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Weil Gotshal Brought In About $2.1 Billion Last Year. Its Leaders Now Recommend Closing the 95-Year-Old Firm.
The "Endless" Cruise Ship Paid $700 a Ton for Fuel Before the Iran War. It Stopped Sailing After Paying $2,000 to $3,000.
Ford's Electric Unit Lost $1.06 Billion Last Quarter, a Quarter Less Than a Year Ago. Per Vehicle Shipped, the Loss Rose to About $31,000.
The Pentagon Wants Its Major Bases Able to Run 90 Days on Their Own. Britain Is Asking Households to Manage for Three.
Two Taps & Friends Puts Three Defense Lawyers on the Week's Biggest Cases. In Legal Media, Expertise Is the Product.
Opponents Have Spent $304 Million to Defeat California's One-Time Billionaire Tax. That Is About 0.3 Per Cent of What Its Backers Say It Would Raise.
Trian Has Offered $7.35 a Share to Take Wendy's Private, About $1.4 Billion. That Is Roughly Half the $2.7 Billion of Debt the Bidders Would Keep.
Ares Capital Will Pay a 30 Per Cent Premium for an Apollo-Managed Lender. The $10.88 Price Is Still 15 Per Cent Below What the Lender Says Its Loans Are Worth.
A Catholic Hospital System's Affiliate Will Pay $23.50 a Share for Surgery Partners, a 49 Per Cent Premium. Bain Capital Offered $25.75 Last Year and Is Keeping Its Stake.
Boeing Delivered 161 Airliners Last Quarter and Lost About $4.3 Million on Each. Its 6,300-Jet Backlog Would Take About a Decade to Build at This Year's Pace.
UPS Raised Its Revenue Forecast by $1.4 Billion and Its Profit Forecast by $100 Million. The Fourth Quarter Now Has to Earn 37 Per Cent of the Year's Profit.
Ovintiv Will Pay About $890 Million for Logan Energy, or $44,500 for Each Barrel a Day It Produces. By Its Own Benchmark, $340 Million of That Is for Wells Not Yet Drilled.
The Big Read
BusinessDoorDash Will Pay $65 a Share, About $17 Billion, for Instacart. If Antitrust Law Blocks the Deal, DoorDash Owes Instacart $1.25 Billion.
The merger agreement gives regulators up to two years and makes DoorDash pay $1.25 billion if antitrust law stops the deal, almost twice what Instacart would owe for walking away. A $13 billion bridge loan covers most of the cash.
A Publix banner advertising curbside pickup through Instacart in West Miami, Florida, in May 2020. File photograph.
DoorDash has agreed to buy Instacart for $65 a share, valuing the grocery delivery company at about $17 billion, the two companies said on Thursday 29 October. The price is a 26 per cent premium to Instacart's close on 22 October, the last trading day before reports of talks.
The price is the headline. The timetable is the story. The companies do not expect to close until the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028, and the merger agreement sets out what DoorDash pays if competition law stops it.
Mostly cash. Each Instacart share can be exchanged for $65 in cash, for 0.3372 of a DoorDash share, or for $48.75 in cash plus 0.0843 of a DoorDash share, according to the joint press release. Stock is capped at 25 per cent of the total, so elections will be prorated if too many holders ask for shares.
Markets
Lagarde Will Leave the ECB on 7 February, Almost Nine Months Early. Three of the Six Seats on Its Executive Board Will Change Hands by the End of May.
Lagarde says she wants the freedom to speak and to engage beyond monetary policy.
World
The Euro Area Grew 0.4 Per Cent Last Quarter, About 1.6 Per Cent at an Annual Rate. France Shrank, and Its Jobless Rate Rose to 8.5 Per Cent.
France and Italy, the two largest euro economies after Germany, produced no growth between them.
Weather
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Infrastructure Everybody Depends On Should Not Be Owned by a Competitor
Coverage Should Follow the Approval, Not the Advice
You Cannot Delegate the Thing You Have Never Done
Money
U.S. Wages Rose 3.1 Per Cent in the Year to September, 0.6 Per Cent Less Than Prices. Employers' Health Costs Rose 6.4 Per Cent.
The Employment Cost Index holds the mix of jobs constant, which makes it a clean read on wage pressure.
Exxon and Chevron Earned $25.3 Billion Last Quarter. Refining Made Them Almost as Much as Pumping Oil, and Both Pumped Less.
With Brent averaging $97 a barrel, up from $69 a year earlier, the two largest U.S. oil companies paid out about half their free cash to shareholders and used much of the rest to cut debt.
Caterpillar's Backlog Hit a Record $78 Billion, Up 96 Per Cent in a Year. Its Dealers Plan to Cut $1.6 Billion of Inventory This Quarter.
Power generation for data centres is filling the order book years ahead.
The Cheesecake Factory Served 9.5 Per Cent More Guests Last Quarter. At Chipotle, Transactions Rose 0.8 Per Cent.
A sit-down chain whose restaurants average $13.9 million of annual sales is outgrowing the fast-casual leader on the measure that matters most: how many people come through the door.
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Tesla Spent $4.73 Billion on Capital Projects Against a Forecast of $7.94 Billion. It Has Cut This Year's Budget to $20 Billion From More Than $25 Billion.
Business
Union Pacific's Revenue Rose 15 Per Cent, and 6 Per Cent Without Fuel Surcharges. At CSX, Surcharges Supplied More Than Half of a $430 Million Gain.
Business
AT&T Took a $2.6 Billion Charge on the Mexican Business It Agreed to Sell for $2 Billion. GAAP Earnings Fell to $0.13 a Share; Adjusted Earnings Rose to $0.65.
Technology
IBM's Software Revenue Grew 8 Per Cent While Consulting Was Flat. GAAP Earnings Rose 26 Per Cent, Against a Year-Earlier Quarter Cut by a $309 Million Tax Charge.
Markets
Texas Instruments' Revenue Rose 28 Per Cent and Its Guide Is Flat at the Midpoint. Federal Chip Grants Supplied $1.1 Billion of Its $8.4 Billion Free Cash Flow.
Editor's Choice
Housing Starts Fell 5.2 Per Cent to 1.221 Million, Inside the Census Margin of Error. Signed Contracts Fell 7.3 Per Cent, and in Every Region.
Census puts a margin of error of 11.8 per cent on the monthly starts change, so the drop in starts alone proves little.
Latest News
Everything we have published, newest firstPulteGroup's Orders Fell 6 Per Cent With Mortgage Rates Above 7 Per Cent. Its Land and Housing Inventory Has Grown by $1.2 Billion This Year.
PulteGroup said on 22 October that third-quarter net new orders fell 6 per cent to 6,208 homes and earnings fell to $2.53 a share from $2.96, as closings dropped 9 per cent. Chief executive Ryan Marshall said rising rates had pushed "even more consumers to the sidelines." The average 30-year mortgage rate was 7.32 per cent in the week to 22 October, against 6.19 per cent a year earlier, Freddie Mac said.
LKQ Replaced Its Chief Executive as Its European Margin Fell to as Little as 4.1 Per Cent. His Successor Gets $15.3 Million to Sign On.
LKQ, the auto-parts distributor, said on 23 October that Justin Jude has left as chief executive and that Salvatore Abbate, former head of Veritiv, will succeed him on 15 December. It withdrew its 2026 guidance and said preliminary third-quarter adjusted earnings fell to $0.47 to $0.53 a share from $0.84, with Europe's margin roughly halved. Full results are due on 29 October.
Business
McKesson Is Paying $1.4 Billion for Half of Option Care. The Deal Sets Up a Framework for It to Buy the Rest.
Clayton Dubilier & Rice and McKesson agreed on Monday to take Option Care Health, the largest independent home infusion company in the United States, private for $32.05 a share. McKesson is putting in about $1.4 billion for 49 per cent, and the agreement sets out a framework for it to buy the private equity firm's majority later. Lenders have committed more money to the deal than the two buyers have.
AI Researchers Moved Their Date for Human-Level Machines 13 Years in One Survey. Nova Reach Founder Rishabh Singh Has Stopped Picking a Year.
Forecasts for artificial general intelligence keep moving, in both directions, by years at a time. A founder who has filed patents on a forecasting model says the date is the wrong thing to plan around, and that chasing it leads companies to cut corners on safety and design.
American Express Raised Its Forecast After Earning $5.42 a Share. Its Cards Now Carry an Average Fee of $136 a Year, 14 Per Cent More Than a Year Ago.
The company sells itself as a spending network, but the fastest-growing line in the quarter was the annual fee. A separate $350 million regulatory penalty and a charge to cut about 5 per cent of jobs sit in the same results.
Business
P&G Raised Prices Just 0.4 Per Cent and Sold 2.4 Per Cent More Volume. It Expects a $1.4 Billion Commodity Hit, Most of It Still to Come.
Procter & Gamble said on 22 October that first-quarter organic sales rose 4.0 per cent, with volume up 2.4 per cent and pricing up only 0.4 per cent. It kept its full-year guidance but expects a $1.4 billion after-tax commodity headwind, assuming Brent crude at $100 a barrel, and says most of it has not yet reached its accounts.
American Airlines Made $115 Million Flying Passengers Last Quarter and Paid $435 Million in Interest. Fuel Will Cost It More Than $7 Billion Extra This Year.
American Airlines reported on 22 October that third-quarter revenue rose 19.3 per cent to a record $16.3 billion and that it still earned an operating profit of $115 million despite a $1.9 billion rise in fuel costs. Net interest expense of $435 million turned that into a net loss of $269 million. It now expects an adjusted loss of $1.00 to $1.60 a share for 2026.
Argentina's Law 24.488 lets foreign states be sued at home for wrongs committed on Argentine territory.
Media
Comcast Lost 144,000 Broadband Customers in a Quarter and Has Stopped Buying Back Its Shares. Its Parks Profit Fell 17 Per Cent.
Comcast said on 22 October that it lost 144,000 domestic broadband customers in the third quarter, against 91,000 a year earlier, while Peacock made $261 million and theme-park earnings fell 17.1 per cent. Share repurchases are paused until the separation of NBCUniversal and Sky, which Comcast expects to complete by the middle of 2027.
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Northrop Grumman's Backlog Hit a Record $109.6 Billion. Its Cash Forecast Needs at Least $2.1 Billion in the Fourth Quarter, Less Than Last Year's $3.2 Billion.
3M Gave Amazon a Warrant for 3.16 Million Shares at $164.89. Most of It Vests Only After Amazon Pays 3M $6 Billion for Data Center Gear.
SpaceX Earned $4.4 Billion in the Third Quarter, $1.6 Billion of It Outside Operations. Musk Says SpaceX and Tesla Have Each Formed a Merger Committee.
EQT Agreed to Buy Cleanaway for A$3.095 a Share, a A$9.3 Billion Deal. Three Days Earlier, the Stock Fell 7.6 Per Cent and the ASX Asked Why.
Meta Spent $34.9 Billion on Capital Projects in One Quarter and Burned $2.1 Billion of Free Cash. Its Commitments Now Total $454.5 Billion.
Meta Platforms reported on Wednesday 21 October that third-quarter revenue rose 26 per cent to $64.6 billion, while capital expenditures of $34.9 billion left free cash flow at negative $2.1 billion. A $9.89 billion legal charge cut operating income 37 per cent to $13.0 billion. Meta narrowed its 2026 capex range to $135 billion to $145 billion and has given no 2027 figure.
The Richest Fifth of U.S. Households Spends $1,861 a Year on Its Pets. Cinnante Canine Is Building a Business Around Them.
The pet economy is splitting. Most owners are trimming, while the top of the market is paying for expert services by the week.
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Cory Chamberlain
Senior Writer
AI Researchers Moved Their Date for Human-Level Machines 13 Years in One Survey. Nova Reach Founder Rishabh Singh Has Stopped Picking a Year.
JPMorgan Reports Tuesday After a Quarter With $5.6 Billion of One-Off Gains. Analysts Expect Revenue of About $51 Billion.
Devon Is Selling 4 Per Cent of Its Production for $4.2 Billion. The Buyer Has Now Made 10 Eagle Ford Deals Since 2023.
Alison Acosta
Technology desk (house byline)
DoorDash Will Pay $65 a Share, About $17 Billion, for Instacart. If Antitrust Law Blocks the Deal, DoorDash Owes Instacart $1.25 Billion.
Ford's Electric Unit Lost $1.06 Billion Last Quarter, a Quarter Less Than a Year Ago. Per Vehicle Shipped, the Loss Rose to About $31,000.
The Pentagon Wants Its Major Bases Able to Run 90 Days on Their Own. Britain Is Asking Households to Manage for Three.
Daniel Okafor
Markets desk (house byline)
The Euro Area Grew 0.4 Per Cent Last Quarter, About 1.6 Per Cent at an Annual Rate. France Shrank, and Its Jobless Rate Rose to 8.5 Per Cent.
Exxon and Chevron Earned $25.3 Billion Last Quarter. Refining Made Them Almost as Much as Pumping Oil, and Both Pumped Less.
Caterpillar's Backlog Hit a Record $78 Billion, Up 96 Per Cent in a Year. Its Dealers Plan to Cut $1.6 Billion of Inventory This Quarter.
Margaret Holloway
Leadership desk (house byline)
Lagarde Will Leave the ECB on 7 February, Almost Nine Months Early. Three of the Six Seats on Its Executive Board Will Change Hands by the End of May.
U.S. Wages Rose 3.1 Per Cent in the Year to September, 0.6 Per Cent Less Than Prices. Employers' Health Costs Rose 6.4 Per Cent.
The Cheesecake Factory Served 9.5 Per Cent More Guests Last Quarter. At Chipotle, Transactions Rose 0.8 Per Cent.
Thomas Gutierrez
Media and Culture desk (house byline)
The "Endless" Cruise Ship Paid $700 a Ton for Fuel Before the Iran War. It Stopped Sailing After Paying $2,000 to $3,000.
Two Taps & Friends Puts Three Defense Lawyers on the Week's Biggest Cases. In Legal Media, Expertise Is the Product.
A Catholic Hospital System's Affiliate Will Pay $23.50 a Share for Surgery Partners, a 49 Per Cent Premium. Bain Capital Offered $25.75 Last Year and Is Keeping Its Stake.
The Story So Far
The Hormuz Closure28 stories
- 10 Oct Oil Fell on Trump's Pledge of No Iran Strike, Then Closed Higher on a Hurricane. Tanker Attacks Are Running at a Wartime High.
- 3 Oct Oil Is Up 61 Per Cent Since February. American Natural Gas Costs What It Did a Year Ago.
- 3 Oct The Trucking Companies Going Bankrupt Are Small. Diesel Is Paid in Days, Freight in Months.
- 3 Oct The G-7 Will Release 100 Million Barrels. Some May Already Have Been Promised in March.
- 29 Sept LNG Canada Will Double to 28 Million Tonnes. The Announcement Has a Date in the 2030s and No Price.
- 28 Sept The 30-Year Treasury Closed at Its Highest Since the Bond Came Back in 2006. Households Had Already Marked Up Their Inflation Forecast.
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America Imported a Record $421 Billion in August. Without Computers, Chips and Telecom Gear, Imports Are Down This Year.
Schneider Is Paying a 42% Premium for PTC. The Price Is Still Below Where PTC Traded a Year Ago.
Customs Took In $333 Billion in Fiscal 2026. Refunds Sent About $147 Billion Back Out.
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