Meta Platforms said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit jumped more than threefold, as the social media giant's revenue climbed sharply, adding to confidence that the firm's AI spending is improving the business.

Higher petrol prices and airfares pushed US inflation to 3.7% in September, adding pressure on households and the Federal Reserve weeks before the midterm elections.

US chipmaker AMD has joined the $1 trillion valuation club as investors buy into stocks tied to heavy artificial intelligence spending. At around 5:10 p.m. CEST on Monday, the company’s shares were up 9.4% at $612, extending a week-long rally that added about $200 billion to its market value. Second-quarter revenue rose 50% year on year to $11.5 billion as data centre revenue more than doubled. AMD said it expects data centre sales to accelerate in the second half of 2026.

Anthropic’s pre-IPO secondary-market valuation has climbed above $2 trillion, more than doubling from the $965 billion valuation set in its latest $65 billion Series H round that closed at the end of May. The company’s annualised revenue run rate had surpassed $65 billion by the end of July. Investors are now waiting for Anthropic’s S-1 registration statement to be made public.

Europe’s gas stocks are unusually low, with storage only 5% full at the end of July, 12 percentage points below last year and 16 percentage points under the five-year average. The EU has loosened its refill requirements to as low as 75%, but a tightening supply outlook tied to the war against Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is complicating efforts. At the same time, more U.S. LNG cargoes are flowing to Asia, leaving the bloc’s 90% storage target effectively unattainable, according to Montel.

Oxford Economics forecasts global food prices will rise 11.8% in 2026, with grains, fruit and vegetables, and dairy expected to be hit hardest. After Europe’s heatwave, cereals trade group Coceral cut its combined EU27 and UK grain harvest forecast to 286.6 million tonnes. Germany’s Farmers’ Association has warned the country’s grain output is expected to fall 7% to 41.9 million tonnes after drought and heatwaves.

Infineon reported results for its third fiscal quarter, with revenue rising 13% year on year to 4.2 billion euros. Profit increased 39% to 423 million euros. The company said demand from AI data centres was the main driver of growth.

BP said it has begun marketing its entire oil and gas business in the UK North Sea, a portfolio of five production hubs employing about 1,100 people. In 2025, the assets produced around 117,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, or about 5% of BP’s global oil and gas output. The company said it is seeking to focus capital on higher-value opportunities and believes the business would be better positioned under another owner. Any deal would be subject to regulatory approval and is expected to complete by the end of 2026.

Faster deployment of wind, solar and heat pumps allowed the EU to replace 8.8 billion cubic meters of LNG in 2024, around two-thirds of its Qatari LNG imports that year, a study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said. If the bloc meets its existing rollout plans over the next five years—adding 4 million heat pumps, 75GW of solar and 22GW of wind each year—gas demand could fall by around 25% by 2030. The report said the shift would sharply reduce reliance on LNG imports. It added that the trend creates structural downside pressure on gas- and LNG-linked commodity assets.