Greg Guenthner:

U.S. Midterms: How Markets Are Reacting to Democrat Victory

The Democrats stormed to victory in the U.S. midterm elections, taking control of the Senate and the House in a sharp rebuke to President Trump that will reshape the balance of power in Washington and ripple through financial markets.

The electoral rout, widely seen as a referendum on the president, ushers in a new era of divided government and greater restraint on the administration.

Stock futures turned positive early Wednesday, reversing earlier losses as the votes rolled in, with futures tied to the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both up around 1%. U.S. Treasuries rallied and yields softened, while U.S. dollar weakness against major currencies supported commodities like gold. But oil prices and defense stocks weakened amid expectation of greater scrutiny of the Iran war.

AI-linked stocks suffered a blow amid fears over a pullback in investment. Shares of Elon Musk's Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPCX) both fell 3%, while neocloud companies CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius (NBIS), and cloud computing stock Iren (IREN) were down around 1%. Intel (INTC) and Oracle (ORCL) shares were also seen lower.

The political shift is likely to have "significant implications" for the AI buildout, with several Democrat winners having explicitly campaigned on stricter data center regulation.

⇒ Read More Here

Chris Campbell:

Cyberattack on French Blood Bank Fridges Thwarted Before Damage to Products and Samples

A cyberattack on several blood banks sought to raise temperatures to extremely high levels but was thwarted before it could do any damage to blood products or samples, French authorities said.

The incident comes after supermarkets in a number of European countries reported this week that their fridges and freezers warmed up after they were remotely taken over, resulting in tons of spoiled food at a total cost of millions of dollars.

The French Blood Establishment, or EFS, said "temperature and defrosting thresholds were raised to extremely high levels" on Monday at three of its cold-storage sites for plasma, in a statement released late Tuesday.

"No health consequences have been identified, and no blood products were lost," it said. The cyberattack hit a supplier of refrigeration equipment at three EFS sites. The products stored were bags of plasma intended for transfusions and plasma used to manufacture medicines, and were either transferred or secured, the statement said.

France's national cybersecurity agency and the Health Ministry are investigating the incident.

⇒ Read More Here

Enrique Abeyta:

U.S. Space Force Declares Far Side of the Moon a "Warfighting Domain," Weighs Launch of Five Military Lunar Satellites

The far side of the Earth's Moon could become a new theater of war – at least if the Trump administration has anything to say about it.

According to the magazine Air and Space Forces, the U.S. Space Force under Donald Trump is weighing whether to launch five satellites to cislunar space by 2029 – a decision which would see American military craft orbit around the far side of the Moon.

That news came via a bulletin to aerospace manufacturers, advising the industry that the Pentagon is now "notionally interested" in launching what would essentially be reconnaissance flights to slingshot around the Moon.

To hear Space Force officials like Major General Stephen Purdy tell it, the Pentagon is dead serious about turning the cislunar region into a "warfighting domain." The impetus behind the military's newfound interest in the space between the Earth and the Moon seems to be China – specifically, the People's Republic's plans to land on the Moon by 2030.

"They're not planning for a one-off demo," Purdy said in late October, per Air and Space. "They are planning for sustained activity. It's in their strategic documents… and they're building the [research and development], and the [science and technology], and the operational reps and set to get all those missions done."

⇒ Read More Here