A directional trade is building in the U.S. options market as investors increasingly position for a sharp drop in long-term interest rates. Activity has concentrated in call options tied to long-duration U.S. Treasuries and in rate-sensitive corners of the equity market, notably utilities ETFs. Dow Jones market data show a notable pickup in call volumes for the iShares 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) and the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF. Both had been under pressure as long-term Treasury yields climbed, but the surge in bullish option positioning suggests some traders are now bracing for a reversal in rates. Steve Sosnick, Chief Strategist at Interactive Brokers, said rising call volume typically signals bullish sentiment in the underlying asset. In TLT's case, the message is direct: traders are shifting toward long-duration bonds, effectively betting that long-term yields will fall. Long-term yields have pushed to multidecade highs. At the time of writing, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield was 5.335% and the 30-year yield was 5.713%. The 2-year yield, which is more closely tied to monetary policy expectations, stood at 4.814% after previously climbing to a multiyear high. With bond prices moving inversely to yields, the run-up in long-term rates has weighed heavily on long-duration bondholders. FactSet data show TLT posted its worst monthly total return since December 2024 in September, taking its third-quarter drop to nearly 9%. On Wednesday, TLT slipped another 0.2%, leaving it down about 8.4% since 2026. Against that backdrop, the jump in call option activity following the selloff suggests some investors see the prior rate uptrend as vulnerable to a reversal. Similar setups have played out in recent years: when Treasury yields retreat quickly from elevated levels, long-duration bonds often lead the rebound, and assets highly sensitive to financing costs and discount rates—utilities, homebuilders and small caps—tend to rise as well. The trade is not simply a bet on a modest Federal Reserve adjustment to short-term policy rates. TLT holds Treasuries with maturities longer than 20 years, making it especially levered to long-term rate expectations. Being long TLT is essentially a wager that long-end yields can drop meaningfully from current highs. Utilities are also drawing renewed bullish positioning. The sector has long been viewed as bond-proxy exposure because of its steadier cash flows and dividend appeal, making valuations sensitive to moves in risk-free yields. Higher rates increase bond returns and can reduce the relative attractiveness of utility dividends; falling rates typically ease that pressure. The State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF was little changed on Wednesday, down less than 0.1%, but it has fallen roughly 10% over the past three months and was down 1.6% year to date as of Wednesday. Option activity has picked up alongside those declines, reflecting growing interest in a potential rebound. Sosnick cautioned that interpreting utilities options is more complicated than reading TLT positioning. The AI investment boom has started to reshape the traditional utilities playbook: data centers require enormous electricity loads, and as tech firms scale AI infrastructure, power generators and utilities are increasingly seen as indirect beneficiaries of that spending. That theme has been on display recently. Constellation Energy shares jumped this week after the company reached a nuclear power supply agreement with Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Google's parent. As of Tuesday, Constellation Energy was the second-largest holding in the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF, with a 7.6% weight. Sosnick said some of the bullishness in utilities options may reflect expectations of stronger power demand tied to AI infrastructure build-outs, not just interest-rate forecasts. Rising rates remain a central headwind for U.S. markets. The surge in long-term yields has pressured bonds and rate-sensitive equities and has periodically weighed on broader stocks. On Wednesday, the three major U.S. equity indices weakened, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite retreating from record closes in the prior session. Even so, technology leadership and the AI spending wave continue to support the major benchmarks, preventing equities from fully reverting to a traditional high-rate playbook. That backdrop makes the shift in options positioning more notable: TLT calls represent a cleaner expression of a long-rate decline, while utilities calls blend rate expectations with AI-driven electricity demand. After the 10-year yield moved above 5.3% and the 30-year rose past 5.7%, a cohort of options traders appears to be positioning for an alternative scenario. If long-term yields fall quickly from multidecade highs, long-dated Treasuries and other rate-sensitive assets that have been hit hardest in recent months could become among the strongest rebound trades.

EV charging startup Xeal is betting that idle charging stations can help meet surging power needs from AI computing. CoinDesk reported the New York-based company plans to raise about $2 billion in debt financing over the next 18 months to build and roll out modular GPU compute units powered by existing charger connections. Xeal operates thousands of chargers across roughly 500 cities in the U.S. and Canada, concentrated in upscale apartment buildings, high-end retail malls, and office properties. CEO Nihal Balladwaj said contracts with utilities allow 24/7 charging, yet average utilization across its network is under 10%, leaving substantial unused electrical capacity. Xeal estimates its idle power could continuously support about 130,000 households or roughly 110,000 NVIDIA AI chips. The company's new business line aims to sell that unused power to AI workloads by colocating compute next to charger sites. In December, Xeal plans to deploy NVIDIA AI server racks beside charging stations at parking facilities in Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. Each rack will be placed inside a custom-protected metal container about the size of a single parking space and will draw power directly from the existing charging-station electrical lines. Each container will hold about 48 NVIDIA AI chips. Balladur said Xeal has already secured orders for 100 compute containers but declined to name customers. Over the next 18 months, the company targets raising about $2 billion to manufacture and deploy 1,000 containers. The build-out would amount to about 50,000 GPUs in total and roughly 60 megawatts of combined power capacity. Xeal has previously raised $540 million in equity across two rounds, including a $400 million Series B in 2022. Balakrishnan said the company intends to pursue $2 billion in low-interest asset-backed loans and project financing to fund the expansion, arguing Xeal's ability to build a large charging network with $540 million in venture capital strengthens its case with lenders. The initiative highlights how companies outside the traditional AI sector are trying to monetize the electricity demand created by the data-center boom. Still, the publication noted fundraising has become more difficult for some AI infrastructure developers, and Xeal may not secure its full target even if early deployments perform well. Xeal's main edge is grid access. AI data-center developers often face multi-year waits for interconnection, pushing some to consider alternatives such as gas turbines or nuclear power, each with long permitting and construction timelines. Batteries can serve as backup but cannot support continuous operations and must be recharged after only a few hours of use. Baldevi said, "We can launch our reasoning and computing services in just a few weeks, rather than waiting years. Funding is the catalyst that helps us build a sustainable computing infrastructure." Balladur co-founded Xeal in 2019. The company sells chargers to property owners, who typically recover their investment within five years when EV usage is high. With U.S. EV sales falling short of expectations for reasons including vehicle costs, Xeal says its stations average a 92% idle rate, making many property owners hesitant to add more chargers. Baldevagi described the dynamic as a chicken-and-egg problem: "Property clients say, 'I don't know if there are EV owners in my community, so I'm unsure whether to install more chargers.'" Xeal says AI demand changes the economics. Ballardwaj is offering building owners site-rental payments to host a GPU container in parking garages served by Xeal chargers. He said the payback period improves from five years to about two and a half years, with no capital expenditure or operating costs for the property owner because Xeal covers electricity costs. He added that compute demand is strong enough to justify additional charger deployments. Xeal said its total power capacity across all sites is about 200 megawatts and is growing by roughly 10 megawatts per quarter. The company claims that by using existing infrastructure and monetizing power through computing, it can expand charging projects across the U.S. without federal subsidies or utility incentives, helping make the broader ecosystem self-sustaining.

Morgan Stanley's crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) amassed $1 billion in assets within six months, according to Amy Oldenburg, speaking at TOKEN2049. The comments were reported by Cointelegraph.

Duelbits says it has traced the on-chain movement of funds stolen in last month's hack and identified suspected parties along with related wallets, exchange links and account information. According to an on-chain message cited by Defimon Alerts and reported by ME News on Oct. 8 (UTC+8), the company is proposing a bounty-style settlement. Under the offer, the counterparties may keep a pre-agreed portion of the funds if they return the rest. Duelbits said that, if a formal agreement is signed and repayment is completed, it will not pursue criminal charges or further legal action. Foresight News previously reported that on Sept. 24, Duelbits' hot wallet lost about $7 million after a private key was compromised. (Source: Foresight News)

Indian equities fell 1.4% on Thursday, sliding to their lowest level in 32 months and erasing Rs 10 lakh crore in investor wealth in a single session. Foreign investors have been net sellers for nine straight trading days, dumping $4.8 billion, taking year-to-date outflows to a record $30.4 billion. Market sentiment has also been weighed down by the Reserve Bank of India's 25-basis-point rate hike on Wednesday to 5.5%, alongside a 4.2% weekly jump in Brent crude to $104 a barrel. Indian stocks are down about 15% so far this year, making the market one of the worst performers globally.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that Ripple Prime has started offering financing that provides leveraged exposure to stocks and equity indices via total return swaps, charging clients financing fees. The service follows Ripple's $1.25 billion acquisition of multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road in 2025. The deal expanded Ripple's capabilities to clear trades, finance investment positions, and process transactions across equities, bonds, foreign exchange and digital assets. According to the report, the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF pays Ripple a fee set at the overnight bank funding rate plus 4 percentage points. At current rates, that implies an annualized financing cost of about 8%.

Cointelegraph reported that Standard Chartered, which oversees $74B, is expanding its crypto custody services into Singapore as it targets institutional clients.

Standard Chartered Bank is preparing to roll out a digital-asset custody offering in Singapore aimed at institutional clients and accredited investor corporate customers, according to CoinDesk. The service is expected to cover selected cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, and will be delivered through the bank's existing financing and securities services platform, subject to regulatory requirements. The bank has not announced a launch date and has not specified which digital assets will be supported in Singapore. It also has not clarified whether the product will extend beyond custody to include settlement and transfer functions. Standard Chartered already provides digital-asset custody in the UAE, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, and has been an early supporter of institutional custodian Zodia Custody. The Singapore initiative is positioned as part of the bank's broader investment in institutional digital-asset infrastructure, including integrating crypto custody into its securities services and broader asset-services business. The bank said its financing and securities operations will serve as the operational base for the new custody capability, supporting multiple stages of the asset lifecycle from custody to services following tokenization. Tokenization refers to representing traditional financial assets in digital form on a blockchain network, which can require both secure storage of the digital tokens and recordkeeping and servicing linked to the underlying assets. Patrick Lee, CEO of Standard Chartered Singapore and CEO for ASEAN and South Asia, said Singapore's financial innovation ecosystem is driving rising institutional demand for trusted digital-asset solutions, and that as activity grows the market needs reliable infrastructure to support the transfer, custody and servicing of tokenized assets. The announcement did not reference any retail availability. The Singapore plans come as Standard Chartered advances its deal to acquire Zodia Custody's regulated custody business. In May 2026, after Zodia's shareholders and noteholders accepted a nonbinding offer, Standard Chartered agreed to acquire the regulated custody unit. Previous reporting by crypto.news said the transaction would fold Zodia's regulated custody business into Standard Chartered's financing and securities services division, alongside plans to create an independent platform, Zodia Solutions, under SC Ventures to provide digital-asset infrastructure to banks and other financial institutions. The deal remains subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. Standard Chartered and Northern Trust co-founded Zodia Custody in 2020. Other investors include SBI Holdings, Emirates NBD and National Australia Bank. In June 2026, Zodia Custody obtained a payment institution license from Luxembourg's Commission for the Supervision of the Financial Sector, adding to its existing MiCA license and enabling regulated custody and transfer services for stablecoins across the European Union. Zodia has said combining the licenses would help institutions manage electronic money tokens and other crypto assets within a regulated framework, while reducing operational complexity and counterparty risk that can arise when custody and transfer services are split across providers. Zodia holds regulatory licenses in multiple markets, including Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, Australia and the UK.

PepsiCo reported third-quarter results, posting net profit of $3.05 billion. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.34 per share, topping analysts' consensus estimate of $2.29. Revenue totaled $25.27 billion, also above the $24.88 billion forecast, as both sales and earnings beat Wall Street expectations.