Dollar falls while gold and US Treasury bonds rally as markets react to Democrats’ midterm election victory – business live
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

Democrats’ capture of Congress raise expectations of tougher regulation of AI sector; US stock futures turn positive, reversing earlier declines

US stock futures have turned positive ahead of the Wall Street open later, as investors continue to assess the implications of the blue wave across the US, with the Democrats winning control of Congress.

Dow Jones futures are up 0.4%, while S&P 500 and futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq have both edged about 0.15% higher.

Greg Abbott’s loss of the Texas governorship means that the construction of more data centres is now open to question. We saw this overnight with weakness in the AI stocks like CoreWeave and Nebius, and while there has been some recovery the questions about how this plays out will continue to dog a sector already grappling with spending worries. Now legislation concerns are on the list too.

I think the fear is that the pace of the AI infrastructure rollout could slow, potentially quite markedly in Texas, as they start to digest exactly what mandate they might have in terms of AI.

Going into this, we were talking about the importance of the Texas and Georgia governor races. Those two states effectively make up about a third of all AI datacentre spend and projects. If both of those go Democrat at the governor level [they did], the potential for it to slow is very much there, and that would obviously cascade through to the rest of the AI sector.

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Andy Burnham to unveil EU trade deals worth billions of pounds
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

Agriculture, youth visas and emissions agreements nearly tied up under PM’s plan for a much closer relationship with Brussels

• The UK-EU food produce deal: what was agreed and will it affect shoppers?

Andy Burnham is preparing to announce billions of pounds of trade deals with the EU covering everything from youth visas to pet passports under his vision of a much closer relationship with the bloc.

With the prime minister scheduled to meet his European counterparts in Brussels on 20 November, officials have all but agreed three deals that would allow farmers to sell freely to the continent and travellers to take their animals abroad more easily.

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M&S takes more than a year to recover from cyber-attack as profits bounce back to £355m
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

Sales and profit from clothing and homeware remain below two years ago but ‘brand is in good health’

Marks & Spencer has said a devastating cyber-attack that shut down its website last year continued to hurt clothing sales over the summer, more than a year after the hack.

The retailer said profits bounced back to a better than expected £355m in the six months to 26 September from only £3.4m a year before, as it partly recovered from the hack. The attack, which began over Easter 2025, forced it to shut its website, which sells clothing and homewares, for more than six weeks.

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Britain’s housing market unlikely to recover until 2028, says Savills
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

House prices forecast to fall by 1.5% next year as Middle East war keeps mortgage rates higher for longer

Britain’s sluggish housing market is not expected to recover until 2028 as higher mortgage rates linked to the war in the Middle East deter buyers and weigh on prices.

The property firm Savills said average house prices were expected to drift lower during the rest of 2026 and fall by 1.5% in 2027, as the prolonged conflict undermines buyers’ confidence and keeps mortgage rates higher for longer.

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Hackers behind $6.3bn Binance heist ‘used malware and bogus job interviews’
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

Firm reveals details about how its cryptocurrency exchange was compromised, saying operation began in June

The hackers behind the $6.3bn (£4.7bn) Binance heist used bogus job interviews, malicious software and an internal AI tool, the company has revealed.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was compromised in an operation that began with an inadvertent download of malware in June, led to a recruitment scam in September and then a raid last week of “hot wallets” where billions of dollars worth of crypto-assets were taken.

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AI ‘godfather’ Geoffrey Hinton: it might turn out we were better off without AI
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

Nobel winner warns the tech could be near to triggering major incident such as power or banking shutdown

One of the “godfathers of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, has said it could turn out that humans would have been better off never developing the technology as he warned it could trigger a large-scale incident this year or next, such as a temporary blackout of financial or power systems.

The Nobel prize-winning computer scientist told the Guardian he is not a “doomer” about the technology that is underpinned by his groundbreaking research into artificial neural networks and believes AI has the potential to lead to a “wonderful future” but he said “it might be that we would have been better off never developing it”.

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‘I wasn’t performing’: Bruno Fernandes says Carrick was right to drop him after criticism
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

• ‘If it was punishment for the words, it was right’

• Carrick hails ‘magical’ Old Trafford after comeback win

Bruno Fernandes said Michael ­Carrick was correct to drop him last month as he reflected on a remarkable Manchester United comeback win against Roma at Old Trafford.

A twice-taken penalty from ­Fernandes set United’s revival from 2-0 down in motion, two goals from Matheus Cunha ultimately sealing a win that could yet save the embattled Carrick’s job.

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Qatar pulls out of hosting 2028 Nations Championship owing to Middle East crisis
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

• Title sponsorship with Qatar Airways also cancelled

• Paris’s Stade de France most likely venue for 2028 finals

Qatar will not host the finals of the 2028 Nations Championship owing to uncertainty caused by the war in the Middle East in a development that has also led to the cancellation of a planned title sponsorship deal for the new tournament with Qatar Airways.

Following months of negotiations both parties have agreed to withdraw from an agreement that would have seen Qatar stage the six-match final series in 2028 and 2032, as well as a title sponsorship for four editions of the competition with the national airline.

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