Cyberattack spoils food in French supermarkets

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Before The Bell

Change over the last 24 hours · as of Oct 13, 2026, 6:09 AM ET

Cyberattack spoils food in French supermarkets LINK

• A cyberattack on internet-connected refrigeration systems forced fridges in several hundred French supermarkets up to 50C overnight, triggering widespread food losses and some fires in what retailers called an unprecedented strike on the food supply.
• Intermarché owner Les Mousquetaires said about 150 of its stores had fridges heated to 50C for six hours and threw out all affected food; Coopérative U and reportedly market leader E Leclerc were also hit by remotely triggered defrosting.
• France's cyber agency traced the breach to a vulnerability in software from Denmark's Danfoss, which blamed outdated firmware; the damage may extend beyond France, with Ahold Delhaize taking systems offline and its Albert Heijn and Delhaize chains reporting disruptions in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Visa wins approval to prepare China business LINK

• Visa said today it won approval from China's central bank to prepare a bank card clearing business, a step toward serving the country's domestic payments market after more than 40 years of operating around its edges.
• The approval lands just ahead of next month's APEC Leaders' Meeting in Shenzhen, where Xi Jinping and Trump are expected to meet, a sign Beijing wants to show tangible progress for American businesses before the visit.
• Visa CEO Ryan McInerney, who joined Trump's May delegation to Beijing and chairs the U.S.-China Business Council, still must take further regulatory steps before operating domestically; China has said it will approve applications from all foreign financial institutions.

Meta's new AI undercuts OpenAI on price LINK

• Meta launched Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, the first models from its Superintelligence Labs it says can compete with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic, pitching them as a step toward "personal superintelligence."
• Meta's own benchmarks put Wonder Full ahead of rivals, but independent ranker Artificial Analysis still places Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 first at 58, with the buyable Muse Wonder scoring 52, a point below OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra.
• Muse Wonder costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output, matching Anthropic and undercutting OpenAI by more than half, though the memory-centric pitch raises privacy questions given Meta's record handling personal data.

Microsoft's Maia 300 chip cuts its Nvidia reliance LINK

• Microsoft unveiled its Maia 300 AI chip on Monday and plans to shift much of the computing behind its AI products off Nvidia's processors and onto its own silicon starting in 2027, loosening its reliance on a key supplier.
• The shift targets inference, running trained models to answer questions and write code, where Microsoft says Maia 300 processes 40% more AI tokens per unit of power than leading GPU systems, though the figures are its own and untested independently.
• Nvidia keeps Microsoft's business for training large models and faces no immediate loss, but with usage potentially reaching billions of daily interactions, cutting the cost of each AI response is where Microsoft aims to protect margins as demand grows.

🇨🇳 Huawei closes gap on Nvidia in China LINK

• Nvidia's grip on China's data-centre AI chip market slipped to 34% in the first half of 2026, with Huawei closing in at 28% as US export curbs squeezed supplies and Beijing pushed home-grown alternatives.
• Nvidia's China shipments fell 44% from a year earlier to 678,000 AI accelerators, while Huawei's jumped to 572,000 from more than 300,000, and nine of the 11 Chinese chipmakers IDC tracks increased shipments.
• With Jensen Huang warning Washington's rules are ceding China's $50 billion market to Huawei, IDC expects total shipments to rise 19% in 2026 even as GPUs drop 9%, signalling buyers are shifting toward local suppliers.

Macro News

• Hammack sees possible rate increases needed to prevent inflation expectations taking hold. LINK
• Japanese bond yields diverged as short rates rose and long yields fell. LINK
• India's inflation hit 5.54%, exceeding forecasts and pressuring the central bank. LINK
• Greene says UK rates may not sufficiently restrain economic activity. LINK
• Saudi Arabia will expand East-West pipeline capacity to 10 million barrels daily. LINK
• Fitzpatrick will force House vote blocking all Russian oil purchases. LINK
• Shell opposes Australia's proposed LNG domestic-reservation rules as heavy-handed intervention. LINK
• Hall and Woodford won economics Nobel for models stabilizing economic cycles. LINK
• Dollar stayed near 18-month high as geopolitical attacks boosted demand. LINK
• Regulators are scrutinizing banks' advanced AI use over financial-stability fears. LINK

Corporate News

• Tencent is raising at least $4.5 billion to fund AI spending. LINK
• IonQ will acquire Elisity for up to $1.3 billion in stock. LINK
• Micron lifted authorization to $35.16 billion, with repurchases barred until 2026. LINK
• Getty Images will go private through bankruptcy, backed by $433 million equity. LINK
• OPay filed for New York listing, targeting valuation near $4 billion. LINK
• Kroger plans to eliminate 3,000 corporate jobs over three years. LINK
• ID Finance raised €545 million to expand its consumer finance app. LINK
• NTT Data nears deal for Anthropic's first dedicated Japanese data center. LINK
• Bumble is nearing a $1 billion take-private deal with Ithaca Holdings. LINK

Stocks

▲ Biggest winners

Snap rose 5% after shareholder Blue Duck Capital urged the board to raise dedicated capital for AR 'Specs' glasses. LINK

Fair Isaac rose 11% after United Wholesale Mortgage publicly reaffirmed its commitment to using FICO Scores for all broker credit pulls and announced plans to implement FICO Score 10T. LINK

▼ Biggest losers

Cerebras Systems fell 11% after reports that OpenAI shifted its GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast workload to Nvidia hardware. LINK

Semtech fell 10% after Northland Securities downgraded Semtech to Market Perform. LINK

TTM Technologies fell 9% after announcing a new $400 million AI spending plan. LINK

Research & Reports

• Goldman upgraded global equities, citing earnings growth and attractive valuations. LINK
• IMF warned AI stock plunge could threaten global financial stability. LINK
• US shoppers welcome AI shopping help but distrust payment control, survey finds. LINK
• Indian fintech funding rose 14%, with investment concentrating in fewer, larger deals. LINK
• Bitcoin miners secured $100 billion in AI contracts but earn little revenue. LINK
• Goldman named SanDisk, SK Hynix and Samsung winners from AI memory demand. LINK

Market Calendar

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