Good morning, you're tuned in to Markets Desk.
Meta's balance sheet is carrying some serious weight. The company disclosed future lease obligations tied to AI data centers have swelled to two hundred seventy nine billion dollars — a fifty three percent jump in just three months. Then, after the quarter closed, Zuckerberg signed another sixty eight billion in additional leases. The scale of that infrastructure bet is extraordinary, and it signals that Meta is treating AI buildout not as a priority but as an existential commitment.
Shifting to commodities, cotton is bouncing back Thursday morning, up seventy eight to one hundred twenty three points after a weaker Wednesday session. Worth noting, crude oil recovered more than five dollars a barrel overnight, and the Federal Reserve held rates steady at Wednesday's announcement — neither of those developments hurt sentiment in the soft commodities complex heading into the session.
And on the macro side, wealthy Americans are increasingly moving capital into London real estate, with sales above fifteen million pounds jumping ten percent, partly attributed to what brokers are calling Trump unease. Political uncertainty and cost-of-living pressures at home are pushing ultra-high-net-worth buyers toward prime British property, a notable capital flow story that speaks to broader confidence dynamics in the domestic economy.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
