The final bill has arrived for Richemont’s (+2.0%) 14-year online shopping spree: $4.2 billion of write-downs. Cartier’s Swiss owner is offloading Yoox-Net-a-Porter to German rival Mytheresa.com. An earlier attempt to sell nearly half of the loss-making e-commerce business to Farfetch fell through, after the buyer ran into financial difficulty. Getting the deal done now required generous terms. Mytheresa gets full ownership and a cash dowry equivalent to $609 million. Richemont also threw in a €100 million, or roughly $110 million, credit facility for six years, for general needs and working capital. In return, Richemont gets a roughly one-third stake in Mytheresa, worth around $120 million at Friday’s close, and a board seat. The holding means Richemont will share in any future upside. But Mytheresa has had a rocky time as a public company, with its stock down heavily since it went public nearly four years ago. Overall, Richemont’s shareholders will be relieved to see the back of YNAP. Many thought a hefty recapitalization would be needed to convince someone to take the business off Richemont’s hands. Selling luxury online has become brutal for third-party retailers. Rivals like matchesfashion.com have already gone to the wall. Including a €1.3 billion write-down announced Monday, Richemont has written off €3.8 billion for YNAP since first buying Net-a-Porter back in 2010, according to Thomas Chauvet, luxury analyst at Citi Research. The Mytheresa deal draws a line under this painful episode for Richemont. But going offline has been costly.

The Swiss stock market closed little changed on Monday. The SMI still managed a modest gain of 0.1 percent to 12,009 points. Among the 20 SMI stocks, there were eleven losers and nine winners. A total of 16.59 (previously: 14.6) million shares were traded. Swatch (+2.9%) was in demand in the luxury goods sector outside the SMI. Takeover speculation circulated after an investor bought shares. Swiss Re, on the other hand, fell by 4 percent. A new storm front moved towards the US state of Florida. Investors feared further major insurance claims. ABB lost 0.2 percent following a negative analyst comment.

Slightly down in the morning, European stock markets closed broadly in positive territory on Monday. The Stoxx Europe 600 index gained 0.2% to 519.5 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and SBF 120 advanced by 0.5% and 0.4% respectively, supported by luxury goods stocks. The DAX 40 in Frankfurt gave up 0.1%, while the FTSE 100 added 0.3% in London. Particularly exposed to the health of the Chinese economy, the luxury goods sector stood out favorably at a time when China is expected to announce new economic stimulus measures. Kering gained 4.6%, LVMH 2.7% and Hermès 1.1%. Energy distribution and production group Rubis (+3.5%) confirmed on Monday its intention to buy back up to one million of its own shares by November 29, at a maximum purchase price of 50 euros, excluding fees and commissions. The shares acquired will be cancelled. British oil and gas company Shell (+2.4% in London) raised its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and upstream production forecasts for the third quarter.

Major indexes slipped to start the week, reversing course after a blockbuster jobs report sent stocks higher Friday. The employment data showed the economy is ticking along nicely, suggesting that future rate cuts are unlikely to be rapid. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed down 0.9% at 41,954.24 points, while the broader S&P 500 index shed 1% to 5,695.94 points. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.2% to 17,923.90 points. Private equity firm Apollo is to buy aerospace and industrial components manufacturer Barnes (up 2.7% at 46.48 dollars) for 3.6 billion dollars in cash, or 47.5 dollars per share, the two companies announced on Monday. Jefferies Bank cut its recommendation for Apple (-2.3%) to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’, with a target of 212 dollars, believing that market sales expectations for the iPhone 16 and 17 are too high. Amazon lost 3%. Wells Fargo lowered its recommendation to ‘neutral’, considering that the retailer will find it difficult to revise its forecasts upwards as in the past and that its AWS cloud division will not be enough to support the share price. Super Micro Computer rebounded by 15.8% and was the best performer in the S&P 500 after announcing the delivery of more than 100,000 servers equipped with graphics processing units (GPUs) featuring a new cooling solution to reduce energy costs. Chevron (+0.3%) announced on Monday the sale of its interests in two Canadian oil fields to Canadian Natural Resources for 6.5 billion dollars. Pfizer shares gained 2.2% after activist Starboard Value took a stake, while Arcadium Lithium soared +36% on a potential takeover by global miner Rio Tinto. With a new week underway, third-quarter earnings season is coming into view. Among the first big-name companies to report will be soda-and-snacks heavyweight PepsiCo on Tuesday. Earnings season will pick up pace Friday with reports from JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and others.

Stocks in Asia mostly fell on Tuesday. The drop was particularly pronounced in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng Index slumped by 5.6 percent. In contrast, the Shanghai Composite continued to rise by 4.8% after the week-long “Golden Week” holiday break. Movements on the region's other trading places were much more moderate. The Nikkei-225 in Tokyo fell by 1.3 percent and the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.4 percent. Samsung Electronics did achieve a jump in profits in the third quarter. However, the increase was significantly lower than in the second quarter and fell well short of expectations. This was partly due to the oversupply of cheaper chips in China. The share price fell by 1.3 percent. SK Hynix dropped 3.3 percent in its wake. LG Electronics had to struggle with an unexpectedly weak recovery in demand for televisions, other consumer electronics and household appliances in the third quarter. The share price plummeted by 4.7 percent.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield burst through 4% for the first time on an intraday basis since August on Monday, as traders continued to sell off U.S. government debt following last week’s stronger-than-forecast jobs data. The 10-year Treasury note yield rose by 4 basis points to 4.024%, reaching its highest level since early August. The 2-year Treasury note yield climbed 7 basis points to 3.999%.

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