Business & Markets

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Meta Platforms said Monday it will raise up to $95 billion in equity, the largest such effort in its history. It has launched public offerings of about $35 billion in common and convertible preferred stock. A separate at-the-market program of up to $60 billion is planned after new non-voting Class C shares begin trading, expected in the first quarter of 2027. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom have signaled interest in buying up to a combined $5 billion of Class A shares. Meta reported negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion in the third quarter, its first in more than a decade, and has lifted its 2026 capital-spending forecast to $135 billion to $145 billion. Shares fell about 1.4% to 1.6% in morning trading. Because the new class carries no votes, Mark Zuckerberg's control is not diluted.

WASHINGTON — Federal antitrust enforcers have ended their review of Intercontinental Exchange's planned $6 billion purchase of bond-trading platform MarketAxess Holdings, according to Law360. The review closed after the companies gave regulators extra time. The Federal Trade Commission has also asked Curium and Lantheus for more information on Curium's proposed $8 billion acquisition of the radiopharmaceutical company, which extends the waiting period and delays closing. In a separate case, PlayPower and BCI Burke have agreed not to complete their merger until the FTC's challenge is tried in California federal court. The agency sued on October 19 and a trial is eyed for March. The FTC's merger page also lists a consent order that let Publicis buy LiveRamp, announced the same day.

LONDON — Barclays said Thursday it will eliminate about 5,000 jobs, roughly 5% of its workforce. About 1,000 posts have already gone, and about 4,000 more are due by year-end. Around 60% of the cuts fall in support functions, including software developers. The bank cited organisational simplification and AI-driven efficiency. Third-quarter pretax profit rose 12% to £2.3 billion, in line with forecasts. Income of £7.4 billion missed estimates, and fixed-income trading revenue fell 19% to £1 billion. CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said he was disappointed with trading. The union Unite accused the bank of using AI as a pretext to shed staff. Barclays says not all the cuts stem from AI. Finance minister John Healey's first budget is due October 28, and it may bring further taxes on banks.

Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz reported that third-party tracking tools recorded significant Google ranking volatility on Saturday, October 24. Industry chatter about traffic changes was also heavy. He concluded that Google likely released some ranking adjustment late Friday into Saturday. Google has not confirmed anything. Search Engine Watch reported that, as of October 19, the latest entry on Google's Search Status Dashboard was the September spam update, which finished October 8 after almost 14 days. The last core update began May 21. Roundtable also logged spikes on October 16 and on October 20 and 21. SEO specialists quoted by the German consultancy SEO-Kreativ expect a core update, possibly in November, but none has been announced.

Google revised its Search Central guide on preventing user-generated spam on Monday, October 26. The guide now covers tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content or web apps, not only comment forms and hosting platforms. A new section, titled 'Only index content meant for Search,' says pages made for sharing, collaboration or utility should carry a noindex rule or be blocked in robots.txt by default. The guide also tells site operators to verify their property in Search Console and to watch the Page Indexing and performance reports for unexpected spikes. Google's stated aim is to keep such pages out of the index and spot spam sooner. It gave no enforcement date. Search Engine Journal cautioned that a robots.txt block stops Google from ever seeing a noindex tag.

SÃO PAULO — Brazilian markets suffered one of their worst days in decades on Monday after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Sunday's runoff with 51.8% of the vote to Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.2%, according to the electoral court. The Bovespa fell nearly 17% at its worst, its largest one-day percentage drop since 1998 by Reuters' count as reported by Quartz. The real fell more than 10% against the dollar at the extreme. Exchange operator B3 paused trading for half an hour after a 10% drop. Investors had bought Brazilian assets after Bolsonaro's first-round lead, expecting tighter fiscal policy. In New York, the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF was down about 22% to 25% in early trading. Itaú Unibanco and Petrobras both fell sharply. Bolsonaro has refused to concede and says he will seek to annul the result, Reuters reported. Attention now turns to Lula's choice of finance minister and his budget plans.

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks rose on Monday as the chip rout paused at the start of a week with a Federal Reserve decision and heavy earnings. The Dow added 146.42 points, or 0.28%, to 52,361.58. The S&P 500 gained 0.70% to 7,676.77, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.82% to 26,169.38. Semiconductor stocks remain in a bear market, with the SOXX ETF about 25% below its high and down 13% this month. In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield was little changed at 4.986%, the 30-year at 5.299% and the 2-year at 4.716%. CME FedWatch showed traders putting the odds of a hold at 3.75% to 4% above 90% for Wednesday. Deutsche Bank analysts expect Chair Kevin Warsh to sound hawkish and to say that tighter financial conditions do not replace higher policy rates. The Fed announces its decision on Wednesday.

NEW YORK — JetBlue Airways shares fell more than 13% in midday trading on Monday, on course for their worst day since April 10, 2025. The stock's 14-day relative strength index dropped to 13.3, the lowest on record according to LSEG data and below the prior low of 13.5 set in March 2020. A reading under 30 is generally treated as oversold. The selloff followed concern about the airline's balance sheet and cash burn. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that a group of creditors is working with financial and legal advisers. That report has not been independently confirmed here, and JetBlue's response was not given in the coverage reviewed. Fuel costs have risen as Brent crude reached its highest settlement since April, and borrowing costs remain elevated, with the 10-year Treasury yield near 5%.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked a federal judge last week to send back the 2024 federal approval for New England Wind, the fourth offshore wind project it has targeted in recent months. The Justice Department argued the plan was approved despite major adverse impacts. The project would use up to 129 turbines and supply as much as 2,600 megawatts, and construction has not begun. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said the move could blow up the bipartisan permitting bill. The Interior Department said the filing only followed a court briefing schedule and was not a policy change. The bill, S. 5653, was introduced Sept. 30. It would expand FERC's power to site transmission lines and require data centers of 20 MW or more to bear their own transmission costs. A Senate procedural vote is planned for Nov. 9, after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

SEOUL — South Korea will count only confirmed AI data-center demand in its next long-term electricity plan, Climate, Energy and Environment Minister Kim Sung-hwan told a National Assembly audit on Monday. The government had announced plans for 18.4 gigawatts of AI data-center capacity by 2035. Kim said that once the three flagship projects moved into implementation, little demand turned out to be firmly committed. The review comes just two months after the 2040 demand forecast was raised to 11.9 GW. GS Group and Naver have the most concrete plans, including GS's 1.2-GW first phase targeted for 2028. SK Group's 4-GW program remains unclear beyond a roughly 100-MW site with Amazon Web Services. A ministry official said no figure for the cut has been set.