MARKET WRAPS

STOCKS: Stocks were mostly higher, with a slight loss for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a substantial rebound for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite. Fears about tech companies' AI-infrastructure debt loads abated.

TREASURYS: Treasury yields rose as traders weighed the outlook for Federal Reserve policy.

FOREX: The U.S. dollar rose against a basket of rivals in anticipation of more Fed rate hikes.

COMMODITIES: The most actively traded December oil futures contract slipped in New York as traders balanced President Donald Trump's waiver of some sanctions on Russian imports against continued disruptions in Middle East supplies.

HEADLINES

Trump Says He Would Be Open to Meeting With Putin and Xi

WASHINGTON-President Trump said Monday that he would be open to

meeting with the leaders of Russia and China to discuss denuclearization.

Trump's comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported that

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed that he, Trump and Chinese

leader Xi Jinping meet next month to talk about Ukraine in an attempt to

negotiate an end to the four-year conflict that would favor Moscow.

"We would schedule a meeting based on the denuclearization, and that's

a very positive thing for the world," Trump told reporters Monday. "I

just heard about it. If they'd like to have it, I think it would be held

in China."

U.S. Home-Builder Sentiment Sinks to 14-Year Low

Confidence among U.S. home builders has slumped to its lowest level in

14 years from a mix of high mortgage rates, inflated costs and worsening

labor conditions.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, a gauge of builder

confidence in the market for newly built single family housing, fell

three points to 29 in October. That is the lowest reading since June

2012. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected the reading

to edge just slightly lower to 31.

Prospective home buyers are being deterred by mortgage rates that have

climbed well above 7% in recent weeks, along with higher gas prices and

inflation, NAHB Chairman Bill Owens said Monday.

Jamie Dimon's National-Security Pledge Finances $230 Billion in First

Year

JPMorgan Chase says it has financed $230 billion of projects through

its $1.5 trillion national-security initiative it announced last year,

meant to ensure the largest U.S. bank is doing its part to protect the

economy from supply-chain disruptions and threats from abroad.

The "security and resiliency initiative" is one of JPMorgan's latest

flagship projects, leveraging its more than $4 trillion balance sheet to

invest in companies and projects that executives see as critical to the

U.S. economy. That means directly investing in defense contractors,

energy suppliers and heavy industrial companies, as well as arranging

loans and other investments for them.

To some extent, JPMorgan is taking a victory lap for work it would

have done anyway. Counting toward the $230 billion total announced on

Monday is the $125 billion merger of Dominion Energy and NextEra, which

bankers have admitted they would have done with or without the new

program. (The full merger value isn't what is counted.)

Quantinuum Sees Path to Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing by 2029 With New

Milestone

Quantinuum says it hit a technical milestone that puts it on a path to

achieve fully accurate and reliable quantum computers by 2029.

The quantum-computing company said it has achieved a record-setting

result on a problem that has bedeviled the industry for years: the

tendency for the "qubits" at the center of a quantum computer to produce

errors based on tiny disturbances in their environments.

Quantinuum said it has developed an approach to detect and correct

these errors that failed just five times in one million operations,

indicating 99.9995% fidelity. The company believes its result leads the

industry in fidelity.

Unilever Agrees to Sell Welly Bandage Business to Private-Equity Firm

Unilever has struck an agreement to sell Welly, a brand known for its

colorful bandages, to private-equity firm Forward Consumer Partners, the

companies' executives told The Wall Street Journal.

The deal marks Unilever's latest effort to clean up its sprawling

portfolio of businesses after agreeing earlier this year to merge its

food segment with spice giant McCormick.

DHS Orders DeepSeek Technology Removed From Federal Civilian IT Systems

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian

agencies to remove artificial-intelligence technology developed by

China's DeepSeek from their information technology systems.

The order also bars future purchases of DeepSeek's products and

services, according to a notice published by DHS.

The restrictions extend to products developed by DeepSeek affiliates,

as well as third-party products and services built using DeepSeek

implementations.

Cleveland-Cliffs Revenue Rises on Higher Volumes, Selling Price

Cleveland-Cliffs' third-quarter revenue grew as the company sold more

steel products and at higher prices.

The results marked the steel producer's strongest quarter in three

years, Chief Executive Lourenco Goncalves said. He added that the

company's 2027 outlook has improved in recent months, helped by domestic

trade policy.

The stock gained 14% to $13.76 in premarket trading.

Mattel Names Peter Griffith Chief Financial Officer, Replacing Paul Ruh

Mattel is replacing its top finance executive, just weeks after Chief

Executive Ynon Kreiz decamped to become co-CEO of Skydance, the

entertainment giant formed by the $81 billion merger of Paramount and

Warner Bros. Discovery.

Mattel on Monday said it has hired Amgen executive Peter Griffith as

its new chief financial officer, replacing Paul Ruh, who joined the El

Segundo, Calif., company as finance chief in May 2025.

Griffith, who also is joining the Mattel board, will report to Roger

Lynch, who stepped down as CEO of media company Conde Nast this month to

succeed Kreiz as Mattel's chairman and CEO.

KKR Sent Formal Objection by EU Over Information Provided in NetCo Deal

The European Union's competition watchdog sent a formal statement of

objections to KKR over concerns it supplied officials with false or

misleading information as part of an investigation into the investment

firm's multibillion-dollar purchase of Telecom Italia unit NetCo.

The European Commission said on Monday that it provisionally found

that the group provided what it said was incorrect or misleading

information linked to the terms of existing long-term wholesale access

agreements.

The European Commission had unconditionally approved the deal in May

2024, but opened an investigation in July 2025 following complaints from

third parties.

Silgan to Combine With Trivium Packaging in $3.4 Billion Deal

Silgan Holdings has agreed to combine with Trivium Packaging, creating

a global supplier of metal packaging products for consumer products.

The all-cash deal values Trivium at about $3.4 billion, including

debt, the companies said Monday.

Silgan said it will combine both its Metal Containers segment and its

Food and Beverage Flat Cap Closures businesses with Trivium, creating

Silgan Metal Containers and Closures-a supplier of metal packaging

products with operations principally in North America and Europe.

TALKING POINT AI Agents Trading Stocks While You Sleep? Charles Schwab's CEO Is Skeptical

Rick Wurster says there is only so much that artificial-intelligence agents can do for Charles Schwab customers. Even when they are the closest of friends.

For Wurster, Schwab's chief executive, this was no hypothetical; he recently met an older woman who described OpenAI's ChatGPT as her best friend. She messages her digital companion all day, and even bids it good night. But when it comes time to make major money decisions, the customer picks up the phone to call her financial adviser at Schwab.