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With the AI trade sputtering of late and interest rates on the rise, Anthropic's IPO is taking on outsized importance.

The Dow Industrials, S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed lower Friday while technology shares steadied to end a turbulent week for the market-driving AI trade, and investors looked ahead to a busy slate of corporate earnings and a Federal Reserve interest-rate policy meeting.

U.S. Treasury yields edged higher on Friday following a sharp reversal on Thursday.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Rob Wood , chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, says the biggest news is from S&P’s PMI data is the composite employment index rising above 50 for the first time since the 2024 budget. He said: The jobs balance rose to 50.5 from 48.9 in September, consistent with a 9K month-to-month payrolls gain in October. Solid growth is helping, probably alongside an easing drag from the payroll-tax hike. …The steady recovery in jobs growth further undermines any case for waiting to hike rates. A November rate hike is a shoo-in, and we expect another rone in February. We are very close to adding a third hike in May or earlier. It’s a really close call, but at the margin, we hold off after weak consumer signals this morning. It would take little—small further energy price rises, a hawkish DMP—to push us to three hikes. There are reports of paused spending due to a lack of clarity on domestic economic policy in the run up to the budget, meaning the promising economic picture from the latest PMIs should provide an encouraging base for further robust economic growth through the winter months, barring any adverse surprises to businesses in the tax and spending review. Geopolitics, and notably the potential for conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine to add to energy market volatility, are, however, clearly still unsettling many businesses, and cost of living concerns and broader fiscal worries are being compounded by the shift to higher borrowing costs. Continue reading...

Bond markets are signaling unease over AI financing costs and sovereign debt in parts of Europe. More stress tests are coming.

The comments come as investors scrutinize the debt, borrowing costs and economics of companies building AI infrastructure.

Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin discusses the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence. Speaking with Bloomberg's Dani Burger at Citadel's annual Future of Global Markets Conference in New York, Griffin also comments on the midterm elections, the US economy and fiscal policy. (Source: Bloomberg)

Higher interest rates and tighter financial conditions can kill the AI boom, but those forces are already at work in the bond market. The post Breitbart Business Digest: The Bond Market Is Already Doing Warsh’s Work appeared first on Breitbart .

The AI boom is sucking up all the capital. The Federal Reserve is raising rates to try to cool inflation. And one sector is bearing the brunt of the pain from both: housing . The big picture: The situation is lose-lose for both homebuilders and homebuyers. Builders are facing more expensive capital and bidding for scarce construction-related resources. Would-be buyers are being quoted some of the highest mortgage rates of this century. New September housing starts data out Tuesday morning puts an exclamation point on what has been a slow-moving disaster for a sector that plays an outsized role in the economic cycle and in Americans' basic living standards. By the numbers: The number of housing units started by builders fell 5.2% last month, the Census Bureau said , to 1.22 million. It's down 7.4% year over year and near post-pandemic lows. Starts of single-family homes fell 4.6% to their lowest level since March 2023. Pending home sales fell 7.3% last month, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday morning, to the lowest since the data was tracked going back to 2001. Homebuilder sentiment fell this month to its lowest level since 2012, the National Association of Home Builders said Monday. State of play: The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was 7.4% earlier this month, Freddie Mac said in its most recent weekly reading. The rate was briefly higher than that in 2023, but has not been consistently above that level since the fall of 2000. That has kept homebuyers on the sidelines — while a parallel rise in borrowing costs for developers has made it harder for new projects to pencil out. In effect, the bottomless demand for capital from AI hyperscalers and the U.S. government has to squeeze something, and that something has been the housing sector. Residential investment has subtracted from overall GDP for five of the last six quarters. Zoom out: Housing affordability is the crux of Americans' broader dissatisfaction with economic conditions, and all signs point to it getting worse, not better. For all the bipartisan emphasis on increasing housing supply — most prominently in the passage of a law to encourage more building earlier this year — conditions are weighted against a building boom. Housing developers are competing with data center builders for labor and materials like copper, concrete and HVAC equipment. Of note: Restrictionist immigration policy has also crimped the supply of construction workers . "Nationwide, more than one-third of builders reported immigration enforcement activity in their market areas during the past month, causing construction delays and discouraging legal workers from reporting to work," said NAHB chairman Bill Owens, an Ohio homebuilder, in the sentiment release . Between the lines: An unfortunate side effect of relying on Fed interest rate policy for macroeconomic stabilization is that interest-sensitive sectors, particularly housing, take it on the chin when the economy shows signs of overheating. It's particularly problematic now, when persistent undersupply of housing is a defining economic challenge of our age. The bottom line: The current alignment of interest rates, housing supply and construction costs isn't making anybody happy. Builders can't afford to build, buyers can't afford to buy, and even the people sitting pretty with pre-2022 mortgages can't afford to move.

AI giants keep borrowing as rates rise, blunting the central bank’s main tool against inflation.