Be in the know. 20 key reads for Wednesday…

  1. PayPal and Perplexity Launch Instant Buy Ahead of Black Friday (paypal)
  2. AI Is Remaking Shopping. These Companies Are the Leaders. (barrons)
  3. China leapfrogs US in global market for ‘open’ AI models (ft)
  4. Bessent Says Trump and Xi May Meet Four Times Next Year (bloomberg)
  5. Alibaba to lead AI capital spending among China’s Big Tech firms amid strong market demand (scmp)
  6. Alibaba Results On Cloud 9 (chinalastnight)
  7. Foreign investors warm to China’s cheaper AI valuations despite fears of a U.S. bubble (cnbc)
  8. Macquarie maintains Outperform rating on Alibaba stock with $218.80 price target (investing)
  9. OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates (ft)
  10. Can Disney Animation Reclaim Its Magic? (nytimes)
  11. Grid-Scale Battery Boom Sparks Lithium’s Comeback (zerohedge)
  12. Health-Care Earnings Top S&P 500 on Strong Drug, Hospital Demand (bloomberg)
  13. Hedge Funds Pile Into Health Stocks Leading Market in Rotation (bloomberg)
  14. Deutsche Bank still sees a 25bp rate cut in December (streetinsider)
  15. Hassett Emerges as Frontrunner in Trump Fed Chair Audition (bloomberg)
  16. U.S. Home Prices Slow Further Amid Affordability Concerns (wsj)
  17. US Home-Purchase Applications Surge to Highest Since 2023 (bloomberg)
  18. Homebuyers See Record Discounts In October: Report (zerohedge)
  19. Pentagon says Boeing awarded more than $7 billion in military contracts (reuters)
  20. Vans Warped Tour Adds 2026 International Stops in Montreal and Mexico City (rollingstone)