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Category: 3. Business

  • European markets to open higher as choppy month draws to an end

    European markets to open higher as choppy month draws to an end

    LONDON — European stocks are expected to higher on Friday as investors digest the end of a choppy month.

    Futures tied to London’s FTSE 100 were last seen around 0.2% higher, while Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC edged upwards, according to data from IG Group.

    November has been a volatile month for equities with fears of stretched AI valuations resurfacing, causing a rollercoaster of relief rallies and sell-offs adding to insights from the latest earnings season and uncertainty over monetary policy.

    However, global markets were buoyed this week by rising expectations of an interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve when it next meets on Dec. 9-10.

    The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed 1.1% higher on Thursday, with Germany’s Puma shares soaring more than 18% following a media report that Chinese sports multinational Anta Sports is preparing an acquisition bid.

    Investors will be watching defense stock moves on Friday as U.S. officials continue to attempt to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his silence on the plan on Thursday and said his country is ready for “serious talks.”

    An overall positive month for the Stoxx 600

    The benchmark notched upwards for the fifth consecutive month in November, with healthcare-related stocks leading the index. Roche and Bayer performed well after each posting strong trial data, while France’s Abivax is up well over 1000% year-to-date amid promising data around its ulcerative colitis drug.

    Tech names experienced swings as fears around an AI-fueled bubble and stretched valuations in the U.S. spilled over to Europe. Dutch chip equipment maker ASML is around 2% lower this month.

    Defense stocks have also seen losses, with Germany’s Hensoldt down by nearly 25% this month amid delayed growth guidance at its capital markets day.

    In terms of data, a handful of European member states are expected to release preliminary inflation data on Friday.

    U.K. car production data from The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders came early in the day, revealing a fall of 23.8% year-on-year in October 2025, following a cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover that halted production for over two weeks.

    Investors will be watching Stateside commodities on Friday after a cooling issue at CME Group’s CyrusOne data centers halted trading in futures markets.

    “Support is working to resolve the issue in the near term and will advise clients of Pre-Open details as soon as they are available,” CME Group said in a statement on its website.

    Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Friday, while U.S. stock futures were little changed Thursday night during a holiday-shortened week. The Nasdaq Composite is on track to end a seven-month winning streak.

    — CNBC’s Jordan Butt contributed to this report.

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  • China's Baidu starts layoffs after reporting third-quarter loss – sources – Reuters

    1. China’s Baidu starts layoffs after reporting third-quarter loss – sources  Reuters
    2. Baidu cuts jobs across the board, restructures AI teams after loss-making quarter  Yahoo Finance
    3. Baidu (BIDU) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript  AOL.com
    4. Exclusive | Baidu cuts jobs across the board, restructures AI teams after loss-making quarter  South China Morning Post

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  • CME glitch hits FX, commodities and stock futures

    CME glitch hits FX, commodities and stock futures

    • CME outage affects multiple futures and currency platforms
    • Cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers caused outage
    • Traders face challenges with no live prices, expect market volatility
    SINGAPORE, Nov 28 (Reuters) – An outage at exchange operator CME Group (CME.O), opens new tab on Friday halted trade on its popular currency platform and in futures spanning foreign exchange, commodities, Treasuries and stocks, freezing a handful of benchmarks as brokers pulled products.

    The problem was a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centres, CME said in a statement, adding it was working to resolve it in the “near term” but offering no further details.

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    CyrusOne, which is headquartered in Dallas and operates more than 55 data centres in the U.S., Europe and Japan, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

    The CME notice also said the foreign exchange platform EBS was halted due to a technical issue.

    It was not clear exactly how many CME products were affected but prices for West Texas Intermediate crude , Treasury futures , S&P 500 futures , palm oil and gold were not updating, according to LSEG Data.

    Prices were also not updated on the EBS foreign exchange platform, which is widely used to trade in pairs such as euro/dollar and dollar/yen.

    While spot forex traders were more easily able to find other venues to execute deals, the outages left brokers flying blind and many reluctant to trade contracts with no live prices.

    “It’s just a pain in the arse, to be honest,” said CMC Markets’ head of Asia and Middle East, Christopher Forbes, who said he had never seen such a widespread exchange outage in 20 years.

    CMC had pulled trade in a number of commodity contracts and in other products it had either switched its source or was relying on its own internal data and calculations to make prices for clients and even other brokers.

    “We’re now taking a lot of unnecessary risk here to continue pricing,” said Forbes. “My guess is the market is not going to like this, I think it will be a bit volatile on the open.”

    Futures are a mainstay of financial markets and used by dealers, speculators and businesses wishing to hedge or hold positions in a wide range of underlying assets.

    The outage at CME on Friday comes more than a decade after the operator had to shut electronic trade for some agricultural contracts in April 2014 due to technical problems, which at the time sent traders back on to the floor.

    More recently in 2024 outages at LSEG and Switzerland’s exchange operator briefly interrupted markets.

    Traders in Asia said they were informed by CME just before 0300 GMT of its halt.

    “It’s been a very slow day here in Asia after the Thanksgiving holiday and this hasn’t helped at all, more so given there is interest to transact at the end of what has been a volatile month,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG.

    With the U.S. markets on holiday for Thanksgiving on Thursday and expected to open for a short session on Friday, trading volumes were expected to be low.

    Reporting by Ankur Banerjee, Tom Westbrook, Rae Wee and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Shri Navaratnam

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

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  • Marine reef soundscape monitoring with fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing

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  • Trade limbo weighs on rupee, central bank steps in to avert record low – Reuters

    1. Trade limbo weighs on rupee, central bank steps in to avert record low  Reuters
    2. Indian rupee ends flat, state run banks’ dollar sales counter outflow pressure  Business Recorder
    3. Asia’s Worst-Performing Currency? Modi’s ‘Masterstroke’ or Meltdown? The Internet Is Losing It.  indiaherald.com
    4. #EditorsPicks | One purported argument for the weakening of the rupee was that India’s exports might fare better. But that hasn’t proven to be true. Here’s why 👇 Nalin Mehta | #Rupee #Dollar #Exports — Against the US dollar, the rupee has depreciated from ar  LinkedIn
    5. INR/USD 2025: Why the Rupee Is Struggling  EBC Financial Group

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  • BoE has room to cut despite an unhelpful Budget – Financial Times

    1. BoE has room to cut despite an unhelpful Budget  Financial Times
    2. Economists warn budget built on ‘shaky foundations’; December UK interest rate cut looks more likely – as it happened  The Guardian
    3. Traders increase bets on Bank of England rate cuts, expecting a total reduction of 68 basis points by the end of 2026  bitget.com
    4. Rabobank’s analyst suggests that GBP outlook remains complex amid rising BoE rate cut expectations and inflation  VT Markets
    5. Budget measures make cheaper borrowing more likely next month  Sky News

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  • Banks in talks to lend $38 billion to fund sites for OpenAI, FT reports

    Banks in talks to lend $38 billion to fund sites for OpenAI, FT reports

    (Reuters) -A ​group of ‌banks is in ‌talks to lend another $38 billion for ⁠Oracle ‌and data centre builder Vantage ‍to fund further sites for OpenAI,​ the ‌Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with ⁠the matter.​

    Reuters ​could not immediately verify the ‍report.⁠

    (Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman ⁠in Bengaluru; ‌Editing by Nivedita ‌Bhattacharjee)

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  • Brent little changed as investors zoom in on Russia-Ukraine talks, OPEC+

    Brent little changed as investors zoom in on Russia-Ukraine talks, OPEC+

    Brent crude oil futures were little changed on Friday as investors eyed the progress of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

    Imaginegolf | E+ | Getty Images

    Brent crude oil futures were little changed on Friday as investors eyed the progress of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and the outcome of the OPEC+ meeting on Sunday for clues on potential changes in supply which has been weighing on prices.

    Front month Brent crude futures, which expire on Friday, was unchanged at $63.34 a barrel by 0134 GMT in thin trade after settling up 21 cents on Thursday. The more-active February contract was at $62.85, down 2 cents.

    U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $59.00 a barrel, up 35 cents, or 0.60%. There was no settlement on Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

    Both contracts are headed for a fourth straight monthly loss, the longest losing streak since 2023, as rising global supply weigh on prices.

    Investors are eyeing talks for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal led by Washington that may lift Western sanctions off Russian oil and lead to higher global supply that will depress prices.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that outline draft peace proposals discussed by the United States and Ukraine could become the basis of future agreements to end the conflict in Ukraine, but that if not Russia would fight on.

    Putin added that Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to visit Moscow early next week.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Ukrainian and U.S. delegations are to meet this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to bring peace and provide security guarantees for Kyiv.

    “After several false dawns, participants are reluctant to position aggressively until concrete progress — or a breakdown materializes,” IG markets analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note.

    On Sunday, OPEC+ is likely to leave oil output levels unchanged at its meetings and to agree on a mechanism to assess members’ maximum production capacity, two delegates from the group and a source familiar with OPEC+ talks told Reuters.

    Brent and WTI are set to close this week with a more than 1% gain on hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, which could lift economic growth and oil demand.

    A drop in the number of oil rigs operating in the U.S. to a four-year low this week has also supported prices.

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  • Dollar on track for worst week in four months as case for Fed cut builds

    Dollar on track for worst week in four months as case for Fed cut builds

    The U.S. dollar was heading for its worst weekly performance since late July on Friday.

    Manuel Augusto Moreno | Moment | Getty Images

    The U.S. dollar was heading for its worst weekly performance since late July on Friday as traders ramped up bets for further monetary easing from the Federal Reserve next month, while liquidity was thinned by the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

    The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major peers, was last trading up 0.1% at 99.624, recovering some ground after five days of decline pushed it to its worst one-week loss since July 21.

    U.S. Fed funds futures are pricing an implied 87% probability of a 25-basis-point cut at the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting on December 10, compared to a 39% chance a week earlier, the CME Group’s FedWatch tool showed.

    The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds was last up 0.8 basis point at 4.0037%, rebounding after five days of decline that saw the 4% threshold briefly crossed twice.

    In Asia, the Japanese yen fluctuated between gain and loss after a period of decline.

    It was last trading 0.1% weaker at 156.385 yen as labor market and inflation data firmed up the case for monetary easing in Asia’s second-biggest economy, against a backdrop of persistent weakness in the currency that have led to prospect of intervention from the Ministry of Finance.

    The currency had briefly edged higher on news that consumer prices in Tokyo rose 2.8% in November, slightly faster than economists had expected and exceeding the Bank of Japan’s 2% target.

    “With the labor market still tight and inflation excluding fresh food and energy set to remain above 3% for now, the Bank of Japan will resume its tightening cycle over the next couple of months,” analysts from Capital Economics wrote in a research report. “The upshot is that the case for tighter monetary policy remains intact.”

    The yen is on track for a third month of decline as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sets out a 21.3 trillion yen ($135.40 billion) stimulus package, while the Bank of Japan has held off hiking interest rates even as inflation runs above target.

    The euro stood at $1.1600, little changed so far in Asia, as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Ukrainian and U.S. delegations are to meet this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to end war with Russia and provide security guarantees for Kyiv.

    Sterling was 0.1% weaker at $1.323 so far on the day, heading for its best weekly performance since early August, after Britain’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, revealed plans to raise taxes by 26 billion pounds ($34 billion) on Wednesday.

    Reeves fought back on Thursday against criticism of spending plans, which will fund extra welfare spending by raising the country’s tax burden to a post-World War Two high.

    The Australian dollar fetched $0.6536, up 0.1% in early trade, after data showed private sector credit increased 0.7% in October compared with the previous month, accelerating slightly from the prior month’s print.

    The offshore yuan traded at 7.074 yuan per U.S. dollar, steady in early Asian trade and on track for its best monthly performance since August.

    The kiwi traded at $0.5725, edging 0.1% weaker at the end of its biggest one-week surge since late April.

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  • Millennials are driving a sports tourism boom — spending big to do it

    Millennials are driving a sports tourism boom — spending big to do it

    Vince Nguyen, a 39-year-old entrepreneur based in Vietnam, spends a few hundreds almost every month traveling to other countries to play pickleball.

    The sport, which began as a pastime after injuring himself in American football, has since become central to his lifestyle, as he plays it for two to four hours almost daily.

    Since he picked up the sport two years ago, Nguyen has played leisurely in Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Canada. Next month, he is planning to head to China for an upcoming tournament.

    He says he forks out a few hundreds on round-trip flights to Taiwan or Malaysia for tournaments and leisure play with friends. Additionally, he pays the court fees, ranging from $4 to $8 for open play, and about $38 a night for hotels. In total, the trips cost him between $386 to $772.

    However, he spends almost $1,000 when traveling to Canada, where flights and indoor courts are pricier than in Asia.

    “I like to spend a week … playing a few times, checking out different courts, going to different restaurants,” he said.

    Vince Nguyen (top right) at a pickleball tournament in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

    Source: Vince Nguyen

    Nguyen believes traveling to play pickleball makes a difference as “every country has a little bit different style” in playing the game, and he is not alone. He is one of the many millennials that are fueling a rising trend in travel: sports tourism.

    According to Hilton’s 2026 Trends Report, which polled over 14,000 travelers across 14 countries, about 67% of millennials have planned a trip for events related to their interests, including sports, wellness and concerts.

    In the U.S. alone, millennials are 80% more likely to plan a vacation for tennis and 87% for pickleball, according to a survey by online travel agency Priceline on travel trends in 2025.

    And there are no signs of the sports tourism slowing down. The sports tourism industry is already a $707.29 billion market and is forecasted to nearly triple by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.

    Europe leads the market with a valuation of $248.23 billion last year. Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific has been marked the fastest-growing region, anticipated to be worth $149.50 billion in 2025.

    Sports tourism in Asia-Pacific is projected to have a compound annual growth rate of 17.85% from 2025 to 2032.  

    “Good for your soul”

    Another millenial, 35-year-old Nirbhay Handa who is based in Singapore, also travels abroad for tennis.

    “I’ll go to a tennis camp in Phuket … when I travel to Dubai and Abu Dhabi I have a tennis coach that I just go and play with in the evenings after work,” he said. “I think this makes me better at work, because I’m in a better mood. I’m not irritated,” the entrepreneur said.

    He takes about six tennis trips a year including ones for business, spending around $200 a week on sessions in Dubai.

    Handa said that the sport is more than a hobby to him. “It just became very therapeutic, and it put me on to some good habits … not drinking till late on Friday … giving up social smoking completely,” he added.

    He makes it a point to play a game of tennis when he’s abroad for leisure or business.

    Tennis, which he deems “good for your soul,” not only helps him unwind but also fulfils his social life.

    “It does a little bit of what going out to a pub would do for a lot of people, you know, which is meeting people, meeting your friends over a drink,” he said, but “I feel like I can do that at the tennis court.”

    Hitting personal goals

    Mike Goldys, who lives in Florida, travels to surf overseas with a goal of playing in as many different surf parks as possible. The 39-year-old has logged 140 hours so far across 26 cities in 10 countries.

    “Each surf park … is very unique for me. I … just can’t get enough of it, he said. “I want to keep checking them off and seeing what this one was like in this state.”

    “I rarely go back to the same wave pool twice,” he added.

    Goldys has spent $18,500 on surf sessions alone, budgeting $6000 to $10,000 per trip depending on flights and accommodation, he said. He also sets aside money for photography and videography to share on social platforms.

    Mike Goldys surfing at the Atlantic Park Surf in Virginia Beach, USA.

    Source: Andrew Tonra

    As a social media strategist at a non-profit organization, he takes one to two weeks off for surfing trips — only tending to work matters for emergencies.

    “When you pay to surf in a wave pool you’re guaranteed waves that they’re really powerful and like good shape… a way to accelerate progress,” he said. “[It’s] very quick for someone who doesn’t have the perfect waves all the time” near his residence in Florida.

    At $170 an hour, surf parks aren’t cheap. But Goldys insist they’re worth it.   

    “As long as it doesn’t put you in a bad position afterwards financially,” he said.

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