Bond bears pull back

Some of the market’s most prominent bond bears are saying the historic rout in US Treasuries has gone too far. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Monday that he unwound his bet against US government bonds amid rising global risks, while Bill Gross, co-founder of Pacific Investment Management, wrote that he’s buying short-dated interest-rate futures since he anticipates a downturn by year’s end. Their comments coincided with a swift turnaround in yields during the trading session. The rate on the 30-year bond fell about 21 basis points after peaking at around 5.18%, while the yield on the 10-year tumbled roughly 19 basis points after earlier surpassing 5% for the first time in 16 years. Whether the retreat of the two vocal bears will mark the peak of the current bond selloff remains to be seen. Certainly some market watchers say 10-year yields pushing up toward 6% isn’t out of the question. Regardless, this renewed bout of volatility in the bond market impacted stock trading, with investors also awaiting earnings from a handful of big techs. Here’s your markets wrap. —Natasha Solo-Lyons

Hamas freed two more hostages, both elderly women, potentially signaling movement in efforts to win freedom for more than 200 people seized in the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 Israelis. Their release came three days after the militant group freed an American mother and daughter in a deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt. Together the releases have raised hopes for the remaining hostages’ families, who have pressed Israel to focus on their plight rather than launching a ground invasion of Gaza that could scuttle further negotiations and even trigger a regional war. Meanwhile Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip has reportedly now claimed more than 5,000 lives, according to local authorities there. Here’s the latest on the war.

Across the $100 trillion asset-management industry, money managers have confronted a tectonic shift in investor appetite for cheaper, passive strategies over the past decade. Now they’re facing something even more dire: The unprecedented run of bull markets that buoyed their investments and masked life-threatening vulnerabilities may be a thing of the past.

In a union of two storied brands, Chevron is buying Hess for $53 billion, a deal aimed at boosting production growth as the US oil industry bets on an enduring future for fossil fuels despite the accelerating climate crisis. Leon Hess founded Hess with a secondhand truck delivering fuel oil during the Great Depression. Ninety years later, his son, John Hess, agreed to sell the company to Chevron in a deal that makes the family’s stake worth about $5 billion.

Reliance Industries, controlled by Asia’s richest tycoon, Mukesh Ambani, is said to be nearing a cash and stock deal to buy Disney’s India operations. The US entertainment giant may sell a controlling stake in the Disney Star business, which it values at around $10 billion. Reliance is said to view the assets at between $7 billion to $8 billion.

Governments should create a global minimum tax on the super-rich similar to a system agreed for major multinationals to deliver a significant boost to revenues, the EU Tax Observatory said. Applying a 2% rate to the wealth of the world’s 2,750 billionaires could raise some $250 billion a year, according to research published by the independent network of academics based at the Paris School of Economics.

An off-duty pilot for Alaska Air was charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after he allegedly tried to shut off power to a plane’s engines mid-flight. The person was riding as a passenger in the cockpit jump seat of an Oct. 22 flight when he “unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines,” Alaska said Monday in a statement.

Sweden’s NATO bid may finally be seeing some movement after a long delay courtesy of members Turkey and Hungary. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey signed and sent a bill approving membership to parliament for a vote. The bill will be discussed at a parliamentary committee before a general vote in the assembly, where Erdogan’s ruling AK party and its allies hold a majority of the seats. Hungary’s approval would still be needed, however.

At Aragawa, another new, elite Japanese dining room in London’s Mayfair neighborhood, the eye-opening prices are not for seafood but beef. It’s the first overseas location of the famed Kobe and Tokyo restaurants, founded in 1956 and 1967 respectively. Aragawa specializes in steaks cut from the super-premium Tajima strain of black wagyu cattle. Steak prices start at £500 ($612) and hit £900 for about 400 grams (about 14 ounces) of beef. By any measure, that's a hefty sum. In its defense, though, it is extraordinary beef.

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