Amazon's Build-Out Outran Its Cash Flow by $42 Billion Over a Year | Binance Estimates a $6.3 Billion Breach | Ottawa Buys Into Cohere

$42.4 billion.

That is how far Amazon's capital spending outran the cash its business brought in over the past 12 months. A year ago, it had cash to spare. The swing came mainly from far more spending on its build-out. AWS sales grew 39% last quarter. Amazon's margin hit a record. Its chief said that spending will be meaningfully higher next year.

Thursday's number was Alphabet's gap for a single quarter. Amazon's covers a full year.

• Early Friday, Nasdaq-100 futures were down more than 2%. S&P 500 futures were down about 1%. Today is the last trading day of October.
• Amazon (AMZN) was quoted about 7% lower early Friday. Its sales and profit came in a bit short of forecasts. Intel (INTC) was quoted about 25% lower. Its sales outlook for this quarter fell short.
• Reddit (RDDT) was quoted about 22% lower. Its outlook and user count fell short. Its chief blamed AI answers on Google.
• Third-quarter labor costs land at 8:30 a.m. Thursday's data showed growth at a 3.4% rate last quarter. In September, core prices were up 3.1% from a year earlier.

Brent Is Set for a Fourth Monthly Gain. Oil for This Winter Costs About $28 More Than Oil for Next Winter.

Brent for December settled near $115 on Thursday. It was on course for a gain of about 14% in October. Early Friday, oil for next December cost about $28 less. A gap that wide signals buyers want barrels now. They expect supply to ease later.

The December contract ends today. Quoted Brent then shifts to January, which is a few dollars lower. Early Friday, front-month U.S. crude was near $104. Heating oil was up about 8 cents a gallon.

Last quarter, some of the war premium reached refiners. BP's profit rose to $8.5 billion, on its preferred measure. It credited much higher refining margins. It cut its net debt by more than a third in one quarter. Chevron and Exxon reported early Friday.

For Households, the Costly Barrel Is the One Arriving Now

Two readings fit the curve. Supply is tight now. Or the premium sits mostly in contracts that are about to end. Gulf exports are near prewar levels, Trading Economics estimates. As of Thursday, Iran had not answered a U.S. letter, its state news agency said. In September, spending was flat after inflation, and income after inflation fell.

SIGNAL 1: Cohere Closed the First Part of a Round of Up to C$7 Billion. Canada's Government Is Buying In.

Cohere said it closed the first part of a round that seeks up to C$7 billion. If fully raised, it would value the AI firm at C$35.7 billion. A European retail group, Schwarz, leads it. Nvidia came back. Cohere has not said how much it has raised yet.

Canada's government is among the new investors. The size of its stake has not been disclosed. Bloomberg put the price at about US$20.5 billion. That is roughly triple a year ago. The two figures likely measure different things. On Thursday, PMD said South Korea's state fund was the biggest backer in FuriosaAI's round.

WHAT RESOLVES THIS

Later closes, the total raised, and the terms of Ottawa's stake.

SIGNAL 2: Binance Put a Breach's Impact at About $6.3 Billion. About Half Is Frozen.

Binance said a breach had an estimated impact of about $6.3 billion. About $3 billion has been frozen on-chain, it said. Tether and Circle froze about $2.4 billion of their coins. Binance said it will cover all losses with its own funds. On reported figures, that tops any crypto theft on record. The old record was about $1.5 billion.

Binance said a hacked engineer's laptop may have let an attacker in. Analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis tied it to a group linked to North Korea. Binance and law enforcement have not confirmed that. Withdrawals were still paused early Friday. Bitcoin started falling before Binance said anything. The drop began in the hour Amazon and Intel reported. Early Friday, it was near $77,500.

WHAT RESOLVES THIS

Binance expects to let users pull funds again within two days. It also plans fresh proof of reserves once fixes are done.

SIGNAL 3: Coinbase's Prediction Markets Hit a $200 Million Yearly Pace. Kalshi Is Valued Near Coinbase.

Coinbase said prediction markets passed a $200 million yearly sales pace. Its sales fell by more than a third from a year ago. Retail trading fell by more than half. About half its net sales now come from subscriptions and services, not trading. Most of its profit came from paper gains on crypto it holds.

This week, Kalshi raised money at a $40 billion price tag. That is close to Coinbase's own market value. Coinbase (COIN) was quoted about 5% lower early Friday. Binance and Big Tech also weighed on crypto stocks.

WHAT RESOLVES THIS

Trading sales this quarter, and how fast prediction markets keep growing.

• Platinum Equity agreed to buy EDP, which sells propane. Oaktree, a private lender, joined three banks in the financing. Another buyout firm is selling a defense circuit-board maker to Amphenol. Neither deal came with a price.
• The Bank of Japan will sell its stock funds about 2.6 times faster starting in January. It held rates near 1.25%. One member wanted a hike.
• Strategy's bitcoin per share is down this year. It sold some bitcoin last quarter to help pay its preferred dividends. Bitcoin now trades about 3% above what Strategy paid, on average.

Private Market Trends Driving Public Market Moves

The spenders' stocks fell. Private and state money paid up.

Public prices reset every day. Private marks do not. Overnight, Amazon was quoted about 7% lower after a soft forecast. Bloomberg says Cohere's price is about triple last year's. A government is buying in. Kalshi is valued near Coinbase. One reading: private buyers see a long runway. Another: they have not yet had to price a bad quarter.

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