Keep calm and carry on

A Reuters Open Interest newsletter

Everything Mike and the ROI team are excited to read, watch and listen to over the weekend.

Hello Morning Bid readers! 

Global equity markets mostly shrugged off the U.S. government shutdown this week, with all three major U.S. indices recording record highs on Thursday and Asian and European markets on track to deliver weekly gains early on Friday. While history suggests markets may be right not to panic, this shutdown will likely delay the release of vital government data, making the Federal Reserve's job even more challenging.

The Fed already faces a head-scratching economic environment, with almost 4% annualized growth and little job creation, something that might be explained by the artificial intelligence boom. Staying on the AI theme, ROI Financial Markets Editor-at-Large Mike Dolan argues that if the AI equity "bubble" bursts, it might take the U.S. economy down with it.

Private payrolls for September were released on Wednesday. While economists tend not to put too much stock in this data, investors took note of the biggest monthly drop in employment in over two years. Meanwhile, hopes for continued Fed easing helped put gold on track for its seventh consecutive weekly gain. 

In the energy markets, oil prices fell throughout much of the week on expectations of rising supply, including possible accelerated production increases from OPEC+, but Brent crude was down 1% early on Friday following news of a fire at Chevron's El Segundo refinery, one of the largest on the U.S. West Coast.

Zooming out, ROI Energy Columnist Ron Bousso argues that Big Oil is becoming increasingly bullish about the future outlook even as it grows ever more bearish about the near term. Predicting what's going to happen in oil markets this year has become quite tricky, argues ROI Asia Commodities Columnist Clyde Russell, given that three of the biggest current drivers of crude prices are the unwinding of OPEC+ production cuts, China storage flows and geopolitical tensions – all of which are challenging to forecast accurately. 

On the renewables side, ROI Energy Transition Columnist Gavin Maguire explains why Italy's economic woes may have a climate upside. And Clyde Russell discusses critical minerals and why the weak pricing for many of them does not reflect their supposed importance to the global energy transition.

And, finally, over in the metals world, ROI Metals Columnist Andy Home looks at the fragility of the copper supply chain, highlighting the catastrophic events at Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg mine last month.

As we head into the weekend, check out the ROI team's recommendations for what you should read, listen to, and watch to stay informed and ready for the week ahead.

I'd love to hear from you, so please reach out to me at anna.szymanski@thomsonreuters.com.

GAVIN MAGUIRE, ROI Global Energy Transition Columnist: This analysis by Carbon Brief explains that electricity demand in Great Britain was fully covered by clean energy sources for a record long stretch in 2025. That's pretty impressive for a country that was over 75% powered by fossil fuels up to 2010. 

ANDY HOME, ROI Metals Columnist: My read of the week comes courtesy of Anjana Ahuja in the Financial Times. She writes about ground-breaking work on the concept of black hole stars, which pose the cosmological question of which came first: galaxies full of matter or black holes? 

RON BOUSSO, ROI Energy Columnist: The book More and More and More by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is a fascinating overview of the history of energy through the centuries. It argues that the idea of an energy transition is false, suggesting instead that the world has always been adding new sources of energy. 

JAMIE MCGEEVER, ROI Markets Columnist: United States, Inc. is a collection of four Project Syndicate articles highlighting several fundamental flaws in trying to run the U.S. government like a business.