investment

Scotland-based rocket company Skyrora has secured a major boost in its latest funding round, thanks to a strategic investment from Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov. The new capital strengthens Skyrora’s central position in the UK’s plans to establish its own space launch capability.

Closing the UK Launch Gap

Skyrora’s Growing Launch Capabilities

Historic Launch Licence

Sovereign Launch for the UK

Polyakov’s Global Vision

Max Polyakov’s involvement brings not only funding but also a shared vision. He has long championed the idea that space technologies must address global challenges such as climate change and resource management. According to Polyakov, “There is a misconception that by investing in the space sector, we are ignoring significant issues on Earth. But we are no longer going to space just for the achievement: we are going there to seek climate solutions, and we must proactively minimise our impact.” His philosophy perfectly aligns with Skyrora’s mission to make space activity a driver of sustainability on Earth.

Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian-born entrepreneur and economist, is the founder of Noosphere Ventures, a US-based investment fund focused on space and advanced technologies. Through Noosphere, he has built a vertically integrated ecosystem that includes companies like EOS Data Analytics, Dragonfly Aerospace, and SETS.

Building a Global Space Network

Catastrophe bonds — as the name may suggest — aren’t for fledgling investors. Even so, these high-yield, high-risk securities are attracting growing interest as natural catastrophes intensify.

First developed for the US market in the 1990s, cat bonds are issued by governments, insurers, or reinsurers to cover the costs of natural disasters. Investors buy the instrument in the hope that a payout won’t be triggered, meaning they’ll get their money back plus a return. Alternatively, in the case of a bond-triggering natural disaster, the issuer will keep the capital to cover the fallout.

“From the perspective of insurers and reinsurers, cat bonds provide access to an alternative source of capital that is more flexible than on-balance sheet capital and can be targeted towards absorbing specific types and layers of risk,” said Brandan Holmes, VP-senior credit officer at Moody’s Ratings. “Cat bonds can also be more cost effective than traditional reinsurance,” he told Euronews.

The appeal of these securities has gained prominence in the wake of recent disasters like Jamaica’s Hurricane Melissa. Crucially, capital markets provide nations with a vital means to lower insurance costs at a time when aid spending in rich countries is dropping. Repeated natural disasters can push governments into insurmountable debt, particularly as the cost of servicing those dues becomes higher.

From an investor perspective, the instrument also has its perks. Not only do the bonds carry attractive yields because of their risky nature, they provide portfolio diversification because of their limited correlation with financial markets. This means that when stocks and typical bonds fall at the same time — an uncommon but real scenario — catastrophe bonds offer some protection. “They also tend to have relatively short maturities which provide investors with flexibility in asset allocation decisions,” said Holmes.

Complex trigger conditions

According to data firm Artemis, the outstanding value of the global cat bond market is around $57.9 billion (€49.93bn). Despite the growing climate risk, these assets also saw historically strong returns in 2023 and 2024, reaching 20% and 17% respectively.

One factor boosting returns is that investors only pay out if certain conditions are met. For example, when Hurricane Beryl hit Jamaica last year, the nation failed to get any cat bond coverage when air pressure failed to drop below a certain threshold. On the other hand, in the wake of this year’s Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica will receive a full payout of $150 million (€129.37mn) thanks to its World Bank catastrophe insurance.

Analysts stress that the complex conditions surrounding cat bonds make the product unsuitable for inexperienced investors. “You have to have a really good understanding of the risk passed on,” said Maren Josefs, credit analyst at S&P Global. She added: “What we’ve also seen recently is investors presuming they are investing in extreme events, like a really big hurricane or earthquake. But over the last few years, mid-sized events such as tornadoes, wildfires, or floods have been happening with greater frequency, meaning some investors were surprised when they lost money to these sorts of natural disasters.”

Institutional investors are currently the key purchasers of cat bonds. However, there are ways for retail investors to gain indirect exposure to the product. Earlier this year, the world’s first ETF (exchange traded fund) investing in cat bonds made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, meaning fund managers can now pool investor contributions to buy cat bonds. In the EU, the instruments aren’t easy for non-professionals to access, but indirect exposure is possible through UCITS, a type of mutual fund.

“The actual cat bond that gets issued, there’s no way that either a US or EU retail investor can just buy that,” said Johannes Schahn, an associate at Mayer Brown who advises on debt issuance. “They’re only offered to qualified investors,” he continued, “but what has been happening occasionally is that mutual funds invest or partially invest in cat bonds.”

ESMA weighs in

Despite the perks of these securities, their availability may be further restricted in the EU in the coming years. This comes after a report from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), sent to the European Commission this summer, advising that cat bonds shouldn’t be included in UCITS. The market watchdog clarified that UCITS should only hold a small indirect exposure of up to 10% to these instruments.

While ESMA’s recommendation has ignited conversations around the risks of cat bonds for non-professional investors, Kian Navid, senior policy officer for investment management at ESMA, told Euronews that the advice sent to the Commission wasn’t passing a value judgement on the investments. “It is not that ESMA’s technical advice takes a position against retail investors accessing cat bonds per se. The advice is not about outlining what constitutes a good or bad investment, but it provides data and risk analyses for the European Commission’s consideration,” he explained. “However, conceptually, if you opened up UCITS to alternative assets (like cat bonds) beyond 10%, that would risk blurring the lines between UCITS and alternative investment funds (AIFs).”

A decision from the Commission is still pending, and this will involve public consultations and further market analysis in 2026. Even so, it remains to be seen whether catastrophe bonds will appeal to European tastes.

“It’s a product that is established in the US market and less so in Europe,” said Patrick Scholl, partner at Mayer Brown. “I don’t know if there are many interested investors here… But if we see more catastrophe-driven developments in the region, we might see more of these products in Europe.”

NAPA, Calif. — The Buena Vista tasting room is not just another downtown Napa wine bar.

It is a conspicuously indulgent place, where epicureans can fill their glasses with cabernet and sink into the carefully restored mezzanine’s dark velvet lounges for a tasting of fine caviar and artisan chocolates resembling museum pieces.

One vibe this nook of luxury does not give off is that of a community in distress. Its neighbor in the ornate 1920s Italianate edifice known as the Gordon Building is an Anthropologie store.

The redevelopment of the building, damaged in an earthquake, was bankrolled using a tax shelter created in 2017 for the wealthiest Americans on the promise it would bring opportunity to the most downtrodden places.

Billions of dollars’ worth of tax breaks for the wealthy are being generated by the Opportunity Zone program, often in pursuit of luxury high-rises, high-end hotels and swank office space. It has subsidized hulking self-storage units nestled alongside freeways and upmarket apartments for employees of the hottest Bay Area tech firms.

One thing the tax break has fallen short on: creating opportunities in low-income communities.

Opportunity zones were supposed to encourage investment in low-income communities. But billionaires are building luxury hotels and high-rises, instead.

“This has been perverted into a huge gift for people who did not need it,” said Aaron Seybert, managing director of social investment at the Kresge Foundation, which has found it difficult to put the tax break to work toward its effort to bring opportunity to America’s struggling communities.

“They are spending my money and yours. They said they would do that because these low-income areas are falling behind and they want to help people who live there,” Seybert said.

“The places I work in every day have raised virtually nothing” through the program, he said.

The same grievance can be heard from mayors of struggling towns throughout the nation. Among those declaring the program a bust is the East Baltimore pastor who went to the White House in 2018 to help President Trump unveil it. His community has been passed over as investors chase the double-digit returns that accompany the tax shelter in upscale markets.

The story of how this all happened has deep California roots, sprouting from the vision of a Silicon Valley billionaire who inserted himself into the machinations of federal policymaking.

The Opportunity Zone program was the vision of Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker, shown here in 2018.

(Michael Brochstein / Getty Images)

Sean Parker — founder of Napster, Facebook’s first president and the Silicon Valley bad boy depicted in the film “The Social Network” — seemed a stretch for this role.

Parker began working the Washington circuit late in the Obama era, when it was still hospitable to super-rich tech innovators but few had the patience or humility to navigate it. Washington is not about moving quickly and breaking things. Long, slow insider games of horse-trading precede almost every big new federal policy.

Yet Parker’s plan had bipartisan appeal. It focused on the wealth of Americans loath to reinvest their stock market, real estate and other capital gains profits because of the hefty tax bills that come when that money is moved. The idea was to give them a break on those taxes if they steered the money to communities desperate for investment.

“He really went to school on how Washington works,” said David Wessel, author of “Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age,” which chronicles Parker’s quest and what became of the program he championed. “He hired a couple of Washington insiders, one a Democrat and one a Republican, and they created this think tank with the goal of getting Opportunity Zones into law…. They laid the foundation by making the case that we have a problem with geographic inequality in the United States, and it is not just incremental.”

Parker held private dinners with lawmakers of competing ideological loyalties, and he donated generously across the aisle.

“The idea initially sounded great,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat who had been approached by Parker to run the think tank, called the Economic Innovation Group. “I was quite enthusiastic about it.” Khanna passed on the job offer, as he was gearing up for a congressional run at the time, but once elected, he would join the push behind the tax break.

Downtown Napa’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The historic Franklin Station postal building, a site proposed for a boutique hotel, is in downtown Napa’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

It allows investors to park their capital gains in Opportunity Zone projects. When they do, they can put off paying taxes on those gains for years, and cut that tax bill by as much as 15% when it does come due. The bigger draw: If they keep their money in the Opportunity Zone project for a decade, they don’t pay any taxes at all on the potentially large profits they make off that investment. The cumulative cost of the incentive is $1.6 billion in foregone tax revenue per year, which the Urban Institute says makes it one of the largest federal programs for steering investment into distressed places.

It seemed a price worth paying for even some progressive Democrats like Khanna if the end result was a flourishing of opportunity in the nation’s economic deserts.

But the California dreaming was disrupted by Washington deal-making. There was no hearing or any public vetting of the measure by lawmakers before it got quietly tucked into the Trump tax cut package of 2017. The final regulations were astoundingly permissive, full of provisions that allowed census districts in some of the nation’s wealthiest places to qualify as Opportunity Zones.

“It has not been used in ways that actually ended up creating jobs,” Khanna said. “It has been gamed.”

The money often has flowed to projects promising big financial returns that analysts — including those on then-President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors — conclude would have happened without the tax break.

While Parker and his think tank remain bullish that with some tweaks Opportunity Zones will be the “Marshall Plan for the heartland” they promised, many erstwhile backers are angry about what the program has become.

Angel Barajas, a Yolo County supervisor, walks through an Opportunity Zone in Woodland, west of Sacramento, that he says has been left behind by the program.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“Woodland needs housing, it needs infill development,” said Enrique Fernandez, the former mayor of the heavily Latino city west of Sacramento, which persuaded the state to designate two of its census tracts as Opportunity Zones. The tax break has drawn none of it.

“I am really skeptical about the true intentions of this law and how it was implemented,” Fernandez said.

The city of Woodland’s Opportunity Zone district is only an hour’s drive from Napa’s Gordon Building but is in a different universe economically, riddled with vacant lots and litter. It could be a ripe canvas for development as the nearby main street comes alive with new small businesses bolstered by home buyers and renters moving to the town in search of a cheaper alternative to Sacramento, but the tax break is doing nothing to speed that transition.

Jose Ahumada Ruelas gathers recyclables to help his daughter, who collects them for income, at Yolano Village, a low-income housing development in Woodland’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On a recent tour of the area, local officials said the investment needed to revitalize the blighted swaths of their community might have come if lawmakers had made good on their promise to steer the incentives only to struggling communities.

There are 8,764 census tracts designated as Opportunity Zones nationwide. Only 16% of them attracted any projects in the gold rush for rich investors in the program’s first year, when the tax breaks were most lucrative, according to an April 2021 UC Berkeley report based on aggregate data from the IRS.

Nearly half the cash invested went to the richest 1% of Opportunity Zones — places that rarely fit the conventional definition of distressed. Data from the consulting firm Novogradac reveal California cities are getting more of that cash than anyplace else.

In Oakland, Opportunity Zone tax breaks are being used to build high-rise apartments on the waterfront; they’ll rent at market rate, far out of reach for most locals. The situation is the same in downtown Long Beach and in Los Angeles neighborhoods like Koreatown and Little Tokyo. In Portland, Ore., the tax break was used to build a Ritz Carlton hotel.

In January, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an investigation into several of these projects, including one in Palm Beach, Fla., where the incentive is being used to build a marina for “super-yachts.”

Todd Zapolski used the Opportunity Zone program to draw investors to his renovation of the Gordon Building in downtown Napa, which is now home to an Anthropologie store and a wine bar.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The Gordon Building developer said its renovation was possible because downtown Napa qualified as economically distressed under the Opportunity Zone program.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Back in Napa, the developer of the Gordon Building said the project will spur growth in a part of Northern California where underlying challenges of joblessness and housing affordability are obscured by the influx of wine vacationers. “We have some of the wealthiest in the country, and we have some of the poorest in the country,” Todd Zapolski said.

The landmark building was badly damaged in the 2014 South Napa earthquake, and Zapolski said repairing it was possible only because of the Opportunity Zone sweetener.

“We couldn’t make it work unless we had that incentive,” he said. “That gave us the extra oomph for investors to say, all right … we’ll take the risk.”

Parker declined to be interviewed, but the leader of the think tank he created took issue with scathing reviews of the program from community leaders, advocates and lawmakers who once saw promise in it. John Lettieri, president and chief executive of the Economic Innovation Group, said layering too many rules and restrictions onto the incentive would chase away investors.

“The trick is to get them to redeploy their capital without having to jump through bureaucratic hoops that would make it hard to access and leave communities in the same place they have been,” he said. “We were trying to create an incentive that can be relevant enough to a wide array of communities nationwide.”

States had broad authority on where to locate their Opportunity Zones, Lettieri said, and some were not judicious in drawing the maps. He said California, which drew the zones into some of the nation’s most wealthy enclaves, was one of the worst offenders.

California officials were not particularly invested in the federal program, which the Trump administration gave states scant time to shape or vet before they had to draw maps. The administration of then-Gov. Jerry Brown initially proposed an expedient process involving an algorithm. The federal rules were so permissive that the state’s draft maps included the campus of Stanford as an Opportunity Zone.

The downtown San Jose Opportunity Zone sits adjacent to the mega campus Google is building in the city.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Stanford and some others were removed from the program, but other pricey ZIP Codes stayed in amid lobbying by local politicians, economic development agencies and builders.

But the state’s ambivalence about Opportunity Zones is clear in its refusal to match the federal tax break with a credit investors in the projects can also claim on their state taxes. Officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration signaled to developers they believe the tax break is a giveaway. New York lawmakers gave their own vote of no confidence after the tax break was put to use for luxury projects in some of New York City’s most expensive ZIP Codes. The tax shelter last year was stripped from New York’s tax code.

Even so, there are cases of truly distressed communities making use of the credit.

An organization called SoLa Impact says it is leveraging the incentive to buy run-down residential properties in underserved neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and rehabilitate them for low-income tenants.

No state has had a bigger impact on the direction of the United States than California, a prolific incubator and exporter of outside-the-box policies and ideas. This occasional series examines what that has meant for the state and the country, and how far Washington is willing to go to spread California’s agenda as the state’s own struggles threaten its standing as the nation’s think tank.

Before he was slain, Los Angeles rap star Nipsey Hussle had plans to use it to invest in businesses in Crenshaw. The Central Valley city of Merced is looking to the tax break to bring its downtown back to life.

The place boosters point to most often is across the country in Erie, Pa., a city that is emblematic of the Rust Belt’s economic collapse. Community leaders say the incentive is crucial to the development of 12 residential and retail projects that will reshape the downtown.

But for every dollar the federal government is investing in Erie through the tax break, it is spending several more in downtown San Jose, a place hardly hurting for capital. The Opportunity Zone there sits adjacent to the future home of a sprawling Google campus that is so big it will reshape the footprint of the downtown, bringing in thousands of highly paid tech workers.

They will be able to stroll to a glistening residential tower getting built with the incentive, where 1,000-square-foot apartments will rent for $4,250 per month. The developer, Urban Catalyst, is not required to set aside anything for affordable housing beyond what the city requires for any other project. The building will have an infinity pool.

The Fountain Alley development in downtown San Jose’s Opportunity Zone will feature “the largest rooftop restaurant and bar in Silicon Valley.”

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Erik Hayden, founder, of Urban Catalyst.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On a tour of San Jose’s Opportunity Zone building boom, Urban Catalyst founder Erik Hayden walked journalists through the construction of another stylish structure getting renovated with the tax break, with soaring ceilings and windows the size of movie screens. It will be home to a swank indoor miniature golf course and cocktail bar inspired by Burning Man. The complex will also house a venue for ax throwing and craft beer drinking.

Asked how such projects fit into the program’s goal of uplifting left-behind communities, Hayden points to properties downtown that remain vacant and boarded up, as the rapid gentrification and flood of investment in this community hopscotches across blocks. “It feels to me like a left-behind community,” he said. “We’re building a variety of different things, all of which are needed by downtown.”

It is hard to reconcile these luxury buildings in San Jose with the stated vision of Parker and that of the lawmaker who was the lead champion for the tax break, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only Black Republican.

When Scott was invited to the White House in 2017 and asked by Trump how to make amends for the president’s remark that “there were very fine people on both sides” of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Scott secured Trump’s endorsement for Opportunity Zones.

The senator recounts in his book, “Opportunity Knocks,” how he made the pitch, telling Trump “that we must find fresh ways to alleviate the terrible poverty that is the source of so many of our ills — including the plague of racism.” Scott remains a proponent of the program, saying in a House hearing in November that the tens of billions invested in Opportunity Zone projects are, by the program’s definition, going to “low-income, high-poverty, racially diverse areas.”

The Paseo, a tech office space and retail building in downtown San Jose’s Opportunity Zone, will feature an indoor miniature golf course inspired by Burning Man.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

He pointed to new businesses in Columbia, S.C., an affordable housing development in Rockhill, N.C., and local enthusiasm for the program in Stockton. He acknowledged, though, that accurately measuring the tax shelter’s success is impossible, because there are no disclosure rules that allow taxpayers to learn “exactly what people are doing with the resources and the benefits and the incentives.” Scott says he wants more disclosure.

Those who have soured on the tax break say they have seen enough to know it is doing little to bring the country closer to Scott’s lofty goal of alleviating poverty and racism. But it is, they say, helping a lot of wealthy investors and developers of luxury properties.

One need only peruse the Lake Tahoe real estate ads for evidence.

Among the listings is an 8-acre property directly across the street from Heavenly Mountain Resort ski area. The price tag is $52 million. One selling point: The city has already greenlighted the property for a hotel or condos, shops and a large event space.

Another selling point: It is in an Opportunity Zone.

In October of 2018, U.S.-based journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. The CIA concluded that the assassination was carried out by Saudi operatives, on order of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The prince denied the accusations, although other U.S. intelligence agencies later made the same formal assessment.

Tuesday, President Trump showered the Saudi leader with praise during his first invitation to the White House since the killing. “We’ve been really good friends for a long period of time,” said Trump. “We’ve always been on the same side of every issue.”

Clearly. Their shared disdain — and fear — of a free press was evident, from downplaying the killing of Khashoggi to snapping at ABC News reporter Mary Bruce when she asked about his murder.

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump said, then he proceeded to debase a journalist who wasn’t there to report on the event because he’d been silenced, forever. Referring to Khashoggi, he said, “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Mohammed bin Salman, left, and Jamal Khashoggi.

(Associated Press / Tribune News Service)

Fender-benders happen. Spilled milk happens. But the orchestrated assassination of a journalist by a regime that he covers is not one of those “things” that just happen. It’s an orchestrated hit meant to silence critics, control the narrative and bury whatever corruption, human rights abuses or malfeasance that a healthy free press is meant to expose.

Bruce did what a competent reporter is supposed to do. She deviated from Tuesday’s up-with-Saudi-Arabia! agenda to ask the hard questions of powerful men not used to being questioned about anything, let alone murder. The meeting was meant to highlight the oil-rich country’s investment in the U.S. economy, and at Trump’s prompting, Prince Mohammed said those investments could total $1 trillion.

Prince Mohammed addressed the death of Khashoggi by saying his country hopes to do better in the future, whatever that means. “It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”

And just in case the two men hadn’t made clear how little they cared about the slain journalist, and how much they disdain the news media, Trump drove those points home when he referred to Bruce’s query as “a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question.” He suggesting that ABC should lose its broadcasting license.

Trump confirmed Tuesday that he intends to sell “top of the line” F-35 stealth fighter jets to Riyadh. It’s worth noting that the team of 15 Saudi agents allegedly involved in Khashoggi’s murder flew to Istanbul on government aircraft. The reporter was lured to the Saudi embassy to pick up documents that were needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

The prince knew nothing about it, said Trump on Tuesday, despite the findings of a 2021 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that cited “the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Mohammad bin Salman’s protective detail.” It concluded that it was “highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

To no one’s surprise, the Saudi government had tried to dodge the issue before claiming Khashoggi had been killed by rogue officials, insisting that the slaying and dismemberment was not premeditated. They offered no explanation of how a bonesaw just happened to be available inside the embassy.

President Trump shakes hands with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House in 2018.

(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Five men were sentenced to death, but one of Khashoggi’s sons later announced that the family had forgiven the killers, which, in accordance with Islamic law, spared them from execution.

The president’s castigation of ABC’s Bruce was the second time in a week that he has ripped into a female journalist when she asked a “tough” question (i.e. anything Newsmax won’t ask). Trump was speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One last Friday when Bloomberg News’ Catherine Lucey asked him follow-up question about the Epstein files. The president replied, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”

Trump’s contempt for the press was clear, but so was something else he shares with the crown prince, Hungary’s Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin: The president doesn’t just hate the press. He fears it.

Global stocks rose on Thursday after strong Nvidia results eased concerns of a market crash, linked to the perceived overvaluation of AI firms.

Bitcoin, the world’s most established cryptocurrency, also enjoyed a modest lift — rising 0.73% by early afternoon in Europe.

This comes after a hard few months for the token. On Monday it briefly slipped below the $90,000 mark for the first time in seven months before rising to around $91,800 on Thursday.

A turning point in crypto’s trajectory can be traced back to 10 October, when a meltdown wiped out more than $1 trillion in market value across all tokens. More than $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were offloaded, notably after US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China.

“There have been several catalysts (of the recent price drop), but it seems as if the biggest drivers are long-term selling by ‘OGs’, an uncertain economic climate, and a mass deleveraging event on the 10th October,” Nic Puckrin, CEO of Coin Bureau, told Euronews.

“OGs are the term used to describe older Bitcoin holders with massive amounts of Bitcoin. They have been selling for several weeks which has led to a flood of supply hitting the market,” he added.

Analysts note that the US economy is in a period of deep uncertainty at the moment, partly as a government shutdown has prevented the publication of key data releases, with the uncertainty driving crypto lower.

The outcome of the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision, due in December, is hanging in the balance — with investors now paring back expectations of a cut.

Transcripts released this week from the Fed’s October meeting show the policy-setting committee deeply divided over whether to reduce the benchmark interest rate.

“Bitcoin is increasingly driven by macro moves,” Puckrin argued.

Analysts fear that as crypto grows more interconnected with mainstream financial markets, contagion will make both crypto assets and stock markets more volatile.

‘A football match with no referee’

Bitcoin reached its price high in October thanks to increased institutional acceptance, expectations of Fed rate cuts, and support from the Trump administration.

For Carol Alexander, crypto expert and finance professor at Sussex University, Bitcoin’s volatility must nonetheless be associated with aggressive trading techniques — rather than simply pointing to the macro environment.

“Bitcoin’s price is determined primarily by the behaviour of professional traders operating on offshore, unregulated trading platforms. These are not hobbyist investors; they are major hedge funds and specialised trading firms,” she told Euronews.

“On these offshore crypto exchanges, professional traders can deploy aggressive order-book strategies — sometimes labelled spoofing or laddering … Their business model relies on generating sharp volatility. They do not care whether the price rises or falls; they care only that it moves quickly.”

In other words, these traders make money from price swings by buying in the dip and selling when crypto rebounds, meaning they aren’t focused on long-term holdings.

The losers in this scenario are often non-professional traders, who can sometimes take on enormous leverage — borrowing money to increase the size of their investments. When the market moves against these investors, they are often forced to sell, losing everything.

“When too many of these non-professional traders have been wiped out, liquidity dries up, and the pros step back,” said Alexander. “At that point, the price often rebounds sharply, encouraging new entrants to join. The whole system behaves like a football match played in a stadium with no referee.”

Puckrin also predicted that crypto is set for a rebound, forecasting that it won’t fall much below current levels.

“I still think it’s a bright future despite the price action. Crypto has been through multiple cycles and it always emerges stronger. We are also seeing the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of the industry. This means more people can use the technology in their daily lives.”

The carmaker first announced the plan for battery production in 2021.

Toyota Motor Corporation has begun production at its $13.9bn North Carolina battery plant as it ramps up hybrid production and confirms plans to invest $10bn over five years in United States manufacturing.

The Tokyo, Japan-based carmaker announced the developments on Wednesday.

It first introduced the plan in December 2021 to produce batteries for its hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). Batteries from the plant are set to power hybrid versions of the Camry, Corolla Cross, RAV4, and a yet-to-be-announced, all-electric, three-row-battery vehicle. The plant is producing hybrid batteries for factories in Kentucky and a Mazda and Toyota joint venture in Alabama.

“Over the next five years, we are planning an additional investment of $10bn in the US to further grow our manufacturing capabilities, bringing our total investment in this country to over $60bn,” said Ted Ogawa, president of Toyota Motor North America.

Toyota’s 11th US factory, on a 1,850-acre (749-hectare) site, will be able to produce 30 gigawatt-hours of energy annually at full capacity and house 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrids and full EVs. It will eventually employ 5,000 workers.

Last month in Japan, US President Donald Trump said Toyota planned a $10bn investment in the United States.

“Go out and buy a Toyota,” said Trump, who has been critical of Japanese and other auto imports and has imposed hefty tariffs on imported vehicles.

Toyota has been one of the slowest carmakers to move to full EVs, but has rapidly moved to convert its best-selling vehicles to hybrids.

“We know there is no single path to progress”, Ogawa said on Wednesday.

“That’s why we remain committed to our multi-pathway approach, offering fuel-efficient gas engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electronics and fuel cell electronics.”

Other car companies like Volkswagen have said they will add more hybrids as the Trump administration has rescinded EV tax credits and eliminated penalties that incentivised EV sales.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the event that the administration plans to soon propose to ease fuel economy standards, saying prior rules were too aggressive.

Duffy in January signed an order to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rescind fuel economy standards issued under former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for the 2022-2031 model years that had aimed to drastically reduce fuel use for cars and trucks.

Toyota’s stock is up by about 0.4 percent in midday trading in New York.

SEOUL, Nov. 12 (UPI) — South Korea’s leading brokerage houses delivered solid performances in the third quarter of this year, thanks to the recent bullish run in the Seoul bourse.

The country’s business bellwether, Mirae Asset Securities, said early this month that it netted $234 million in profit for the July-September period, up 18.8% from a year earlier.

The Seoul-based company’s sales also jumped 22.5% year-on-year to reach $4.55 billion, the largest in the industry.

Korea Investment & Securities said Tuesday that its third-quarter net profit nearly doubled to $413 million, while turnover just edged up 0.4% to $3.85 billion.

Another major player, Samsung Securities, chalked up $1.86 billion in sales, down 1.5% from a year before, for a net income of $211 million, up 28.7%.

Market observers point out that the strong rally in the Korean stock market underpinned the stellar earnings of local securities companies. During the third quarter, the benchmark KOSPI advanced more than 11%.

Their upward momentum is expected to continue because the KOSPI has surged by over 20% since Oct. 1, surpassing the 4,000-point mark for the first time.

“Steady capital inflows into the equity market are expected for the time being, providing a favorable tailwind for domestic brokerages’ earnings,” Kyobo Securities analyst Kim Ji-young said in a media interview.

The share price of Mirae Asset Securities rose 6.97% on Wednesday, while Samsung Securities soared 8.65%. Korea Investment & Securities, which is unlisted, saw its parent company, Korea Investment Holdings, gain 3.95%.

During its 3rd grandiose summit in Luanda that brought together a distinguished panel of leaders, including the ministers of transport from Zimbabwe and Rwanda, the secretary-general of the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), the director of strategies at Morocco’s Ministry of Transport and Logistics, the CEOs of Ethiopian Airlines and TAAG Angola Airlines, as well as representatives from the World Bank Group and the European Commission (EC), the African Union finally earmarked $30 billion for aviation infrastructure.

In his opening address, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola and Chairperson of the African Union (AU), stressed that Africa must invest between $130 billion and $170 billion annually to lay the foundation for sustainable growth. “We must move from words to action,” President Lourenço urged. “This summit represents a decisive step toward mobilizing the resources needed to enhance connectivity and integration across our continent.”

The ambitious investment plan strategically aims at modernizing the continent’s aviation infrastructure under the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), according to summit reports. Lerato D. Mataboge, African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, during the high-level session on Financing and Modernizing African Civil Aviation Infrastructure to Promote Integrated Continental Airspace and Enable Free Movement Under SAATM, emphasized aviation’s pivotal role as both an engine of integration and a cornerstone of Africa’s economic transformation.

“Aviation is not merely a mode of transport,” Mataboge stated, speaking at the session. “It is a strategic engine of continental integration and a core enabler of Agenda 2063 and the AfCFTA. The Single African Air Transport Market will only succeed if we build the modern, safe, and efficient infrastructure that Africa’s growth demands.”

Citing findings from a Continental Aviation Infrastructure Gap Analysis conducted with AFCAC, ICAO, and the World Bank, Mataboge revealed that Africa needs between $25 and $30 billion over the next decade to close critical aviation infrastructure gaps. Passenger traffic is projected to triple from 160 million in 2024 to nearly 500 million by 2050, intensifying the urgency for investment.

Key funding requirements include US$10 billion for airport and aerodrome infrastructure and $8 billion for modernizing communication, navigation, and meteorological systems. The AU’s strategy aims to mobilize $10 billion in catalytic public finance to attract an additional $20 billion in private and institutional investment. Through partnerships with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and AUDA-NEPAD, the AU is aligning investment priorities with SAATM and the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA).

The modernization plan integrates cutting-edge technologies such as Airport Collaborative Decision-Making (A-CDM) and System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) to enable seamless continental airspace. It also incorporates renewable energy solutions at airports to attract green financing and advance sustainability goals.

“As we modernize African skies, we are doing so sustainably,” Mataboge added. “Every project we prepare is designed to meet global green standards, reduce fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions, and make African aviation an attractive asset class for the world’s growing pool of climate-focused capital.”

Mataboge reaffirmed the AU’s commitment to ensuring that a modern, efficient, and sustainable aviation network drives Africa’s economic integration, connectivity, and global competitiveness. The AU’s officials reaffirmed their focus on Africa’s most strategic priorities, including building aviation infrastructure, digital data systems, and data interoperability. The discussion underscored the importance of collaborative efforts in building a better aviation sector across Africa.

Deals and Dollars: Concrete Commitments 

The summit moved beyond dialogue to secure tangible commitments, marked by the signing of three key Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs):

– A partnership between the African Social Security Association and AUDA-NEPAD to channel African pension funds into continental infrastructure.

– An MOU with Qatar Airways establishing a $500 million endowment for renewable energy and climate-aligned industrialization.

– The establishment of the Angola Export and Trade Facility to promote regional cooperation and trade.

Ms. Nardos Bekele-Thomas, CEO of AUDA-NEPAD, reported significant progress since the previous summit in Dakar, Senegal. She announced that the AU, alongside African financial institutions, has already raised $1.5 billion to execute high-impact cross-border projects.

“The lesson from Dakar is clear: we can no longer treat financing as a fragmented market of scattered deals. We must transform it into a unified strategy,” Bekele-Thomas stated. She detailed new financial instruments, including the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa’s Project Development Fund, which has achieved a first close of $118 million and is managed by Africa50.

In his contribution, African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf emphasized that Africa is entering a new phase of self-determination, one in which the continent must take ownership of financing, planning, and implementing its own development. He underscored that infrastructure investment is not merely technical but deeply political and strategic, vital to Africa’s economic sovereignty, competitiveness, and unity. Highlighting progress made under the PIDA framework, he called for an African-driven ecosystem for development financing through domestic resource mobilization, stronger private sector participation, and greater access to climate funds.

Echoing the urgency of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, framed infrastructure investment as a deeply political and strategic imperative for Africa’s economic sovereignty. “We are shifting from a logic of assistance to a logic of alliance, where partners align their engagement with priorities defined by Africa itself,” he declared. He concluded with a powerful vision: “What we are building here are not merely roads and bridges. We are building an Africa that is connected, confident, and sovereign.”

There were special sessions designed to facilitate in-depth due diligence and accelerate projects toward financial close. The summit for Africa’s infrastructure development stands as a definitive moment, signaling Africa’s unified resolve to finance its own destiny and build the interconnected, prosperous future its people deserve.