Finance, in brief

Oil back above $115

Brent oil rose 1.5% to $115.60 a barrel on Wednesday, after two days of falls. [11] Indian shares opened lower as oil climbed. [7] New Zealand's central bank expects its inflation to reach 4.4% this quarter, mostly because of dearer fuel. [12]

Profits from AI chips

SK Hynix, a South Korean memory-chip maker, made an operating profit 632% bigger than a year ago. [13] South Korea's main share index was up as much as 6.57% during Wednesday. [14] In China, the STAR 50 index of tech shares has lost 40% since June, partly because many tech firms there struggle to make a profit. [15]

Weaker forecasts for next year

Visa's shares fell 2.3% after hours when it forecast slower growth for its 2027 year. [16] Boeing said it would miss its target of 500 737 Max deliveries this year. [17] NXP, a chip maker, fell 9% when its forecast for the next quarter only matched what analysts expected. [18]

Central banks deciding

New Zealand's central bank held its rate at 2.75% when 22 of 27 economists had expected a rise. [19] Traders put a 91% chance on the US central bank holding its rate on Wednesday. [20] Britain paid 5.036% to borrow for five years the day before its Budget. [21]

2 pressures seen across the day run through Finance too.

• Fuel staying dear from the Iran warHigh ↑ · seen in 4 beats→
• Memory chips running shortHigh ↑ · seen in 2 beats→

1. 1Jio Platforms opens about 21% above its sale price in early trading on Wednesday, becoming India's second most valuable company, while its owner Reliance slips 2%
2. 2Oil climbs back above $115
3. 3SK Hynix's record profit lifts Korea
4. 4New Zealand's central bank holds its rate
5. 5China's state funds buy, and shares still slide

Jio Platforms, India's biggest phone and internet company, began trading on the Mumbai stock exchanges at 10am on Wednesday, which is 04:30 UTC. [1]

The first test is whether Jio's shares are still above 1,358 rupees when Mumbai closes on Wednesday, and the next is Reliance's own results on Friday 30 October. [8][5]

Many Chinese companies sell the same shares in two places, but mainland savers cannot freely move money to Hong Kong, so the same company can sell for more in one place than in the other.

Once the exchange opened to everyone, the shares opened 21.4% higher, almost the same.

The two copies may differ a little, in voting rights or in the currency they pay out in, and buyers can fairly pay more for the better copy.

Most savers buy where their own country's rules let them buy, and pay that market's price without seeing the other one.

Brent oil, the main world price, rose 1.5% to $115.60 a barrel early on Wednesday, after two days of falls. [11]

Traders bought again after Yemen's Houthis said they had hit a big Saudi refinery, which Saudi Arabia has not confirmed. [22]

A count by the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry group, showed US crude stocks fell by 2.03 million barrels last week, when a rise had been expected. [11]

Brent is up 13% in October and 80% in a year. [23]

On Tuesday Brent cost about $13.75 more than WTI, the price of oil inside the US, because supply at sea is tighter than inside the US. [23]

The OPEC+ group of oil producers is expected to keep its December output targets unchanged on Sunday. [22]

Also seen in Money, Food and World.

The war keeps oil dear, and that cost reaches the pump and the price of fertiliser.

It makes high-bandwidth memory, a fast kind of memory that sits beside AI chips. [13]

It raised this year's dividends and buybacks to about 100 trillion won, or $75 billion, counting buybacks announced earlier. [24] Its shares jumped more than 8%. [13]

South Korea's main share index was up as much as 6.57% during Wednesday, after a month of heavy falls. [14]

Hynix says 14 big customers have signed long deals covering more than half of what it can make in 2027 and 2028. [24]

Also seen in Tech.

Memory is scarce, so it costs more, and SK Hynix, which makes it, has just reported a record profit.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept its main rate at 2.75% on Wednesday, in a 4 to 3 vote. [19]

Twenty-two of 27 economists polled by Reuters had expected a rise. [19]

The bank had raised its rate at its last two meetings, because prices are rising faster than its 1% to 3% target. [12] It said further rises are likely later. [12]

Prices rose 3.7% in the year to September. [12]

The New Zealand dollar fell as much as 1.7% against the US dollar. [20] A general election is due in 10 days. [19]

China's 'national team', a group of state-owned funds, has put billions of dollars into shares to stop a weeks-long fall. [25]

The CSI 300, an index of China's biggest companies, has fallen 20% from its June high, and the STAR 50 index of tech shares about 40%. [26]

Morgan Stanley, a US bank, said Chinese shares could fall another 10% to 15% before they stop. [26] About $2.4 trillion has been wiped off Chinese shares since May. [15]

AI companies make up more than 40% of the value of the stock markets in China and Hong Kong, so their fall drags the rest. [15]

Morgan Stanley based its estimate on how far Chinese shares fell at past low points since 2008. [26]

Many Chinese companies have the same shares listed in both mainland China and Hong Kong. [27]

The mainland copies now sell for 33% more on average, the widest gap in almost 17 months. [27]

China's limits on moving money across its border have long kept mainland prices higher. [27]

State buying is now holding up the mainland side, while mainland investors have sold about HK$20 billion of Hong Kong shares this month. [27]

The two copies cannot be swapped, so traders bet on the gap instead, for example by buying the Shenzhen shares of CATL, the battery maker. [27]

Mainland savers pay more for the same company than buyers in Hong Kong.

Boeing, the US maker of passenger jets, lost 11% on Tuesday, its biggest one-day fall since June 2020. [28]

It said it needs more time to keep 737 Max deliveries steady at 47 planes a month. [17]

That means it will miss its target of 500 737 Max deliveries this year, and it gave no new target. [17] Its jet-making unit lost $697 million in the quarter. [29]

The whole company lost $116 million, far less than a year earlier. [30]

It still delivered 363 737 Max planes in the first nine months of 2026, its fastest pace ever. [29]

Plane makers are paid most of a jet's price when they hand it over, so slower deliveries mean less cash coming in.

Britain sold 4.5 billion pounds of five-year government bonds on Tuesday at an average interest rate of 5.036%, the highest since 2008. [21]

Buyers offered to lend 3.51 times the amount on sale. [31] John Healey, the UK finance minister, gives his first Budget on Wednesday. [21]

Higher borrowing costs have cut his room under the UK government's own borrowing rules to as little as 10 billion pounds, from 24 billion a year ago. [32]

Every rise in the rate adds to the interest paid on new UK debt by taxpayers. [21]

The Resolution Foundation, a research group, puts the remaining room at about 12 billion pounds. [33]

There were 738,144 UK businesses in 'significant' financial distress in the third quarter, up 1.6% on a year earlier. [34]

That is the highest since the count began in 2004, according to BTG, one of Britain's biggest insolvency firms. [34] Support services, building and property had the most businesses in trouble. [34]

The number of bars and restaurants in distress rose 5% to 18,866. [34]

BTG's boss named rising staff costs, higher energy prices and dearer borrowing. [34] Pressure is growing on Healey to offer businesses more help in Wednesday's Budget. [34]

The UK's National Wealth Fund is set to get another 15.4 billion pounds over five years in Wednesday's Budget, on top of the 27.8 billion it already has, the Guardian reported before the speech. [35]

The British Business Bank is set to get another 5 billion pounds. [35]

Both are state-funded bodies that invest in private projects and companies, and aim to earn at least what the UK government pays to borrow. [35]

UK rules let the value of their loans and stakes count against public debt. [35]

Supporters say it gets projects built sooner. [35] Critics, such as the Centre for Policy Studies, say it hides how much the UK government really borrows. [35]

The Conference Board's index of US consumer confidence rose 7.5 points to 91.7 in October, its first rise in four months. [36][37] Economists polled by Reuters had expected 81. [38]

The Conference Board, a business research group, said the rise followed petrol prices easing from September. [38]

People still said they plan to spend less on services and on goods meant to last, such as cars. [36]

US petrol still costs about 40% more than a year ago, because of the Iran war. [37] Shoppers' mood matters because their spending is most of the US economy.

Visa, the card payments network, earned $3.48 a share in its quarter to September, a little above forecasts. [16] Its revenue rose 13% to $12.1 billion. [39]

But it said revenue in its 2027 year will grow at a 'low-double-digit' rate, slower than the 15% of the year just ended. [16][39]

Its shares fell 2.3% in trading after the close. [16]

Visa earns a small fee on each card payment, so a slower forecast points to slower growth in card spending.

It also agreed to buy BioCatch, a fraud-detection company, for $2.4 billion. [16]

PayPal, the online payments company, earned $1.45 a share, above the $1.31 analysts expected. [40] Its revenue of $8.58 billion was below the $8.71 billion forecast. [40]

It raised its forecast for the year to about $5.60 a share. [40] Its shares fell about 1% to 2.6% before the market opened. [41][40]

Payments at checkout, its oldest business, grew only 1% to 2%, while Venmo, its phone payment app, grew faster. [40]

Coca-Cola sold 5% more drinks by volume in its quarter, and its revenue rose to $13.4 billion, above forecasts. [42] UPS, the parcel company, beat forecasts and raised its full-year outlook. [41]

Royal Caribbean, the cruise company, reported more bookings, and its chief said customers were 'resilient'. [43]

The Cheesecake Factory, a US restaurant chain, said sales at its restaurants rose more than 15%. [44]

Diesel hit a record $6.52 a gallon in September, and many economists expected shoppers to cut back. [43] So far these firms say spending has held up.

Robinhood, a US share-trading app, fell about 4% to 5% after hours. [45][18]

Its profit fell to $468 million, from $556 million a year earlier, and its revenue from crypto trading fell 55%. [45]

Seagate, which makes computer storage drives, fell 6% even though it beat forecasts. [18] NXP, a chip maker for cars and factories, fell 9% when its forecast only matched expectations. [18]

Robinhood's revenue from contracts that bet on events rose more than 500%, and did most to lift its trading income. [45]

The cost of insuring Meta's debt against default fell after it chose to raise $95 billion by selling new shares instead of borrowing. [46]

Michael Novogratz, who runs Galaxy Digital, a crypto and data-centre company, said worry in lending markets is 'close to peak nervousness'. [47]

Alphabet and Amazon report on Wednesday and Thursday, and Oracle holds an investor day on Wednesday. [46]

Lenders have worried about how much AI building is paid for with debt. [46] These reports will show how much more the biggest builders plan to spend.

Traders have built up bets that US government bond prices will keep rising, ahead of the US central bank's decision on Wednesday. [48]

Markets price only a slim chance of a rate rise this week, but more than 90% for one in December. [48]

The ten-year US rate has fallen to about 5%, from 5.36% earlier this month, its highest in more than two decades. [48]

If Kevin Warsh, the US central bank's chair, sounds tougher than expected, those bets could unwind quickly, a Citigroup strategist warned. [48]

A ten-year rate near 5% feeds into US mortgage rates.

Groww, an Indian trading app used by more than 29% of India's 46 million active investors, began offering US shares this month. [49]

Before, only wealthier Indians could buy them, through global banks. [49] Zerodha, the second-largest app, is testing the same service. [49]

Nvidia, SpaceX and Apple are the most popular early picks. [49]

India's Nifty 50 index is down nearly 13% this year, while the US S&P 500 is up more than 12%. [49]

Foreign funds have pulled a record $32.5 billion out of Indian shares since January. [49]

Net profit at 356 Indian companies rose 27% in the July to September quarter, from a year earlier, a Mint analysis found. [50] That is the fastest growth in 10 quarters. [50]

Part of it came from state fuel sellers, which swung from a loss to a profit of about 12,700 crore rupees after raising petrol and diesel prices. [50]

Higher oil, shipping and metal prices now threaten the next quarter. [50]

Much of the gain came from a weak year earlier. [50] Some firms have raised prices to protect their profits, but not all can, Mint said. [50]

United Breweries, the maker of Kingfisher beer controlled by Heineken, made a profit of 134.8 crore rupees in its quarter, up 191%. [51]

Its revenue rose 24%, as it sold 16% more beer and 38% more of its dearer brands. [51] Its shares jumped 15% on Wednesday. [52]

They had fallen 30% over the past year. [52]

Its dearer brands grew fastest, with Heineken Silver up 67% and Kingfisher Ultra 44%. [51]

Pop Mart, the Chinese toymaker behind the Labubu dolls, said its sales fell 45% to 50% in the third quarter from a year earlier. [53]

Sales in the Americas fell 70% to 75%, and in mainland China 25% to 30%. [53][54]

Jefferies, a US bank, cut its profit forecasts for 2027 and 2028 by 9% to 12%. [53] The shares have fallen more than 30% this year. [53]

Jefferies expects fourth-quarter sales to stay 34% below a year earlier. [53] Pop Mart is still opening big shops in New York, Milan and Paris. [53]

Standard Chartered, a London-based bank, said its net profit rose 46% to $1.5 billion in its quarter, from $1.03 billion a year earlier. [55]

It credited loans for trade across borders and its business managing rich clients' money. [55] It is one of the three banks that print Hong Kong's banknotes. [55]

The results came a day after HSBC, its bigger rival, saw its shares fall more than 5% on its own results. [31]

Dongshan Precision, a Chinese maker of circuit boards for AI servers, began trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday. [56]

It raised HK$9.9 billion, about $1.26 billion, in a sale that drew less interest than hoped. [56]

Its shares fell as much as 6% after trading began, then won back part of the fall. [56]

It shows how the fall in Chinese AI and tech shares is reaching new listings. [56]

Wang Huimin, a former senior official at China's securities regulator, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Tuesday. [57]

He was found to have taken more than 436 million yuan, about $65 million, in bribes. [57] He sat on the regulator's Communist Party committee from 2014 to 2019. [57]

The case is part of China's wide anti-corruption campaign. [57] In China a death sentence with a two-year reprieve is usually turned into a life sentence.

The US Federal Trade Commission, which polices competition, has told Cintas that it will sue to block its $5 billion purchase of UniFirst, people familiar with the matter said. [58]

Both firms rent uniforms and supply cleaning goods to businesses. [58] The FTC has not formally voted. [58]

UniFirst's shares fell 12% and Cintas's 6% after the report. [58]

Many dealmakers expected the Trump administration to let most mergers through. [58] A lawsuit would show some will still be fought.

The Africa Finance Corporation, a Lagos-based development lender, named Italy's Webuild, Portugal's Mota-Engil and Turkey's Ictas to build a new 515km railway through Zambia. [59]

It is part of the Lobito Corridor, a US-backed route to carry copper and cobalt to Angola's Atlantic coast. [59]

Contract talks start next month and should take eight to 12 weeks. [59] An environmental study put the cost at up to $5 billion. [59]

It is the first big Western attempt to build a route for Africa's copper and cobalt that is an alternative to the ports and railways China has built. [59]

Mines in Zambia would get a second way to the sea.

DP World, the Dubai ports company, is moving towards a deal to link its global network to the Port of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, on Hudson Bay. [60]

The project could cost about $57 billion and would carry Canadian gas, grain and minerals to the Middle East and Europe. [60]

Abu Dhabi's crown prince arrived in Ottawa with a $50 billion investment pledge. [60]

Months ago a Canadian state investment agency had told UAE officials it had nowhere to put their money, the Financial Times reported. [60]

Anthropic's share-sale papers show the US government sold 4,453,900 Anthropic shares in October 2025 for $627 million. [61]

The shares had been seized from Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh, who were part of the FTX crypto fraud case. [61]

The money went to the fraud's victims, the US Justice Department said. [61] At a $1.5 trillion value, the same shares would be worth about $3.94 billion. [61]

It shows how fast Anthropic's value has grown since 2022, when the shares were bought for $11.23 each. [61]

The number of active private equity and private markets firms peaked 18 months ago and is now falling, said Ian Charles, head of Arctos Partners. [62]

More firms are becoming 'zombies', unable to raise a new fund. [62] About $3 trillion was raised for buyout funds from 2018 to 2023. [62]

Of that, 57% is in funds at risk of never earning their managers a share of the profits. [62]

Firms that cannot pay their managers struggle to keep investors and staff together, Charles said. [62]

Strong firms are still raising plenty, in what may be the fifth or sixth best year for fundraising. [62]

Bitcoin was about $80,700 on Wednesday, flat on the day. [20] It rose above $87,000 in the summer but has fallen back. [63]

Glassnode, a crypto data firm, says buyers from the past two years break even around $87,000, and their selling has turned it back twice this year. [63]

Bitcoin has lost almost 4% in October, its worst month since June. [63]

Bitcoin now moves closely with tech shares, so a fall in AI shares pulls it down too. [63]