Market Beats | LVMH Largest Division Slumps as China Weakness Hits Louis Vuitton; Saudi Arabia Faces Fresh Drone and Missile Threats; Federal Agents Search Ilhan Omar’s Home; Sherry-Netherland Owner Sues Over Six Years of Scaffolding; Meta Unveils Muse Wonder AI Model; Bumble Shares Surge 57% on Report of $1 Billion Take-Private Talks; US Pending Home Sales Sink to Near 12-Year Low

—— LVMH’s Largest Division Slumps as China Weakness Hits Louis Vuitton; Saudi Arabia Faces Fresh Drone and Missile Threats; Federal Agents Search Ilhan Omar’s Home; Sherry-Netherland Owner Sues Over Six Years of Scaffolding; Meta Unveils Muse Wonder AI Model; Bumble Shares Surge 57% on Report of $1 Billion Take-Private Talks; US Pending Home Sales Sink to Near 12-Year Low

1. LVMH’s Largest Division Slumps as China Weakness Hits Louis Vuitton

LVMH’s largest business division suffered a sharper-than-expected decline last quarter, as deteriorating conditions in China and a consumer backlash weighed on its flagship Louis Vuitton brand.

Organic revenue at the fashion and leather goods division fell 5% in the third quarter, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE said Monday. Analysts had expected a decline of just 1.57%.

Louis Vuitton has faced mounting pressure in China following a trademark dispute with local tea maker Molly Tea. Bloomberg reported last month that the luxury brand won the case, prompting a backlash from some Chinese consumers who viewed it as unfair for the world’s largest luxury group to take a much smaller domestic company to court.

Sales in the region that includes China fell 5% during the quarter, making it the only geographic market where LVMH recorded a decline. The company’s American depositary receipts dropped as much as 3.6% in New York after the results were released.

LVMH shares have lost more than 40% this year, putting the stock on course for its worst annual performance since the 2008 global financial crisis. Although the luxury sector as a whole is struggling with weaker demand, LVMH has been the worst performer among major luxury groups this year, with rival Hermès International also under pressure.

Expectations for a broader recovery in luxury spending this year have been undermined by sluggish demand in China, the prolonged conflict in the Middle East and weakening consumer confidence.

Group-wide sales rose 1% in the third quarter, also falling short of analysts’ estimates.

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2. Saudi Arabia Faces Fresh Drone and Missile Threats

Saudi Arabia said Monday it was responding to new threats involving drones and cruise missiles, raising fresh security concerns after deadly attacks on Riyadh’s airport over the weekend.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Turki al-Maliki as saying the kingdom had detected and was monitoring the threat. Al-Maliki was speaking on behalf of a Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi movement.

The coalition said earlier that it had intercepted missiles and drones targeting the kingdom overnight, including attacks directed toward areas containing some of Saudi Arabia’s key oil and gas facilities.

Saudi authorities on Monday extended the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The airport was hit in two separate attacks over the weekend, leaving at least 14 people dead and more than 300 injured, many of them critically. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was also targeted in a separate attack.

The strikes mark the deadliest attacks on Saudi Arabia since the Iran war began. They came just a week after Saudi-led forces launched a campaign in Yemen to retake territory held by Iran-backed Houthi militants, including areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and to “eliminate” the group.

As the violence continued into Monday, the coalition vowed a “decisive” response, signaling the potential for further escalation in an already volatile regional security environment.

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3. Federal Agents Search Ilhan Omar’s Home

Federal agents searched the Washington-area home of Representative Ilhan Omar, escalating the Trump administration’s scrutiny of the Minnesota Democrat, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Tom Homan, the White House official overseeing border policy, told Fox News on Monday that a search warrant had been executed as part of an ongoing investigation into Omar. He provided no additional details. The Justice Department had also confirmed a search earlier in the day but did not identify the person whose home was searched.

Administration officials have said the investigation concerns Omar’s immigration history. The congresswoman has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, describing the allegations as false and politically motivated. Her communications director, Jacklyn Rogers, said in a statement Monday that Omar had done nothing wrong.

Rogers condemned the operation as an abuse of power and accused the Trump administration of using federal law enforcement to target political opponents. She said no president should be able to use the federal government to intimidate political adversaries.

Born in Somalia, Omar fled the country’s civil war with her family when she was 8. She spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before arriving in the United States in 1995 and settling in Minneapolis in 1997.

Omar has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and has frequently been the target of his attacks. Trump has called her “crooked” and repeatedly suggested that she should leave the United States.

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4. Sherry-Netherland Owner Sues Over Six Years of Scaffolding

The Sherry-Netherland, one of New York’s best-known Fifth Avenue co-op buildings, is facing a lawsuit from an owner who says a facade restoration project has left her Central Park-facing terrace shrouded in scaffolding for six years.

Lucia Isabel Alonso Espinosa alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday that the building has effectively taken over her private 24th-floor terrace since 2020 as part of a prolonged renovation. Her family has owned the apartment since 1986, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit says scaffolding has blocked her views, while construction workers have used the terrace as a break area. On one occasion, a worker allegedly looked into the bathroom while a member of her family was showering.

Alonso Espinosa is seeking both retroactive and ongoing reductions in her maintenance fees, which she says total about $375,000 a year, as well as relief from a $300,000 special assessment.

The legal dispute comes as apartment sale prices at the building have come under pressure, partly because of sharply rising maintenance charges. The Sherry-Netherland has counted Howard Hughes, Diana Ross, David Bowie and Francis Ford Coppola among its notable residents. Property records show that former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner bought an apartment one floor above Alonso Espinosa’s for $10 million last month.

Michael Ullman, the building’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said by phone Friday that he had not seen the lawsuit or been served with it and therefore could not comment. He did not respond to calls on Monday. A lawyer for Alonso Espinosa also did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the complaint, the building initially told owners that the facade renovation would take 12 to 18 months and cost about $6 million. Alonso Espinosa alleges that mismanagement has prolonged the work and pushed the cost to nearly $35 million.

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5. Meta Unveils Muse Wonder AI Model

Meta Platforms Inc. released its long-awaited artificial intelligence model, Muse Wonder, on Monday, setting up a test of whether its multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild its AI organization has brought the technology closer to the industry’s leaders.

Internally known as “Watermelon,” Muse Wonder is the company’s most capable model since Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg overhauled its AI operations and aggressively recruited new talent. Meta says the model represents a major advance over its predecessors, with “frontier capabilities” that put it on par with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic PBC’s Claude for coding and tackling financial or legal questions.

Comparing AI models remains difficult. Systems can excel at different tasks, while benchmark results may be influenced by optimization strategies and may not reflect real-world performance. If independent testing validates Meta’s claims and Muse Wonder attracts researchers and developers, the release could mark a significant turnaround for a company whose models struggled to impress Silicon Valley last year.

“These are true frontier models,” Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang said in an interview Monday. He said the company believes its models can compete with the best available systems, particularly in agentic work for personal and professional use.

Meta shares rose as much as 4.7% following the announcement. The stock had gained nearly 9% this year through Friday’s close.

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6. Bumble Shares Surge 57% on Report of $1 Billion Take-Private Talks

Shares of dating-app company Bumble Inc. surged Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal valuing it at about $1 billion.

The potential buyer is recently formed Ithaca Holdings, and an agreement could be announced as soon as this week, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A takeover would be among Ithaca Holdings’ first major transactions. A Bumble spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bumble was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, a former Tinder co-founder. The app built its identity around a distinctive rule that allowed only women to make the first move in initiating conversations.

Like many dating-app companies, however, Bumble has struggled with declining usage as younger people grow weary of online dating and increasingly explore other ways to meet potential partners, including in-person events.

In August, Bumble abandoned its longstanding women-first model, introducing a messaging change that allows men to make the first move. The move was part of the company’s latest effort to improve user engagement.

Following the Journal’s report, Bumble shares jumped as much as 57% to $3.98 on Monday, marking their biggest intraday gain since March 12.

The reported talks come as Bumble seeks to reverse user declines and restore momentum. The potential transaction has not yet been formally announced, and its final terms remain unclear.

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7. US Pending Home Sales Sink to Near 12-Year Low

American households that rely primarily on heating oil are facing significantly higher energy costs this winter. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects heating bills for these households to rise about 21% from last winter.

The forecast adds to the energy-cost pressures facing the Trump administration. With the midterm elections just four weeks away, Republicans are expected to face voter dissatisfaction over higher gasoline, electricity and other energy costs.

Heating oil prices are closely linked to diesel, which has surged as the US-Iran war and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have tightened fuel supplies.

The EIA expects heating oil prices across the US to rise about 30% this winter from a year earlier. However, milder weather in the Northeast is expected to partially offset the impact on household bills, as homeowners may consume less fuel.

About 3% of US households primarily rely on heating oil, with the vast majority located in the Northeast. Maine has the highest share of heating-oil-dependent households in the country. As of Sept. 28, heating oil prices in the state stood at $5.96 per gallon, nearly 80% above the level a year earlier.

The EIA also raised its forecast for crude oil prices. It now expects Brent crude to average $105 a barrel in the fourth quarter, $14 higher than its previous estimate. US retail diesel prices are expected to remain above $6 a gallon through October before falling toward $4.50 a gallon next year.

On the supply side, the agency expects Middle Eastern oil production and exports to gradually recover. Increased shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, combined with alternative transportation routes and other supply workarounds, could eventually ease pressure on global oil markets.

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