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The World
Global stocks have closed out their biggest monthly rally in three years, as investors pile into risky assets in the growing belief that the Federal Reserve and other big central banks are close to winning their battle with inflation. The MSCI All-Country World index rose almost 9 per cent over the course of November, marking the global equities benchmark’s best month since November 2020 when news of a breakthrough in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine sent stocks soaring. In the US, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index and the technology-dominated Nasdaq Composite posted their best month since July 2022, gaining 8.9 per cent and 10.7 per cent, respectively. (Financial Times)
China factory activity surprisingly expands in November. (Reuters)
U.S. consumer spending rose 0.2% in October after a 0.7% increase in September. Meanwhile, “inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index was unchanged in October after climbing 0.4% in September.” (Reuters)
“A retired hardline general who was banned from America for human rights abuses” is favored to be elected Indonesia’s next president “after transforming himself from a murderous oppressor into a cute dancing grandpa.” Prabowo Subianto “was one of the most feared and hated men” under dictator Suharto, but “polls show that he is ahead of two other rivals in the campaign to replace President Joko next year, thanks in part to an online campaign presenting him as a cuddly cartoon figure.” (Times of London)
The EPA has proposed “a stricter rule on lead in drinking water that would require that all lead service lines in the country be replaced within 10 years, and would lower the current lead action level in drinking water from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.” The Biden Administration says more than 9.2 million U.S. households still have water connections that include lead piping. (Ars Technica)
“The world’s largest collection of full human genomes has just gone live.” The UK Biobank has released “complete genome sequences from every one of the 500,000 British volunteers in the database.” Researchers can apply for access to the data “and use them to probe the genetic basis for health and disease.” (Nature)
Penguin Random House has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block school book banning in Iowa, the latest effort by publishers, authors and teachers to counter the removal of works from school classrooms and libraries. The legal action, filed in federal district court in the Southern District of Iowa, was prompted by a state law passed earlier this year that bans from school libraries or classrooms books that depict or describe sex acts. (Religious texts are exempt.) The law also bans books that address gender identity or sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The lawsuit says the law is so vague that it could potentially target an extremely broad range of books. Titles that have been removed in some Iowa school districts since the law passed include George Orwell’s “1984,” Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” according to a database created by the Des Moines Register. (Wall Street Journal)
A Montana judge has blocked “a state ban on TikTok from going into effect — marking a win for the popular video streaming app who alleged the law violated the First Amendment.” TikTok filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana in May “seeking for the court to invalidate the law and block the state from enforcing it.” (Politico)
This year, 59% retailers offer so-called "returnless" or "keep it" policies for unwanted products whose returns costs exceed their value, according to returns services firm goTRG, which surveyed 500 executives at 21 major retailers, including Walmart and Amazon. Last year, 500 retail executives said 26% of companies had such policies, said goTRG CEO Sender Shamiss, whose company counts Walmart among its clients. They didn't break out the number of companies involved in last year's survey. (Reuters)
Economy
OPEC+ will cut production by an additional one million barrels a day “in a move that will likely send prices higher amid the continuing conflict in the Middle East.” Saudi Arabia also agreed to extend its cut of one million bpd that it announced in June. (Wall Street Journal)
OPEC+ output of “some 43 million bpd already reflects cuts of about 5 million bpd aimed at supporting prices and stabilizing the market.” (Reuters)
Coca-Cola and J.M. Smucker took the top spots in the 2023 American Opportunity Index, “which measures companies' effectiveness at developing talent to drive business performance and advance individual careers.” Meta, Bank of America, and Target “also ranked high among the top 100 companies.” (Axios)
India's gross domestic product “grew 7.6% in the July-September quarter, thanks to a strong services sector and the government's hefty capital outlays ahead of the 2024 elections. The growth rate moderated after touching 7.8% in the first quarter of the fiscal year that started in April.” Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee had projected a 6.5% increase. (Nikkei Asia)
African nations are bullish on carbon markets. The African Carbon Markets Initiative “reckons that Africa uses just 2% of its annual carbon-credit potential; it aims for Africa to sell $100bn worth of credits a year by 2050. Even a fraction of that would be a boon for a continent where annual foreign direct investment” has never topped $80 billion. (The Economist)
The Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF has become the first bond exchange-traded fund to cross $100 billion in assets “since such products launched over two decades ago.” The fund “has absorbed $15.6 billion so far this year. The milestone marries two of 2023’s biggest trends: The highest yields in years have made fixed-income more appealing, while relatively low-cost, tax-efficient ETFs have consistently stolen market share from their more expensive mutual fund brethren.” (Bloomberg)
US oil production notched a new record in September, with output of 13.24mn barrels a day, as growth continues just a month after the country broke its pre-Covid highs. Production rose by 224,000 barrels a day, or 1.7 per cent, during the month, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. (Financial Times)
Technology
“When OpenAI’s board asked Sam Altman to return a day after they fired him, he initially felt defiant, hurt, and angry.” He said in an interview, “It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and get over the ego and emotions to then be like, ‘Yeah, of course I want to do that.’ Obviously, I really loved the company and had poured my life force into this for the last four and a half years full time.” After an “attempted boardroom coup that lasted five days, Altman officially returned as CEO of OpenAI on Wednesday. The company’s biggest investor, Microsoft, is planning to take a nonvoting board seat as well.” (The Verge)
ChatGPT is one year old. Here’s how it changed the tech world. (Ars Technica)
X CEO Linda Yaccarino “addressed the explicit comments Elon Musk hurled at advertisers” during an interview at The New York Times 2023 DealBook Summit. Yaccarino “described Musk’s comments as an ‘explicit point of view about our position.’” She also wrote on X, “X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and is here to welcome you.” (CNBC)
“After four years of delays and missteps, the Tesla Cybertruck has finally arrived.” Elon Musk hosted a delivery event at Tesla’s Austin, Texas, factory on Thursday, “touting its towing abilities, bulletproof doors, and straight-line speed. Several customers took delivery of their Cybertrucks at the event.” (The Verge)
Analysts are “asking just who will buy the Cybertruck. Will it steal customers from traditional automakers, appeal to a different crowd or become a costly flop? Tesla has said hundreds of thousands of people have placed $100 refundable deposits on Cybertrucks. But there is no guarantee those reservations will translate into sales.” (New York Times)
Meta says a network of nearly 4,800 fake Facebook accounts “designed to appear to be from Americans” were created by someone in China who “used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the U.S. ahead of next year’s elections.” The accounts “sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues.” (Associated Press)
“Meta also released a report evaluating the risk that foreign adversaries including Iran, China and Russia would use social media to interfere in elections.” The report said Russia’s “recent disinformation efforts have focused not on the U.S. but on its war against Ukraine.” (The Guardian)
Meta has filed suit against the FTC, “challenging the constitutionality of its in-house enforcement powers in a bid to stop the agency from unilaterally changing the terms of a 2020 privacy settlement.” The action comes after Meta earlier this week “lost a bid to bar the FTC from reopening a 2020 enforcement order against the company, in which the agency accused Meta of privacy violations against children.” (Politico)
Smart Links
Eurozone inflation falls more than expected to 2.4%. (Financial Times)
Google DeepMind’s new AI tool helped create more than 700 new materials. (MIT Technology Review)
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warns Wall Street to prepare for a recession. (New York Post)
Activist investor Nelson Peltz launches Disney proxy fight, seeks multiple board seats. (CNBC)