The infoshot to help kick-start your week
Markets plough on despite domestic strife
As expected, in a week where US President Trump reposted bizarre and offensive AI videos of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, promoted a “med-bed” conspiracy video, and announced plans to use “dangerous cities” as “training grounds” for the US military, he failed to stop a US government shutdown during last week’s negotiations.
It’s the first US government shutdown since the 35-day shutdown in December 2018. 750,000 government employees have already been placed on furlough. Congressional leaders will meet again today for another day of voting. Healthcare is the main reason for the stand-off as Democrats want to ensure insurance subsidies do not expire for low-income earners and try to reserve cuts to Medicaid.
Despite the deadlock, US markets hit record highs again last week. In the employment data merry-go round, the latest report from the Bureau for Labour Statistics (BLS) was not released due to the shutdown, but other data from payroll firm ADP showed private companies lost 32,000 jobs in September, the biggest fall since March 2023. Equity markets rose on the release because it’ll add more pressure on the Fed to cut rates at the end of the month.
Big deals in games and bots
Major video-gamer publisher and developer, EA, was taken private on Monday when it was sold to a consortium of buyers including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. The $55bn deal is the second highest in video game acquisition history, behind Microsoft’s $69bn deal to buy Activision Blizzard in 2023. Prince Mohammed bin Salman is reportedly a “massive gamer”, and the gulf state has been on a mission to become a video-game superpower for a few years now. They’ve invested billions to acquire stakes in big names like Capcom and Nintendo, and in March purchased Pokémon Go maker Niantic for $3.5bn.
On Friday, OpenAI allowed current and former employees to sell stock at a record $500bn valuation. With the firm yet to turn a profit, and worries about an AI bubble growing, CEO Sam Altman tried to dismiss these concerns during a data centre tour in Abilene, Texas, declaring, “between the years we’ve already been operating and the many decades ahead of us, there will be boom and busts”.
Across the Atlantic in Turin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spoke at Italian Tech Week 2025 and said the AI industry is in an “industrial bubble” but “that doesn’t mean anything that is happening isn’t real, and it is going to change every industry.”
Japanese markets soar following Takaichi appointment
The Nikkei 225 surged after Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party appointed Sanae Takaichi to be its new leader. If parliamentary votes go as expected later this month, Takaichi will replace the outgoing Shigeru Ishiba and become Japan’s first female prime minister.
Seen as a pro-stimulus fiscal dove, and a follower of “Abenomics”, she’s expected to increase fiscal spending and set stringent inflation targets for the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to help lower the cost of borrowing. As a candidate, she proposed increasing investment in strategic business sectors, including AI, semiconductors, nuclear and defence. Her hawkish attitude on security, and her plans to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, meant Japanese defence company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries jumped 11% and led the surge as yet another nation’s military spending looks set for a hefty increase.
Coming Up:
- UK mortgage rate, Tuesday 7 October at 10:00am
- Fed chair speaks, Thursday 9 October 2025 at 1:30pm
- US unemployment rate, Friday 10 October 2025 at 1:30pm
Notice:
For regulated financial advisers and investment professionals only, Copia does not provide financial advice, and the contents of this document should not be taken as such. The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.
