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There’s something about December that seems to charm equity markets into a year-end flourish.

For decades, investors have noted how the final month of the calendar tends to bring tidings of green screens and positive returns, fuelling what has become known as the Santa Claus rally.

But behind the festive metaphor lies a consistent, data-backed pattern.

Over the past four decades, the S&P 500 has gained in December about 74% of the time, with an average monthly return of 1.44% –– second only to November.

This seasonal cheer is echoed across European markets, with some indices showing even stronger performances.

Since its inception in 1987, the EURO STOXX 50, the region’s blue-chip benchmark, has posted an average December gain of 1.87%. That makes the Christmas period the second-best month of the year after November’s 1.95%.

More striking, however, is its winning frequency. December closes in positive territory 71% of the time — higher than any other month.

The best December for the index came in 1999, when it surged 13.68%, while the worst was in 2002, when it fell 10.2%.

Rally gathers steam in late December

Zooming in on country-level indices further reinforces the seasonal trend.

The DAX, Germany’s flagship index, has shown an average December return of 2.18% over the past 40 years, trailing only April’s 2.43%. It finishes the month higher 73% of the time, again tying with April for the best track record.

France’s CAC 40 follows a similar pattern, gaining on average 1.57% in December with a 70% win rate, also ranking it among the top three months.

Spain’s IBEX 35 and Italy’s FTSE MIB are more moderate but still show consistent strength, with December gains of 1.12% and 1.13% respectively.

But the magic of December doesn’t usually kick off at the start of the month. Instead, the real momentum tends to build in the second half.

According to data from Seasonax, the EURO STOXX 50 posts a 2.12% average return from 15 December through year-end, rising 76% of the time.

The DAX performs similarly, gaining 1.87% on average with a 73% win rate, while the CAC 40 shows even stronger second-half returns of 1.95%, ending positive in 79% of cases.

What’s behind the rally? It’s not just Christmas spirit

So what exactly drives this December seasonal phenomenon? Part of the answer lies in fund managers’ behaviour.

Christoph Geyer, an analyst at Seasonax, believes the rally is closely tied to the behaviour of institutional investors. As the year draws to a close, many fund managers make final portfolio adjustments to lock in performance figures that will be reported to clients and shareholders.

This so-called “price maintenance” often leads to increased buying, especially of stocks that have already done well or are poised to benefit from short-term momentum.

This behavioural pattern gains importance in years when indices such as the DAX trade within a sideways range — as has been the case since May this year. A sideways market is one where asset prices fluctuate within a tight range, lacking a clear trend.

According to Geyer, a breakout from this sideways range for the DAX appears increasingly likely as December kicks in.

From mid-November to early January, historical patterns suggest a favourable outcome, with a ratio of 34 positive years versus 12 negative for the German index — and average gains exceeding 6% in the positive years.

While past performance does not guarantee future returns, December’s track record across major global and European indices provides a compelling narrative for investors.

In short, December’s strength is not just about festive optimism. It’s a convergence of seasonal statistics, institutional dynamics, and technical positioning.

Disclaimer: This information does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research to ensure investments are right for your specific circumstances. We are a journalistic website and aim to provide the best guidance from experts. If you rely on the information on this page, then you do so entirely at your own risk.

In any given year there are more than 500,000 American boys playing on almost 20,000 high school basketball teams, and fewer than 2% of them will make it to March Madness. Only 60 young men get drafted by an NBA team each summer, and in the most recent draft a third of those spots went to international players.

The numbers suggest the funnel from the Amateur Athletic Union into the NBA is one of the narrowest in all of sports. And we used to talk about the game with the reverence that exclusivity implies. The numbers are how we decide who is an All Star or a Hall of Famer. The numbers are how we determine — or debate — the greatest.

Gambling and cheating scandals are not the only threats to sports. Because of the economic gravity of fantasy sports leagues and legal gambling, the numbers most of us hear about these days have more to do with bettors making money than with players making shots.

Bill James — the godfather of baseball analytics, who coined the phrase sabermetric in the late 1970s — did not revolutionize the way the sports industry looked at data so we could have more prop bets. The first fantasy baseball league was not started in a New York restaurant back in 1980 to beat Las Vegas. The numbers were initially about the love of the game. But ever since sports media personalities decided to embrace faux debates for ratings — at the expense of pure fandom — disingenuous hot takes have set programming agendas, and the numbers that used to tell us something about players are cynically used to win vacuous arguments. And after states began to legalize sports betting, athletes went from being the focus to being props for parlays.

That’s not to say gambling wasn’t there before. In fact, while James and others were revolutionizing the way fans — and front offices — evaluated players, the Boston College point-shaving scandal was unfolding in the shadows. The current gambling scandal surrounding Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, who this week pleaded not guilty to charges alleging a role in a poker-fixing scheme, is not unprecedented. It’s just recent.

What’s new is how we talk about the numbers.

The whole idea of fantasy sports leagues was to enable fans to be their own general managers — not to make money, but because we cared about the game so much. At the risk of sounding more pious than I am: When every game, every half, every quarter and even every shot is attached to gambling odds, good old-fashioned storytelling gets choked out. Instead of learning about players and using numbers to describe them, we hear numbers the way private equity firms see a target’s holdings.

Nothing personal, just the data.

The whole point about loving sports used to be that it was personal. Our favorite players weren’t just about outcomes. They were 1 out of 500,000 guys who made it. Each had a backstory, and the way they got there was a big part of the connection we felt with them.

This is why the Billups saga hits the NBA community emotionally. Drafted in 1997, the Colorado native played for four teams in his first five years before becoming an All Star and a Finals MVP. His numbers aren’t what defined him — even though those numbers were good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. It was the resilience and character he demonstrated while trying to make it that fans admired. In his early-career struggles, we were reminded that making it in the NBA is hard and that everyone in the league beat the odds. It’s something we all know … but when broadcasters come out of commercial breaks showing the betting lines before the score, it’s easy to forget.

Thanksgiving is a big sports weekend and thus gambling weekend. Go ahead, eat irresponsibly … it’s the other vice that worries me.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Ever since Donald Trump declared that he could end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours”, much of the world has been waiting to see whether he could force Moscow and Kyiv into a settlement. Millions of views and scrolls, miles of news feeds and mountains of forecasts have been burned on that question.

Trump fed this expectation by insisting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was running out of options and would eventually have to accept his deal. In reality, the opposite is true. It is Trump who has no leverage. He can threaten Nicolas Maduro with potential military action in or around Venezuela, but he has no influence over Vladimir Putin. Any sanctions harsh enough to damage Russia would also hit the wider Western economy, and there is not a single leader in the West willing to saw off the branch they are sitting on.

Armed intervention is even more implausible. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, NATO decided to support Ukraine with weapons and training while avoiding steps that could trigger a direct NATO–Russia war. That position has not changed.

As a result, Ukraine has been left in a position where, with or without sufficient support from its allies, it is in effect fighting Russia alone. All talk of peace or a ceasefire has proved to be a bluff, a way for Vladimir Putin to buy time and regroup. Putin’s strategy relies on outlasting not only Ukraine’s army but also the patience and political unity of its allies. The United States has now circulated a revised version of its peace framework, softening some of the most contentious points after consultations with Kyiv and several European governments. Yet the Kremlin continues to demand major territorial concessions and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces. Without this, Russia says it will not halt its advance. Ukraine, for its part, maintains that it will not surrender territory.

Once it became clear that the diplomatic track offered no breakthrough, the United States all but halted arms deliveries to Ukraine. Officials blamed the federal government shutdown, although the real cause was unlikely to be a shortage of movers at the Pentagon. Either way, American military assistance has dwindled to a trickle, consisting mostly of supplies approved under the Biden administration. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary-designate Austin Dahmer said: “I’m not aware of any pause in [US military] aid to Ukraine.” It sounded less like a serious assessment and more like an admission of ignorance. Every Ukrainian soldier can feel the consequences of the sharp reduction in American weapons. Every resident of Kyiv and other cities can feel the shortage of air defence systems.

Europe has not filled the gap. The European Union’s defence industry and joint-procurement schemes have produced many promises but little real money. A few billion euros have been formally committed and far less has been delivered. Member states prefer to rearm themselves first and Ukraine second, although their own programmes are moving slowly. The EU remains divided between governments willing to take greater risks to support Kyiv and others that fear provoking Russia or weakening their own budgets. Brussels is now pushing a plan to use frozen Russian assets to back a loan of up to 140 billion euros ($162bn) for Ukraine, which could support Kyiv’s budget and defence spending over the next two years. Several key member states that host most of those reserves remain cautious, and without unanimity, the plan may stall.

This leaves Ukraine expanding its own production and fighting with whatever arrives and whatever is not siphoned off by corrupt figures such as Tymur Mindich, who is under investigation in a major procurement case. For now, Ukraine can slow the enemy at enormous cost, but this is nowhere near enough to win.

The army is under-supplied. The government has failed to sustain motivation or mobilise the country; in fact, it has achieved the opposite. Men are fighting their fourth year of war, while women cannot wait indefinitely. Divorces are rising, exhaustion is deepening, and morale is collapsing. Prosecutors have opened more than 255,000 cases for unauthorised absence and more than 56,000 for desertion since 2022. In the first 10 months of 2025 alone, they registered around 162,500 AWOL cases and 21,600 desertion cases. Other reports suggest that more than 21,000 troops left the army in October, which is the highest monthly figure so far. Social injustice is widening.

Demographically, the picture is equally bleak. Ukraine’s population has fallen from more than 50 million at independence to about 31 million in territory controlled by Kyiv as of early 2025. Births remain below deaths and fertility rates have dropped to about one child per woman.

Against this backdrop, Ukraine is left with three strategic options.

The first option is to accept Putin’s terms. This would mean capitulating, losing political face and giving up territory, but it would preserve a Ukrainian state. It would also lock the country into long-term vulnerability.

The second option is a radical overhaul of Ukraine’s political and military leadership. This would involve rebuilding mobilisation, restructuring the command system and re-engineering the war effort from the ground up. Ukraine cannot fight a long war with institutions that were designed for peacetime politics and rotational deployments.

The third option is to change nothing and maintain the status quo. Ukraine would continue launching precision strikes on Russian oil infrastructure in the hope of grinding down the Kremlin’s economy and waiting for Putin to die. This is an illusion. If such strikes could not break a smaller Ukraine, they will not break a country many times larger in economic, territorial and demographic terms. Damage will be inflicted, but nowhere near enough to force Russia to stop.

Judging by recent statements from Zelenskyy and several of his European partners, Ukraine has effectively committed itself to the third option. The question is how long this approach can be sustained. Even setting aside morale and exhaustion after four years of war, the financial outlook is bleak. Ukraine faces a vast budget deficit and public debt that is likely to exceed 100 percent of gross domestic product. Europe has failed to assemble the necessary funds, Belgium has not released frozen Russian assets and economic growth across much of the continent remains weak. Any significant increase in support would require political courage at a time when voters remain sensitive to the recent inflation surge. The EU is also unable to tie the United States to long-term commitments in the current political climate in Washington.

All this leads to an unavoidable conclusion. If Ukraine intends to survive as a state, it will eventually have to take the second path and undertake a radical restructuring of its political and military leadership. Once that moment arrives, Moscow’s terms will be harsher than they are now. The Russian ultimatum is likely to expand from claims on four regions to demands for eight, along with strict control mechanisms, demilitarisation and further concessions.

Radical change is needed immediately, before Ukraine’s strategic options narrow further and before its ability to resist collapses with them.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Published on 28/11/2025 – 17:03 GMT+1
•Updated
17:16

The EU member states agreed on Friday to cut tariffs on US imports as outlined in a controversial trade deal agreed last summer between the European Commission and the Trump administration to the detriment of European goods.

The move comes as US trade representatives urge EU capitals to fast-track the implementation of the deal which foresees the EU dropping tariffs to zero on most US industrial goods. A US delegation visited Brussels this week for talks.

The idea of adding a so-called “sunset clause” – a mechanism that would end the tariff concessions after a period of five years if the deal is not renewed – sparked a debate among EU countries but did not go ahead, signalling that member states do not want to antagonise Trump.

The EU-US trade agreement was concluded in July after months of tensions after US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on partners worldwide in what he called “Liberation Day” for America. Under the deal, the EU will pay 15% tariffs on its exports to the US, while reducing its own tariffs on most US industrial products to zero.

No ‘sunset clause’ yet, but the Parliament could fight it

The deal has been widely criticised as a humiliation for Europe, although the Commission has defended it since arguing that it was the best possible outcome in the face of Trump’s aggressive trade stance. The alternative, Brussels argued, would have been worse.

Still, on Friday, the 27 backed the Commission’s much-maligned deal with a majority.

They also approved a clause allowing the Commission to suspend the deal if the US fails to implement it, as well as a safeguard mechanism enabling the Commission to temporarily halt the agreement if US imports surge and disrupt the European single market as a result of tariff concessions.

Member states also debated the introduction of a “sunset clause” that would permanently end the tariff reductions after five years if the deal is not renewed – an idea they expect the European Parliament to champion in upcoming talks.

Both institutions must agree on a common text by next spring to finalise the tariff cuts. According to an EU diplomat, most member states could accept adding the clause, but Germany opposes it as it fears retaliation.

The head of the Parliament’s trade committee, German MEP Bernd Lange (S&D), has already included the idea of a sunset clause in his report on the deal’s implementation which will serve as the basis for the European Parliament’s debate.

Inside the Commission, officials hope the Council and Parliament will refrain from unravelling the agreement negotiated with Washington on the basis that it could trigger another round of escalation and amplify a trade war.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) began to restore trading on Friday after a technical issue disrupted operations on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq.

The shutdown was triggered by a cooling system failure at a data centre in the Chicago area, according to the facility’s operator, CyrusOne.

Engineering teams have since restarted several chillers and installed temporary cooling equipment to stabilise conditions, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.

According to CME Group’s indications, trading in US equity futures should be restarting soon after a glitch knocked it out for several hours.

The CME, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges, hosts near-continuous trading in millions of contracts tied to the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq 100. Friday’s interruption left traders grappling with uncertainty as they awaited the restoration of the platforms that underpin much of global futures activity.

The outage halted trading of US Treasury futures, while European and UK bond markets that trade on a different exchange were reported unaffected.

Futures in individual stocks were not affected, either. Coinbase Global rose 2.6% in pre-market trading as Bitcoin stayed above $91,000.

Wall Street is operating on an abbreviated schedule on Friday after being closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Stock trading will close at 1pm Eastern Time (7pm CET).

In European trading, Germany’s DAX rose 0.20% after the release of fresh inflation data.

Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.23% on gains in energy and mining stocks. The CAC 40 in France rose 0.19%.

In other dealings, Brent crude, the international standard for pricing, rose 0.13% to $62.62 per barrel.

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.

Two months ago Liverpool’s huge summer transfer spend looked like it had made the Premier League title a formality.

Arne Slot’s side were five points clear at the top of the table after only five games, having strengthened their squad with £415m worth of talent.

Florian Wirtz was signed from Bayer Leverkusen for an initial £100m, rising to a possible £116m. Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak joined on deadline day for a new record transfer fee of £125m, which could be £130m with add-ons.

Nothing could go wrong, could it?

Both signings have struggled and Liverpool’s form has nosedived, leaving them 12th in the league.

Wirtz has no goals or assists in 11 Premier League outings. Isak has yet to score a goal and has one assist.

It is way too early to write off two of the most expensive Premier League signings of all time.

After all, Thierry Henry scored only two goals in his first 17 appearances for Arsenal. By the end of that season he had netted 17 times in the Premier League, 26 in all competitions and went on to be one of the league’s greatest-ever players.

But curiously, when you look down the list of the Premier League’s biggest incomings, there are not too many ‘huge’ successes.

How do you judge this? I’ve looked at each deal and given my verdict relative to their own achievements and that of their clubs. Fees shown are without add-ons.

Of course this is very subjective and you are free to disagree (or agree) in the comments below!

Published on
24/11/2025 – 18:20 GMT+1

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Washington can reduce duties on EU steel and aluminium but only if the Europeans agree to ease the implementation of digital rules following a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Lutnick, who is a close ally of President Donald Trump and negotiated on his behalf a trade deal with the EU over the summer introducing 15% tariffs, said that European should reassess the way they implement their flagship policies on digital regulation if they want further tariff relief. Lutnick did not call to remove the rules but did say the way in which they are applied should be “more balanced” for American tech companies.

Brussels is desperately seeking to obtain a reduction of the 50% tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on European aluminium and steel in June under pressure from the industry.

The US does want the EU “to put these rules away, but find the balanced approach that works for us,” he told reporters in Brussels. “Then we will, together with them, handle the steel and aluminium issues.”

“The enforcement is quite aggressive at times”

Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer were in Brussels meeting with EU27 trade ministers and Commission boss Maroš Šefčovič for a working lunch.

The implementation of the trade deal signed over summer was at the center of the discussion, which was “open and direct,” according to an EU diplomat.

The EU and the US clinched a trade deal in July in which the US tripled tariffs on EU while Europeans agreed to cut tariffs for most US industrial goods at 0%. US tariffs on EU steel and aluminium remain stuck at a much higher rate of 50% despite the deal.

Lutnick and Greer also met EU Tech Commissioner Henna Virkkunen who stressed in a statement the importance of the Digital Market Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), the two landmark digital regulations applied in the EU. The comments suggest the Commission is not ready to water them further for the time being.

To counter the US offensive on its digital legislation, EU Trade Commissioner Šefčovič said that the EU is working hard to explain its legislation to the US and stressed that there no discriminatory practices applied to US companies. The rules, he argued, are the same for everyone operating in the EU single market regardless of their origin.

Still, the US insists that is not the case and American Big Tech is being punished.

“The enforcement is quite aggressive at times,” Greer said about EU tech rules, adding that the US government wants to make sure their companies do not see their global revenues “affected” by foreign rules. In his comments, Greer’s tone was severe.

Brussels recently launched investigations against Amazon and Microsoft under the DMA which prevents big platforms from abusing their dominance in the tech market. It also hit Google with a €2.95 billion over antitrust rules despite the threats from the US.

The United States’ Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick are arriving in Brussels on Monday for what is expected to be a tense showdown with EU trade ministers.

After months of recriminations on both sides of the Atlantic over the implementation of this summer’s trade deal, the EU and the US are now expected to confront their most contentious differences head-on.

Washington will press to fast-track the deal’s rollout while pushing the bloc to scrap EU legislation it considers unfair to US companies, while Brussels will seek additional exemptions from the 15% US tariffs on its exportsand warn its counterparts about the potential fallout of US investigations into European products.

Ahead of the meeting, EU diplomats said they expected the discussion to be “frank”.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US president Donald Trump clinched a trade deal in July after weeks of negotiations in which the EU tried to minimise the impact of Washington’s newly aggressive trade agenda. In the end, von der Leyen was able to strike a deal that EU-produced goods arriving in the US would be taxed at a rate of 15% while Brussels lifted its duties on most US products.

Presented by the Commission as the most advantageous deal it could get, the agreement has been widely criticised across the EU. The European Parliament, which has to vote on the Commission’s proposal to remove tariffs on US goods, is set to amend the deal and is discussing a 18-month suspension clause.

The US is complaining that the EU’s legislative agenda is moving too slowly. EU lawmakers will vote on the text in January and they should agree on a common text with EU member states next March or April – a timescale radically longer than the Trump administration’s preference.

Greer raised the issue in a meeting with European Parliament president Roberta Metsola last Friday.

EU faces criticism “with good confidence”

The EU is ready to face US criticism “with good confidence” an EU diplomat said, noting that the legislative process in Brussels could have taken a lot longer.

“To my knowledge, the US administration has not taken its decisions through Congress, so it doesn’t take quite as long in the US,” another EU diplomat said, implyingthat the US trade agenda was mainly decided from the White House.

The EU plans to show unity by handing over a list of proposed exemptions to the 15% tariffs they hope to obtain from the Americans. The list includes products such as wines, spirits and pasta.

“American friends are very much aware of where the European Union would like to see tariff reductions,” the same EU diplomat said.

For the Commission, which has competence to negotiate with Washington, the list of exemptions “remains a priority,” according to its deputy chief spokesperson, Arianna Podesta.

The EU is also concerned about the future of its steel exports. The US already imposes 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium, and has extended them to some 407 derivatives. A consultation already underway may see further derivatives added to the list.

As EU diplomats see it, adding tariffs on steel derivatives would go against the whole “spirit” of this summer’s agreement. The same goes for investigations still open by Washington into products such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and medical devices.

EU investments will also be on the agenda. Greer and Lutnick will meet in the afternoon, EU business representatives with EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič.

The trade deal includes an EU pledge of €600 billion in investments in the US even though Brussels has no direct control over the private sector, which is the only force capable of actually delivering those investments.

Monday’s meetings will not be an easy task for the Europeans, as US pressure has been unrelenting since Donald Trump returned to the White House, with the president repeatedly threatening new tariffs or targeting EU legislation he deems too restrictive for US companies.

However, the EU has so far not looked intimidated, and is continuing to enforce the digital legislation that Trump and his administration have condemned.

In the last few weeks, Brussels has launched antitrust investigations against Amazon and Microsoft and hit Google with a €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology industry – moves that have not gone unnoticed in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to then-President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Michel, 52, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.

In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions.

Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

“His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.

Defense attorney Peter Zeidenberg said his client’s 14-year sentence is “completely disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will appeal his conviction and sentence, according to his lawyer.

Zeidenberg had recommended a three-year sentence. A life sentence would be an “absurdly high” punishment for Michel given that it is typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders, Michel’s attorneys said in a court filing.

“The Government’s position is one that would cause Inspector Javert to recoil and, if anything, simply illustrates just how easily the Guidelines can be manipulated to produce absurd results, and how poorly equipped they are, at least on this occasion, to determine a fair and just sentence,” they wrote.

Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. Their hip-hop band won two Grammy Awards and sold tens of millions of albums.

Michel obtained more than $120 million from Malaysian billionaire Low Taek Jho — also known as Jho Low — and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

Michel also tried to end a Justice Department investigation of Low, tampered with two witnesses and perjured himself at trial, prosecutors said.

Low, who has lived in China, was one of the primary financiers of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a movie starring DiCaprio. Low is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence.

“Low’s motivation for giving Mr. Michel money to donate was not so that he could achieve some policy objective. Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s attorneys wrote.

In August 2024, the judge rejected Michel’s request for a new trial based in part on his defense attorney’s use of a generative AI program during his closing of the trial’s arguments. The judge said that and other trial errors didn’t amount to a serious miscarriage of justice.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

MIAMI — U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida has been indicted on charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster funds and using some of the money to aid her 2021 campaign, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The Democrat is accused of stealing Federal Emergency Management Agency overpayments that her family healthcare company had received through a federally funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract, federal prosecutors said. A portion of the money was then funneled to support her campaign through candidate contributions, prosecutors allege.

“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement. “No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”

A phone message left at Cherfilus-McCormick’s Washington office was not immediately returned.

Cherfilus-McCormick was first elected to Congress in 2022 in the 20th District, representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, in a special election after Rep. Alcee Hastings died in 2021.

In December 2024, a Florida state agency sued a company owned by Cherfilus-McCormick’s family, saying it overcharged the state by nearly $5.8 million for work done during the pandemic and wouldn’t give the money back.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management said it made a series of overpayments to Trinity Healthcare Services after hiring it in 2021 to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations. The agency says it discovered the problem after a single $5-million overpayment drew attention.

Cherfilus-McCormick was the chief executive of Trinity at the time.

The Office of Congressional Ethics said in a January report that Cherfilus-McCormick’s income in 2021 was more than $6 million higher than in 2020, driven by nearly $5.75 million in consulting and profit-sharing fees received from Trinity Healthcare Services.

In July, the House Ethics Committee unanimously voted to reauthorize an investigative subcommittee to examine allegations involving Cherfilus-McCormick.

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.”