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Europe
BBC Business

What the Budget offers for under 25s - and what it leaves out

Image source, Getty ImagesByArchie MitchellBusiness reporterPublished28 October 2026Chancellor John Healey has announced his Budget, which includes changes to minimum wage and help for people trying to get onto the housing ladder. If you are an 18-to-20 year-old earning the minimum wage, your pay will go up by 3.9% from next April. However, the increase may be lower than you had expected. That is because Healey reversed course on how his Labour predecessor, Rachel Reeves, had been increasing the minimum wage for young people. Labour had promised to do away with "discriminatory age bands", with all adults entitled to the same minimum wage. This year, 18-20 year-olds will see the same increase as older workers, meaning the disparity will remain. So, for 18-to-20 year-olds, your pay will rise to £11.27, while over-20s will be paid a minimum of £13.21 an hour. The increase also means a 21-year-old, who is working full time on the minimum wage and took out a student loan after 2023, will now earn enough to meet the £25,000 repayment threshold, over which they will start paying back 9% of their earnings. Image source, Getty ImagesFirst-time buyer boostThe Budget contained plans to help people get onto the housing ladder, including the introduction of a "First Time Buyer Isa". This is an account in which savers can build up a deposit, with the government topping up contributions of up to £4,000 each year with a 25% bonus. The new savings account will be introduced in 2029, replacing the existing Lifetime Isa, which has been criticised by some for imposing harsh penalties on those buying homes for more than the £450,000 cap. The cap will remain, but the new "First Time Buyer Isa" will ensure savers are not penalised by losing their own money when making withdrawals. Savers will only lose contributions made by the government when making withdrawals which are not eligible for the account. The penalty for withdrawals from existing Lifetime Isas will be lowered, too, to address concerns about savers being punished. The government had already revealed a £4.7bn scheme for first-time buyers in England dubbed Your First Home. It is aiming to help 70,000 individuals and couples get on the housing ladder The scheme will allow people to buy a new-build home with a deposit of 2.5%. It will provide them with a loan worth 20% of their property's value to help pay for the purchase. Capped at £110,000 outside London and £140,000 in the capital, it is aimed at those hoping to get on the housing ladder without help from "the bank of mum and dad".

What the Budget offers for under 25s - and what it leaves out
Europe
BBC Business

'I live with a ghost' - inside the haunted homes attracting bargain hunters

From the moment Ryua first walked into her rental apartment in Tokyo she believed it to be haunted. "When I visited the place for a viewing there was a man standing there, glaring at me," she says. While someone more squeamish would probably have quickly left the flat never to return, Ryua chose to go ahead and move in. "I'm a bit of a contrarian, so I decided I wanted to become friends with this glaring male ghost," adds Ryua, who works as an aidoru, a young entertainer, and who doesn't wish to share her surname. Four years later, and still in the same apartment, she says she continues to experience paranormal activity on a daily basis. She says she hears endless footsteps and the ghost talking. Although Japan has increasingly marked Halloween, external in recent years, many Japanese people take ghosts seriously all year round. The country has a word, "yuurei", which means a lingering, troubled spirit. These are the ghosts of people who died in violent or tragic circumstances - those who were murdered, killed themselves, or simply were lonely and died alone. If they died at home, then the belief is that their yuurei won't go away. For house hunters who are not superstitious or squeamish it means there are big bargains to be found. There is a whole category of dwellings called jiko bukken, which means "stigmatised" or "incident" properties. Under guidelines issued by the government in 2021, Japanese estate agents must disclose suicide, murder, death by fire, and any death where the body was not discovered for an extended period of time. For rental properties this information must be disclosed for three years, and it must be revealed indefinitely for any property offered for sale. By contrast, in the UK there is no legal requirement, external to reveal that a person died in a property. And in the US, it differs from state to state., external For example, in California you have to reveal if a person has died in the property in the past three years, while in Arizona and Oregon you do not. Ryua was told that a man had killed himself in her apartment. It meant that she gets an almost 30% discount on her rent on her tiny, 25 sq m bedsit in the fashionable ward of Setagaya. She says she pays 45,000 yen ($285; £213) a month, instead of what should have been 62,000 yen.

'I live with a ghost' - inside the haunted homes attracting bargain hunters
North America
Yahoo Finance

Here Are Monday’s Top Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Block, Boise Cascade, Equifax, FirstEnergy, Lockheed Martin, Lumentum Holdings, NetApp, Roper Technologies, Spotify, Technology, and More

Wall Street analysts are making bold moves this Monday, reshuffling their ratings on names from defense giants to fintech disruptors as markets reel from last week's losses and gold falls below a threshold not seen since July. Futures are trading higher as we head into a new week that will finish out October, with traders trying to rally stocks after last week’s losing effort. With Halloween on Saturday, this week may be as scary as last week. All major indices closed lower again on Friday after a midday attempt to ignite a rally failed. The biggest loser Friday was the Dow Jones Industrials, which finished at 52,214, down 1.24%, while the S&P 500 closed at 7,622, down 0.52%. The Nasdaq, where traders tried to start the tech rally near noon, ultimately finished lower at 25,955, down 0.21%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 closed at 2,778, down 0.20%. After one of the wildest weeks in the U.S. Treasury market in years, normalcy returned on Friday, and so did the sellers, as yields rose across the curve. Despite last week’s safe-haven buying, the same issues remain, chief among them inflation; with strong manufacturing output and historically low jobless claims, the path is clear for another 25-basis-point hike. It likely will not come at this week’s meetings, but it will probably come before year-end. The 30-year bond closed the session at 5.33%, while the benchmark 10-year note was last seen at 5%. The energy complex keeps the inflation narrative alive, and it rose again Friday, as the threat of increased military activity pushed both benchmarks near 6-month highs. When the dust settled, Brent Crude closed at $116, up 3.05%, while West Texas Intermediate finished the day at $103, higher by 3.74%. Natural gas continued its surprising slide, closing lower by 6.01% to finish Friday’s trading at $2.63. Precious metals continued their surprising slide on Friday, though they finished the day well off the lows. Instead of being the haven many investors expect, gold has been battered and closed Friday at $3,993, down 0.76%, while silver ended at $53.74, down 1.34%. Gold falling below $4,000 for the first time since July has baffled many retail investors, given weakness in other assets; top analysts say unique margin mechanics and structural shifts in interest rate expectations have driven gold’s sell-off. When big tech and chip stocks got absolutely wrecked last week, it put heavy pressure on institutional funds. When these highly leveraged portfolios take massive losses, managers are forced to dump gold aggressively, since it’s so liquid, to scramble for cash and meet margin calls. Crypto was mostly flat and range-bound on Friday, basically consolidating after getting slammed by the big tech sell-off earlier in the week. Total market cap just hovered right around $2.8 trillion. Bitcoin defended the $81,000 level, chopping tightly between $81,100 and $82,000 to hold its 50-day moving average, even as massive institutional whales like BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) moved hundreds of millions onto exchanges. At 8 AM EDT, Bitcoin was trading at $80,220, while Ethereum was quoted at $2,327. 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports every day to identify fresh investment ideas for investors and traders alike. These daily analyst notes include recommendations on stocks to buy, sell, or avoid, as well as new coverage initiations. Important reminder: No single analyst report should ever be the sole basis for buying or selling a stock. Here are some of the top Wall Street analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations from Monday, October 26, 2026. Lee Jackson has covered Wall Street analysts' equity and debt research and equity strategy daily for 24/7 Wall St. since 2012. His broad, diverse career, including a stint as creative services director at an NBC affiliate in Austin, Texas, gives him unique insight into the financial industry. Lee Jackson's journey in the financial industry spans more than 30 years, including nearly two decades as an institutional equity salesperson at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley. His career spanned pivotal sell-side Wall Street events, from the dot-com rise and bubble to the Long-Term Capital Management debacle, 9/11, and the Great Recession of 2008. This reflects his resilience and adaptability amid market volatility. Lee Jackson’s practical financial industry experience, gained through a career at some of the biggest banks and brokerage firms, is complemented by a lifetime of writing across various platforms. This unique combination allows him to shed light on the intricacies of Wall Street in a way only someone with deep insider experience and knowledge can. Moreover, his extensive network across Wall Street continues to provide direct access for him and 24/7 Wall St., a privilege few firms enjoy.

Here Are Monday’s Top Wall Street Analyst Research Calls: Block, Boise Cascade, Equifax, FirstEnergy, Lockheed Martin, Lumentum Holdings, NetApp, Roper Technologies, Spotify, Technology, and More
North America
Yahoo Finance

Balancing Oracle’s Backlog Against Its Balance Sheet

Oracle is sitting on a record AI backlog that analysts say could justify nearly doubling the stock price, yet the company just posted negative free cash flow and its CFO cannot say when that changes. Something has to give. Oracle (NYSE:ORCL | ORCL Price Prediction) trades at $126.08. Its record AI backlog and its debt-funded expansion are drawing the stock in opposite directions. Shares were recently caught up in a broader AI debt selloff. Oracle sells databases and enterprise applications, and it now runs one of the fastest-growing AI cloud businesses. Cloud revenue reached $11.61B last quarter, up 62%, and now makes up 60% of total revenue. Paying for that growth drove quarterly capex to $28.5B and free cash flow to negative $5.4B. The stock is down 34.41% year to date. Remaining performance obligations total $664B, up $209B year over year. Management expects “around half of our RPO to convert into sales over the next 36 months.” Customers signed more than $30 billion in new AI contracts, and most were structured as prepayments or bring-your-own-hardware deals. Cloud infrastructure revenue increased 121%. GPU use hit 97.9%, and renewals were priced at a 20% premium. Operating leverage is showing up. Operating income rose 57.3% on 29.6% revenue growth. Guidance calls for at least $90B in fiscal 2027 revenue and $8.10 in non-GAAP EPS. Over the past 30 days, 35 analysts raised full-year estimates and only 1 cut them. A forward P/E of 18 and a PEG of 0.802 look cheap for that growth rate. Free cash flow was negative $23.7B in fiscal 2026. Quarterly interest expense rose 55% to $1.43B. Total debt stands at $155.9B, and capital lease obligations add $30.6B. Oracle just finished a $20B at-the-market equity sale and plans to raise about $40B this fiscal year through debt and equity. Asked when free cash flow turns positive, CFO Hilary Maxson said, “We haven’t given a particular timeframe on that yet.” A handful of very large AI contracts make up much of the backlog, and license revenue fell 15%. DA Davidson’s Gil Luria named data center execution and a leveraged balance sheet as the two biggest constraints. The market also punishes misses. Shares fell about 13% after a revenue miss last December. Execution has been strong. Oracle delivered 850MW of capacity and generated record operating cash flow of $23.1B. Funding remains unclear. Net cash capex could reach $70 billion this year, and management has given no date for positive free cash flow. Oracle itself is the expansion story here, but it isn’t building alone. The companies that equip these data centers — providing electricity, cooling and network infrastructure — make up a trade of their own, and we covered seven of them in a free report: 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers). The next earnings report tests cloud growth guidance of 65-71% and EPS guidance of $1.85-$1.93. Investors should also watch borrowing terms and progress at the New Mexico and Wisconsin sites. The consensus target at $236.54 suggests a 87.6% gain from $126.08. Targets are only one data point. 43 analysts cover the stock: Oracle trades at 20 times trailing earnings and has a beta of 1.77. Over the past year, shares fell 54.35% while the S&P 500 rose 13.13%. Over the past month, Oracle dropped 12.42%, and the index slipped 1.02%.

Balancing Oracle’s Backlog Against Its Balance Sheet
Europe
BBC Business

Your pay, energy bills and savings: How the Budget affects you

Image source, Getty ImagesByKevin PeacheyCost of living correspondentPublished28 October 2026Families facing cost-of-living pressures are being offered some help, or "breathing space" as Chancellor John Healey is calling it. The help comes as prices are rising faster than expected with annual energy bills in particular likely to increase by hundreds of pounds in January. If you are living in a home in council tax bands A to D in England, you will receive a one-off £100 "Household Energy Payment" from January, funded by extra tax on banks. Council tax bands are listed below - you can check which one you are in by looking at your annual bill or checking the government's website, external, although that was struggling to cope with traffic after the announcement. Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive the equivalent funding, and they will decide whether to introduce the same payment. This is designed to help with soaring energy bills, with some forecasts suggesting a typical annual bill could rise by £400 or so to £2,100 in January the saving will be only a portion of that. Although it's designated for energy bills, you can spend the money on anything you wish. The VAT cut on electricity bills, which was introduced in October, will also be extended to July. It was due to end in April. The fee for connecting to your gas supply so called standing charges will be scrapped in England, Scotland and Wales, next year "or as soon as possible after", the chancellor said. These fixed daily charges will then be shifted onto the price you pay for each unit of energy. The Treasury calculates that 60% of households will save an average of £45 a year, with lower users gaining the most. But the saving will come after the projected big rise in bills in January. Higher users - in the biggest houses but also large, low-income families - will pay more than they currently do. The 5p "temporary" cut in fuel duty on petrol and diesel, introduced by Rishi Sunak in 2022, will be extended to July. It was scheduled to be phased out from January.

Your pay, energy bills and savings: How the Budget affects you
Asia-Pacific
The Straits Times

South Korea exports extend robust growth on AI-fuelled chip boom

The continued strength adds to the case for the Bank of Korea to raise interest rates in November. SEOUL – South Korea’s exports maintained strong growth in October, with an artificial intelligence-driven boom continuing to power the trade-reliant economy. Exports adjusted for working-day differences climbed 76.1% from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources data released on Nov 1. The value of shipments reached US$115.3 billion (S$147.3 billion), following the previous month’s record US$121.1 billion. On an unadjusted basis, exports rose 93.7% while imports increased 36%, resulting in a trade surplus of US$42.5 billion. In comparison, September had a revised export increase of 83.7%. The continued strength adds to the case for the Bank of Korea (BOK) to raise interest rates in November after policymakers stood pat in October to assess the impact of consecutive increases in July and August. Inflation data due on Nov 3 will provide another key input before the BOK’s decision on Nov 26. Semiconductors continued to be the main driver of the gains, with chip exports surging 259% from a year earlier to US$56.4 billion. Shipments of computers rose 497%, while petroleum products and cars gained 80% and 18%, respectively. Calendar effects may have complicated the comparisons. The Chuseok holidays fell in September 2026 and October 2025, making working day-adjusted figures a useful gauge of underlying trade momentum. The export boom is also putting South Korea on course to exceed US$1 trillion in annual shipments for the first time in 2026, BOK governor Shin Hyun-song said. That would make it the fourth economy to reach the milestone after the United States, China and Germany, according to the Trade Ministry. The figures suggest South Korea’s export engine remained strong at the start of the fourth quarter, even as the benefits of the chip boom have yet to spread evenly across the economy. That divergence complicates the BOK’s task as it weighs strong growth and above-target inflation against weak household demand. The economy expanded 1% in the third quarter from the previous three months, beating economists’ forecasts for a 0.8% gain. Facility investment jumped 4.1%, but private consumption fell 0.2%, underscoring the uneven benefits of the semiconductor boom. The BOK expects growth in 2026 and 2027 to substantially exceed its August projections of 3.3% and 2.9%, respectively. It has pointed to continued strength in semiconductor exports and investment, while expecting improving incomes to gradually support a broader consumption recovery. Shin said monetary policy will remain restrictive until officials are confident inflation will converge on the bank’s 2% target. The BOK will also release updated growth and inflation forecasts with its November rate decision.

South Korea exports extend robust growth on AI-fuelled chip boom
Asia-Pacific
Channel NewsAsia

North Korea says defence research institutes tested major weapon system

The test was intended to “assess adaptation to combat and power of a cluster-bomb warhead to be tipped on tactical ballistic missiles”, state media KCNA said on Saturday (Oct 31). North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, attends a test of a new type of weapon at an undisclosed location on Sep 20, 2026. KCNA via REUTERS 01 Nov 2026 09:35AM Bookmark Bookmark Share WhatsApp Telegram Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Set CNA as your preferred source on Google Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. Read a summary of this article on FAST. Get bite-sized news via a newcards interface. Give it a try. Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST FAST SEOUL: North Korea’s state media KCNA reported on Saturday (Oct 31) that the country’s defence science research institutes tested a major weapon system. The test was intended to “assess adaptation to combat and power of a cluster-bomb warhead to be tipped on tactical ballistic missiles”, KCNA said. The test found that a standard Type 2 cluster bomb warhead can destroy a target area of 12ha to 13ha at its highest density, KCNA said. The cluster bomb warheads fall into four categories, an official at North Korea’s missile administration said without elaborating. CNA Games Guess Word Crack the word, one row at a time Buzzword Create words using the given letters Mini Sudoku Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser Mini Crossword Small grid, big challenge Word Search Spot as many words as you can Show More Show Less North Korea will enable its military units by the end of 2026 to use all types of the bombs, depending on their operational purposes, KCNA said. Pyongyang has ramped up its show of force in recent weeks with multiple missile tests and holding a drone exhibition. Analysts said the tests could be part of efforts to modernise the military. North Korea gained experience in modern warfare, sending troops to the war in Ukraine for its ally Moscow. North Korea test-fired around 10 ballistic missiles from its east coast toward the sea on Oct 29, when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited South Korea for a summit. Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.

North Korea says defence research institutes tested major weapon system
Europe
The Guardian

Four takeaways from Anthropic’s potentially record-breaking stock market filing

The 92-page document released on Monday talks about Anthropic’s explosive growth and the risks AI has brought to the business. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersView image in fullscreenThe 92-page document released on Monday talks about Anthropic’s explosive growth and the risks AI has brought to the business. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersAnthropicExplainerFour takeaways from Anthropic’s potentially record-breaking stock market filingThe AI company’s first public financial disclosures reveal explosive growth, huge costs and risks ranging from cyber-attacks to the limits of safeguards Anthropic has filed to go public on the US stock market, revealing for the first time the AI research lab’s financials and all the risks – more than 90 pages of them – that might negatively impact its business. The company’s investor prospectus, released Monday, veers from hyperbolic predictions about AI’s “incredible potential” to existential risks of the technology to the reality of its current business: explosive but incredibly expensive growth. The filing to US financial regulators, known as an S-1, provides the public’s first look at an audited version of Anthropic’s finances. Here’s what you need to know: Anthropic is making a lot of money. It’s also losing a lot of it. The five-year-old firm has been valued between $1.5 and $2tn by some investors but did not list a target valuation in its S-1. Founded in 2021, the company has seen explosive growth every year of its existence. Anthropic brought in $16.3bn in revenue and lost $80 bn in just the first half of 2026, though much of that was due to a $72.4bn one-off charge. In 2025, the company brought in $4.585bn and lost roughly $33.9bn, per the filing. Securing computing power accounts for the vast majority of Anthropic’s costs. The company spent nearly $9bn on AI infrastructure in the first half of this year, up from $2.3bn in the same period last year. Anthropic, unlike OpenAI, has made it clear that its customers are largely other businesses. “Frontier AI is most valuable in real-world settings, as deployment across enterprises is where economic impact is greatest,” the company executives wrote in the filing. The company said its top 5 customers account for 25% of its business – which makes it risky business. Anthropic says there is considerable potential for AI to reach levels of intelligence that would be akin to what its executives called “‘a country of geniuses in a datacenter’ – millions of virtual agents with the ability to revolutionize every area of human endeavor: software, physics, math, biology, medicine, finance, economics, commerce, robotics, military and intelligence capabilities”. Noticeably, the company mentioned military capabilities despite being embroiled in a standoff with the Trump administration over its refusal to limit restrictions on the way the Department of Defense could use Claude. The company highlighted four specific categories of opportunity at the start of the filing: Acceleration of progress in biology and medicine; economic growth; spreading said growth globally; and streamlining government services (such as social services and medical programming). The company said it’s already working with several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and improved the process for clinical trials, which is “cutting the time it takes to write clinical trial reports from months to minutes”. The company’s executives claim they’ve also made biological discoveries with Claude, including a “molecular machine” that has the “potential to be developed into a novel biotechnology tool”. One purported use case: gene editing.

Four takeaways from Anthropic’s potentially record-breaking stock market filing
North America
Fortune

Rich Eisen went from SportsCenter to NFL Network to owning his show. Now he’s back at ESPN, betting ’90s nostalgia still sells

When Rich Eisen anchored SportsCenter for the first time in 22 years last August, ESPN brought back the show’s old-school graphics and music. The broadcast drew 708,000 viewers, 67% above SportsCenter’s average in that 11 p.m. ET slot, ESPN told Front Office Sports at the time. The reaction online showed how much fans had missed it. Eisen told Fortune in a recent interview he came across a video of a young woman recording herself as the familiar open played. She was crying. “It was a simpler time,” Eisen said. “People kind of wish it was like that again.” That moment validated an idea Eisen had brought to ESPN when he returned: a nostalgia video podcast. This Was SportsCenter: Stories from the Set is a video podcast in which he reunites with former colleagues, with full access to ESPN’s video archive. The first season debuted in June on Disney+ and the ESPN app and featured Dan Patrick, Chris Berman, Mike Greenberg, Linda Cohn, Chris Fowler, and Craig Kilborn. A second season with six new interviews is slated for 2027, Eisen said, adding he’s already lined up “some pretty interesting commitments.” Eisen, 57, worked for ESPN from 1996 to 2003, mostly anchoring SportsCenter during the show’s cultural peak. He and co-anchor Stuart Scott became a popular anchor team in the late 1990s, even landing roles together in the 2000 Disney comedy The Kid. In its 2015 obituary for Scott, ESPN noted that the pair’s late-night SportsCenter became next-day water-cooler talk, thanks to their chemistry and the show’s repeated airings. Because ESPN re-aired his late-night broadcast several times the next morning, his SportsCenter show reached more than 100 million homes, he told Fortune in 2024. Kids watched him before school, and many of them now have teenagers of their own. Eisen said he “literally put” that generation “on a school bus with Stuart Scott in the mornings.” In 2003, Eisen left ESPN to become NFL Network’s first on-air hire. More than two decades later, he’s still there, hosting NFL GameDay Morning and anchoring the network’s draft and Super Bowl coverage. In 2014, while still at NFL Network, he also launched The Rich Eisen Show, a three-hour daily mix of sports and pop culture that aired on DirecTV’s Audience Network. Then, in December 2019, DirecTV’s Audience Network was shutting down, and the show was about to lose its home. As Fortune previously reported, Eisen got the news two days before Christmas, along with the chance to take the show over himself. Overnight, the host became the owner. At the time, he said, it was “quite daunting.” But as the business found new homes, eventually on Peacock and then Roku, it grew. Eisen hired a CFO and more staff, and he put the company’s revenue toward creating his own control room. Through it all, he said, he’s stuck to one principle: “Creating an a–hole-free environment, because this life is too short and this business is too small.” This December marks seven years since Eisen took over the show, meaning he’s now owned it longer than he spent as its contracted host under DirecTV. And last year, the show landed its biggest home yet: Eisen reunited with ESPN in a licensing deal that brought it to Disney+, ESPN’s streaming platforms, and ESPN Radio. It also airs on SiriusXM and is released as a podcast, while his team cuts full interviews for YouTube and clips for Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Rich Eisen went from SportsCenter to NFL Network to owning his show. Now he’s back at ESPN, betting ’90s nostalgia still sells