Good morning. The US government shuts down. EU leaders gather to talk defense. And Nike’s turnaround efforts are taking shape. Listen to the day’s top stories.
EU leaders are meeting in Copenhagen today to discuss a slate of defense projects. A rise in drone incursions into European airspace has prompted a rush among Western allies to build up their defenses. But the continent faces a multitude of challenges that will make it hard to mount a quick response. To fight drone wars, Europe needs tech-style finance, Bloomberg Opinion’s Parmy Olson writes.
Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden warned of the threat to the economy posed by leaving interest rates higher for too long. Over in the US, Dallas Federal Reserve chief Lorie Logan said policymakers should be cautious about further rate cuts while inflation remains above target and the labor market relatively balanced.
Photographer: Tuane Fernandes/Bloomberg
Corporate roundup: Nike’s turnaround efforts are starting to pay off with better-than-expected sales. Banco Sabadell’s board rejected BBVA’s €17 billion takeover bid, renewing its criticism despite an improved price. And after another dismal quarter for Novo Nordisk shares, investors are looking to an experimental treatment of the most common form of dementia to spark a revival.
British Chancellor Rachel Reeves will scrap a cap limiting family welfare payments to two children in November’s budget, according to a person familiar with the matter. An indicator of business sentiment logged a record low as the Labour Party’s annual conference wound down. Check out our Markets Today live blog for all the latest news and analysis relevant to UK assets.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast's high-performance computing facility in Bologna, Italy. Photographer: Joe Wertz/Bloomberg
Europe’s biggest weather forecaster is reporting record demand for its data as energy traders, insurers, shipping lines and tech companies rush to improve the accuracy of their AI models.
Energy traders seeking profitable bets in Europe’s increasingly wind- and solar-driven power markets were some of the earliest and most aggressive adopters of AI weather tools.
But the technology is increasingly pivotal to other industries with licensees from insurance, agriculture and media paying an average of about €36,000 a year to access data.
Those data are increasingly used to train AI models programmed to predict how the atmosphere and oceans will look in the future by finding patterns in a massive archive held by the European forecaster.
That library includes the world’s largest electronic record of weather observations—recorded by ground sensors, balloons, ocean buoys, aircraft and satellites—and the center’s own real-time forecasts.
European finance is teeming with blockchain experiments once more, Lionel Laurent writes. No amount of digital assets will make up for the glaring holes in the euro’s imperfect union, with cross-border bank mergers still raising political hackles and a lack of consensus on jointly issued debt. But a more modernized and sovereign payments system built up alongside the likes of Revolut and Klarna could play to the region’s strengths.
