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US-China Section 301 tariff exclusions on 178 Chinese product lines lapse Nov. 10 with no extension, though the Busan trade truce now runs to Jan. 10, 2027.

Crude oil is the world's most geopolitically sensitive commodity - 100 million barrels consumed every single day, with OPEC controlling 30% of supply and nearly 75% of proven reserves. A deep walkthrough of WTI vs Brent benchmarks, why supply and demand are both stubbornly inelastic in the short term, how geopolitical risk premiums add 10–30% to prices, what crack spreads reveal about refinery economics, and what the energy transition means for long-term demand.

OpenAI (US) closed a first tranche of an $11B round from SoftBank and MGX, at a reported $1.25T valuation.

US-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks run two days in Abu Dhabi, with EU, French, German and UK officials present.

Gross domestic product is the single number economists reach for when they want to know whether a country is growing or shrinking. A plain-English walkthrough of what GDP actually measures - the market value of all finished goods and services produced inside a country's borders - the three ways it can be calculated, why real GDP matters more than the nominal headline, what GDP per capita reveals about living standards, and the large slices of economic life the number quietly leaves out.

The extra 24% duty stays on hold to January 10, a 10% tariff remains, and Beijing may adjust to US 301 duties.

Fal (US), an AI inference platform, raised at a $16B valuation (about $1.3B).

A headline that says the economy grew 5% can be almost entirely inflation. This lesson separates the two GDP figures every economist keeps side by side - nominal GDP, measured at current-year prices, and real GDP, measured at constant base-year prices - and shows why only the second one tells you whether people can actually buy more. Covers the rough subtraction that gets you from one to the other, how the gap compounds across decades of historical comparisons, and why statistical agencies keep moving the base year.

Zipline (US), the autonomous drone delivery company, raised $1.5B to expand its logistics network.

Russia will join US-mediated Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11, and the MOEX Russia index and oil markets are tracking the outcome.

If real GDP strips inflation out of the headline number, something has to measure that inflation - and it isn't CPI. The GDP deflator is the ratio of nominal to real GDP expressed as an index, and it covers everything GDP covers: investment goods, government purchases and exports, not just the consumer basket. A walkthrough of how it's built, why it disagrees with CPI, why it gets revised repeatedly, and how to use it to tell price-driven growth apart from real production.

Shield AI (US) agreed to acquire radar maker Echodyne for $5.3B.

Nooks (US), an AI sales platform, raised $500M.

A country can have an enormous economy and a poor population - total GDP can't tell the two apart, which is why analysts divide it by the number of people. This lesson covers what GDP per capita reveals about typical living standards, why the real and PPP-adjusted versions are the only ones worth comparing across borders, the rough bands that separate advanced from developing economies, and the two things the average still hides: unequal distribution and population growth eating into the headline.

Sentra (Israel), a data security company that protects corporate data from AI agents, raised a $150M Series C led by Capital One Ventures.

Nebius acquired Inferize, a 10-month-old Israeli stealth AI startup that reduces idle GPU capacity, in a deal estimated at $100–150M.

Hypersonica (Europe) raised a €100M Series B led by Lightspeed and General Catalyst.

VÆRIDION (Germany), an electric regional aircraft developer, raised €124M.

GDP = C + I + G + (X − M) is the formula behind almost every GDP headline you'll read - the expenditure approach, the most widely reported way to calculate output. A breakdown of the four spending components: consumption, by far the largest at roughly 68% of U.S. GDP; business investment in equipment, structures, and inventory at about 17%; government spending on both consumption and investment; and net exports, which runs negative for most developed economies with a trade deficit.

TEKEVER (Portugal), the defence-tech unicorn, announced a €520M Series D and plans for a Nordic presence in Odense.

Corridian (US) emerged from stealth with a $38M seed to build large autonomous underwater military drones.

Firmly (US) raised a $15M Series A led by Squarepoint, with JPMorgan Payments and Mastercard participating, for AI shopping-agent tools for retailers.

Anaheim Bio (Netherlands) raised €40M to develop a treatment for calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease.

Applied Compute (US), founded by ex-OpenAI researchers, raised $350M at a $3.25B valuation, led by Elad Gil, for custom enterprise AI. Its run rate has reached $100M.