Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, November 17th, and this is your FT News briefing.

Goldman Sachs has taken the deals world by storm this year. Plus, we look at why the British government's budget is sending fresh worry through bond markets.

And we'll wade through the issues

the U.S. government shutdown has posed for reliable data collection in America.

The more we shift to a disparous mosaic of private data, it just leaves a more broken-up picture

of the economy.

I'm Victoria Craig, and here's the news you need to start your day. leaves a more broken up picture of the economy.

I'm Victoria Craig, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Goldman Sachs is on track to capture its biggest share of the global deal market in almost a quarter century.

Though it was a slow start, 2025 has been the busiest period for mergers and acquisitions since the pandemic boom of 2021.

That's in part due to the Trump administration's increasingly laissez-faire attitude toward big corporate tie-ups. And Goldman has been involved in some

of the biggest deals, including the most lucrative transaction in the bank's history. This quarter,

it secured a $110 million fee for advising electronic arts on its take-private deal. All of that

has helped push Goldman's share price to record levels. However, while it advised on 34% of the value of all deals, it won't get anywhere close to a third of the fees. That number looks closer to 10.7%, which is still strong by historical standards.

Setting a budget is difficult for individuals, households, and increasingly for the British government. Chancellor Rachel Reeve's latest plan has been swept up in controversy after

controversy over the past few months, and she hasn't even formally presented it yet. That

will come on November 26th. But on Friday, Reeves ditched a portion of her plan that would have

raised income taxes citing an improved fiscal forecast. Investors didn't take that as a positive

change and sold off government bonds. There are also questions about how much politics

has played into Reeves' change in strategy. So what's the mood like in markets heading into a new

week? Tommy Stubbington, the FTs markets news editor is here to look into the crystal ball. Hi, Tommy.

Hi there. So on Friday, the sell-off in UK government debt was the worst since the summer. Where

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