Ukrainian Forces Fighting in Kupiansk, Despite Russian Claims, Top Commander Says

Political

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Summary:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week it was back in Moscow's hands and on Thursday, while visiting Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, he said the city was "fully in our hands."

Ukrainian forces are defending their positions and hunting down sabotage groups in the northeastern city of Kupiansk despite Moscow's statements that its troops are fully in control of it, Ukraine's top commander said on Friday.

Russia seized Kupiansk in the first weeks of the 2022 invasion, but Ukrainian troops recaptured it later that year. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week it was back in Moscow's hands and on Thursday, while visiting Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, he said the city was "fully in our hands."

Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi rejected the claims.

"Our soldiers continue to conduct both defensive and search and strike actions," Syrskyi wrote on Telegram after visiting the area in Kharkiv region.

"These actions take place daily as part of comprehensive measures to stabilise the situation in Kupiansk. The scale of lies from the Russian leadership about the situation in Kupiansk is astonishing."

He said Ukrainian forces were "holding designated lines and intensifying fire pressure to block the enemy's supply routes."

RUSSIANS ALSO TARGET POKROVSK

Moscow's forces control about one-fifth of Ukraine's territory amid diplomatic efforts to settle the war, including a peace plan put forward by the United States and now including input from Ukraine's European allies.

In addition to the largely destroyed city of Kupiansk, another Russian target is Pokrovsk, a logistics hub farther south in Donetsk region.

Putin said on Thursday that Russian forces controlled 70% of Pokrovsk, known in Russia by its Soviet-era name, Krasnoarmeysk.

On Friday, the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had captured two outlying districts of the city.

Syrskyi on Thursday said Ukrainian troops had been blocking attempts by Russian forces to stage new assaults on Pokrovsk and the adjacent town of Myrnohrad. The Ukrainian military, in a late evening report on Friday, said Russian forces had launched 65 attacks to try to pierce Ukrainian defences in the area.

Russia has also been making gains further south in Zaporizhzhia region.

The Ukrainian military blog DeepState, which uses open-source reports to track the positions of both armies, said Ukrainian forces were trying to set up an additional defensive line around the town of Huliaipole to withstand Russian attacks.

Source: Reuters

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Manuel

Commodity

Political

Oil posted a fourth monthly loss as traders looked ahead to an OPEC+ meeting this weekend and assessed how the potential of easing geopolitical tensions from Kyiv to Caracas may impact an oversupplied market.

West Texas Intermediate edged down to settle below $59 a barrel, after earlier gaining as much as 1.7%, to close out the longest streak of monthly drops since March 2023. The commodity slid to intra-day lows minutes before settlement as The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro discussed a potential meeting in a call last week. A de-escalation between the Trump administration and the oil-rich South American country would sap a major risk premium out of oil prices.

The late-day dip capped off a choppy trading session, marked by thin holiday volumes and an hours-long outage on Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s trading platform that roiled global markets. The halt — which the company said was a result of a cooling issue in a data center — also impacted gasoline and diesel futures that are due to expire on Friday. Oil Notches Fourth Monthly Drop on Glut as WTI Trading Resumes_1

Oil Notches Fourth Monthly Drop on Glut as WTI Trading Resumes_1

OPEC+ nations are set to meet virtually on Sunday and will probably stick with a plan to pause output increases in early 2026, delegates said. With that decision locked in, a key focus may be a long-term review of members’ capacity.

US oil has fallen 18% this year, with prices hurt by expectations for a global glut after OPEC+ restarted capacity, while drillers outside the alliance also added supplies.

On Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that US President Donald Trump’s proposals for ending Moscow’s war could be the basis for future agreements and expressed an openness to talks, though sticking points that led to stalemates in previous rounds remain. US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Moscow next week.

The peace talks have hit other hurdles, including an embezzlement scandal involving several of Kyiv’s leading public figures. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said the nation’s lead negotiator in peace talks, Andriy Yermak, resigned after becoming ensnared in the on-going corruption probe.

An end to the conflict would have significant ramifications for the oil market. Russia is one of the world’s leading producers and its flows are subject to heavy Western sanctions. Any easing of curbs following a deal could unleash restricted supplies to buyers such as China, India and Turkey.

“It may take some time for a potential Ukraine-Russia peace deal to go through as Russia may look to store up some barrels instead of rushing to sell them,” said Mukesh Sahdev, the founder and chief executive officer of XAnalysts Pty, an energy market analysis firm. That could make prompt prices slightly bullish, before it gets bearish, he said.

Source: Bloomberg

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Stocks

About 45 minutes west of downtown Chicago lies a rather unassuming, glass-encased data center that some of the world’s largest markets depend on. By one 2018 estimate, at least $25 quadrillion of notional trade volume passes through the facility every day.

The Aurora, Illinois, complex has served as the primary hub of digital operations for the world’s largest futures exchange operator CME Group Inc. for nearly two decades. The 450,000-square-foot facility is famous among high-frequency traders and Wall Street firms, who’ve long jostled for position around the site to gain a leg up on competitors. At one point, DRW Holdings mounted an antenna on a utility pole near the complex to cut down on the latency. Rival Jump Trading bought property across the street for its own antenna. Scientel erected a tower, too.

Traders want to be close to the data center to reduce latency, minimizing the distance data must travel in order to shave microseconds off their trades. As a former executive of the data center’s operator once put it: “If you read the book , you can get a real quick lesson on what’s going on.”

On Friday, the data center — located in the Chicago suburb probably best known for serving as the setting of the comedy film — became infamous to all who trade across equities, foreign exchange, bonds and commodities markets globally. A malfunction in the cooling system at the complex took down virtually all CME futures and options trading platforms, wreaking havoc for traders around the world. The operator of the data center, CyrusOne, said that its teams were working “around the clock” to respond to the cooling system issue but didn’t respond to further questions.

This critical piece of infrastructure to global markets dates back to 2009, when CME started building the facility to host its electronic trading infrastructure, essentially serving as the backbone for CME’s futures and options trading platform Globex.

In 2016, CME decided it wanted to shift away from owning infrastructure and sold the site to Dallas-based CyrusOne. As part of the deal, CME agreed to rent space from CyrusOne for 15 years so it could continue to house the computers at the site that keep its markets running, essentially outsourcing its day-to-day operations.

CyrusOne knew what it was getting into. Gary Wojtaszek, the company’s chief executive officer at the time, described the data center to analysts as “ground zero” for high-speed trading and the “epicenter for all the futures trading.” In laying out the business case for a new tower that the company was building there in 2018 to boost connectivity, he emphasized that “speed is of the essence there.”

With that, CyrusOne added Aurora to a broader portfolio of roughly 50 data centers across the US, UK, Germany and Singapore that serve customers spanning the technology, financial services, energy, medical, research and consulting industries.

CyrusOne’s business case is built on going after big clients like CME that are buying virtually all of the space in a data center, according to Tobias Bopp, a manager of strategy and transactions at the consulting firm EY-Parthenon. “They’re building a lot of new data centers, and their position in the market right now is pretty important,” Bopp said in an interview.

Lauren Eccles, a senior principal consultant specializing in data center recruiting for First Point Group, described CyrusOne as one “the big boys in the game,” pointing to the company’s strong presence in Germany in particular. Generally speaking, she said, “They’re a big player, and they’ve got a really good name.”

In 2021, that reputation caught the attention of private equity. As the artificial intelligence boom began sending data center demand soaring, KKR & Co. and Global Infrastructure Partners agreed to buy CyrusOne in a deal that was worth roughly $11.4 billion. It was held up at the time as an illustration of how private equity investors were looking to cash in on the surging computing needs of AI model developers and tech giants such as Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. Wojtaszek had resigned a year earlier.

It wouldn’t be the only, or the largest, data center deal for GIP. This year, after BlackRock Inc. bought the investment firm, GIP agreed to buy Aligned Data Centers in a $40 billion deal, marking one of the asset manager’s largest infrastructure investments ever.

KKR referred all questions on CyrusOne to the data center operator. A spokesperson for GIP owner BlackRock declined to comment.

It’s unclear whether CyrusOne tried to migrate CME’s operations at Aurora to another data center after the cooling units failed on Thursday.

And while CME’s disaster recovery plan calls for moving operations to a data center in the New York area, the exchange opted to restart its matching engine from Aurora, according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision was made because the information the exchange had at the time signaled that the cooling issue would be resolved more quickly than it was, the person said.

According to CyrusOne’s website, the data center features additional chiller units to protect against failures.

The cooling failure might suggest an issue with the design of the system, according to Thomas Solelhac, a partner at EY-Parthenon. “Normally, in data centers of this type, there is a lot of redundancy to avoid this kind of problem with power and cooling,” Solelhac said.

CME had expected its 2016 deal with CyrusOne to open it up to more computing resources. While fighting a proposal by Illinois lawmakers to tax trading on exchanges in 2016, CME Executive Chairman Terry Duffy, who is now CEO, suggested that the firm’s deal with CyrusOne would give it access to CyrusOne’s other data centers and not just Aurora.

“If we need to leave Illinois because of any irrational decisions coming out of the state,” Duffy had said at the time, “we have 29 data centers to choose from.”

Source: Bloomberg

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Stocks

U.S. stocks gained in a shortened session, as investors shrugged off a CME Group outage that disrupted futures trading overnight.

The Dow industrials, Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 rose 0.5% or more. Some chip makers, including Micron Technology, Analog Devices and Intel, logged bigger gains.

Nonetheless, the Nasdaq composite registered its first monthly loss since March, after a choppy period when concerns about an AI bubble fueled market volatility. The index fell about 1.5% in November; the S&P 500 and Dow industrials posted small monthly gains.

CME said its derivatives markets reopened at 8:30 a.m. ET. Before then, traders hadn’t been able to buy or sell CME futures and options, including for U.S. indexes, Treasurys, gold and oil due to cooling problems at a key data center.

Analysts said the CME outage lowered trading volumes on what was already expected to be one of the quietest trading days of the year.

Global markets were little changed, with the Stoxx Europe 600 and Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining less than 0.3%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.3%.

Shares in some U.S. retailers rose as shoppers flocked to snap up Black Friday bargains. Walmart was up over 1%. The National Retail Federation forecasts a record 186.9 million people to shop between Thanksgiving and “Cyber Monday” on Dec. 1.

Markets expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again next week, following signs that the labor market is cooling. Allies of Fed Chair Jerome Powell have laid the groundwork for him to push a cut through a divided committee. Traders have doubled their bets over the last week on a cut to around 87%, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool.

Silver futures jumped Friday, topping $55 per troy ounce. Analysts attributed the surge to a supply squeeze, with Chinese inventories at the lowest level in a decade, as well as expectations for another Fed cut. Gold futures also rallied.

The dollar held broadly steady against a basket of other currencies, after slipping earlier this week. Treasury yields edged up, but remained around their lowest levels since late October.

Bitcoin topped $92,000 before paring some gains. It has regained ground after sliding toward $80,000 last week, but remains far off its October peak above $126,000. Shares in Coinbase and bitcoin-buyer Strategy gained.

Source: TWSJ

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Economic

The S&P 500 may end November essentially flat, but the path forward looks meaningfully clearer as volatility calms down, stock market breath improves and trend-following strategies turn into buyers, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s trading desk.

Several indicators point to stabilization heading into December. Market breadth, measured as the five-day average of S&P advancers minus decliners, collapsed earlier this month to minus 150, indicating “a pretty bad damage beneath the surface,” Goldman’s Lee Coppersmith wrote in a note to clients. Heading into Thanksgiving, it rebounded back to the +150 area. “It’s a big shift – broader participation, not just a narrow squeeze, and another sign that the market cleared a decent amount of stress mid-month,” he added.

Goldman’s Volatility Panic Index is telling a similar story. It currently sits at five, just above its three-year average and well below its early-November highs.

Positioning among so-called systematic strategies has also reset. Roughly $16 billion of S&P 500 Index selling hit the tape over the past month, Goldman traders estimate, adding that those moves contributed to the stock market declines. With that de-risking largely absorbed, the bank’s baseline for the next month flips to modest net buying of about $4.7 billion.

“That leaves us heading into December with a cleaner starting point than we had a few weeks ago,” Coppersmith wrote.

The S&P 500 is on course to post a 0.2% loss in November, with equities erasing nearly all of their declines on expectations for an interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting and positive momentum stemming from the artificial intelligence trade.

Source: Bloomberg

To stay updated on all economic events of today, please check out our Economic calendar

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Commodity

Commodities strategists at Wall Street's top investment banks expect 2026 and 2027 to be tough years for the oil industry. And that's after a nearly 20% decline in oil prices this year.

Under a base case set by JPMorgan's commodities team led by Natasha Kaneva, Brent crude oil (BZ=F) — the international benchmark price — will fall to $58 per barrel in 2026, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil (CL=F), the US benchmark, trading $4 below this level. In 2027, the firm sees prices falling by another $1 per barrel.

"At the risk of flogging a very dead horse, our message to the market has remained consistent since June 2023," JPMorgan strategists wrote. "While demand is robust, supply is simply too abundant."

At Goldman Sachs, the bank's commodities desk, led by Daan Struyven, forecast a similar base case for Brent and WTI to trade hands next year at $56 and $52, respectively.

Goldman sees healthier price support in subsequent years, however, with Brent and WTI rising to $80 and $76 per barrel by 2028. This forecast assumes oversupply doesn't continue to dominate the market.

"We expect oil prices to pick up in 2027 as the market returns to balance and shifts focus to incentivizing investment given the reduction in oil reserve life, the maturing of US shale, and solid demand growth," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.

Oversupply has been, and will likely continue to be, the dominant narrative for oil through this year, and this theme is expected to continue in the year ahead. While demand has remained healthier than expected, global supply has kept climbing.

The OPEC+ cartel has unwound production cuts every month since April, increasing output levels across the bloc by more than 2 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, US shale producers are expected to reach a record-high production level in December, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

Through the first half of 2025, heavy stockpiling by China to the tune of millions of barrels per day had absorbed much of the extra supply on the market, supporting prices.

Demand from the Middle East has held steady, and Indian refiners have increased their purchases of Urals crude from Russia, according to several oil analysts who spoke with Yahoo Finance.

At the same time, there are more than 1 billion barrels sitting in tankers at sea globally, the highest level for on-the-water buildups since 2023. In its latest report, the International Energy Agency called for the widely foreseen 2026 supply glut to reach an overhang of 4 million barrels per day.

Given the "extraordinary oversupply anticipated" in the oil market, Macquarie analysts wrote, the Australian bank is modeling a similarly bearish price outlook for 2026.

"As a base expectation, [current market conditions] sets up for punishing oversupply in Q4 '25/Q1 '26, which we believe may necessitate a pronounced step lower in oil prices and OPEC policy pivot," Macquarie analysts wrote in a note to clients, targeting $60.75 for Brent and $56.63 for WTI in 2026.

The base cases from all three banks assume that the market will be forced to react and cut back on production as "low 2025-2026 prices take their toll on non-OPEC supply, and very few projects come online later this decade after 15 years of low investment," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.

Even state-directed producers such as Saudi Aramco (2223.SR) and the UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the Middle East need to turn a profit, and other geopolitical factors like the war in Ukraine have complicated the picture.

At JPMorgan, strategists predict that without some market stabilization efforts, Brent could change hands in the $30s per barrel by 2027, a level not seen since the depths of the 2020 oil crash at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Such a move would bring prices near or below the break-even point of around $51 Brent and $43 WTI per barrel for US oil and gas operators.

But strategists at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs believe the oil and gas industry will be forced to act on limiting supply long before prices reach these extremes.

"The magnitude suggested by market imbalances is unlikely to fully materialize in practice. Adjustments are expected on both the supply and demand sides," JPMorgan strategists wrote.

"We expect the market will find equilibrium through a combination of rising demand — driven by lower prices — and a mix of voluntary and involuntary production cuts."

Source: finance.yahoo

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Commodity

Gold (GC=F) futures settled near $4,240 per ounce on Friday, closing out their fourth straight month of gains and bringing the yellow metal back within shouting distance of its record high on firming expectations for a December rate cut.

Dovish commentary from Federal Reserve officials has raised the odds that policymakers will decide to cut interest rates by at least 25 basis points next month. Since gold doesn’t produce income, its relative attractiveness improves when interest rates fall.

Gold hit a record high of $4,336 per ounce on Oct. 20 before falling about 10% through the first week of November. This year, the price of gold has risen more than 60%.

An easing in the US dollar (DX-Y. NYB) and expectations of continued fiscal spending and "run-it-hot" government policies heading into 2026 are also expected to support bullion prices.

"We have a tremendous deficit ... we also have a tremendous amount of government spending, and on top of that, we have a tremendous amount of central bank buying," Michele Schneider, Marketgauge.com chief strategist, told Yahoo Finance on Friday morning.

On Thanksgiving, President Trump said he aims to end the income tax, citing revenue expected from his tariff policy.

"Over the next couple of years, I think we'll substantially be cutting, and maybe cutting out completely ... income tax," Trump said. "We could be almost completely cutting it because the money we're taking in is going to be so large."

Trump's comments come after floating the idea earlier this month of a tariff “dividend of at least $2,000” for non-high-income earners.

“All of this [talk from Trump] is very inflationary, and that’s what gold is really responding to. I think $4,700 would be a good next target,” Schneider said, referring to her 2026 price forecast.

Following the largest one-day sell-off in over a decade, Wall Street analysts have remained bullish on the price of gold. The precious metal remains on pace for its best year since 1979, driven by central bank purchasing and increased inflows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

"We still expect continued central bank buying, alongside private investor flows under Fed easing, to lift gold prices to $4,900 by end-2026, with significant upside if the private investor diversification theme were to gain more traction," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote earlier this month.

Meanwhile, UBS recently raised its price target on the precious metal to $4,500 per ounce by mid-2026.

"Our view on gold remains bullish," UBS analysts wrote earlier this week. "We think gold’s role as a portfolio diversifier and geopolitical hedge is undiminished."