S&P Dow Jones Indices and Kalshi are joining forces to build the next generation of financial markets. The Dow launched in 1896. The S&P 500 in 1957. The idea was simple: bring individual stocks together into a single benchmark, giving people a clearer view of the broader market. Over time, products built around those benchmarks transformed investing. Index funds, ETFs, futures, and options gave investors ways to gain diversified market exposure and hedge broad market swings. These indices became foundations of global finance. More than $20 trillion is indexed or benchmarked to the S&P 500 alone. Today, this structure extends beyond stocks to bonds, commodities, currencies, and more. The next step is to bring that structure to the events that shape everyone’s lives. Through this partnership, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Kalshi will work together to create indices composed of Kalshi event contracts. Think about what that opens up. An index of political power. An index of supply chain risk. An index tracking AI’s impact on employment. An index of sports outcomes that affect broadcasters, advertisers, cities, and small businesses. An index of weather risks that shape harvests, energy demand, and business revenues. Each would bundle event contracts into a single indicator, helping people understand how related risks are evolving. Over time, products built around these indices could offer diversified exposure to those events and new ways to hedge their impact. The events that shape our lives could become as easy to track and gain exposure to as the S&P 500.

Is "Who's on First?" funny? marginalrevolution.com/margi…

It is depressing that freedom, traditionally this nation's most important value, does not rank in the top three for any group.

Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series and seven “Star Trek” feature films, has died at 90. variety.com/2026/film/news/w…

This is what worries me. About France and about the UK... "No one can tell when, exactly, a crisis might arrive: it depends on the country and its politics. Yet once investors conclude that a country cannot conceivably afford to pay the debt, interest rates will surely start to jump, the mechanism through which practically every financial crisis plays out. We are in the phase where everybody still pretends that the situation is under control, and that all that needs to happen is for governments to save a bit of money here and there. In practice, though, ministers of all stripes find this hard" And "Looking at the presidential candidates in France today ahead of the election next April, I struggle to see how the country will end up with a government that succeeds in doing all of the following: bringing the budget deficit under control; avoiding social unrest; complying with European rules; and staying in the eurozone. Something has to give here." And "Yet what many Europeans, including politicians, don’t understand is the relationship between debt and membership of the eurozone. Put simply: you can’t default on your debt and expect to keep the euro. Debt serves as collateral for the money the banking system gets from the ECB. If a country defaults on its debt, the banking system inevitably freezes up.... ... France defaulting on its debt would likely lead to a French exit from the euro. Should we ever get to this point, the ensuing financial crisis would dwarf everything we have ever experienced. Financial institutions would fail all over the world. For its part, the eurozone might not survive, as other countries default on their debts and crash out in turn. Ironically, one of the European countries most affected in this scenario would be the UK. Despite not being a member of the EU, let alone the eurozone, Britain’s capital market would be deeply vulnerable to chaos across the Channel." Does anyone believe @UKLabour has the economic nous to navigate this when our own finances are so shaky? unherd.com/2026/10/how-the-n…

Before you crank up the thermostat, try these tips to keep your house warmer for longer bbc.in/48gLc8A