Finance, Banking & Insurance

MENLO PARK – October 29, 2026 -- Meta Platforms raised the size of its Class A common stock offering to $25.0 billion from $22.5 billion and priced a parallel offering of 6.50% mandatory convertible preferred stock expected to net about $12.5 billion.

Meta sells 250 million depositary shares at $50 each

The depositary shares each represent a 1/20th interest in a share of newly issued 6.50% Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock. Underwriters hold a 30-day option on up to 37,500,000 additional depositary shares, which would lift net proceeds to about $14.3 billion. Meta plans to use the money for general corporate purposes.

The preferred stock carries a $1,000 liquidation preference per share. Dividends accumulate at 6.50% annually and are payable on February 15, May 15, August 15 and November 15, starting February 15, 2027. Meta can pay them in cash, in Class A common stock or in a combination of the two.

European Union – October 29, 2026 -- The number of retail clients receiving cross-border investment services in the EU/EEA rose 47% in 2025 from 2024 to about 15.5 million, according to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

That is almost twice the 2023 level. ESMA compiled the annual analysis with national competent authorities (NCAs), using data from investment firms across 30 jurisdictions.

Firm numbers rise 2% while client numbers surge

A total of 379 financial firms provided cross-border services to retail clients. That is 2% more than in 2024, so the client increase far outpaced firm growth.

Complaints stayed stable, down 0.2% from 2024.

Cyprus hosts 20% of passporting firms

Cyprus remained the main base for firms providing cross-border investment services in the EU/EEA, with 20% of passporting firms. Luxembourg followed with 14% and Germany with 12%.

United States – October 29, 2026 -- Only 14% of organizations using AI say it reduced their total workforce in the past year, down from the 32% that expected cuts a year earlier, according to McKinsey's State of AI 2026. Two-thirds report little or no AI-related change in employment.

Inside finance, Deloitte found that 84% of finance organizations have yet to redesign jobs or the nature of work around AI. AI is therefore landing on finance teams that look much like they did before.

US labor data projects 5% growth for accountants and auditors through 2035

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of accountants and auditors to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035. It expects about 115,300 openings a year, many of them replacing experienced people who move on or retire.

NORTH AMERICA – October 29, 2026 -- Finance leaders now answer for both AI trust and AI spending. In Deloitte's Finance Trends 2027 survey of more than 1,400 finance leaders, 48% oversee AI trust, covering the reliability, accuracy and explainability of AI output, and 48% manage AI spending and cost controls. More than two-thirds of the leaders holding these responsibilities took them on within the past three years.

Most organizations split the two duties by default. Cost went to a workstream built on usage dashboards and approval gates, and trust went to another built on governance frameworks and model policies. Alteryx argues that this split is the costly mistake.

Boston – October 29, 2026 -- Sycurio launched Sycurio.Analytics, an on-demand analytics suite that lets enterprises using its Sycurio.Digital platform pinpoint where customers abandon payments and where technical faults disrupt transactions. Centralized dashboards track payment volumes, conversion rates and payment service provider (PSP) performance.

Suite maps the digital payment journey from link creation to final outcome

The conversion module follows each digital payment through link creation and delivery, customer engagement, form completion, submission and final result. Enterprises can see the exact stage at which transactions drop off.

A failure-analysis function separates technical problems, such as PSP API timeouts, from card declines and insufficient funds. Sycurio says this lets businesses target preventable failures and reduce potential revenue loss.

New York – October 29, 2026 -- Cohen & Steers Total Return Realty Fund (NYSE: RFI) estimates it has distributed more than its income and capital gains, meaning part of its distribution payable on October 30, 2026 may be a return of capital.

Fund discloses payout sources under Section 19(a) notice

The notice breaks down the current distribution and the cumulative fiscal year-to-date distributions by source, per common share. The Fund states the amounts are estimates, are likely to change, and are not provided for tax reporting purposes.

Distributions can include long-term capital gains, short-term capital gains, net investment income and return of capital. A return of capital is not taxable but reduces a shareholder's tax basis in Fund shares.

McLean, Va. – October 29, 2026 -- Aldrich Capital Partners (ACP) has made a strategic investment in TempusDirect, a provider of third-party claims cost containment solutions for the U.S. property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, as the company enters its second decade.

TempusDirect earmarks funds for product, client services and business development

The Tempe, Arizona-based company, founded in 2016, plans to invest in product development, client services and business development. It will also advance automation and technology-driven efficiencies across its three-solution suite.

NEW YORK – October 29, 2026 -- Bloomberg launched BQuant Assistant, a conversational AI coding assistant that lets Bloomberg Terminal subscribers write Python code and query financial data across more than 22,000 fields using natural-language prompts. The tool is built into both BQuant Desktop and BQuant Enterprise.

BQuant Assistant generates BQL and PyBQL queries across all major asset classes

The assistant produces Bloomberg Query Language (BQL) and PyBQL queries covering equities, funds, fixed income, FX, commodities, indices and derivatives. The fields span reference, pricing, returns, derived analytics, fundamentals, valuations, sustainable finance data, risk metrics, estimates and economic data. It also writes code for screens and universes, and for visualizations using open source libraries such as Plotly and Jupyter Widgets.

NEW YORK – October 29, 2026 -- SignalMarkets, a prediction markets platform affiliated with Crypto.com, has launched its financial prediction markets platform and will host Signal Summit 2026, a free election-night event on Tuesday, November 3, in Boston and online.

SignalMarkets targets economic, financial, business and political events

The platform focuses on event-based trading across those four categories. It pitches an investment-oriented approach to market analysis and portfolio risk management. Founder Joel Shulman said expectations "can change rapidly" as new information emerges, and the summit is built to let participants watch those shifts and see how markets respond.

Signal Summit starts at 6 p.m. ET with live commentary on policy, inflation and rates

The program covers four areas:

NEW YORK – October 29, 2026 -- Talos, the institutional technology and data provider for digital asset trading and portfolio management, has hired Kelly Ye as Head of Research, putting a dedicated leader over a research program that follows liquidity, market structure and onchain finance.

Ye brings nearly two decades of finance experience, including 14 years in traditional markets

Ye will be based in New York. She held investment leadership roles in digital assets at Avenir Group and Decentral Park Capital. She also held research and product leadership roles at Fidelity Digital Asset Management and CoinDesk Indices. Most recently, she was building Coinbridge, a company focused on bridging the capital gap for tokenized real-world assets.

Ye holds a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics from Peking University and a master's degree in Operations Research from MIT. She is a CFA charterholder.