1. Asia markets rise, breaking ranks with Wall Street’s declines on renewed U.S.-China trade feud
Asia-Pacific markets traded higher Wednesday, breaking ranks with Wall Street’s declines after U.S. and China exchanged blows in a renewed trade feud. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.98%, while the Topix added 0.75%. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 0.8%, while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.83%. Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 was up 0.93%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.77%, while the mainland’s CSI 300 was flat. China’s consumer prices fell more than expected in September, while the deflation in producer prices persisted, underscoring the impact of sluggish domestic demand and trade worries on consumer and business sentiment.
2. S&P 500 closes in red during volatile session as Trump knocks China once again
The S&P 500 staged a big comeback from its lows on Tuesday, but gave a lot of it back again before the closing bell as U.S. and China traded blows in a renewed trade feud. President Donald Trump criticized China for not buying soybeans late in the day, a comment that pushed the S&P 500 into the red to finish the session. The S&P 500 closed down 0.2% to 6,644.31 in a wild day that saw the benchmark fall as much as 1.5% and gain 0.4% at its highs. The Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.8% to 22,521.70, although at one point it had fallen as much as 2.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial average closed up 0.4%, or 202.88 points, to 46,270.46 after gaining nearly 1% at one point. It was lower by 1.3% initially shortly after the open. Caterpillar led the gains in the Dow.
3. Safe-haven gold hits record high at $4,190 on Fed rate cut bets, trade jitters
Gold notched a fresh record high at $4,190 level on Wednesday, lifted by expectations of a rate cut this month by the U.S. Federal Reserve and a flight to safety after a flare-up in trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. Spot gold rose to $4,178.61 per ounce, after hitting a record high of $4,190 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures for December delivery gained further notching towards $4,198. Its rally has been driven by multiple factors, including geopolitical uncertainties, expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts, strong central bank buying and robust ETF inflows. Trump is set to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday, after China’s rare earth export crackdown and Trump’s triple-digit tariff threat roiled markets.
4. Oil down as market eyes excess supply, US-China trade tensions
Oil prices fell on Wednesday, extending losses from the previous session, as investors weighed the International Energy Agency’s warning of a supply surplus in 2026 and U.S.-China trade tensions that could curtail demand. Brent crude futures fell 21 cents, or 0.3%, to $62.18 a barrel by 0425 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures eased 16 cents, or 0.3%, to $58.54 a barrel. Both contracts closed at five-month lows in the previous trading session. The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday the global oil market could face a surplus next year of as much as 4 million barrels per day, a bigger glut than it earlier forecast, as OPEC+ producers and rivals raise output and demand remains sluggish.
5. Trump trade rep says new 100% tariff on China depends on Beijing’s next move
President Donald Trump could still slap China with 100% tariffs on Nov. 1 or sooner depending on Beijing’s next move in a dispute over rare earths, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC Tuesday. “A lot depends on what the Chinese do,” Greer told CNBC in an interview. “They are the ones who have chosen to make this major escalation.” China announced sweeping restrictions on rare earth exports last week that would disrupt the U.S. defence, technology, semiconductor and automobile industries if implemented. Trump retaliated with the threat of massive tariffs that would effectively shut down trade between the world’s two largest economies. “We can’t have a situation where the Chinese keep this regime in place where they want to have veto power over the world’s high tech supply chains,” the U.S. trade representative said.
6.Fed’s Powell suggests tightening program could end soon, offers no guidance on rates
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday suggested the central bank is nearing a point where it will stop reducing the size of its bond holdings, but gave no long-run indication of where interest rates are heading. Speaking to the National Association for Business Economics’ conference in Philadelphia, Powell provided a dissertation on where the Fed stands with “quantitative tightening,” or the effort to reduce the more than $6 trillion of securities it holds on its balance sheet. While he provided no specific date of when the program will cease, he said there are indications that the Fed is nearing its goal of “ample” reserves available for banks. “Our long-stated plan is to stop balance sheet runoff when reserves are somewhat above the level we judge consistent with ample reserve conditions,” Powell said in prepared remarks.
7. Trump threatens China with cooking oil embargo over soybean snub
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said his administration is considering “terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil” in retaliation for Beijing refusing to buy U.S. soybeans. Trump said he believes China is committing an “Economically Hostile Act” by “purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers.” Ending business with China on cooking oil and “other elements of Trade” are possible forms of “retribution” Trump is weighing, he said in a Truth Social post. “As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China,” he wrote.
8.Bessent tells the media that struggling China wants ‘to pull everybody else down with them’
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused China of trying to weaken the global economy by slapping export controls on resources vital for technology. In an interview with the media, Bessent said the moves over rare earths and minerals are an attempt by China “to pull everyone else down with them.” “If they want to slow down the global economy, they will be hurt the most,” he said. The move by China comes just ahead of a scheduled meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. In an Oct. 9 announcement Beijing said it won’t allow the export of rare earths materials for military use, the first time it has targeted that specific use. “They are in the middle of a recession/depression, and they are trying to export their way out of it. The problem is they’re exacerbating their standing in the world,” Bessent told the reporters.
9. US banks cheer regulators’ steps toward easing capital requirements
U.S. bank executives expressed optimism that Trump administration regulators will soften capital rules, a major reversal from stricter proposals under the Biden administration. Wall Street has already locked in major wins on its regulatory wish list, including a pullback on supervisory bank exams and confidential disciplinary notices, alongside a friendlier stance on bank mergers. “I absolutely think that the regulatory direction of travel is improving our competitive position significantly,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told analysts on an earnings conference call on Tuesday. He expected to have a “very clear picture” of regulatory matters later this year and in the first half of 2026. Officials are expected to shrink a key leverage constraint, reduce a capital surcharge levied on risky global banks, and overhaul annual tests that gauge whether lenders can withstand an economic shock, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing industry executives.
10. China consumer prices drop more than expected in September, staying in deflationary territory
China’s consumer prices fell more than expected in September, while the deflation in producer prices persisted, underscoring the impact of sluggish domestic demand and trade worries on consumer and business sentiment. The consumer price index fell 0.3% in September from a year earlier, National Bureau of Statistics data showed on Wednesday, a sharper decline than economists’ forecast of 0.2% slide, although easing from the 0.4% drop in August. Prices ticked up 0.1% month-on-month, a smaller than expected recovery compared to economists’ forecast for 0.2% increase. Core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 1.0% from a year earlier, the highest since February 2024, according to data from Wind Information.
11. Oracle Cloud to deploy 50,000 AMD AI chips, signalling new Nvidia competition
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure on Tuesday announced it will deploy 50,000 Advanced Micro Devices graphics processors starting in the second half of 2026. AMD shares climbed about 2%. Oracle shares sank 4% while Nvidia was more than 3% lower. The move is the latest sign that cloud companies are increasingly offering AMD’s graphics processing units as an alternative to Nvidia’s market-leading GPUs for artificial intelligence. “We feel like customers are going to take up AMD very, very well — especially in the inferencing space,” said Karan Batta, senior vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle will use AMD’s Instinct MI450 chips, which were announced earlier this year.
12. Google to invest $15 billion to build data center hub in India; largest outside of the U.S.
Google will invest $15 billion to build data center capacity for a new artificial intelligence hub in southern India, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian announced at an event Tuesday. The investment will roll out over the next five years, and will be Google’s largest AI hub in the world outside of the U.S, Kurian added. Earlier on Monday, the Minister for Human Resources Development of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Lokesh, put the 1-gigawatt project at $10 billion. The deal comes after “a year of intense discussions and relentless effort,” and “is just the beginning,” Lokesh said in a post on the social media platform X. According to another source on Tuesday, state officials planned to continue doubling down on such projects and to significantly scale up the state’s computing capacity over the next three years.
13. Citi reports a rise in earnings with every business posting record third-quarter revenue
Citi’s net income rose 15% to $3.8 billion from a year earlier, while revenues were up 9% as every business posted record numbers. Services business enjoyed its best quarter ever with revenues up 7%. Banking revenues surged 34%, while the markets segment delivered its best third quarter with revenues jumping 15%. “Investments in new products, digital assets and AI are driving innovation and improved capabilities across the franchise,” Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser said in a statement. “The relentless execution of our strategy is delivering stronger business performance quarter after quarter and improving our returns.” Citigroup is selling a 25% equity stake in its Mexico business, Banamex, ahead of a public stock offer. The costs associated with the sale drove up expenses by 9% last quarter.
14. JPMorgan Chase tops estimates as trading revenue hits a record of nearly $9 billion
JPMorgan Chase on Tuesday topped analysts’ estimates for the third quarter as trading and investment banking generated about $700 million more revenue than expected. The bank said in a release that profit jumped 12% to $14.39 billion, or $5.07 per share, from a year earlier. Revenue rose 9% to $47.12 billion. So far this year, the biggest American banks have benefited under the administration of President Donald Trump. They’ve reaped higher trading revenue as upheaval from his policies has roiled markets around the world, forcing investors to reposition themselves. JPMorgan’s trading haul of $8.9 billion was a record for a third quarter, CEO Jamie Dimon said in the release. Investment bankers are busier thanks to a more relaxed stance toward mergers, and Trump’s bank regulators have proposed ways to ease capital requirements and stress tests.
15. Salesforce deepens AI ties with OpenAI, Anthropic to power Agentforce platform
Salesforce expanded partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic to integrate their frontier AI models into its Agentforce 360 platform, aiming to deliver enterprise-grade AI tools to a wider range of businesses and regulated industries. The deals, announced on Tuesday, will embed OpenAI’s latest GPT-5 model and Anthropic’s Claude family of models directly into Salesforce’s ecosystem, enabling employees and consumers to interact with customer data and analytics in ChatGPT, Slack and Salesforce’s own software. The twin deals underscore Salesforce’s push to make its Agentforce 360 platform a central access point for major AI models, as enterprise software makers race to integrate generative AI tools into everyday business workflows.
16. Spotify video podcasts head to Netflix under new distribution tie-up
Netflix said on Tuesday it will add a slate of Spotify’s most popular video podcasts to its service from early 2026, part of a new distribution partnership aimed at broadening the streaming giant’s entertainment lineup and drawing new audiences. The initial lineup will feature shows such as “The Dave Chang Show” and “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” but will not include “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Spotify’s most-listened-to podcast globally. The expansion underscores Netflix’s push to diversify beyond scripted series, films and reality programming by tapping into the growing appeal of audio-visual podcast formats. For Spotify, the partnership is expected to extend the reach of its creators by tapping Netflix’s large global subscriber base.