\n<\/p>\n
On President Trump\u2019s \u201cLiberation Day\u201d in 2025, the U.S. tariff on Chinese goods rose to a potential 145%. The increase came just as Spirit Halloween began shipping goods from Asia. \u201cThis was going to put us out of business,\u201d Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spirit\u2019s parent company, Spencer Spirit Holdings, <\/span>told <\/span>Fortune\u2019s <\/span><\/i>Catherina Gioino<\/span><\/a>. Silverstein said the tariffs were worse for Spirit than COVID.<\/span><\/p>\n Up to 80% of Spirit\u2019s merchandise is imported by the company, mostly from Asia, and it moves on a tight schedule through 63 third-party logistics sites before reaching more than 1,550 stores, a process Silverstein says runs all year.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEvery day is critical to us,\u201d he said. Spirit had to stop the ships. A group of executives set up a war room. \u201cYou start burning the furniture,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to preserve your cash.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Why Gen Z Is Abandoning Big Social Media<\/span><\/a> | Fortune Daily<\/span><\/p>\n Anthropic spent $2.75 million guarding Dario Amodei last year\u2014more than 4 times his salary, but a fraction of Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s security bill<\/span><\/a> – Catherina Gioino<\/span><\/p>\n Meet the Gen Zers fighting back against AI data centers\u201470% of young adults don\u2019t want one in their town<\/span><\/a> – Sasha Tuddenham<\/span><\/p>\n Women astronauts outnumber men in NASA\u2019s new class\u2014they\u2019re now halfway through training and set to earn around $150K with no overtime or hazard pay<\/span><\/a> – Orianna Rosa Royle<\/span><\/p>\n Can Southeast Asia pitch itself as an \u2018all-in-one\u2019 chip hub?<\/span><\/a> – Sam Beltran<\/span><\/p>\n Soccer superstar Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 is the latest global name to find himself on the wrong side of Chinese patriotism<\/span><\/a> – Jay Ganglani<\/span><\/p>\n The European Central Bank is unlikely to make emergency purchases of French government debt if the country cannot get its fiscal house in order. But it could be forced to, according to Oxford Economics, because French debt is widely held and a \u201cmarket panic\u201d might compel the ECB to prop up the euro in order to restore confidence in the E.U.\u2019s single currency.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In the estimation of Oxford\u2019s lead economist Leo Barincou, \u201cOur baseline sees France walking a tightrope over the next six months. Financing needs will reach record highs in 2027, and fiscal slippage, political instability, and election-related uncertainty will all add to market pressure. We expect these factors to push spreads [the premium demanded to hold French bonds over safer bonds such as those from Germany] towards 200 basis points, but that shouldn’t trigger a full-blown crisis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Nonetheless, if the market can\u2019t see a solution coming after the election\u2014neither Marine Le Pen nor Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon, the likely runoff candidates, have put forward proposals that the bond market will take seriously\u2014\u201ca more severe market panic, fuelled by self-reinforcing dynamics, can\u2019t be ruled out,\u201d Barincou said in a note.<\/span><\/p>\n In that scenario, \u201cthe sheer urgency of the situation\u201d would mean \u201cthe ECB would probably be forced to act because of the wider systemic risks tied to the amount of French debt held within the European financial system, as well as the risk that a French crisis would undermine confidence in the bloc’s single currency.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Stocks were mixed in Asia and Europe this morning, but U.S. futures are pointing lower before the open in New York. The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates yesterday but <\/span>signaled that interest rate hikes were likely<\/span><\/a> in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy blunt take is that there should have been a rate hike,\u201d SoFi\u2019s Liz Thomas told <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i> in an email. \u201cOil prices are likely to stay high as long as the war in Iran continues. That means inflation is likely to stay high too. \u2026 So it\u2019s very possible we start hearing chatter about a 50 basis point hike in December if the Fed needs to play catch-up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fed chair Kevin Warsh also said he will hold fewer rate-setting meetings next year. UBS\u2019s Paul Donovan\u2014a Warsh critic\u2014raised an eyebrow at that this morning: \u201cLess policy flexibility at a time of economic and political turmoil is an interesting choice,\u201d he told clients.<\/span><\/p>\n Nasdaq futures were off by more than 1% this morning after Samsung and Alphabet reported Q3 earnings and both missed expectations. Samsung shares declined 4% in South Korea and Alphabet lost 10% in overnight trading. Samsung\u2019s chipmaking division <\/span>posted lower operating profit than expected<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At Alphabet, cloud revenue beat expectations, but search ad revenue came in below forecasts, fueling investor worries that AI overlays are cannibalizing the company\u2019s core business. David Wagner of Aptus Capital Advisors <\/span>told <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i><\/a> that Google Cloud did what it was supposed to this quarter: \u201cThe problem is everything else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Microsoft, by contrast, <\/span>beat expectations on revenue<\/span><\/a> and lowered its guidance on capex, and the stock rose 3.39% overnight.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The Fed held interest rates yesterday, but is likely in a cycle of hiking interest rates for the foreseeable future. Traders don\u2019t tend to like higher rates, because they make money more expensive to borrow for companies and consumers alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Don’t fret too much, though, Goldman Sachs\u2019 Vickie Chang says. \u201cEquities tend to struggle after the first hike but recover quickly. In the median of both modest and larger tightening cycles, they trough within 2 months and recover within 4 months.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIncreased demand for memory from data centers has led to outsized increases in memory prices. This is directly boosting consumer prices for memory cards,\u201d according to Megan Peters and Joseph Briggs of Goldman Sachs. AI is probably boosting U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation by 23 basis points, they estimate.<\/span><\/p>\n The length of time that Poland\u2019s economy has been growing without a recession, according to ING\u2019s Marieke Blom. \u201cGDP growth has averaged more than 3.5%\u201d annually over that time, <\/span>she wrote<\/span><\/a>. (The U.S. average over that period is 2.1%.) <\/span><\/p>\n How Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro fled Brazil<\/span><\/a> – FT<\/span><\/p>\n Hegseth reportedly fires U.S. top military planner as Trump downplays Iran peace talks<\/span><\/a> – CNBC<\/span><\/p>\n Vance tells top Iranian official negotiations must address nuclear program<\/span><\/a> – Axios<\/span><\/p>\n The beleaguered chip sellers getting their revenge on Apple<\/span><\/a> – WSJ<\/span><\/p>\n Weil Gotshal, once a legal powerhouse, plans to dissolve<\/span><\/a> – NYT<\/span><\/p>\n Billionaire author Amy Griffin has completely lost the plot \u2014 if she ever had a real one<\/span><\/a> – NY Post<\/span><\/p>\n When Quentin Tarantino was 12 years old, his mom mocked his writing ambitions. Connie Zastoupil was at her wits\u2019 end after teachers told her he wasn\u2019t concentrating at school\u2014and so she told him off. At that moment, <\/span>Tarantino vowed never to share any of his success from writing with her<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking on The Moment podcast with Brian Koppelman, Tarantino said: \u201cMy mom always had a hard time about my scholastic non-ability,\u201d adding that she \u201cwas b\u2013ching at me\u201d about writing screenplays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd then in the middle of her little tirade, she said, \u2018Oh, and by the way, this little \u2018writing career,\u2019 with the finger quotes and everything. This little \u2018writing career\u2019 that you\u2019re doing? That s\u2013t is over.’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s still punishing her decades later. \u201cWhen she said that to me in that sarcastic way, I was in my head and I go, \u2018OK lady, when I become a successful writer, you will never see one penny from my success. There will be no house for you. There\u2019s no vacation for you, no Elvis Cadillac for mommy. You get nothing because you said that.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nMORE FROM FORTUNE<\/h3>\n
HOW BAD COULD IT GET?<\/h3>\n
France is \u201cwalking a tightrope\u201d toward a debt crisis that could force the ECB to prop up the euro<\/b><\/h2>\n
THE MARKETS<\/h3>\n
Samsung and Google ruin the party: Earnings misses drive tech futures lower<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Stocks don\u2019t care about the Fed as much as traders think they do<\/b><\/h2>\n
CHART OF THE DAY<\/h3>\n
AI is raising prices across all types of consumer electronics<\/b><\/h2>\n
NUMBER OF THE DAY\u00a0<\/h3>\n
25 years<\/b><\/h2>\n
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/h3>\n
ONE MORE THING<\/h3>\n
Quentin Tarantino refuses to give a penny of his $150 million fortune to his mother: “No house, no Cadillac”<\/b><\/h2>\n