Good morning. Gold glitters as global political uncertainty leaves investors looking for haven assets. Tesla plans to unveil a cheaper version of the Model Y today. And Ray Dalio puts some of his billions to good use in the Indian Ocean. Listen to the day’s top stories.
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Gold continues to shine, despite a small slip away from the keenly watched $4,000- an-ounce level as the US government shutdown and political crisis in France inject uncertainty into markets. Goldman Sachs raised its December 2026 forecast for the metal to $4,900. Still, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said it’s “really concerning” that investors are starting to view gold as a safer asset than the dollar.
Speaking of the shutdown, another vote in the Senate is expected today on a stopgap measure to fund the government, but there’s yet to be any indication it’ll pass. What might up the ante? Missed paychecks — Oct. 10 and Oct. 15 for government employees and the military, respectively.
Relations are better between Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Donald Trump, who described talks yesterday as “very good.” Former president Jair Bolsonaro — whose trial on coup-attempt charges has been a source of tension — apparently didn’t come up, a person familiar said.
Turning to tech, Tesla plans to unveil a cheaper version of the Model Y today, according to people familiar. It’s designed to counter the loss of US incentives for electric vehicles. Elsewhere in Elon Musk’s world, he named a former Morgan Stanley executive to be the CFO of xAI, the FT reported.
Deep Dive: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
Photographer: Michael Swensen/Bloomberg
Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, one of a dying breed of red-state Democrats, is in his second term running a manufacturing powerhouse in the US heartland—which now finds itself at the center of Trump’s policy shifts.
The governor has a warning for the US president: Tariffs are hurting the industries he’s trying to revive.
The Bluegrass State bet big on electric cars, only to see the administration kill a key incentive. It’s welcomed major manufacturing investments, but now companies face tariffs and the threat of immigration raids.
And on a 2028 run for higher office? Beshear said he hasn’t made that call yet. “The Democratic Party has lost the faith of working people that we are focused on them.”
The Big Take
Photographer: Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg
Debt collectors are snapping up “zombie” second mortgages from the subprime era that lenders had long since written off—and are blindsiding homeowners with high payment demands and foreclosure threats.
The AI suicide problem knows no borders, Catherine Thorbecke writes. But initial testing of Chinese chatbots such as DeepSeek suggests they are more cautious and encourage users to reach out to a real person when discussing dark thoughts.
Sail away with me. Billionaire Ray Dalio’s philanthropic arm is funding new research in the Indian Ocean to bolster marine protection. A former oil exploration ship operated by Dalio’s nonprofit OceanX will embark from Singapore on a 24-day study of a chain of underwater mountains.
