☕️ Meta ordered to pay $25B over privacy

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

⚖️ Meta ordered to pay $25B over Cambridge Analytica

💰 Tesla beats on cash flow by spending less

🏢 Facebook parent tops Q3 estimates with $64.6B in revenue

🦆 Jensen Huang pushes Europe to embrace AI

💵 First US regulator finalizes stablecoin rules

Plus: 🌍 9 macro stories, 🏢 11 corporate stories, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company misled users over its privacy and content practices in connection with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
• Jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws tied to Cambridge Analytica's harvesting of Facebook user data for 2016 election ads; the state had sought as much as $40 billion, while Meta argued for a fraction of that.
• Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he expects Meta to appeal, and that the payout would fund public education; he contrasted the figure with the $459 million that 48 other states are splitting over the same conduct.

• Tesla posted adjusted earnings of 48 cents a share against the 44-cent consensus, and generated $1.53 billion of free cash flow where analysts had expected it to burn nearly $5 billion, a roughly $6.5 billion swing that lifted the shares.
• About half that cash surprise came not from strength but from spending: capital expenditure landed at $4.73 billion, some $3 billion below Tesla's own $7.77 billion estimate, meaning deferred outlays could bite in the fourth quarter if the company still aims to hit Musk's $25 billion full-year target.
• The market largely shrugged, the stock closed up 3.4% at $386.47 and added about 1% after hours, because attention has shifted to a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger, which Goldman called what would be the largest corporate combination ever, with no terms set and Musk warning shareholder support may be hard to win.

• Meta shares jumped more than 4% in after-hours trading after it beat Wall Street's revenue expectations and confirmed plans to introduce a new class of non-voting stock.
• Third-quarter revenue came in at $64.6 billion, above the roughly $63 billion estimate, while per-share earnings and fourth-quarter revenue guidance both edged past forecasts.
• Guidance often drives the stock move more than past results, and the shares are up about 15% since early-September news on its Muse AI effort, with analysts watching whether further AI progress can sustain the gains after two years of flat trading.

• Jensen Huang used Nvidia's GTC conference in Berlin on Wednesday to urge Europe to build its own AI rather than just use it, arguing the region's engineering precision gives it an edge in robotics and physical AI.
• Nvidia has committed nearly $10 billion to Europe's technology ecosystem, supplying the chips and software behind robotic "brains," which gives it a direct commercial stake in the region's manufacturers succeeding.
• Among the partnerships, Germany's Agile Robots plans to make 1,000 to 2,000 small humanoid robots next year with Nvidia, with production starting late this year, though Europe still lacks a home-grown player at the scale of Nvidia, Anthropic or OpenAI.

• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has become the first US regulator to finalize its stablecoin rulebook under the GENIUS Act, the framework President Trump signed last year, with the rules set to take effect on January 18, 2027.
• The regime requires dollar-pegged tokens to be fully backed by US dollars or similarly liquid assets and audited annually, while opening paths for both banks and non-bank firms to issue payment stablecoins and setting standards for foreign issuers and custody.
• The final version softened a proposed crackdown on stablecoin rewards, interest-like payouts that banks fear could pull deposits from community lenders, dropping language presuming third-party arrangements unlawful, with the OCC saying it will instead police potential evasions case by case.

🌍 Macro News

• Bank of Korea held its rate at 3%, pausing after two consecutive hikes. LINK
• Norway's $2.3 trillion wealth fund lost $30 billion in the third quarter. LINK
• UK inflation rose to 3.5%, bolstering expectations of a November rate hike. LINK
• France wants EU to make crypto platforms vet DeFi protocols and bear liability. LINK
• Tianjin court opened separate proceedings to confiscate bitcoin seized by British authorities. LINK
• Shinhan and SBI plan yen-backed stablecoin payments for Japanese travelers in South Korea. LINK
• UK set to approve Jackdaw, clearing Shell and Equinor's major North Sea gas project. LINK
• China's CSI 300 entered a bear market, falling 20% from its June peak. LINK
• Rising Middle East exports pushed Oman's crude premium to its weakest since July. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Nvidia unveiled a container-sized AI data center designed for deployment within weeks. LINK
• SAP quarterly revenue topped €10 billion for the first time, rising 13%. LINK
• Barclays plans 5,000 job cuts, citing AI and cost reductions. LINK
• eBay will cut 1,100 jobs while shifting investment toward faster-growing businesses. LINK
• IBM revenue rose 5%, and the company reaffirmed its 2026 growth forecast. LINK
• OpenAI will offer its models and Codex through Google Cloud's Model Garden. LINK
• EA is closing BioWare and cutting about 400 jobs in a restructuring. LINK
• Standard Chartered agreed to acquire Zodia Custody outright; financial terms were undisclosed. LINK
• Nokia's operating profit beat forecasts as AI and cloud customers drove demand. LINK
• Legal-tech startup Legora raised $550 million at an $8.8 billion valuation. LINK
• Tech giants are racing to patch critical PHP flaws after global warnings. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• 6 free Claude skills for finance teams: cover close, forecasting and reporting work, ready to drop in. From Aleph. Get the 6 skill files for free
• BIS research finds money-transfer services beat bank wires, while stablecoin transfers remain costly. LINK
• Flexible connections and onsite power could halve AI data center grid waits. LINK
• DeFi activity rebounded on incentives and tokenized stocks, while Ethereum revenue fell. LINK
• Coin Metrics found broad crypto gains precede slower USDC growth and faster USDT growth. LINK
• Stanford economists warn California's billionaire tax could reduce state revenue. LINK
• Yardeni flags frothy AI stocks, but says an imminent crash is unlikely. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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