White House: Employment data is excellent

Last week, institutional investors significantly sold off individual stocks, resulting in a net outflow of $11.0 billion from the U.S. stock market. Funds were mainly withdrawn from the technology sector, marking the third largest single-week outflow from individual stocks in the history of Bank of America's statistics.

Isomorphic Labs, a DeepMind spin-off, is in talks for new financing, with its valuation potentially reaching up to $50 billions. This comes only five months after its $2.1 billions Series B funding round.

Barclays analyst Christopher Pasquale on Tuesday initiated coverage on 26 US-listed medtech companies for the first time, and included Stryker (SYK.US) and Abbott (ABT.US) on the recommended list of large-cap medtech stocks.

On Thursday, shares of Australian Securities Exchange operator ASX Ltd (ASX.AX) surged to nearly a two-month high after Citi raised its annual profit outlook for the company, citing a strong first-quarter performance and predicting robust market activity to continue into the first half of the year. Details are as follows: The exchange operator's average daily trading volume in the spot market rose 16% year-on-year in September. Citi analysts noted that daily futures trading volumes climbed 44% during the month, approaching historical highs, possibly reflecting structural and cyclical factors, including interest rate prospects and changes in the bond market. Citi added that strong market activity is expected to last at least through the first half, and consequently raised ASX's annual earnings-per-share forecast by 2%. Citi pointed out, however, that corporate market activity remained subdued in September. Short-term market activity is expected to be boosted with Glencore's GLEN.L company planning a secondary listing in October and Firmus company planning an initial public offering (IPO) in October. Both Citi and UBS raised their target price for ASX from AU$60.10 and AU$64.20 to AU$61.00 and AU$65.50, respectively. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs remains cautious about the strategy of the new CEO, Anthony Attia, and the company's potential future financial situation. Goldman Sachs is also alert to execution risks in the exchange operator's CHESS system replacement and technology modernization plans. This comes after the central bank stated in September that the company's clearing and settlement facilities had not met the bank's expectations. ASX shares closed up 3.8%, reaching their highest level in nearly two months and ranking among the top performers on the S&P/ASX 200 index.