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Top stories today:
- Fed cuts rates by 25 bps to 4.50% - 4.75%, as Powell vows not to leave
- CHIPS Act subsidy deals accelerated by Biden admin ahead of Trump takeover
- Mistral launches API for content moderation
- TikTok brings feature to share music directly from Apple Music, Spotify
- Global VC funding hits 2024 high in Oct., at $32B
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware the few hallucinations):
1. Fed cuts rates by 25 bps to 4.50% - 4.75%, as Powell says he wouldn’t resign it Trump asked him
Unanimously voted by the FOMC.
“This further recalibration of our policy stance will help maintain the strength of the economy and the labor market,” Powell said.
“Not permitted under the law,” Powell said regarding Trump potentially asking him to resign.
Trump likely won’t try to fire him, according to a senior adviser.
Another quarter-point cut is likely in Dec., taking the target range to 4.25% - 4.50%
Dec. 2025: 3.50% - 3.75% priced in by markets.
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3. CHIPS Act subsidy deals accelerated by Biden admin ahead of Trump takeover
Over 90% of the $39B in grants have already been allocated, but only one binding agreement has been announced so far, the one with Intel:
20+ companies are still receiving awards.
Intel, TSMC, Samsung, and Micron are among the key participants.
Trump’s incoming admin could terminate or renegotiate some contracts.
U.S. chip facility investments soared to $129B through Mar. 2024, a +34% YoY increase from $96B
~$400B in commitments for U.S. factories have already been secured.
4. Mistral launches API for content moderation
The LLM classifier is trained to classify text inputs into 9 categories.
A fine-tuned Mistral 8B model powers the API.
Supports English, French, and German, among other languages.
Mistral says the API provided accurate results across all 9 categories during its internal testing
5. TikTok brings feature to share music directly from Apple Music, Spotify
“Share to TikTok” enables track sharing to TikTok’s For You feed, Stories, or DMs via Apple Music and Spotify.
The feature aims to boost user engagement on TikTok.
6. Global VC funding hits 2024 high in Oct., at $32B
+11.5% YoY in global VC funding from $28.7B a year ago.
Late-stage funding was +30%, early-stage was +16%, and seed-stage was flat.
56% of all funding rounds in October were $100M+
OpenAI’s $6.6B round was the largest round in the month.
AI led all sectors, attracting $12.2B, or 38% of the month’s total funding
+94% YoY in AI funding in Oct. from $6.3B a year ago.
373 deals were of the AI startups.
Health and biotech was the 2nd-largest sector, raising approximately $5.6B.
7. Female-founded U.S. startup funding +21% to $7.4B in Q3
2024 YTD is still -4%, at $38.5B.
Angel/seed rounds led the deal count for female founders, though most capital came from early-stage rounds
Software, healthcare, and B2B services were the top sectors led by female founders
8. VC-led investments for European femtech startups surpasses 2021’s peak
9. Interesting videos, posts, and memes
10. Other headlines
AI
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Tech
Automattic launches site to track WP Engine exits after Mullenweg feud.
Tech earnings
Sony Q2 FY24 revenue +9% YoY to $19.45B, operating profit +73% to $2.96B.
Block Q3 revenue +6% to $5.98B, gross profit +19% to $2.25B.
Airbnb Q3 revenue +10% YoY to $3.73B, net income -69% to $1.37B.
Pinterest Q3 revenue +18% YoY to $898M, MAUs +11% to 537M.
Cloudflare Q3 revenue +28% YoY to $430M, Q4 forecasts below estimates.
Tech & law
OpenAI defeats news outlets’ copyright lawsuit over AI training.
Facebook unfollow tool lawsuit dismissed.
Zuckerberg avoids personal liability in Meta addiction suits.
Biotech
FDA approves J&J’s Varipulse pulsed field ablation system.
Weill Cornell scientists land $6.2M NIA grant to build portable brain scanner.
Business
Crypto
Polymarket under investigation by France after whale bet on Trump.
Binance founder CZ interview on incarceration, investing in X, plans for future.
Jack Dorsey’s Square to invest more in BTC mining, shut “Web5” venture.
Dune launches dashboard tracking $2.5B lost to crypto hacks, scams.
U.S. politics
Trump speaks to “probably” 70 leaders, not Putin, but “I think we’ll speak.”
Iranian sanctions to drastically increase under trump: sources.
Susie Wiles appointed as Trump’s White House chief of staff.
House GOP control still at 97% odds.
SEC chair position could go to Dan Gallagher, former commissioner, now at Robinhood.
Biden urges Americans to “bring down the temperature” after Trump’s win.
World
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