2025-11-28 19:00

Retailers in focus as holiday season begins Tech stocks recover, but Nasdaq ends with monthly losses Data center cooling issue disrupts futures trading Nov 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Friday in thin trading volume during a shortened session after Thanksgiving, driven by gains in retail and a recovery in tech stocks. Expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut in December strengthened throughout the week, helping underpin sentiment across equity markets. Sign up here. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 0.61%, to 47,716.42 points, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 0.54%, to 6,849.09 points and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab added 0.65%, to 23,365.69. All of the major S&P 500 sectors were up except healthcare, with pharmaceutical Eli Lilly (LLY.N) , opens new tab down 2.6%. Intel (INTC.O) , opens new tab helped lead the S&P 500 with a 10.2% gain after a TF International Securities analyst said the company would begin shipping Apple's (AAPL.O) , opens new tab lowest-end M processor as early as 2027. INDEXES NOTCH WEEKLY GAINS, MIXED FOR MONTH The three main indexes posted weekly gains. The S&P 500 rose 3.73%, the Nasdaq gained 4.91%, and the Dow climbed 3.18%. The S&P and the Dow swung to marginally positive for the month after Friday's prices settled. But the Nasdaq closed down 1.51% this month, reflecting growing concerns about stretched AI and tech valuations, with investors taking profits and reducing exposure. "This is a light volume post-holiday session, as those tend to be, with not much activity," said Cole Smead, CEO at Smead Capital Management. "But I think everyone woke up over the past weeks to the fact that the outcome of AI is still very unknown." Futures trading was temporarily disrupted in the morning following a CME Group outage that had temporarily frozen currencies, commodities and equity contracts around the globe. CME's stock futures offerings linked to U.S. stocks are typically heavily traded before U.S. markets open, with investors relying on them to gauge trends and directions. CME said it was due to a cooling issue at its CyrusOne data centers. Shares of CME Group (CME.O) , opens new tab were marginally higher. "We're kind of lucky today. It was such a low-volume day, but it could have had a much bigger effect," said Joe Saluzzi, partner, co-founder and head of equity market structure research and co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading. "It does point to the risk of these failures and the connectedness to the markets that could cause bigger problems." This week also kicked off the holiday shopping season, starting with Thanksgiving on Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday - crucial days of sales for big-box retailers. https://www.reuters.com/business/us-stock-futures-frozen-by-cme-data-center-outage-2025-11-28/

2025-11-28 18:52

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - U.S. oil production rose to a record high in September, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Friday showed, despite oversupply worries. Oil production in the U.S. has continued to hit record highs this year despite a weak price environment, further weighing on global prices. Benchmark Brent crude was trading just below $64 on Friday, about 14% below the same time last year. Sign up here. U.S. crude oil output rose 44,000 barrels per day during the month to a record 13.84 million bpd, according to EIA data. Oil output in New Mexico, the second-largest oil-producing state, hit a record 2.351 million bpd, while output from the federal offshore gulf region rose to 1.983 million bpd in September, the highest since February 2020. Future U.S. oil production growth is expected to be concentrated in the offshore gulf region as the country's top onshore fields move towards peak output. U.S. gross natural gas production from the Lower 48 states in September fell to 122.17 billion cubic feet per day, down slightly from August's all-time high of 122.8 bcfd, according to the agency's 914 production report. Among top gas-producing states, monthly output in September fell by 0.63% to 37.69 bcfd in Texas. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-oil-production-rose-record-high-september-eia-data-shows-2025-11-28/

2025-11-28 17:44

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Exchange operator CME Group (CME.O) , opens new tab said on Friday that some markets had reopened after global futures were thrown into chaos when the world's largest exchange operator suffered one of its longest outages in years. The halt caused by a data centre cooling issue stopped trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies. Trading had restarted by 1335 GMT after having been knocked out for over 11 hours, according to LSEG data. Sign up here. QUOTES: MIKHAIL ZVEREV, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, AMATI GLOBAL INVESTORS, LONDON: "This isn’t just a trading issue, it's a reminder that data centres have become essential infrastructure and they are not 100% reliable, they have capacity issues. "We’re pragmatic optimists on AI, we’ve invested in the AI supply chain. "My anticipation is that life goes on but everybody will have yet another look at their data centre arrangements and invest more in ensuring reliable supply because the importance of data center uptime is higher and higher." KARL SCHAMOTTA, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, CORPAY, TORONTO: “Currency markets are taking this morning’s CME outage in their stride - functionality seems to be returning, and the EBS platform that handles FX trades is now running normally. Liquidity remains thin given that most participants executed month-end trades ahead of yesterday’s Thanksgiving holiday, and most major pairs are seeing choppy, but range-bound trading action with technical levels holding firm. Markets could hit some turbulence later this morning if benchmark prices remain muddled, but it looks as if that’s a relatively unlikely scenario.” JOE SALUZZI, CO-MANAGER OF TRADING, THEMIS TRADING, CHATHAM, NEW JERSEY: "This is such a strange day, in that it's always very, very light volume. If there was to be a glitch day, today's probably a good day to have it." ALEX MORRIS, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, F/M INVESTMENTS, WASHINGTON : "Of all the 252 trading days of the year this could have happened, this probably was the luckiest for the CME. The rolls from one contract to another all happened earlier in the week and the trading volumes today, because it's a half-day for markets, everything was sleepy anyway." "It's hard to compete" with the liquidity and market dominance of CME-traded futures contracts, he said. Still, "a lot of people at the CME are being called in and hauled in" on what might have been a slow day or a day off for them to do more testing of the systems. (This story has been corrected to fix the name of the analyst and the fund in paragraph 15) https://www.reuters.com/business/us-futures-options-resume-after-cme-outage-underscores-resilience-concerns-2025-11-28/

2025-11-28 16:06

OTTAWA, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Canada recorded a slightly higher C$16.09 billion ($11.52 billion) budget deficit for the first six months of the 2025/26 fiscal year as government expenditures grew faster than revenues, the finance ministry said on Friday. By comparison, the deficit in the same period a year earlier had been C$13.01 billion, it said in a statement. Sign up here. Program expenses rose 4.2% on increases across almost all major categories of spending. Public debt charges fell by 2.2% largely because of lower interest rates, the ministry said. Year-to-date revenues grew by 2.5%, largely reflecting higher personal income tax revenue and revenue from other taxes and duties, including higher customs duties collected due to Canada's counter tariffs on the U.S. Custom import duties increased 142% for the six months when compared with the six months last fiscal year. On a monthly basis, Canada posted a deficit of C$5.02 billion in September, compared to a C$3.17 billion deficit in September 2024. ($1 = 1.3964 Canadian dollars) ((Reuters Ottawa bureau; [email protected] , opens new tab)) Keywords: CANADA BUDGET/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-budget-deficit-over-first-six-months-202526-rises-c1609-bln-2025-11-28/

2025-11-28 15:04

Q3 growth led by crude oil exports, government spending GDP grew by 0.2% in September on month-over-month basis Advanced estimate shows GDP to decline 0.3% in October Business capital investment stayed flat in third quarter OTTAWA, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Canada's economy grew at a much faster pace than expected in the third quarter as crude oil exports and government spending boosted economic activity, data showed on Friday, even as business investments and household consumption disappointed due to the lingering uncertainty over U.S. tariffs. Third-quarter annualized gross domestic product grew 2.6%, Statistics Canada said, escaping what could have been a technical recession after a contraction in the previous quarter of a downwardly revised 1.8%. Sign up here. The data strengthened economists' view that the Bank of Canada will not cut interest rates on December 10. The quarterly GDP reading is calculated based on income and expenditure, unlike the monthly GDP which is derived from industrial output. The statistics agency said the third-quarter number could be subjected to a larger-than-normal revision in February because foreign merchandise trade data was not available due to the recent U.S. government shutdown. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast annualized growth of 0.5% in the third quarter and monthly GDP growth of 0.2% in September. On a month-over-month basis, the economy matched analysts' predictions following a deceleration of an upwardly revised 0.1% in the prior month, StatsCan said, primarily driven by a 1.6% expansion in manufacturing output. However, an advance estimate showed GDP might decline by 0.3% in October, signaling a negative start to the fourth quarter. U.S. tariffs on critical sectors have hit Canadian exports hard. They have resulted in job losses, dampened hiring and subdued business and consumer sentiment, leading to forecasts of a near-recessionary environment. But a 6.7% increase in crude oil and bitumen exports, along with a 2.9% increase in government capital investments, helped cushion some of the impact and higher crude oil exports also helped boost corporate income in the third quarter, StatsCan's data showed. An increase in spending on weapon systems and non-residential structures such as hospitals led the jump in government investments. A rise in residential resale activity and renovations also helped. The report "should quash recession chatter for now," Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note. The Bank of Canada said last month that it will keep its key interest rate on hold at 2.25% and only take action when there is a significant change in the economic outlook. The underlying impact of tariffs, however, continues to be reflected in business and consumer sentiment, the GDP data showed. Business capital investment was unchanged in the third quarter and household final consumption expenditure dropped 0.1%. New residential construction also declined 0.8% in the period, StatsCan added. The Canadian dollar rose 0.34% to 1.3982 to the U.S. dollar, or 71.52 U.S. cents. The yield on two-year government bonds was up 31.4 basis points to 2.402%. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-third-quarter-annualized-gdp-surprises-with-growth-26-2025-11-28/

2025-11-28 14:57

MUMBAI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India increased its short dollar positions in the FX market by $4.2 billion in October, data showed on Friday, marking a second consecutive month of expansion and underlining heightened efforts to counter pressure on the rupee. The RBI's short-dollar forward book, which had peaked at $88.7 billion in February, shrank over the next few months, falling to $53.3 billion by August, suggesting that the central bank was content to scale back its forward market footprint. Sign up here. That trend reversed in September, when the book expanded by about $6 billion. Analysts said the pickup points to renewed reliance on the forward market to manage pressure on the rupee, which has been hurt by prolonged U.S.–India trade deal talks, subdued portfolio inflows and a gold-driven surge in the trade deficit. In October, the RBI held the rupee above the 88.80 level through regular intervention, but it slipped to a record low of 89.49 against the dollar on November 21. RBI'S FX FORWARD PLAY The expansion in the RBI's forward book in October indicates that the central bank's spot intervention was being supplemented by forward market activity, which limits volatility and smoothens the impact of FX interventions on rupee liquidity in the local banking system. The liquidity drain from net FX intervention, across both spot and forwards, by the RBI in October surged to 1.5 trillion Indian rupees ($16.77 billion), underscoring a jump in net spot intervention, said Gaura Sen Gupta, economist at IDFC First Bank. However, the liquidity impact from FX operations in November was much lower, which might indicate increased use of interventions in non-deliverable forwards and the continued use of forwards to sterilise the RBI's spot intervention, Sen Gupta said. Selling dollars in the forward market allows the RBI to smooth demand-supply imbalances without an immediate impact on its FX reserves. The currency settled at 89.4575 per dollar on Friday, down 0.6% on the month. ($1 = 89.4700 Indian rupees) https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-central-banks-fx-forward-book-swells-2nd-month-underscoring-greater-rupee-2025-11-28/