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The global financial system has, of late, seen a surge in stock markets, particularly among tech firms like Nvidia, but experts warn this masks deep systemic risks including excessive public debt, speculative artificial intelligence investments, fragile crypto integration, and opaque shadow banking practices. Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff and other economists highlight market complacency, warning that inflated valuations driven by labor-saving AI expectations and circular tech deals could lead to instability. The U.S. government’s $38tn debt, policy unpredictability, and regulatory rollbacks, along with increased exposure to risky assets in retirement funds, are drawing comparisons to pre-2008 crisis conditions. 

 

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Shake Shack has announced that Katherine Fogertey is to step down as chief financial officer, with effect from March 4th 2026. As it commences its search for her successor, the company is establishing an office of the CFO, composed of a tenured team of experienced leaders across financial planning, accounting, treasury, data science and investor relations. This structure will aim to provide stability and deliver uninterrupted support to the business.

 

MSN

Computer and printer maker HP expects to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs - up to 10% of its total globally - by fiscal 2028 as part of a plan to streamline operations and adopt artificial intelligence to speed up product development, improve customer satisfaction and boost productivity. “We really think this is a unique opportunity we cannot miss to really continue to transform the company and continue to be competitive for the next 10, 20 years,” chief executive Enrique Lores said. HP said it also expects to increase investment in some areas to integrate AI further into its product portfolio. “I think any work is going to be impacted by AI, and we need to take advantage of it as a company,” Lores observed.

 

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Reuters reports on how Savills Investment Management, a U.K. real estate manager which oversees €26bn ($29.93bn) in assets and is concerned about flood, fire and other climate-related risks to its properties sought help from London-based data analytics firm Climate X. Savills said the data crunched by Climate X aids its investment decisions and it may now use the firm's analytics to assess hundreds more properties. Reuters says the U.S. government's pullback from climate science has fuelled a boom for such private data firms. Revenues for the earth intelligence sector should rise at least 10% to $4.2bn by 2030, market analysis firm Gartner said.

 

Reuters

Comcast will pay a $1.5m fine after a 2024 data breach at its former vendor, Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS), exposed personal data from 237,000 customers, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced. The breach involved customers of Comcast’s internet, TV, and home security services. Although FBCS had filed for bankruptcy before disclosing the incident, Comcast agreed to implement new vendor oversight protocols. The company said it was not at fault and that its own systems were unaffected, adding: “We remain committed to continually strengthening our cybersecurity policies and protections.”

 

Reuters

Altice USA has sued creditors holding the bulk of its $26bn debt, accusing them of illegally colluding in an attempt to force the company into bankruptcy. The U.S. telecoms affiliate of Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi’s empire - now known as Optimum Communications following a rebranding earlier this month - brought the case in federal court in New York against lenders including Apollo, Ares and BlackRock, alleging that they worked together to freeze the company out of the U.S. credit market. “The cooperative is a classic illegal cartel,” the company said in the complaint. 

 

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Sales at U.S. retailers and restaurants increased by 0.2% in September from August, according to the Commerce Department, missing the 0.4% rise expected among economists polled by Reuters. Tuesday's report, the release of which was delayed by the 43-day federal government shutdown, revealed that core sales, excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services fell 0.1%. Eight out of 13 categories posted increases, fuelled by spending at gasoline stations, personal care stores and miscellaneous retailers.

 

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The producer price index (PPI) rose 0.3% in September, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday, driven by higher food and energy costs, while core PPI, excluding these categories, posted its slowest annual rise since July 2024 at 2.6%. Final demand energy prices jumped 3.5% for the month, while food rose 1.1%. Of the energy increase, much of that was tied to an 11.8% surge in gasoline. On the services side, transportation and warehousing prices rose 0.8%, while airline passenger fees surged 4%.

 

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The Conference Board reports that U.S. consumer confidence dipped in November, with households concerned about their employment and financial situations. The group's consumer confidence index dropped 6.8 points from October to 88.7, its lowest reading since April. Economists quizzed by Dow Jones had expected a reading of 93.2. The expectations index tumbled 8.6 points to 63.2 while the present situation index slipped to 126.9, a decline of 4.3 points. “Consumers were notably more pessimistic about business conditions six months from now,” said Dana Peterson, the board’s chief economist. “Mid-2026 expectations for labor market conditions remained decidedly negative, and expectations for increased household incomes shrunk dramatically, after six months of strongly positive readings.”

 

CNBC

Reuters

Campbell's has placed Martin Bally, its vice president of information technology, on leave, after a recording emerged of him saying the company made "highly processed food" for "poor people." Former Campbell’s cybersecurity analyst Robert Garza filed a lawsuit against the company and accused Bally of making racist comments and disparaging Campbell’s products in a secretly recorded meeting. He is also reported to have said that the company's Indian employees were “idiots” whom he disliked working with. “If the comments heard on the audio recording were in fact made by Mr. Bally, they are unacceptable,” the company said. “Such language does not reflect our values and the culture of our company.” It also noted: “Campbell’s soups are made with real chicken. Period."

 

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Kohl's saw its shares close up 42% on Tuesday at $22.42, after the department store chain lifted its full-year outlook and posted an unexpected profit for the third quarter, a day after Michael Bender was named as the group's permanent chief executive. The three months to November 1st brought a 2.9% drop in sales to $3.41bn and a profit of $8m, or 10 cents per share adjusted, compared with $22m a year earlier. Analysts polled by LSEG expected sales of $3.32bn and a per-share loss of 20 cents.

 

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PYMNTS reports that a regulatory push on bank leverage and capital rules could impact fintech-bank partnerships. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s November 25th board agenda details a proposed overhaul of the community leverage bank ratio and a final rule on enhanced supplementary leverage ratio and total loss-absorbing capacity standards for global systemically important banks.

 

PYMNTS.com

Amazon is urging engineers to favor its in-house artificial intelligence coding tool, Kiro, over third-party options like OpenAI’s Codex, Anthropic’s Claude Code, and Cursor, per an internal memo viewed by Reuters. Despite investments in Anthropic and a $38bn cloud deal with OpenAI, Amazon said: “We do not plan to support additional third party, AI development tools.” Kiro, launched in July, uses elements of Anthropic tech but excludes Claude Code. “We're making Kiro our recommended AI-native development tool for Amazon,” said senior executives Peter DeSantis and Dave Treadwell in the memo.

 

Reuters

Klarna is launching a payment stablecoin, becoming the latest fintech to bet that the digital tokens will reshape cross-border payments. The token, called KlarnaUSD, is currently in testing and will be available on the mainnet in 2026, and will be fully backed by the U.S. dollar. The stablecoin will run on Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain developed by Stripe and crypto investment firm Paradigm.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

In a deal that has been described as a “world first”, Australia's two largest food delivery services, DoorDash and Uber Eats, are partnering with the Transport Workers’ Union to set new minimum standards for delivery drivers, including a minimum hourly wage and accident insurance for injuries sustained on the job. Under the terms of a draft agreement released on Tuesday, their workers would earn at least A$31.30 ($20.19) per hour, an increase of about 25% for some couriers who are paid per delivery and not for how long they have worked. The deal would put them level with the minimum wage earned by Australian casual workers.

 

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The Guardian

Dutch lender ABN Amro plans to reduce its workforce by 5,200 full-time positions by 2028 as part of a new financial strategy aimed at improving profitability. Chief executive Marguerite Bérard said: "I understand that changes to our cost base, especially reducing FTEs, bring uncertainty for our colleagues. We are fully committed to supporting everyone affected." The bank aims to achieve half of the cuts through attrition, with the remainder being layoffs. ABN Amro has already eliminated over 1,000 jobs this year.

 

NL Times