> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.fridayfinance.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Binance Heist, Potato Price-Fixing, Uber's Driver Shortage, Pampered Puppies and Marvell buys Lumentum - URL: https://www.fridayfinance.co/binance-heist-potato-price-fixing-ubers-driver-shortage-pampered-puppies-and-marvell-buys-lumentum/ - Published: 2026-11-06T22:27:44.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-06T22:27:44.000Z - Author: Sam Perera - Tags: Friday Finance **55th Edition** Greetings folks and a warm welcome to the 55th Edition of Friday Finance, On Thursday, the market wiped $2.9 trillion off the S&P 500 because investors suddenly weren’t sure what AI is worth. Meanwhile, at an auction in Los Angeles, someone knew exactly what a sofa was worth: $7,680\. The sofa in question was a perfectly ordinary Atomic Era couch with a presale estimate of $400 to $600\. Its only distinguishing feature was that it sat in Paul Reubens’s living room. Pee-wee Herman’s fans bid it up nearly 13 times the top estimate. Two crudely cast concrete garden animals from his yard went for $2,240, and his house numbers fetched $3,520\. There’s a lesson for the Nasdaq in there somewhere: assets don’t trade on what they are. They trade on the story someone’s willing to pay for. This week, the AI story got a little cheaper and the Pee-wee story got a lot more expensive. Let's get right to it. --- ## **The Binance Hack** > **TL;DR:** North Korean hackers are blamed for stealing about $6.3 billion from Binance in about half an hour, the biggest theft on record. About $2.4 billion was in stablecoins that their issuers froze within minutes, so the hackers can’t spend it. The rest, including about $1.4 billion of bitcoin, can’t be frozen. Binance says customers won’t lose out, because it has used its own money to replace about 98% of what was stolen”. Hackers stole about $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, on the night of Thursday, October 29\. Almost all of it went in about half an hour, roughly $210 million a minute. **It is the largest theft on record, about 4x the $1.5 billion taken from the exchange Bybit last year.** Blockchain investigators blame TraderTraitor, a North Korean state hacking group also linked to Bybit. Binance says the attacker first got into one engineer’s laptop and used it to submit unauthorized withdrawals. The hackers had practised the day before, and tested their malware on 2 other wallets about 4 hours before the attack. About $3.3 billion of the stolen money was in Tether and Circle, two stablecoins pegged to the dollar. Unlike bitcoin, these can be frozen by the companies that issue them. Tether froze the hackers’ wallets at 9:01pm London time, and Circle followed 3 minutes later. **Between them they trapped about $2.4 billion, the biggest freeze ever. The previous record was $344 million in April, in wallets linked to Iran’s central bank.** The hackers had already swapped $934 million of Tether into tokens that can’t be frozen. They also hold about $1.4 billion of bitcoin, which no one can freeze. A freeze is also not a refund. Getting the money back may need court orders in several countries. Binance says it will cover all customer losses from its own funds. Its emergency fund for exactly this kind of event held about $1.17 billion of bitcoin, less than the bitcoin the hackers took. Binance reopened withdrawals in stages from November 1\. Binance says it has already used its own money to replace about 98% of the stolen coins in customers’ accounts. It holds about $144 billion of customer assets. Bitcoin fell about 5% the day after the hack, and Coinbase fell 14%. In April, Circle was criticized for not freezing about $290 million stolen from a smaller platform, Drift. It said then that it only freezes on the instructions of police or a court. --- ## **The Potato Price-Fixing Case** > **TL;DR:** A US judge has let a price-fixing lawsuit go ahead against the 4 companies that make about 98% of America’s frozen fries, including New Brunswick’s McCain and Cavendish. The plaintiffs say prices rose 62% while costs fell. Nobody has been found guilty, and the companies deny it. A US price-fixing lawsuit against the companies that make almost all of America’s frozen fries is going ahead. Four companies control about 98% of the US frozen potato market. Lamb Weston has about 40%, McCain about 30%, Simplot about 20% and Cavendish Farms 7% to 8%. **McCain and Cavendish are both from New Brunswick. Cavendish is owned by the Irving family’s J.D. Irving.** In September a federal judge in Illinois refused to throw out the main claims. The ruling doesn’t find anyone guilty. It means the case moves to discovery, where the companies have to hand over documents. The plaintiffs, led by a Pennsylvania grocery chain, say the 4 raised prices at nearly the same rates and times from 2021\. In February 2022 all 4 announced increases of about 12 cents a pound within 5 days. **They say prices rose 62% from January 2022 to December 2024, while input costs fell 33% from late 2023.** The suit says the companies shared weekly sales and volume data through a service called PotatoTrack, run by Circana. They also allegedly used the same storage companies, so staff could check a rival’s inventory in real time. The suit says Lamb Weston staff were told to text “to avoid creating emails.” McCain says it strongly disputes the allegations and will defend itself. Simplot says it competes fairly. Lamb Weston and Cavendish didn’t comment. The companies say the price increases came from pandemic-era costs. **The judge wrote that pandemic pressures could give companies “an even greater incentive to conspire to fix prices.”** McCain was founded in Florenceville in 1957 by brothers Harrison and Wallace McCain. It is still private, with about C$14 billion of revenue, and says 1 in 4 fries in the world is a McCain fry. I can’t believe we are still blaming COVID for things, come on, let’s get creative, blame it on diesel costs. --- ## **Uber’s Driver Shortage** > **TL;DR:** Uber grew bookings 20% for a 5th straight quarter, but couldn’t find enough drivers in several countries, partly because of high fuel prices. It is paying drivers more, which means higher prices for riders. Its long-term solution is about 700 driverless cars by the end of the year. Uber grew gross bookings 20% last quarter, to $59.8 billion. It was the 5th quarter in a row above 20%. Trips rose 16% to 4.1 billion, and Uber now has 215 million monthly users. Revenue grew more slowly, up 10% to $14.8 billion, because of changes to how it books some business. **Free cash flow was $2.5 billion, but Uber cut its share buybacks to $750 million, about half last year’s level.** The shares rose about 4% on the results, to around $71\. They are still down almost 30% over the past year. The weak spot was drivers. Rides grew less than Uber expected because driver supply couldn’t keep up with demand in several countries. **Its finance chief blamed high fuel prices in markets like Brazil and India, after the Iran war pushed oil above $100.** Uber also named immigration in Canada as a factor. It is shifting incentives from riders to drivers. Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi admitted that “does mean sometimes higher prices for riders.” Uber says the number of driver hours picked up again in October. Uber’s longer answer is cars with no drivers. It expects about 700 fully driverless vehicles on its app by the end of this year, and more than 2,000 by the end of 2027\. **For scale, Uber handled 4.1 billion trips last quarter.** It works with Zoox, Motional, Baidu, WeRide and others, and has committed more than $10 billion to robotaxi deals. One partner is leaving. Waymo plans to run its own service in Austin and Atlanta from 2028, instead of only through Uber. Asked about DoorDash buying Instacart, Khosrowshahi said he didn’t think it would affect Uber much. Imagine getting into an Uber and not having to speak to anyone, or having the driver tell you his/her life story. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Imagine the silence. I guess it's more time to chat with my AI bot. --- ## **Pampered Puppies** > **TL;DR:** British pet spending has gone from £2.9 billion in 1997 to almost £12 billion, and pubs now serve dogs their own roast. The boring bills grew fastest: UK vet prices rose 63% in 7 years. In the US, 22% of owners spent less on their pets last year. British pubs now serve dogs their own Sunday roast. The Amberley Inn in Stroud makes one with meat, vegetables and a “specially formulated doggy gravy.” Cafés sell Puppuccinos and dog ice cream. **A company in Weston-super-Mare that chauffeurs dogs to their owners’ weddings has done just over 70 weddings this year.** Its founder says there are now hundreds of these services, where there used to be a handful. The BBC calls it the “doggy experience economy.” Pet owners and businesses blame social media and the pandemic, when people spent more time at home with their dogs. UK spending on pets and pet products rose from £2.9 billion in 1997 to almost £12 billion in 2025, according to MoneySuperMarket. That’s about 4x. In the US, the pet industry reached $158 billion last year and is expected to hit $165 billion this year. **The less fun bills have grown fastest. Average UK vet prices rose 63% from 2016 to 2023, according to the Competition and Markets Authority.** It found that large vet chains charge about 17% more than independents, and that owners can pay twice as much for common medicines at the vet as online. It has moved to cap prescription fees at £16. There are signs owners are reaching their limit. In the US, 22% of pet owners spent less on their pets last year. Chewy, the online pet retailer, said in May that its customers look “more stretched.” About 85% of its sales are food and medicine. **Only about 15% is the fun stuff.** Its shares had fallen 55% in a year. A marketing lecturer at the University of the West of England told the BBC people feel they should keep up with what they see online, “regardless of their financial situation.” What thoughtful insight from the professor. --- ## **Marvell Buys Lumentum** > **TL;DR:** Marvell agreed to buy Lumentum for $115 billion, paid entirely in Marvell shares. Then Marvell’s shares fell, so the $1,132-a-share offer was worth about $771 by Monday’s close. Lumentum’s grandparent was Ottawa’s JDS Uniphase, a star of the last optical boom. Marvell (you thought it was the comics right?) has agreed to buy Lumentum for $115 billion, including debt. It is one of the biggest tech deals ever, bigger than Microsoft’s $68.7 billion purchase of Activision. Marvell designs custom chips. Lumentum makes the lasers and optical parts that move data between AI chips using light instead of copper. **Marvell is paying entirely in its own shares: 4.5 Marvell shares for each Lumentum share, worth $1,132 when the deal was announced.** Lumentum shareholders will own about a third of the combined company. The deal isn’t expected to close until the first half of 2028\. Nvidia put $2 billion into each company in March. Investors didn’t like it. Marvell fell 12.7% on Monday, and was down about 32% from before the talks were reported. Because the deal is all stock, the offer fell with it. **At Monday’s close, 4.5 Marvell shares were worth about $771, not $1,132.** Lumentum fell 18.6% to $684, still below that. Both stocks had more than doubled this year before the deal. Then on Thursday chip stocks fell 12% in the AI sell-off. Lumentum is growing fast. Revenue was $1.65 billion in the year to June 2025 and $3.01 billion in the year to June 2026\. Last quarter alone it was $1.26 billion, up 137%. **At that rate, Marvell is paying about 23x a year’s sales.** Lumentum was spun out of JDS Uniphase in 2015\. JDS started in Ottawa in 1981 and became one of the stars of the last optical boom. When that bubble burst in 2001, its shares fell from $153 to under $2\. The next Marvel movie, Avengers: Doomsday, comes out Dec 18 (I feel like they’ve made so many of these they’re recycling names), hopefully it does better than Marvell. --- And finally, some bad news from the breakfast table. Kellogg’s has taken the rice out of Rice Krispies. In the UK, the cereal is now made with rice flour, and Coco Pops with a blend of rice and corn flour. The company blames changing weather conditions, which have hit the quality and supply of its rice. British fans noticed something was off, and Kellogg’s has now admitted to the BBC that the famous snap, crackle and pop **“may be quieter and not as instant as before.”** Relax, Canada/US: our Rice Krispies still contain actual rice (for now). After the week markets just had, a quieter snap, crackle and pop feels about right. Let’s hope the Nasdaq’s comes back sooner than the cereal’s does. **“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”** — Oscar Wilde Have a fantastic weekend. I welcome feedback and please forward this if you see fit. Many thanks, Sam. --- **Market Snapshots** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9e/cd/9ecdba3a-371c-45d6-888e-4690ee860243/content/images/2026/11/marketsnapshot_55.png) *Note: Thursday was the Nasdaq’s worst day in 19 months. The S&P 500 fell 4.4% and the Nasdaq 5.5%, putting it in a correction, as investors sold the year’s biggest AI winners. Chip stocks fell 12%. It erased Wednesday’s rally after the midterms, when the Dow had its best post-midterm day since 1982\. Stocks bounced on Friday after the US added 165,000 jobs in October, more than double the forecast. Oil fell below $100 as traders weighed a possible US deal with Iran. In Canada the economy lost 4,700 jobs in October, and unemployment rose to 6.7%. Markets now expect the Bank of Canada’s next rate hike in March rather than January.* *1 USD = 1.407 CAD at Friday morning spot.* --- **Sources** Dwell via Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, CNN (opener); Financial Times, TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, CoinDesk, Forbes, NPR, 24/7 Wall St (Binance); CBC via Yahoo News Canada, Global News, Potato News Today, Fortune, Wikipedia (potatoes); Uber Q3 2026 results, Motley Fool transcript, Yahoo Finance, 24/7 Wall St, Just Auto citing the Financial Times (Uber); BBC, American Pet Products Association, Competition and Markets Authority, Stocktwits (pets); TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, TIKR, Gotrade, Lumentum results, Wikipedia (Marvell); ITV News, Yahoo News Canada, Newser (closer); Yahoo Finance, Investing.com, Fortune, BNN Bloomberg, BBN Times (market data). *Market data pulled Friday November 6, 2026 using November 5 closes, with Friday morning’s moves noted. Live items this edition. North Korea’s role in the Binance hack is based on blockchain investigators, not an official government finding. The potato price-fixing claims are allegations; no court has found wrongdoing. Marvell’s deal for Lumentum needs shareholder and regulatory approval, and its value moves with Marvell’s share price. Stock snapshot prices are from the dates shown. Currency at Friday morning spot.*