TREE NEWS reports: Isomorphic Labs is in talks to raise about $5 billion at a valuation of roughly $50 billion. The Alphabet-backed AI drug-discovery company is seeking one of the largest private fundraising rounds this year. No timeline or investor list was disclosed.
TREE NEWS reports: A total of 1,037 private fund institutions conducted 5,310 research visits to A-share listed companies in October, covering 463 individual stocks. Thirteen Shenwan Level-1 industries received at least 100 visits each, with electronics, pharmaceuticals and biotech, power equipment, and machinery each drawing more than 500 visits.
TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo said the next soft fork, aimed at patching four legacy bugs, is as much about rebuilding the network’s maintenance muscle memory as it is about the fixes themselves. Corallo framed the upgrade as a practice run for future protocol changes, emphasizing the process of coordinating and executing a soft fork over the specific patches.
TREE NEWS reports: Citigroup told clients investors can re-engage in carry trades now that the U.S. midterm elections are “in the rearview mirror,” citing a risk-on market environment and expectations for continued volatility decline. Strategists led by Dirk Willer recommended buying a carry basket long Turkish lira, Indian rupee, Colombian peso and Brazilian real, while shorting the Chinese yuan, Singapore dollar, Israeli shekel and Thai baht as funding legs. Lower volatility into year-end should favor carry trades, they wrote in a report.
TREE NEWS update: OpenAI is rolling out native GIF generation in ChatGPT, letting users create animated images from text prompts or uploaded photos and adjust playback speed, view frame by frame and edit. The feature ships with the new Images 2.6 model across ChatGPT and Codex on web, desktop and mobile, with GPT-Image-2.6 Flare and Sunburst added to the API. OpenAI said ChatGPT and its API now generate over 4 billion images a week, up from about 3 billion reported in September.
TREE NEWS reports: Lithium battery makers flagged stronger certainty in energy-storage demand growth, steady progress on solid-state battery pilot lines and tight supply of high-end products at third-quarter earnings calls, pointing to a shift in competition from scale expansion to structural growth. Several companies gave optimistic forecasts for next year’s demand, with one executive saying the lithium battery supply chain’s market size will keep growing steadily through 2027.
TREE NEWS update: Bank of Guizhou announced on November 3 a plan to reform its remaining 10 village banks through a “takeover plus exit” approach, using a trust tool under a “debt-for-trust-beneficiary-rights” model. The Hong Kong-listed city commercial bank has sponsored 13 village banks in total, of which three have already completed reform. The announcement details the structure for restructuring the other 10.
TREE NEWS update: BitMart’s founder said the exchange’s security team is ‘severely understaffed’ amid a restructuring, following a new hack. Analysts flagged suspicious transfers potentially linked to the Mercado Bitcoin hack. The warning comes as the exchange addresses staffing shortages in the wake of the incident.
TREE NEWS update: The Bank of England announces its interest rate decision at 20:00 Beijing time on Thursday, alongside US weekly initial jobless claims and third-quarter nonfarm productivity at 21:30. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack and Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speak later in the session, with ECB President Christine Lagarde scheduled for 00:00 and 02:00 the following day. Earnings include ConocoPhillips pre-market and Cloudflare, Microchip Technology and Airbnb after the close.
TREE NEWS update: The Galician city of Vigo, known as Spain’s rainiest city, is facing a severe water crisis as of Nov. 3 local time, with reservoir levels falling sharply due to prolonged drought and a steep drop in rainfall. Local and regional authorities are locked in a dispute over whether to declare a state of emergency.
TREE NEWS reports: More than 500 fund managers with under three years’ experience running active equity funds have seen their first-half gains erased in the third quarter, Wind data showed as of Nov. 4, with some products giving back all of their H1 profits. The Q3 correction tested these newer managers’ investment frameworks and risk controls, prompting them to review attribution and adjust positions. They kept faith in long-term technology trends while placing greater weight on valuation discipline and balanced allocation.
TREE NEWS reports: Several Chinese investment institutions said short-term market volatility has not changed the recovery trajectory of China’s economy and corporate fundamentals, and instead offers long-term investors a chance to buy quality assets at more reasonable prices. The comments follow a sharp rise in global risk-asset volatility since October and a concentrated adjustment in the A-share market, as third-quarter earnings disclosures wrapped up and stabilization policy tools were rolled out.
TREE NEWS update: OpenAI has developed an autonomous vulnerability discovery process capable of identifying software flaws without human intervention. The company said it validated 1,724 vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel using the system. No further details on the methodology or disclosure timeline were provided.
TREE NEWS reports: China’s public mutual funds have distributed more than 131 billion yuan ($18 billion) in dividends so far this year, with a concentrated wave of payouts since October. Industry participants say cash distributions help investors avoid giving back paper gains during volatile markets and reduce net asset value swings, improving the holder experience.
TREE NEWS update: Several Chinese public mutual fund companies said the new central bank swap facility introduced this round will help improve capital market liquidity and strengthen institutional investors’ allocation and counter-cyclical investment capacity. The funds said the measure, which they described as timely, bolsters market confidence and works in concert with other market-stabilizing policies. Over time, continued optimization of the facility is expected to attract more medium- and long-term capital into the market and improve its internal stability mechanism.
TREE NEWS update: S&P Dow Jones Indices published a market classification treatment plan for Turkey, under which certain corporate event adjustments for Turkish equities will not be implemented. The index provider did not specify which events are affected or give a timeline. The move follows Turkey’s classification review and applies to how index adjustments are handled for Turkish stocks.
TREE NEWS reports: Crypto super PACs spent more than $176 million on the midterm elections, but a Democratic sweep of Congress raises the prospect of tougher industry scrutiny. The political action committees are now eyeing a “new map” for 2028, as the changed legislative landscape could expose crypto to stricter oversight.
TREE NEWS reports: Satellite imagery analyzed by research firm Aterio shows IREN’s Horizon 4 data center in Texas, built under a roughly $9.7 billion agreement with Microsoft, still lacks backup generators and cooling equipment and may miss its year-end delivery target. A planned Nebius project in New Jersey, with about 140 megawatts of capacity, could slip to 2027. Microsoft’s AI capital spending last quarter came in about $5 billion below expectations, and its CFO has cited third-party cloud delivery delays as a factor.
TREE NEWS reports: The offshore yuan (CNH) closed at 6.6739 per dollar in New York on Wednesday, down 38 pips from Tuesday’s New York close, marking a second consecutive daily retreat. Intraday trading ranged between 6.6646 and 6.6855, with the quote taken at 05:59 Beijing time Thursday.
TREE NEWS reports: US equity futures closed higher in New York on Wednesday, Nov. 4, with Dow futures up 3.21%, S&P 500 futures up 1.79% and Nasdaq 100 futures up 1.19%. Russell 2000 futures gained 1.74%.