World & market events

A divided U.S. equity market is enjoying rare unity, but it coincides with the biggest selloff in more than a year.

Correlations between individual stocks recently hit a record low, and a reversion to the mean may not be good for the market.

Pope Leo XIV’s first full day in Argentina will begin at the Cottolengo Don Orione home for disabled people near Buenos Aires, as President Javier Milei’s disability funding cuts raise tensions.

Latin American banana producers are seeking better pay as extreme weather linked to this year’s super El Niño cuts output. High winds in Colombia and heavy rain in Peru and Ecuador are already affecting production, while Dominican farmers face drought forecasts, the Fairtrade Foundation says.

Santiago Peña was placed under house arrest minutes after Congress impeached him. The suspension of Ueno bank left 60% of the country unable to access accounts; Peña is being investigated over alleged political influence favoring the bank.

A British healthcare worker with Ebola is being evacuated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the UK for treatment. The patient is in stable condition and will be transferred to a specialist high-consequence infectious disease unit; UK public risk remains low.

Voter anger over living costs fuelled a swing toward Democrats, possibly their biggest since Watergate. Yet new Democrats have limited tools in the next couple of years to ease high gas, grocery, mortgage and healthcare costs.

Global tech stocks plunged after Democrats' US midterm victory, amid fears of an AI slowdown. Apple, Tesla and Nvidia shed about $1tn in a single trading session.

The US added 165,000 jobs in October, beating expectations, and unemployment fell to 4.1%. The labor market remains 'low-hire, low-fire' amid inflation and Middle East war, with a December rate hike expected.

Tesla will stop Cybertruck production around mid-next year at its Texas factory, Elon Musk said, to use the plant for the Cybercab self-driving taxi. The move ends a failed effort to capture part of the US pickup market.