Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
🏦 Fed minutes signal another rate hike coming
💊 Canada's Weston family buys Boots for $8.9B
📈 Samsung profit jumps 782% on AI memory
🏭 TSMC revenue jumps 50% on AI demand
💰 Broadcom in early talks to fund OpenAI chips
Plus: 🌍 9 macro stories, 🏢 10 corporate stories, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| 🏦 Fed minutes signal another rate hike coming LINK |
- Federal Reserve minutes released yesterday show most officials expect one more interest-rate increase before year-end to tame inflation that has stayed above target for more than five years.
- The September quarter-point hike was unanimous, and 16 of 18 policymakers see another move coming; still, soft recent data, core inflation at 3% in August versus the Fed's 2% goal, makes a hike at the Oct. 28 meeting look unlikely, pushing bets toward Dec. 9.
- Treasury yields have climbed to their highest since 2002, which officials tied to expectations of higher Fed rates, the AI build-out and solid growth, with staff also flagging uncertainty around the Treasury's long-dated debt buyback program.
| 💊 Canada's Weston family buys Boots for $8.9B LINK |
- Canada's Weston family, through holding company Wittington Investments, has agreed to buy UK pharmacy and beauty chain Boots for $8.9bn (£6.74bn), returning the family to Britain's high street four years after selling Selfridges.
- The deal, backed by investment firm Fairfax, covers Boots' UK and Irish retail, opticians and the No7 beauty brand, a 1,800-store business employing 50,000 people, and ends the long ownership of Stefano Pessina and recent backer Sycamore Partners.
- The price undercuts the up-to-£10bn tag Walgreens floated when it put Boots up for sale in 2022, a process that stalled after bidders struggled to raise funds; the sale needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.
| 📈 Samsung profit jumps 782% on AI memory LINK |
- Samsung reported record third-quarter operating profit of 107.40 trillion won ($80.2 billion), the first time it has topped 100 trillion won, as AI-driven demand for its memory chips continues to surge.
- Operating profit jumped 782% from a year earlier and revenue rose nearly 127% to about 195 trillion won, but the result still fell short of expectations, a sign of how demanding the AI trade has become for memory makers.
- Analysts say tight memory supply and the rise of AI agents, which use far more memory than a single chatbot query, keep the sector's growth intact, while multiyear supply deals give Samsung clearer demand visibility ahead of its full earnings later this month.
| 🏭 TSMC revenue jumps 50% on AI demand LINK |
- TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, posted record third-quarter revenue of $46.71 billion, up 50% from a year earlier, as demand for AI chips kept driving sales past Wall Street forecasts.
- The result beat the company's own July guidance of up to $45.8 billion, with September revenue alone jumping 54.6% year-on-year, reflecting strong orders from customers including Nvidia and Apple for chips used in AI applications.
- TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company at about $2.1 trillion, reports full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week, when investors get detail on AI demand and capital spending plans; its Taipei-listed shares are up almost 65% this year.
| 💰 Broadcom in early talks to fund OpenAI chips LINK |
- Broadcom is in early talks to arrange roughly $30 billion in debt to help OpenAI buy the custom AI chip the two companies are jointly developing, people familiar with the matter said.
- The plan follows Broadcom's launch of a separate $60 billion debt package benefiting Anthropic, split between a larger senior-secured tranche and a junior tranche led by Blackstone, with no formal process yet begun on the OpenAI financing.
- The move reflects a wave of borrowing to fund AI data centers: Oracle is also in talks with lenders for chip purchases, and SpaceX has begun discussions to raise $40 billion for Nvidia chips, though that deal isn't expected to close until 2027.
🌍 Macro News
- Treasury’s 10-year auction yield hit 5.30%, highest since 2000, despite solid demand. LINK
- Treasury fined Amidi $200,000 for failing to report Chinese fund investment. LINK
- EU is preparing tariff quotas on Chinese hybrid car imports. LINK
- Fifteen economies pledged to tackle industrial overcapacity; China and others declined. LINK
- Iraq devalued its dinar 14.5% as Hormuz oil disruption drained revenues. LINK
- France will release 10 million barrels of diesel reserves to cushion households. LINK
- Gold fell to a two-month low as rising yields and dollar hurt demand. LINK
- Foreign investors pulled $26.3 billion in September, the first outflow since June. LINK
- Tether and Kazakhstan will study a tenge-pegged stablecoin and real-asset tokenization. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- Amazon is cutting fewer than 1,000 white-collar jobs across three countries. LINK
- Wolfspeed secured conditional Pentagon loans up to $1.5 billion for chip expansion. LINK
- Chinese AI startup Manus raised over $500 million in first funding round. LINK
- Webull shares plunged 18% after congressional panel called it a China-linked security risk. LINK
- Chevron's Hess Midstream deal removes $3.7 billion debt from its balance sheet. LINK
- Apollo joins bidding for Uniper, potentially valued around €10 billion. LINK
- HSBC plans cuts affecting up to 70% of UK financial advisers. LINK
- Ripple enters leveraged ETF financing, challenging banks in securities lending. LINK
- Standard Chartered plans Singapore crypto, stablecoin and tokenized-asset custody services. LINK
- Samsung Wallet users can send USDC cross-border via Solana starting late October. LINK
📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners |
| Spotify Technology rose 5% after reporting Q3 2026 revenue of $4.42 billion beating estimates and raising full-year guidance. LINK |
| Micron Technology rose 4% after record Q4 results fueled by AI memory demand. LINK |
| Glaukos rose 7% after Jefferies raised its price target to $210. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers |
| Strategy fell 7% after Bitcoin dropped back to $83K amid a global bond rout. LINK |
| QXO fell 7% after RBC Capital lowered its price target from $27 to $18. LINK |
| Curtiss-Wright fell 8% after CFO K. Christopher Farkas stepped down effective immediately. LINK |
📑 Research & Reports
- IMF warns leveraged hedge funds in Treasuries and AI stocks risk crisis. LINK
- Citi says AI investment boom remains in early-to-middle stages, countering bubble concerns. LINK
- Europol says quantum computers could threaten exposed crypto wallet keys, not blockchains. LINK
- Neobanks' fraud-prevention spending surged 357%, while fraud losses continued rising. LINK
- Half of security leaders feel least prepared for attacks targeting AI systems. LINK
- US year-ahead inflation expectations climbed to 3.9%, highest since May 2023. LINK