BlackRock's assets increased to a record $15.5 trillion in the third quarter, up 15% from a year earlier, benefitting from strong client inflows. BlackRock took in $205 billion of new client money during the third quarter, beating a $192 billion FactSet estimate. An earlier version of this post incorrectly said it took in $205 million of new money, beating a $192 million estimate. BlackRock said strong growth across its private-asset businesses, exchange-traded funds and active equity strategies contributed to the record asset pile. "Demand for capital is growing across the global economy, and BlackRock is increasingly at the center of how that capital is deployed and managed," chief executive Larry Fink said in a release.

After a flat start, Swiss stocks kept edging higher and higher on Wednesday thanks to sustained buying at several counters and eventually ended the session on a buoyant note, extending gains to a fourth straight session. The benchmark SMI closed with a gain of 202.41 points or 1.45% at 14,129.93, slightly off the day's high of 14,136.90. Lonza Group, Roche and Sandoz Group gained 3%-3.35%. Novartis ended 2.8% up, while Galderma Group climbed 2.7%. Nestle, Alcon, Richemont, Swisscom and Sonova gained 1.3%-2.1%. Sika, Lindt & Spruengli, Swiss Life Holding, SGS, Schindler Ps and Zurich Insurance closed up by 0.4%-1%. VAT Group, UBS Group and Kuehne + Nagel ended down by 1.7%, 1.55% and 1.3%, respectively. ABB ended lower by about 1.1%. Partners Group and Straumann Holding also closed weak.

Europe
The major European markets closed on the positive side on Wednesday even as several markets in the region failed to hold early gains. The early buoyancy over upbeat earnings update from Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML subsided a bit later on in the session. The pan European Stoxx 600 closed up 0.43%. The UK's FTSE 100 climbed 0.7%, Germany's DAX drifted lower by 0.15% and France's CAC 40 ended 0.58% down. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain ended higher. Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Russia and Türkiye closed weak, while Iceland and Sweden ended flat. In the UK market, Barratt Redrow climbed more than 4%. Burberry Group moved up 3.5%. Pharma stocks GSK and AstraZeneca gained 3.6% and 3.4%, respectively. Babcock International, Land Securities, Unilever, British Land, Imperial Brands, BAE Systems, Reckitt Benckiser, Haleon, Tesco, Convatec Group, Diageo, Kingfisher, Ithaca Energy, Melrose Industries and Games Workshop gained 1.4%-3%. Associated British Foods, Sainsbury (J), Shell, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Rolls-Royce Holdings, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Diploma, Compass Group, Tritax Big Box REIT and British American Tobacco also closed notably higher. Fresnillo, Computacenter, Endeavour Mining, Airtel Africa, Standard Chartered, Admiral Group, Balfour Beatty, ICG, The Sage Group, WPP, Lion Finance, Rio Tinto and Experian shed 1%-4.7%. In the German market, Rheinmetall moved up 3.7%. Merck climbed 3.2%. MTU Aero Engines, Bayer, BASF, Henkel, Fresenius, Brenntag, Beiersdorf, Deutsche Boerse, Qiagen and Fresenius Medical Care gained 1%-2.35%.

United States
U.S. stocks slid as rising inflation bolstered the case for another rate increase this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 48.62 points, or 0.09%, to 51621.48. The S&P 500 dropped 86.51 points, or 1.11%, to 7718.94 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 511.51 points, or 1.88%, to 26692.87. Inflation rose in September with consumer prices up 3.7% compared with the same period a year earlier. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected a 3.6% increase. It was a bigger jump than the 3.4% gain in August, a sign that high energy prices are continuing to weigh heavily on consumers ahead of midterm elections. Bank of America's stock slipped 4.8% after third-quarter profit missed analysts' forecasts. That miss took into account a $1.2 billion fine the bank was slapped with by the Treasury Department after regulators found it had insufficient systems to monitor and report financial crimes. The AI sector slumped with Oracle, Marvell Technology and cloud-computing firm CoreWeave among the biggest losers. Rising Treasury yields are creating concerns about AI companies' immense ambitions for debt-funded spending. The PHLX Semiconductor Index has declined for six consecutive days, its longest losing streak in more than a year. Shares of Apple bucked the downtrend in technology rising 0.5%. That gain helped Apple become the second company to close with a market cap above $5 trillion, following Nvidia.

Asia
East Asian stock markets are seeing sharp falls on Thursday. The technology-heavy Kospi in Seoul is down 8.0 per cent. The two index heavyweights, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are down 9.7 per cent and 11.4 per cent respectively.

Bonds
U.S. bond yields rose sharply following a hot inflation report, but generally declined later in the session as chip and AI stocks slipped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note declined 0.027 percentage point to 5.189%, its lowest level in nearly three weeks. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose 0.008 percentage point to 4.800%. The 30-year bond yield declined 0.038 percentage point to 5.524%.

Analysis
UBS raises its target price for Oerlikon to CHF 6.30 (5.80) – Buy
UBS raises its target price for Julius Bär to CHF 76 (57) – Neutral
UBS raises its target price for Marks & Spencer to 465 (425) GBp – Buy

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