ONE BIG THING

Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta on why he’s going public about having his DNA mapped

Mikel Arteta is known for strict discipline and for a management approach that follows the “aggregation of marginal gains” rule. Each incremental improvement may seem insignificant, but together they make the difference between winning and losing, and in Arteta’s world, there isn't much of an alternative. As Bill Shankly, one of the all-time great managers in English football, once said: “If you are first, you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.” 

For Arteta, health is a “foundational” part of elite-level leadership. That is why he agreed to have his whole genome sequenced to better understand how his body works and potential future health risks.

Arteta—who had a serious heart condition when he was young—said the test revealed an increased likelihood of celiac disease and a level of lactose intolerance. 

• Read more: Why has Mikel Arteta decided to go public on having his own DNA mapped? - Kamal Ahmed
• HMRC opened probe into Man City’s tax affairs in 2018 - FT

The McStruggle is real: McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski is fighting to revamp the dominant burger chain

The $5 Sausage McMuffin meal didn’t do the trick. Neither did the mix-and-match deal that let customers choose, say, the Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets for $6. Growth has slowed. Customer visits have reportedly dropped. Wall Street has taken notice: McDonald’s shares are now down 32% from an all-time high in February.

CEO Chris Kempczinski has been trying to convince customers to return to the Golden Arches. But so far, the company’s barrage of new meal deals and aggressive marketing to promote them have come up short. 

What’s worse, some of its efforts to repair those downward trends have backfired, Fortune’s Phil Wahba reports.

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Retired Warren Buffett now spends his evenings glued to YouTube—watching Glenn Close clips, 1950s commercials, and Uzbekistani talent shows - Preston Fore

SLOW AHEAD

AI is heading toward a cash flow negative inflection point, and spending will slow in 2027, Wall Street thinks

The AI industry is steaming toward an inflection point: The moment when the industry, as a whole, goes cash flow negative and the hyperscalers start slowing down their capex spending on data centers. This chart from Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia Business School shows “how quickly this financing constraint is tightening,” he wrote in a recent paper. “On current estimates, capex will surpass the five firms’ [Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet's] combined operating cash flow for the first time in 2026.”

“Internal cash generation remains substantial, but it is no longer sufficient to finance the projected pace of investment without greater reliance on external capital or financing structures that shift assets and obligations away from the operating companies’ balance sheets,” he wrote.

Other analysts are already predicting that 2027 will be the year when AI capex starts to decelerate. “We expect the market will start thinking about a potential peak year in 2027 soon, likely after 3Q EPS and midterms,” Wells Fargo’s Ohsung Kwon told clients this week. “Most investors now agree that AI capex will likely slow meaningfully in 2028.”

The pace of spending simply can’t be sustained, according to Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “AI-linked investment probably will continue to grow very strongly, but hyperscaler capex growth looks set to moderate in 2027, while supply constraints and higher borrowing costs increasingly will bite,” they said in a recent email.

“Analysts’ forecasts for the five largest hyperscalers point to nominal capex rising at a materially slower pace in 2027 than in 2026,” they said. “Even so, the projected slowdown deserves attention. Supply-side constraints also are becoming a growing issue for the tech sector, with bottlenecks in the supply of advanced chips and electrical equipment, power grid capacity, and construction labor and materials increasingly biting.”

Higher borrowing costs driven by rising yields on long-dated bonds will crimp the plans of firms already holding leverage, they said. But “they are unlikely to derail the buildout while financing remains readily available and the largest tech firms continue to expect exceptionally high returns from AI.”

• SpaceX looks to raise $40bn to buy Nvidia chips in financing led by Apollo - FT

THE MARKETS

Traders hit pause after the S&P 500’s all-time high

The S&P 500 notched a new record high yesterday and traders seem to be using that as an opportunity to take profits today. Markets sold off marginally across Asia and Europe, and U.S. futures are down before the open in New York.

French bonds had another relief rally over the last 24 hours. But this morning yields are climbing again: The 10-year OAT was at 4.88% at the time of writing.

• S&P 500 futures were down 0.07% this morning. The index rose 0.58% yesterday to a new record high at 7,818.93. 
• In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.48% in early trading, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.44% before lunch.
• Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI was down 1.98%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.92%. India’s Nifty 50 was down 0.84%. China’s CSI 300 was closed for a national holiday.
• Brent crude was $101 per barrel.
• Bitcoin was at $83,721.

Dan Ives is back and—you guessed it—is bullish on tech stocks

Dan Ives, the legendary tech bull who left Wedbush earlier this year, has resurfaced with his first research note from his new merchant bank, Yorkville Ives. Unsurprisingly, his first call is to be bullish on tech stocks—49 of them, to be exact.

“Supply, not demand, defines this phase of the AI Revolution cycle. We believe we are early days of this AI buildout and remain very bullish on prospects for the tech winners over the next few years. The infrastructure layer remains supply constrained through at least 2027,” he and his colleagues advised. His top five picks are Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir, Apple, and CrowdStrike.

If France cannot solve its ‘egregious’ bond situation, the ‘sell-off risks becoming self-fulfilling’—and Le Pen awaits her moment

Investors are still trying to figure out how much financial trouble the French government is in. French bonds have sold off sharply in recent weeks, and yields on them are approaching record highs. 

At Piper Sandler, Nancy Lazar and Karina Mayer think the situation is “egregious.” “Political uncertainty has prompted markets to finally blow the whistle on France’s egregious fiscal stance, which has seen government spending and taxes exceed 50% of GDP for 35 years,” they said in a recent note.

“France faces real structural fiscal and political issues which makes it challenging to see what can make the market turn,” Peter Schaffrik and his colleagues at RBC said in an email seen by Fortune. If the government passes its 2027 budget, it would deliver some consolidation in finances, he said. “But beyond next year, France would need to deliver a similar pace of consolidation for four further years to achieve a 3% budget deficit by 2030— a pace no French government has sustained in the modern era.”

“The [bond] sell-off risks becoming self-fulfilling. As spreads widen, refinancing costs rise, which widens the deficit further and justifies wider spreads still.”

Waiting in the wings is Marine Le Pen and her hard-right National Rally party. Elections are expected in April of next year to succeed President Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen consistently polls at about a third of the vote—enough to get her to the final round of voting and a plausible shot at the presidency. She is proposing harsh spending cuts to services for immigrants, the elimination of entire state agencies, public sector job attrition, and the abolition of more than 120 overlapping taxes, according to Macquarie’s Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry.

“Le Pen's plan ... is likely intended to be a message to bond traders that she is mindful of the burden of rising yields, and has the contours of a plan to address it,” they told clients.

CHART OF THE DAY

Are you sick right now? It’s most likely a common cold

Most common viruses like the flu or Covid-19 are in decline right now, according to data from the CDC. Except for the common cold. For some reason, it’s surging in the U.S. “This is higher than any rate since 2019 (last season on record on the CDC website). A fall [autumn] rise is expected, but this one is big,” according to epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, who writes a well-regarded Substack on disease.

“Unfortunately, there's not much you can do for a cold, other than sleep, lots of water, and staying home while you’re sick,” she says.

NUMBER OF THE DAY

90% of mortgage holders

The percentage of homeowners with mortgages whose interest rate is now below the current market average, 7.3%, thus discouraging them from moving. Mortgage rates have risen more than 1% since February, according to Goldman Sachs’ Pierfrancesco Mei.

THE FRONT PAGES TODAY

Oil rises as concerns over Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia eclipse supply recovery - CNBC

CDC: Monitoring Russian plague risk, "prepared" for any threat - Axios

Inside Bessent’s Treasury: Tension, Turnover and Unmet Economic Goals - WSJ

Iran Ramps Up Ship Attacks in Hormuz as Oil, Gas Flows Rise - Bloomberg

How the Houthis Triumphed on the Red Sea and Sparked a New War in Yemen - NYT

Inside the Gaza terror tunnel Hamas used to launch one of the bloodiest Oct. 7 slaughters - NY Post

ONE MORE THING

The Singapore government has a new algorithm to get its employees breeding again

Singapore’s resident total fertility rate fell to 0.87 births per woman in 2025, well below the population replacement rate. The government has decided to do something about it by launching FirstDate, a dating site that matches government employees with each other. 

To avoid the pitfalls of apps like Tinder and Hinge—where women are vastly outnumbered by men and are therefore overwhelmed by choice while men receive very few matches—FirstDate uses a Nobel Prize-winning matching theory algorithm. Users fill in their details and attempt to match with other singles. But the algorithm only shows users mutual matches where neither of the two participants would prefer others over their assigned matches. Once users receive a match, they have 72 hours to decide whether or not to connect.

By limiting users’ choices, and by only offering them choices where—according to their own profiles—there are no better partners, Singapore is hoping to improve the success rate of dating. “Swipe fatigue ends here,” the pilot program’s website says. 

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