.
craig.coben@ft.com
Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Investments myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Shares in Sainsbury’s have been on a tear since mid April, but they gathered further momentum in November when management revealed interim underlying retail operating profit of £504mn, well ahead of its own expectations.
Three insiders at the grocer — Patrick Dunne, Rhian Bartlett, and Bláthnaid Bergin — recently derived material benefit from the run-up in the share price, having collectively offloaded £2.8mn worth of shares between November 14 and 18. Bergin, Sainsbury’s finance chief, continues to hold an interest in 466,134 shares after selling (via a closely associated person) roughly one-third of her holding at around 320p apiece.
The group, along with its high street counterparts, can expect a degree of support from investors who are nervous over current markets valuations and prospects over discretionary budgets in the wake of the autumn Budget. The degree to which the market will gravitate towards defensive stocks is difficult to gauge, especially given that we could witness slower growth rates compared with recent years.
Increased price sensitivity among consumers is already constraining discretionary household budgets, but short of another quarter point cut in interest rates, it’s conceivable that the market backdrop will become increasingly favourable for the more value-conscious German grocers.
Nonetheless, sentiment towards Sainsbury’s (at least among traders) was boosted by a positive technical signal midway through June, coupled with news that the grocer had achieved its highest market share in almost a decade. In addition, the forward rating of 3.4 times on an enterprise/cash profit basis compares favourably with both Marks and Spencer and Tesco. And the stock also comes with an implied forward dividend yield (ex-special) in advance of 6 per cent.