Finance, in brief

Micron, an American company that makes memory chips, made a profit of $37.7bn in the three months to 3 September. [1] A year earlier it made $3.2bn. [1]

Its sales rose to $54.23bn, from $11.32bn a year earlier and $41.46bn the quarter before. [3] Analysts had expected about $51bn. [4]

Memory chips hold the data a computer is working on. [6] AI chips from Nvidia and AMD need more and more of a fast kind called HBM, and the makers cannot build enough. [2]

Sales to data centres, the buildings full of computers that run AI, reached $18bn. [3] That is about eleven times the $1.58bn of a year earlier. [3]

Micron expects about $61.5bn of sales in its current quarter. [4] Analysts had expected about $57bn. [4]

Its boss, Sanjay Mehrotra, said supply will be much tighter in 2027 and 2028 than this year. [1] About 75% of what Micron expects to make in 2027 is already promised to customers. [6]

Customers have promised $32bn under long-term deals to get Micron's chips, up from $22bn in June. [4] Most of it is paid as cash deposits. [4]

The shortage has pushed up the price of memory, and of devices such as Apple's iPads and MacBooks. [2] Apple charged $100 more for its iPhone 18 Pro than for the 17 Pro, Yahoo Finance reported. [8]

Micron plans to spend about $25bn on buildings and equipment in the first half of its new year. [1] It says most of the extra spending goes on construction. [1] Its first new factory in Boise, Idaho, should open next year. [2]

This one company lifts the expected profit growth of the S&P 500, an index of 500 big US companies, from 24% to 29.1% this quarter, FactSet says. [5]

Chip shares lifted Japan's Nikkei index more than 1% on Thursday. [7] A strategist at Saxo, a Danish investment bank, said markets may start to ask whether the shortage is near its peak. [7]

Why it matters. The next test is whether the new factories Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix are building add memory fast enough to end the shortage before 2028, the year Micron says it will be tightest. [1][2]

US prices rose 3.4% in the year to August, by the PCE measure, the one the US central bank watches most closely. [10][11] Economists had expected 3.7%. [10] Without food and fuel, prices rose 3.0%. [10][9] Traders' chance of another rate rise on 28 October fell to 38%, from 50% a day earlier. [7] A week before, it had been more than 70%. [13] The US central bank raised its rate in September for the first time in three years, to between 3.75% and 4%. [17][7]

Why it matters. Neel Kashkari, who runs the US central bank's Minneapolis branch, said inflation is still too high and the figure did not change his view. [9] The softer figure eased short-term US interest rates, a Saxo strategist said, but long-term rates stayed high. [7]

The US economy grew at a 2.2% yearly pace from April to June, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. [16] Its first count had said 1.5%, and economists expected no change. [16] The first three months of the year were raised to 2.5%, from 2.1%, as figures back to 2021 were redone. [16] Household spending, more than two-thirds of the economy, grew at a 3.8% pace. [16] Reuters credits business spending on AI and large tax refunds. [16]

Why it matters. Households still feel worse even as they spend. [16] A survey by the Conference Board, a business research group, put US consumer confidence near a 12-and-a-half-year low in September. [16] Job openings also fell by 256,000 in August, to 7.079 million. [17]

The quarter from July to September ended on Wednesday. [14] World share indexes are about 2% below their record and up more than 12% this year, Reuters says. [18] The yearly interest on 10-year US government debt rose 0.82 points over the quarter, its biggest quarterly jump in four years. [15] This week it hit 5.306%, the most since June 2007. [7] Brent oil rose 40% over the quarter. [18]

Why it matters. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, two main US share indexes, rose over the quarter, while the Dow Jones index fell. [14] The Dow counts each company by its share price rather than its size. [13] European shares had their first monthly fall in six months, hit by oil prices and borrowing costs. [14] Meta, which owns Facebook, rose almost 30% in September. [13]

Crude oil leaving the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz averaged 13.5 million barrels a day in the week to Monday. [20] That matches the flow before the Iran war, by the count of Kpler, a firm that tracks tankers. [20] US military escorts helped, and most crude now switches tankers off Oman and the UAE. [20] Brent oil, the world benchmark, fell about 1% to $96.96 a barrel on Thursday. [21] Goldman Sachs, a US bank, expects $85 by the end of the year. [22]

Why it matters. Fuel made from oil has not come back the same way. [20] Petrol, diesel and jet fuel through Hormuz were 677,000 barrels a day, against 3.6 million before the war. [20] Goldman says prices stay high because traders fear new attacks and stockpiles are unusually low. [22]

Jet fuel cost about $185 a barrel in the week to 25 September, by the count of IATA, the airlines' trade body. [24] That is about 54% more than the $120 it cost at the end of June. [24] Fuel exports from the Middle East are about 58% of their pre-war level, JPMorgan data show. [24] Hopper, a travel booking app, says US airfares for the end-of-year holidays are at their highest in a decade. [24]

Why it matters. Airlines sold many seats before fuel jumped. [24] United Airlines had sold about 35% of its October-to-December seats in advance, and it cannot charge those passengers more. [24] So later tickets and extra fees carry the cost, and fares may stay high even if fuel gets cheaper. [24]

Gold for December delivery fell 6.4% in September, to about $4,200 an ounce. [19] It was on course for its worst month since June. [19] Gold pays no interest, so it looks less attractive when lending to the US government for two years pays nearly 5%. [19] The dollar also rose 1.7% in the month, which makes gold dearer for buyers using other money. [19] Bitcoin rose 7% in September, to above $86,000. [19]

Why it matters. Some buyers did not stop. [19] China's central bank added more than 20 tonnes of gold to its reserves in August, its biggest monthly purchase since 2023. [19] It has now bought gold for 22 months running. [19]

Britain's economy grew 0.5% from April to June, official figures showed on Wednesday. [12] The first count had said 0.4%, and economists expected no change. [12] The pound rose 0.4% to $1.3292 and reached its highest against the euro since mid-August. [12] Traders now expect the Bank of England, Britain's central bank, to raise its rate by about a third of a point by the end of the year. [12]

Why it matters. A fund manager at BNP Paribas said the Bank may feel pushed to raise rates because the US, European and Japanese central banks already have. [12] Prime Minister Andy Burnham's new government is also preparing a budget. [12]

Lynas Rare Earths, an Australian miner, agreed to buy Meteoric Resources for about A$968m ($672m), paid in Lynas shares. [25] Lynas is the biggest producer of separated rare earths outside China. [25] These metals go into electric cars, electronics, jet fighters and missiles, and China dominates their refining. [25] Meteoric owns Caldeira, in Brazil's Minas Gerais state, which the firms call the largest deposit of its kind outside China. [25] Building the mine will cost more than $500m. [25]

Why it matters. Meteoric's owners get 68% more than their shares were worth at the last close. [25] Lynas shares fell 7.1% on Thursday, to their lowest since January. [26] New shares make each old one a smaller slice: Meteoric's owners will hold about 5.9% of Lynas. [26][27]

Peoples Bancorp, a bank based in Marietta, Ohio, agreed to buy Capital Bancorp of Rockville, Maryland, for about $728.1m, paid in its own shares. [28] Together they would hold about $14bn of assets and $11bn of deposits. [28] They would have more than 150 branches in eight states and Washington, D.C. [28] Capital brings business banking around Washington and Baltimore, and online lending across the country. [28]

Why it matters. Capital Bank would become part of Peoples Bank, so its customers would bank with Peoples once the deal is done. [28] Tyler Wilcox, Peoples' chief executive, said the bank wanted a partner that added more than size as it neared $10bn of assets. [28]

BSE, which runs one of Asia's oldest stock exchanges, joined the Nifty 50, an index of India's biggest listed companies, on Wednesday. [29][30] It replaced Wipro, an IT services firm, which left the index for the first time since the index began. [30] Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, two foreign banks, sold 1.67% of BSE between them for about 21.9 billion rupees. [30] Two Indian fund managers, UTI and Nippon India, bought shares. [30]

Why it matters. Joining the index lifted BSE shares on Tuesday, and the banks' sales wiped that gain out: they fell 3.5% to 3,092 rupees on Wednesday. [29] The shares have fallen in each of the last four months, by about 25% in all. [29]

India's cabinet approved a plan worth about 1.86 trillion rupees to strengthen power lines inside its states. [31] It includes batteries able to store 50 gigawatt-hours. [31] It should let the grid carry up to 135 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2032-33. [31] The central government will pay about 541 billion rupees of it. [31] Shares in power companies such as Tata Power and NTPC still fell on Thursday. [31]

Why it matters. Power use is rising faster than coal supply. [31] Demand so far this month is 15% higher than a year ago, and coal-fired plants hold about seven days of coal. [31] The power ministry ordered 112 plants that companies run for their own use to work at full output until 31 December. [31]

Eight of the 16 measures of India's economy tracked by Mint, an Indian business paper, were above their one-year average in August. [32] In July it had been five. [32] Car sales, lending and the rupee all did better, and the trade gap narrowed as exports rose. [32] In September oil rose again and foreign investors sold Indian shares. [32] The rupee passed 96 to the dollar this week. [32]

Why it matters. Mint says inflation is expected to reach 6% in the coming months. [32] The Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, is expected to raise its rate at its next meeting, which could slow the lending that helped the economy grow. [32]

The Shapoorji Pallonji group, run by the Mistry family, owns 18.37% of Tata Sons, the company that controls India's Tata group. [33] In July it borrowed about 151 billion rupees for three years at 18.95% a year, pledging part of that stake. [33] About 35 billion rupees was due by the end of September. [33] Moneycontrol, an Indian news site, reported on 29 September that it had been repaid after most lenders agreed to new loans. [33]

Why it matters. The family has pushed for Tata Sons to list its shares, which would give its stake a market price and a way to sell. [33] Tata Sons' board voted 4 to 1 to start listing after India's central bank refused to let it avoid doing so. [33]

The US Defense Department chose Boeing, the US planemaker, to build the US Navy's next-generation stealth fighter, a jet designed to be hard for radar to find. [13] Boeing beat Northrop Grumman, another US weapons maker, for the development contract, worth $20bn. [13] Boeing shares rose 2.9% before the market opened on Wednesday. [13] Northrop's fell 4.2%. [13]

Why it matters. Northrop's 4.2% fall shows how much investors had counted on winning the $20bn contract. [13]

Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, reported at least $250m of income and other payments last year, by CNBC's count of his yearly financial filing. [23] The largest part was a $192m payment from Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm he ran for decades. [23] The filing calls it a tax payment handled under an ethics agreement he signed before taking office. [23] The 74 pages came from the US Office of Government Ethics. [23]

Why it matters. It is the fullest account yet of Lutnick's money during his first year in government, CNBC said. [23] Much of it came from businesses he left behind when he joined Donald Trump's government. [23]

Just over one in five US home sellers, 21.1%, cut their asking price in the four weeks to 20 September, Redfin, a property broker, said. [35] That is the highest share for this time of year in its records, which start in 2022. [35] In Denver almost 31% of sellers cut. [35] A 30-year fixed home loan averaged 7.03% in September, the highest since 2025, Bankrate data show. [34]

Why it matters. Redfin's economist said sellers are cutting because loan rates are above 7% and many homes sit unsold. [35] Nearly half of US buyers are also getting money from sellers, for repairs or closing costs. [35]

The dollar rose 1.7% in September against six big currencies. [19] The euro fell 2.5% in the month, to about $1.13. [7] The pound was set for its biggest monthly fall in nearly a year. [12] India's rupee fell 0.7% in September. [10] The yen went the other way, rising 1.5%. [7] Some Bank of Japan members said in September that rates may need to rise faster, a summary showed on Thursday. [7]

Why it matters. Rising US interest rates have pulled money back into dollars, Reuters says. [18] A dearer dollar makes anything priced in dollars, such as gold, cost more for people who use other money. [19]