Finance

Chinese electric car company Xpeng said Wednesday that it plans to start testing robotaxis in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities next year.
Xpeng also showed off a new humanoid robot, with plans for mass production by the end of 2026.
Like rival Tesla, Xpeng is looking to position itself as more than just an electric car firm.

Chinese EV company Xpeng showed off its newest humanoid robot in Guangzhou on Nov. 5, 2025.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

Guangzhou, CHINA — Chinese electric car company Xpeng plans to launch robotaxis next year after previously claiming it wouldn’t be a real business in the near future and took the wraps off of its latest humanoid robot model.
Xpeng’s technology push mirrors one of its key rivals Tesla, as the Guangzhou, China-headquartered company looks to position itself as more than just an electric car firm.

The automaker announced on Wednesday as part of its “AI Day” that it is launching three robotaxi models. The vehicles will use four of Xpeng’s self-developed “Turing” AI chips. Xpeng claims the chips represent the combined highest in-car computing power in the world, at 3,000 TOPS, an industry measure.
The semiconductors power Xpeng’s “vision-language-action (VLA)” model, now in its second iteration. This type of AI models take into account inputs like visual cues that can help with applications like driverless cars or robotics.
Alibaba announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Xpeng on robotaxis through the e-commerce company’s digital mapping subsidiary AutoNavi and Amaps app, which also includes a ride-hailing portal.
The Xpeng robotaxi includes an external display of speed and other information on the vehicle’s sun visors.
Xpeng said it plans to start testing robotaxis in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities next year.

Co-president Brian Gu told CNBC last week that robotaxis will “ultimately be a global phenomenon” but that it would take time to get there, especially given regulation. Back in April 2024, he cautioned that self-driving taxis wouldn’t become a significant business for at least five years.
During a group interview with reporters on Wednesday, Gu addressed his change in tone from last year toward robotaxis.
“The tech is happening faster than we anticipated,” Gu said.
He noted that the AI developments and the significant increase in computing power “give us the confidence we are near the inflection point” for robotaxis.
Xpeng’s strategy for robotaxis is to make two categories of cars: one for commercial self-driving shared vehicles, and another for fully autonomous personal cars that may be only shared among family members.

Xpeng’s robotaxi announcements come as Chinese players such as Pony.ai, WeRide and Baidu have ramped up global expansion plans after rolling out self-driving taxis to the public in parts of China. Tesla this year launched its long-awaited robotaxi program in parts of Texas.

Humanoid robot

Similar to Tesla’s push into humanoid robots, Xpeng on Wednesday announced its own version, the second-generation Iron robot. The Chinese company plans to begin mass production of the robots next year.
During a presentation on Wednesday, CEO He Xiaopeng downplayed the likelihood that the humanoids will soon be usable in households, and said it was too costly to use them in factories given the low price of labor in China. Instead, he said the robots will first be used as tour guides, sales assistants and office building guides, beginning in Xpeng facilities.
He said that he doesn’t know how many robots Xpeng will sell in the next 10 years, but it will be more than the number of cars.
The humanoid robot uses three of Xpeng’s Turing AI chips and a solid-state battery, with plans for customization options for aspects of the product like body shape and hair style.

Xiaopeng He, CEO of Xpeng, showed off the company’s plan for robotaxis at an event in Guangzhou, China, on Nov. 5, 2025.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

Xpeng Co-President Gu said on Wednesday that the company has been developing some technology before Tesla but has not been as vocal in promoting it.
“What we are pursuing from a tech and product perspective, there are some similarities with Tesla…There are some areas that we probably started earlier than Tesla,” Gu said, referring to flying cars and humanoid robots.
Xpeng has developed a flying car product.
But Gu acknowledged that Tesla has done a better and more high-profile job at sharing its commercialization plans, which Xpeng has not done as much until today. More

Watch Daily: Monday – Friday, 3 PM ET

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says the retail crypto investor selling is nearing “exhaustion,” and he sees a bottom in the price of bitcoin coming sooner rather than later.
In a CNBC “Crypto World” interview on Tuesday, he went out on a limb and said he could see bitcoin at a new record high by year-end.
The main reason: institutional adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is not slowing down.

Bitcoin’s fall below $100,000, its lowest level since June, has sparked fears that the worst is yet to come, another so-called crypto winter (a prolonged bear market in cryptocurrencies) that the market wrestles with every time digital currencies sell off hard in a short period of time.
But Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says that while the retail investor is in “max desperation” mode, he sees that as a reason to bet that a bottoming in crypto prices may materialize sooner rather than later. With Wall Street institutional investor and financial advisor support for bitcoin, and growth in crypto ETFs, he is even willing to go out on a limb and say that amid the heavy selling a new record high for bitcoin before the end of the year isn’t unreasonable.

“It’s almost a tale of two markets,” he said on CNBC’s “Crypto World” on Tuesday. “Crypto retail is in max desperation. We’ve seen leverage blowouts. … the market for sort of crypto native retail is just more depressed than I’ve ever seen it,” he said.
But Hougan believes more crypto trading will continue to shift into an institutionally driven market, “and interestingly, that market is still bullish,” he said.
“When I go out and speak to institutions or financial advisors, they’re still excited to allocate to an asset class that if you pan back and look over the course of a year, is still delivering very strong returns. So my view of the market is we have to get through this retail flush out. We have to hit bottom from a sentiment perspective. I think we’re very close to that,” he added.

Stock chart icon

Price of bitcoin and ether over the past year.

The boom in crypto exchange-traded fund launches, including iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is changing the investor composition, and while week-to-week flows into these ETFs have slowed since the second quarter of the year, “we continue to see strong inflows into bitcoin,” Hougan said.He expects more support to materialize for crypto into the end of the year among financial advisors who will look past the current dip and see an “opportunity to show their clients that they understand where this market is going.”
Bitwise’s own Solana staking ETF (BSOL) brought in over $400 million in flows in its first week, he said, though it has sold off sharply in the recent crypto downturn, with a near 20% loss since its Oct. 28 debut.

Stock chart icon

This chart is showing BSOL 5 days

Last week, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor told CNBC he thinks bitcoin could reach $150,000 by the end of the year, one among several recent bullish calls on crypto that for now at least look ill-timed. But Hougan said he doesn’t think it’s an outlandish call even as bitcoin hovers near a six-month low.
“I think bitcoin could easily end the year at new all-time highs,” Hougan said. “So that means getting north of about $125,000 up to $130,000. Whether we’ll get all the way to $150,000, we’ll have to see.”
“I do think the sellers are nearing exhaustion and the buyers are still relatively hungry. And when those two things sort of cross paths, again, I think we could end the year close to or at new all-time highs. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get to Saylor’s target as well,” he said.
Institutional investors, whom Hougan described as “more maybe even keeled about what’s going on at a fundamental level in crypto” will start to drive the market forward. “But we do have to finish this washout of retail sentiment … I think we’re closer to the end of that than the beginning, but … there always could be a little bit more downside.” More

Watch Daily: Monday – Friday, 3 PM ET

Representation of Bitcoin cryptocurrency in this illustration taken Sept. 10, 2025.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Bitcoin on Tuesday plunged below $100,000 for the first time in more than four months, as cryptocurrency holders backed off the risk-on asset amid growing concerns about the sustainability of stock valuations driven to stratospheric heights by the artificial intelligence trade.
Bitcoin was last trading 5% lower on the day at $100,893, dipping at one point as low as $99,966. Tuesday marked the first time since June 23 that the flagship cryptocurrency traded below $100,000. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, shed nearly 9% on Tuesday to trade at $3,275.

The leading cryptocurrencies attract many of the same investors as artificial intelligence stocks, linking the two trades when one goes bad. The Nasdaq Composite, home to the leading AI stocks, dropped more than 1% Tuesday, with investors selling AI-linked Palantir on concerns about its eye-watering valuation despite the data manager’s solid earnings results in its latest quarter.
“Bitcoin and the broader crypto market is exhausted,” Haonan Li, founder of Ethereum-based stablecoin platform Codex, told CNBC. “Even with stablecoin growth, rising [real-world asset] volumes, and Bitcoin increasingly behaving like an institutional store of value — the market doesn’t care. Bad news is very bad for crypto right now … and good news barely moves the needle.”

Stock chart icon

Bitcoin since June 23

Absent individuals
Compass Point analyst Ed Engel said individual investors may not be buying the dip as much as in the past.
“While selling from Long-term Holders is a common feature in bull markets, retail spot buyers have been less engaged than prior cycles,” he said in a note.
The latest downdraft could pull bitcoin deeper into the red, dragging the token more enduringly below the $100,000 support level, according to the analyst.

“With Long-term Holders still selling, this leaves further downside risk if Short-term Holders’ capitulate further,” Engel wrote. “While we see support for BTC above $95k, we also don’t see many near-term catalysts.”
Bitcoin’s price has largely trended downward over the past few weeks, with October’s historically strong seasonality failing to materialize this year.
Bitcoin last failed to rise on seasonal tailwinds in October 2018, Engel noted. In the month that followed, Bitcoin plunged 37% in November of that year. More

If trade deficits are a national emergency, they are an emergency of a peculiar sort. America began to run them consistently in the mid-1970s. Only five decades later did Donald Trump declare the situation “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States”. During those crisis decades, America’s inflation-adjusted GDP per head more than doubled. More

Watch Daily: Monday – Friday, 3 PM ET

Representation of Ethereum, with its native cryptocurrency ether.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Ether fell as much as 9% on Monday, slipping below its critical $3,600 support level, shortly after a multimillion dollar hack affected a protocol on the token’s native network. 
The cryptocurrency, which is issued on Ethereum, was last down 6.6% at around $3,600, CoinMetrics data shows. That’s roughly 25% off its high of $4,885 hit on August 22. 

The coin’s tumble came after Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol Balancer on Monday lost possibly more than $100 million in a hack. The exploit marks the latest in a series of bearish events that have put digital assets investors on tenterhooks over the past few weeks.
In mid-October, U.S. President Donald Trump announced “massive” tariffs on China over its restriction of rare earth exports, kicking off investors’ flight from crypto to risk-off assets such as gold. And although the president later walked back that threat, his comments sparked a sell-off that triggered cascading liquidations of highly leveraged digital asset positions. 
Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned investors about expecting future rate cuts, adding to existing bearish market sentiment.     
“These events have put investors on uneasy footing as we roll into November,” Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, told CNBC. “Macro volatility notwithstanding, this October’s drawdown appears to have been a healthy, albeit sharp, de-leveraging event that flushed speculative excess from the market.”
Some stocks linked to digital assets are also coming under pressure. Coinbase shares were down nearly 4%, while Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy edged down more than 1%.    More

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, in her first policy speech since President Donald Trump tried to remove her from office, said Monday that she supported the recent interest rate cut.
She noted that December is a “live meeting,” with the rate decision dependent on how risks break down between stubborn inflation and a softening labor market.

Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Lisa Cook speaks on “The Outlook for the Economy and Monetary Policy” at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 3, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, in her first policy speech since President Donald Trump tried to remove her from office, said Monday that she supported the recent interest rate reduction and indicated she would be open to more.
Since Trump made his move in August to sack Cook on accusations of mortgage fraud, she has kept a relatively low profile outside of the court battles that have kept her in her position at the central bank.

In remarks before the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., the policymaker laid out her views on the economy and where she thinks monetary policy should land. Generally, she sees the economy as solid with risks to both the Fed’s goals of low unemployment and stable inflation.
Cook said she sided with the 10-2 vote on the Federal Open Market Committee to lower the central bank’s benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point, the second meeting in a row that saw a cut.
“I viewed that decision as appropriate, because I believe that the downside risks to employment are greater than the upside risks to inflation. I view the latest reduction in the fed funds rate as another gradual step toward normalization,” she said.
Trump has been blocked by courts from removing Cook in what has been seen as a pivotal issue for central bank independence. Though White House officials have said Cook lied in forms she filled out for federally guaranteed home mortgages, she has not been convicted of anything nor have any charges even been brought.
Cook has cited “clerical errors” in the loan applications. She declined to comment on the matter during a question-and-answer session, saying “it would be inappropriate” while noting she is “beyond grateful” for the support she has received.

In the meantime, she has continued her duties at the Fed, which lowered its key federal funds rate in September for the first time since December.
As for the path going forward, Cook said she is sticking with a data-dependent position. FOMC officials in September indicated an additional cut is likely before the end of the year.
“As always, I determine my monetary policy stance each meeting based on the incoming data from a wide variety of sources, the evolution of my outlook, and the balance of risks,” she said. “Every meeting, including December’s, is a live meeting.”
“Certainly we want to see if tariff effects are persistent, to see if firms are waiting to raise prices, to see what they’ve done with inventory,” she added. “So there’s a lot to look at. There’s a lot to anticipate with the December meeting coming up.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell rattled markets during his Wednesday post-meeting news conference when he said the December cut is not a sure thing. Powell noted a wide dispersion of opinions on the committee, known more often for its consensus approach to policy.
“Looking ahead, policy is not on a predetermined path,” Cook said, using what has become boilerplate language for Fed officials. “We are at a moment when risks to both sides of the dual mandate are elevated.”
On inflation, she said Trump’s tariffs have not fully made their way through the economy. However, she said the most likely outcome is a “one-time increase” in prices not likely to fuel inflation over the longer term. More

Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway may have quietly trimmed its massive Apple stake again in the third quarter, a new regulatory filing suggests.
In its latest quarterly report, Berkshire said the cost basis of its consumer products equity holdings fell by roughly $1.2 billion from the prior quarter. That category is dominated by the giant conglomerate’s Apple position, implying the decline likely reflects additional sales of Apple shares.

Apple’s stock jumped more than 24% in the third quarter, a rally that would have offered Buffett an attractive opportunity to take profits.

Stock chart icon

Apple year to date

Buffett went on a head-turning selling spree in Apple in 2024, slashing two-thirds of the shares Berkshire held in a surprising move for the famously long-term-focused investor. Berkshire also trimmed its Apple stake in the second quarter of this year. The iPhone maker was still Berkshire’s largest holding at the end of June, when it controlled 280 million shares worth $57 billion.
Investors will get more clarity about the exact size of Berkshire’s Apple position when it releases its detailed 13F filing it makes to the Securities and Exchange Commission later this month. That will disclose any changes to individual stock holdings through Sept. 30.
Buffett had previously hinted that selling down the Apple stake was for tax reasons, but others speculated that the size of the sales suggested the so-called Oracle of Omaha was also concerned about Apple’s high valuation. Some thought it was also part of portfolio management, as the Apple stake had grown so big that at one time it accounted for more than half of Berkshire’s investment portfolio.
Berkshire has been a net seller of stocks for 12 straight quarters, raising more than $6 billion in cash in the third quarter. Buffett’s one-time favorite yardstick for stock market valuations, which measures the total value of all publicly traded U.S. stocks against the entire gross national product of the United States, has climbed to an all-time high, reaching a level that he once described as “playing with fire.” More

Critics of China’s economy moan that its investment is excessive and its official statistics flatter its performance. Is that still correct? In recent months investment in infrastructure, manufacturing and construction has been alarmingly weak—so weak, in fact, that some analysts think the numbers are too bad to be true. More