Rio Tinto and Glencore are in talks about a deal that would create the world’s largest mining company with a market value of more than $200 billion, as a scramble for copper and other metals drives an industry return to big acquisitions. Glencore and Rio Tinto separately confirmed that talks are under way over an all-share deal, revisiting a tie-up that was first discussed around a year ago when the U.S. and other countries began reshaping supply chains for metals and minerals essential to industries such as defense, automaking and semiconductor chips. The expectation is that Rio Tinto would buy Glencore by way of a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement, the companies said. It underscores a shift in thinking among mining executives, who had grown leery about doing big deals after companies overpaid for assets more than a decade ago just as a China-led boom in commodities began to lose steam. Investors at the time pressured companies including Rio Tinto and Glencore to focus on returns, including higher dividends. “Mining megamergers are back,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to clients.

The Swiss market ended modestly higher on Thursday despite spending much of the day's trading session in negative territory. Strong buying at select counters in the final hour of the session helped lift the benchmark SMI to a positive close. The SMI, which dropped to 13,274.91 about a couple of hours past noon, settled at 13,350.82, gaining 26.79 points or 0.2%. Richemont climbed about 3.7% with most of the buying happening in the final hour. The Richemont counter clocked a volume of about 1.08 million shares today. UBS Group and Givaudan both gained nearly 1.4%. Lindt & Spruengli, Swiss Re, Swiss Life Holding, Holcim, Zurich Insurance, Sonova, Lonza Group and Helvetia Baloise Holding gained 0.4 to 1%. Logitech International tumbled more than 5%. ABB ended 3.1% down, Partners Group drifted down by 2.86%, while VAT Group and Kuehne + Nagel lost 2.5% and 2.4%, respectively. Galderma Group closed lower by 1.2%, while Julius Baer, Sika and SGS ended with modest losses. Data from the Federal Statistical Office showed Switzerland's consumer prices increased slightly at the end of the year, rising by 0.1% on a yearly basis in December, following a flat change in the previous month. Prices were expected to fall by 0.1%. On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained flat versus a 0.2% fall in November. The inflation rate for the whole year 2025 was 0.2% compared to 1.1% in 2024, the agency said.

Europe
The benchmark indexes of the major European markets settled roughly flat on Thursday, managing to find some support in the closing hour. The mood remained cautious right through the trading day with investors following geopolitical developments and looking ahead to the crucial U.S. non-farm payroll data due on Friday. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down by 0.19%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 edged down by 0.04%, Germany's DAX crept up 0.02%, and France's CAC 40 closed with a gain of 0.12%. Switzerland's SMI gained 0.2%. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Turkiye closed higher. Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Russia and Sweden ended weak, while Denmark and Portugal closed flat. Defense stocks moved higher after U.S. President Donald Trump called for higher U.S. defense spending. In the UK market, Coca-Cola HBC, BAE Systems and Endeavour Mining gained 4.4 to 5.6%. Marks & Spencer surged about 5% after reporting healthy food sales growth over the vital Christmas period. Whitbread, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Reckitt Benckiser, Natwest Group, Aviva, Entain, Diageo, Phoenix Group Holdings, Smith & Nephew, Lloyds Banking Group, Legal & General and JD Sports Fashion moved up 1to 2.3%. Associated British Foods tanked 14% to a near 9-month low, following a profit warning by the group after Primark suffered a difficult Christmas amid a challenging UK clothing market, weaker sales in continental Europe and a volatile US retail backdrop. Tesco tumbled 6.8% after UK like-for-like sales growth narrowly missed forecasts. Shell and Croda International lost 3.52% and 2.6%, respectively. Glencore, Airtel Africa, Sainsbury (J), DCC, Fresnillo, SSE, Diploma, Barratt Redrow, Antofagasta, Mondi and Schroders also ended notably lower. In the German market, Deutsche Telekom rallied 3.6%. Adidas, Bayer, Commerzbank, Rheinmetall, Henkel, E.ON, Allianz, Fresenius, Gea Group, Beiersdorf and Continental gained 1 to 3%. Siemens Energy, Infineon, Qiagen and Zalando lost 2.4 to 4%. Siemens and MTU Aero Engines also ended notably lower. In the French market, BNP Paribas and Pernod Ricard climbed up 3% and 2.9%, respectively. Hermes International, L'Oreal, Danone, Societe Generale, Kering, Stellantis, Credit Agricole, Orange and Veolia Environment also posted strong gains.

United States
After ending yesterday's lackluster session on opposite sides of the unchanged line, the major U.S. stock indexes turned in another mixed performance during trading on Thursday. While the Dow moved back to the upside after Wednesday's pullback, the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed lower for the first time in four sessions. The Dow climbed 270.03 points or 0.6 percent to 49,266.11, bouncing back toward the record closing high set on Tuesday. The S&P 500 also crept up by 0.53 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 6,921.46, but the Nasdaq fell 104.26 points or 0.4 percent to 23,480.02. The mixed performance on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday. Economists currently expect employment to increase by 60,000 jobs in December after climbing by 64,000 jobs in November. The unemployment rate is expected to edge down to 4.5 percent from 4.6 percent. The jobs data could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy meeting later this month. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin rose 2.4% and 4.3%, respectively, after Trump wrote on Truth Social that he wanted to hike the U.S. defense budget by half next year to $1.5 trillion “in these very troubled and dangerous times.” Alphabet rose 1.1% to $325.44. Cantor Fitzgerald analysts upgraded shares to Overweight from Neutral and raised their price target to $370 from $310. The firm asserted that Google’s Gemini would come out ahead of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in terms of “practical usefulness.” Separately, Alphabet gained 2.5% on Wednesday to surpass Apple as the second-largest U.S. company by total market capitalization.

Asia
Stock markets in East Asia are mostly up on Friday. After suffering from profit-taking and Chinese trade sanctions in recent days amid tensions between the two countries over China's claims to power over Taiwan, the Nikkei 225 index has now recovered by 1.4 per cent to 51,816 points. This is supported by the slightly weaker yen, which makes Japanese exports cheaper on a dollar basis.

Bonds
In the U.S. bond market, treasuries moved notably lower as President Donald Trump's call to increase military spending raised concerns about the national debt. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, jumped by 4.5 basis points to 4.183 percent.

Analysis
HSBC lowers Shell target to 2,950 (3,020) GBp – Hold
Bank of America raises Voestalpine target to 45 (41) EUR – Buy
UBS raises Engie to 26 (21) EUR – Buy

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