Finance

Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Odds of a December rate cut remained low following the release of delayed jobs data.
Markets were last pricing about a 35% chance of a quarter-point cut from the Federal Reserve next month, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. That is higher than the 30% likelihood priced in during the prior session, but remains weak. The tool used fed funds futures trading to calculate the odds.

The target rate is currently at 3.75% to 4.00%.
Those expectations held steady after the release of the September jobs data, the first nonfarm payrolls report investors have seen since the government shutdown. The report gave an uneven picture of the U.S. labor market. The U.S. economy added 119,000 jobs in September, a headline number that blew away expectations for 50,000 jobs added, according to economists polled by Dow Jones.
However, the unemployment rate showed unexpected weakness, rising to 4.4% from 4.3%. The new level is the highest level it’s been since October 2021.
“All those numbers suggest an economy that’s still hanging in there. Not a dramatic move one way or the other,” Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “People should take note of the slight uptick in the unemployment rate, but labor force participation still looks pretty strong, average hourly earnings certainly looks strong, or strong enough. And so, I don’t think this sort of tilts the cut decision much one way or the other.”
To be sure, some investors are hopeful that weakness in the unemployment rate means a December rate cut remains on the table. The level is closely watched by Fed policymakers, more so than the headline number, and is additionally troubling given that a shrinking labor pool, given the rise in immigration crackdowns, theoretically would keep the job market tight.

“A December cut remains possible given continued labor market softness as expressed by the unemployment rate,” wrote Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “Weak hard data and close-to-target inflation look set to drive policy going forward, despite recent hawkish noises.”
“The setup is in place for Powell to continue his risk-management approach to the labor market before his term as Chair expires in May,” Haigh continued. More

Baidu CEO Robin Li this week became the latest major tech executive to say robotaxis are at or near an inflection point for broader adoption.
The company claims its Apollo Go robotaxis are breaking even per car, supporting global business expansion.
Chinese robotaxi companies are expanding to the Middle East, while U.S. rivals have yet to enter.

Chinese tech company Baidu announced Monday it can sell some robotaxi rides without any human staff in the vehicles.

BEIJING — Chinese robotaxi companies are expanding abroad at a faster clip than U.S. rivals Waymo and Tesla — at a time when industry leaders say autonomous driving is finally near an inflection point.
“I think robotaxi has reached a tipping point, both here in China and in the U.S.,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said Tuesday on an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.

“There are enough people who have [had the] chance to experience driverless rides, and the word of mouth has created positive social media feedback,” he said, noting that the wider public exposure could speed up regulatory approval.
His comments echoed similar notes of optimism in the last few weeks from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Xpeng Co-President Brian Gu — who reversed his previously cautious stance after faster-than-anticipated tech advances. Xpeng is launching robotaxis in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou next year.
It’s a global market with significant growth potential, likely worth more than $25 billion by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs’ estimates in May.

To seize that opportunity, Chinese companies are aggressively expanding overseas and claim they are close to making robotaxis a viable business, rather than simply burning cash to grab market share.
In the last 18 months, Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide landed partnerships with Uber that allow users of the ride-hailing app to order a robotaxi in specific locations, starting in the Middle East.

Such tie-ups “will be critical to success” as they enable robotaxi companies to operate more efficiently and reach profitability more quickly, said Counterpoint Senior Analyst Murtuza Ali.

Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world.

Halton Niu
General manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business

Expanding on experience at home

Baidu says that since late last year, its Apollo Go robotaxi unit has reached per-vehicle profitability in Wuhan, where the company has operated over 1,000 vehicles in its largest deployment in China.
That means ridership is enough to offset a Wuhan taxi fare that’s 30% cheaper than in Beijing or Shanghai, and far below prices in the U.S. or Europe. Besides developing autonomous driving systems, Baidu has also produced electrically-powered robotaxi vehicles — without relying on a third-party manufacturer — that are 50% cheaper.
“Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world,” Halton Niu, general manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business, told CNBC.
“Scale matters,” he said. “If you only deploy, for example, 100 to 200 cars in a single city, if you only cover a small area of the city, you can never become profitable.”

How U.S. rivals stack up

Scale remains the dividing line. In the U.S., Alphabet-owned Waymo operates more than 2,500 vehicles and is expanding rapidly from major cities in California to Texas and Florida, with plans to enter London next year, following its first overseas venture in Tokyo.
Tesla sells its electric cars in China, and reportedly showed off its Cybercab in Shanghai this month. But it began testing its robotaxis in Texas only in June, and this week obtained a permit to operate in Arizona.
Amazon’s Zoox is also ramping up its expansion in the U.S., but has not released overseas plans.
The three companies have not disclosed plans to break even on their robotaxis.
Baidu Apollo Go’s Niu did not rule out an expansion into the U.S. But for now, the robotaxi operator plans to enter Europe with trials in parts of Switzerland next month, following their expansion in the Middle East this year.
Abu Dhabi last week gave Apollo Go a permit to charge fares to the public for fully driverless robotaxi rides, which are operated locally under the AutoGo brand, eight months after local trials began in parts of the city.
But Chinese startup WeRide said it received a similar permit on Oct. 31 to charge fares for its fully driverless robotaxi rides in Abu Dhabi, and claimed that removing human staff from the cars would allow it to make a profit on each vehicle.
That puts Pony.ai furthest from profitability among the three major Chinese robotaxi operators. Its CFO Leo Haojun Wang told The Wall Street Journal in mid-September that the company aimed to make a profit on each car by the end of this year or early next year.

Pony.ai plans to launch a fully autonomous commercial robotaxi business in Dubai in 2026, after receiving a testing permit in late September. The company plans to roll out in Europe in the coming months and has also outlined an expansion into Singapore.
Pony.ai and WeRide are set to release quarterly earnings early next week.
“Currently, companies like Waymo, Baidu, WeRide and Pony.ai are leading in terms of fleet size, which positions them advantageously in the race for profitability,” said Yuqian Ding, head of China Autos Research at HSBC.

Scale and safety

Fleet size is becoming a competitive marker. Pony.ai reportedly said it plans to release 1,000 robotaxis in the Middle East by 2028, while WeRide aims to operate a fleet of 1,000 robotaxis in the region by the end of next year.
Niu said Apollo Go operates around 100 robotaxis in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and plans to double its vehicle fleet in the next few months.
“Apollo Go has had a head start with significantly more test rides than the other two,” Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, said in an email. “The more testing and data you can collect from trips taken, the more likely the AI sensors are able to recognize the objects on the road, which means better safety as well.”
He cautioned that despite some initial progress, the robotaxi race remains uncertain as “no one has truly had mass adoption for their vehicles.”

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Coverage remains limited. Even in China, robotaxis are only allowed to operate in selected zones, though Pony.ai recently became the first to win regulatory approval to operate its robotaxis across all of Shenzhen, dubbed China’s Silicon Valley. In Beijing, self-driving taxis are mostly limited to a suburb called Yizhuang.
Anecdotally, CNBC tests have found Pony.ai offered a smoother ride than Apollo Go, which was prone to hard braking.
As for safety — which is critical for regulatory approval — none of the six operators has reported fatalities or major injuries caused by the robotaxis so far. But Apollo Go and Waymo have begun advertising low airbag deployment rates.
Even if that’s not enough to convince regulators worldwide, Beijing is expected to ramp up support at home.
HSBC’s Ding predicts the number of robotaxis on China’s roads could multiply from a few thousand to tens of thousands between the end of this year and 2026, a shift that would give operators more proof that their model works. More

While the Federal Open Market Committee approved a cut at the meeting, the path forward looks less certain.
Disagreements stretched into the outlook for December, with officials expressing skepticism about the need for an additional cut that markets had been widely anticipating, with “many” saying that no more cuts are needed at least in 2025.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference after the Fed cut interest rates by quarter of a percentage point, in Washington, D.C., U.S., Oct. 29, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Federal Reserve officials were at odds during their October meeting over cutting interest rates, divided over whether a stalling labor market or stubborn inflation were bigger economic threats, minutes released Wednesday showed.
While the Federal Open Market Committee approved a cut at the meeting, the path forward looks less certain. Disagreements stretched into the outlook for December, with officials expressing skepticism about the need for an additional reduction that markets had been widely anticipating, with “many” saying that no more cuts are needed at least in 2025.

“Several participants assessed that a further lowering of the target range for the federal funds rate could well be appropriate in December if the economy evolved about as they expected over the coming intermeeting period,” the minutes said. “Many participants suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep the target range unchanged for the rest of the year.”
In Fed parlance, “many” is more than “several,” indicating a tilt against a December cut. However, “participants” does not denote voters. There are 19 participants at the meeting, but only 12 vote, so it’s unclear how the voting members’ sentiment is set for a December move.
However, the notation jibes with a statement at Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s post-meeting news conference. Powell told reporters that a December cut was not a “foregone conclusion.”
“In discussing the near-term course of monetary policy, participants expressed strongly differing views about what policy decision would most likely be appropriate at the Committee’s December meeting,” the minutes said.
Previous to Powell’s statement, traders had been pricing in a near certainty of another move at the Dec. 9-10 session. As of Wednesday afternoon, that had been reduced to about a 1 in 3 chance, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch measure of futures pricing. Odds for a January cut are around 66%.

The minutes did note that “most participants” saw further cuts likely in the future, though not necessarily in December.
Ultimately, the FOMC approved a quarter percentage point reduction in the overnight borrowing rate to a range of 3.75%-4%. But the 10-2 vote was not indicative of how split officials were at an institution not generally known for dissent.
Officials generally indicated concern over a slowing labor market and inflation that has “shown little sign of returning sustainably” to the Fed’s 2% target. The minutes reflected multiple camps within the committee.
“Against this backdrop, many participants were in favor of lowering the target range for the federal funds rate at this meeting, some supported such a decision but could have also supported maintaining the level of the target range, and several were against lowering the target range,” the minutes said.
At the heart of the debate was a disagreement over how “restrictive” the current policy is for the economy. Some participants thought that even with the quarter-point cut policy was still holding back growth, while others saw that “the resilience of economic activity” indicated that policy is not restrictive.
Judging from public statements, the panel is divided between inflation doves including Governors Stephen Miran, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, who prefer cuts as a way to stave off weakness in the labor market. On the other side are more hawkish members such as regional Presidents Jeffrey Schmid of Kansas City, Susan Collins of Boston and Alberto Musalem of St. Louis, who worry that cutting more could prevent the Fed from getting to its 2% inflation goal.
In between are moderates such as Powell, Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and New York President John Williams who favor a patient approach.
The minutes noted that “one participant,” a reference to Miran, preferred a more aggressive half-point cut. Schmid also voted no, saying he preferred not to cut at all.
The meeting minutes indicated the decision-making was complicated by a lack of government data during the 44-day federal government shutdown. Reports on the labor market, inflation and a host of other metrics were not compiled or released during the impasse. Government agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis have announced schedules for some of the releases but not all.
Powell compared the situation to “driving in the fog,” though Waller on Monday rejected that comparison, saying the Fed has plenty of data to formulate policy.
The minutes also discussed the balance sheet aspect of policy. The FOMC agreed to stop the reduction of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities in December, a process that has shaved more than $2.5 trillion off the balance sheet, which is still around $6.6 trillion. There appeared to be widespread approval for the halting of a process known as quantitative tightening. More

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A spokesperson for Kraken declined to comment on the timing of its IPO.
Kraken is the latest crypto company to attempt to tap the public market since President Donald Trump came back to the White House.

Kraken is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kraken confidentially filed to go public in the U.S., a person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Wednesday.
A Kraken spokesperson declined to comment on the timing of its plans.

Kraken is the latest crypto company to attempt to tap the public market since President Donald Trump came back to the White House. Crypto trading platforms Bullish and Gemini Space Station listed their shares on major stock exchanges in August and September, respectively. And in June, stablecoin issuer Circle raised just north of $1 billion in its blockbuster IPO.
The boom in crypto-linked listings comes as IPOs have seen a resurgence in the U.S. this year.  
Founded in 2011, Kraken is a U.S.-based platform that facilitates the trading of digital assets like bitcoin and ether. It also offers tokenized equities trading to clients in the European Union.
Kraken recently raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation, including $200 million from Citadel Securities, the company said Tuesday in a statement. The firm plans to use those funds to expand its footprint in foreign markets, in addition to building out its payment services. More

Snowline, valued at about C$2.1 billion, has made what Block called a “first-of-its-kind” discovery in Canada’s Yukon territory.
“This is one of the few assets globally that can move the needle for a mid- or large-cap gold miner,” Block’s presentation materials stated, calling the firm “an elephant.”

Carson Block, Muddy Waters Capital, at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha, Sept. 28, 2022.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Muddy Waters Capital’s Carson Block, best known for his short-selling campaigns, took an unusually bullish stance at the Sohn London Investment Conference on Wednesday, pitching junior miner Snowline Gold as a top takeover candidate in the mining sector.
Snowline, valued at about C$2.1 billion, has made what Block called a “first-of-its-kind” discovery in Canada’s Yukon territory, a region with limited historical production but vast geological potential, he said. The company controls a large land package in an emerging district that Block said could eventually host a new multi-deposit gold camp.

The focus is the Rogue project’s Valley deposit, which holds an estimated 8 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated category at an average grade of 1.21 grams per ton. While Snowline has other exploration targets, Block said Valley is likely the asset that will attract interest from major producers facing declining reserves.
“This is one of the few assets globally that can move the needle for a mid- or large-cap gold miner,” Block’s presentation materials stated, calling the firm “an elephant.”
Block expects Snowline to be acquired within the next three years. If a transaction comes in the next 12 months, he sees a potential valuation of C$4 billion to C$6 billion, and suggested the price could rise further as drilling continues.
“The longer it takes for this asset to be bought, the more expensive it will be,” he said.
Snowline shares have surged more than tenfold since early 2022, when the company drilled its initial discovery hole at Valley. Still, Block argued the stock doesn’t yet reflect the strategic value of the resource in a mining industry that has seen increasing consolidation.

The Canadian-listed stock popped more than 6% after Block made his call.
Carson Block will be on “The Exchange” with CNBC’s Jon Fortt at 1 p.m. ET. More

Blue Owl has decided to call off the merging of two of its private credit funds after the deal caused some angst among investors, according to people familiar with the matter.
The firm had planned to merge its smaller, nontraded Blue Owl Capital Corporation II (OBDC II), into the larger, publicly traded fund Blue Owl Capital Corporation (OBDC). In doing so, the firm restricted investors in the $1.7 billion OBDC II from redeeming until the deal closed, even as the merger would have meant about 20% paper losses, based on where the $17.1 billion OBDC has been trading. 

News of the restricted redemptions caused shares of the parent company – Blue Owl Capital to slump about 6% on Monday. It also added to concerns about the state of the private credit industry among investors, especially the area that has started to heavily finance the artificial intelligence data center build-out that many fear is overhyped. Blue Owl shares rebounded slightly on Tuesday.
The boards of the two firms did not see the benefits of merging the funds as outweighing the volatility and negative headlines that came from news of the deal, according to the people. Therefore, they chose to reverse course, sources said.
Blue Owl confirmed in a press release later Wednesday morning that the proposed merger had been terminated, citing “current market conditions.”
“Both funds remain strong, with excellent fundamentals, and we are confident in our ability to deliver attractive returns independently as we continue to work with the Board to consider the best future opportunities for OBDC II,” said Craig Packer, the CEO of both funds, in the release.

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Blue Owl, 1 month

Now that the fund merger has been terminated, OBDC II will allow investors to redeem in the first quarter, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing nonpublic information. The fund historically has allowed liquidity on a quarterly basis.
Blue Owl shares were little changed in trading Wednesday. More

The government reopening may spark a fresh historic run for recently battered cryptocurrencies.
Bitwise’s Matt Hougan expects legislation to support new investment products in the space.

“It’s going to be ETF Palooza in Cryptoland. I think there’ll be 100 plus launches,” the firm’s chief investment officer told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday. “We’re going to see a lot of single asset crypto ETPs [exchange-traded products.] What I’m most excited about, though, is the growth of index based crypto ETPs.”
Hougan’s prediction comes during a rough week for digital assets. Bitcoin fell below the $90,000 mark for the first time since April. It traded as high as around $126,000 in early last month.  
Despite the rough stretch, he sees index ETPs becoming one of next year’s biggest crypto stories and ultimately one of the biggest categories for investors.
“This industry will be 10 times bigger than it is today,” added Hougan, whose firm launched the Solana Staking ETF, which tracks the price of cryptocurrency solana, on October 28. It’s down 27% since the launch. But it jumped 9% on Tuesday.
The passive fund holds only solana and stakes nearly all of its SOL on-chain — pledging tokens to help validate transactions and secure the network in exchange for ongoing rewards, similar to interest, according to the firm’s website. Then, those rewards back into the portfolio.

Hougan said those products are aimed at the so-called next buyer of crypto: Investors looking to buy small slices for their portfolios.
“They don’t necessarily have an opinion on ethereum versus solana or bitcoin versus another asset,” he said. “They just want to buy a broad swath of the crypto market and hold it for the long term.” 
Fundstrat Global Advisors’ Tom Lee also sees a profitable shift ahead. Lee, a long-time bitcoin bulls, cites openness from the Trump administration.
“Experimentation and innovation are being encouraged by this administration,” the firm’s head of research and CNBC contributor told “ETF Edge” in the same interview.

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Klarna topped Wall Street third-quarter revenue expectations in its first earnings report since its IPO on the NYSE in September.
CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC that the company is benefitting from U.S. growth and growing adoption of Klarna Card and fair financing.
Siemiatkowski said the company isn’t yet seeing “material differences” in payback or spending habits due to the microenvironment.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and Co-Founder of Swedish fintech Klarna, gives a thumbs up during the company’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., Sept. 10, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Klarna topped Wall Street third-quarter revenue expectations in its first earnings report after debuting on the New York Stock Exchange in September.
Here’s how the company performed compared to LSEG estimates

Revenues: $903 million vs. $882 million expected

Revenues grew 26% from $706 million in the year-ago period. The company reported a net loss of $95 million, a drop from a year ago when it had net income of $12 million.
The buy now, pay later firm said it’s getting a boost from outsized U.S. growth, where gross merchandise volume grew 43% from a year ago. Gross merchandise volume, which measures merchandise sold, rose 25% to $32.7 billion from $26.2 billion last year.
The adoption of features such as the Klarna Card and fair financing, which offer longer installment options for bigger purchases, contributed to U.S. gains. The feature offers varying interest rates and saw gross merchandise volume more than triple from a year ago.
Since its July launch, the fintech firm said its Klarna Card has reached more than four million customers and accounted for 15% of transactions by October.

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CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said fair financing has doubled the number of users from a year ago, but only penetrated about a fifth of merchants. That creates “tons of opportunity” for Klarna, he told CNBC.

“We want to be the one that helps you save time, save money, be in control of your finances and that’s obviously not necessarily what we’ve been associated with,” he said, adding that Klarna will continue working to gain that reputation.
Merchants grew 38% to 850,000 from 616,000 in the year-ago period, but average revenue per active customer declined.
For the fourth quarter, Klarna expects gross merchandise volume to range between $37.5 and $38.5 billion and revenues between $1.065 million and $1.08 million.
Transaction margin dollars, which measures profitability of its core business, are forecast to range between $390 million and $400 million. The figure totaled $281 million in the third quarter
Klarna opened on the NYSE about two months ago, after delaying its initial public offering plans in April as President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff plans rattled financial markets.
In recent weeks, stocks have taken a tumble as concerns mount over a potential AI bubble with stretched valuations. Worries of a slowdown in consumer spending have also grown.
Klarna shares have shed more than one-third in value from their highs.
Siemiatkowski said the company isn’t yet seeing “material differences” in payback or spending habits due to the microenvironment, but is monitoring the AI wave that is slated to impact more white collar careers.
Over the years, Klarna has bet big on artificial intelligence. Siemiatkowski told CNBC in May that the technology, along with attrition, has helped the fintech firm slash its workforce by 40%.
He said its natural attrition rate is as much as 20%.
Klarna isn’t alone. Palantir, Salesforce and Amazon have all warned that they plan to cut their workforces or slow hiring due to AI adoption.
Siemiatkowski said AI ties into the company’s “customer-obsessed” mentality and has dropped the average amount of time to solve a customer service issue to under two minutes.
Companies that only use AI or robots to deal with customers are making a “big mistake, because you want to have a human connection,” Siemiatkowski said. “There’s this tremendous value.” More