Good morning. Investigators probing whether traders at JPMorgan Chase rigged silver prices seven years ago decided there was no case to bring. Last week, the same agency hammered the megabank with a $920 million fine.

How a small agency that once walked away from an investigation of price manipulation, only to later impose its biggest fine ever for the conduct, shows the advances government has made in using data to uncover market manipulation, said James McDonald, enforcement director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “We could not have brought the JPMorgan case without the data analytics program we have now,” said Mr. McDonald, who will step down as director this week after more than three years in the post.

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The data needed to uncover the eight-year market manipulation scheme came from Chicago-based CME Group, the operator of exchanges including one that offers trading in gold and silver futures. The volume of data—including trades, orders and other messages flooding into CME’s computers—is so massive the CFTC couldn’t store or use it when Mr. McDonald began seeking it in 2017, he said.

Five years of complete CME trading data amounts to 1.7 terabytes, or 127 million pages of information, according to testimony in a recent trial that resulted in the conviction of two former Deutsche Bank traders on fraud charges related to spoofing. As the CFTC added the ability to store and access more trading data in the cloud, it also hired former Chicago traders and other quantitative-minded employees to write programs that filter CME’s data for patterns of manipulation.

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BlackRock, one of the largest institutional investors of Volkswagen AG, raised concerns about the independence of the German carmaker’s supervisory board and voted against the re-election and the formal approval of the actions of a number of management board and supervisory board members last week.

In a voting bulletin for Volkswagen’s annual shareholder meeting last week, BlackRock said the current level of independence of Volkswagen’s supervisory board doesn’t meet its expectations for controlled companies. Three shareholders control 90.1% of Volkswagen’s voting rights, and those shareholders have representatives on the board, BlackRock said. It considers only two of the board’s 20 directors to be independent. BlackRock said it also expected the level of independence to further decline within the next five years.

Volkswagen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The votes came as the German carmaker wrapped up a three-year monitorship as part of its plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department in connection with the emissions-cheating scandal. The company said it has improved its compliance culture.

BlackRock said it previously encouraged Volkswagen to improve the number of independent directors on its supervisory board to enhance the level of independent oversight of the management team on multiple occasions, but said there was a lack of response to date from Volkswagen to its concerns. BlackRock said insufficient independent oversight from Volkswagen’s supervisory board also played a major role in the events that led to the 2015 emissions scandal.

—Mengqi Sun

• The U.S. and European Union imposed sanctions against Belarus officials on Friday, part of a coordinated effort by Western allies to censure the authoritarian regime over accusations of political repression and rigging elections.
   

• Pastry chef Jiamei Lu said she told the Federal Bureau of Investigation this summer that she was the victim of a financial fraud being run by a company linked to exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui and former White House political adviser Steve Bannon. 

• The Trump administration filed court papers seeking to overturn a federal magistrate’s Sept. 20 ruling that stopped a U.S. ban on China’s ubiquitous messaging and e-commerce app WeChat.
   
• A government effort to break up Facebook from Instagram and WhatsApp would defy established law, cost billions of dollars and harm consumers, according to a paper company lawyers have prepared in the wake of rising antitrust legal threats.
   
• The Trump administration is launching an investigation into the trade practices of Vietnam, faulting the country for currency practices and invoking the same trade law the U.S. used in imposing sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports.
   
• Big Law Firms Prosper Despite Covid-Impaired Economy

U.S. stock futures edged higher as investors cheered signs that political uncertainty may ebb following reports of President Trump’s improving health condition, while former Vice President Joe Biden’s rising lead in the polls suggested a more decisive outcome in the elections.

Details of Mr. Trump’s symptoms and treatment provided by his medical team suggest his condition is progressing along the course of other patients of his age and risk factors, but his doctors appear to be administering dexamethasone earlier in the course of treatment than they would with other patients, say physicians experienced in treating Covid-19.

Meanwhile, a top White House official warned against any attempt by U.S. rivals to take advantage of a situation that security experts said presents a fertile ground for interference and disinformation.

• White House Faces Remote-Work, Security Challenges as Trump Treated for Covid-19

Meanwhile, more workers identified themselves as permanently laid off and unemployed for the long term in September, another sign the labor market’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be slow and protracted.

• Senior White House officials have raised objections to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s proposed standards for deciding whether a Covid-19 vaccine should be given widely and don’t appear likely to sign off on the agency’s guidelines, people familiar with the matter said.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s pursuit of a deal with TikTok could win him two prizes at once: a flashy new customer for his company’s lagging cloud-computing business and a victory over a fierce rival.

Mr. Ellison, 76 years old and chairman of the company, has reason to be a big fan of Chinese-owned TikTok, a video-sharing app famously beloved by young people. But first Oracle, TikTok and their partners have to get a deal done that could return the business-software company to the center of the tech world.

The second-largest cinema chain in America is likely to close indefinitely all its U.S. locations, after reopening in August, according to a person familiar with the plans, escalating the pandemic-driven crisis faced by the entertainment industry.

Cineworld Group PLC’s Regal Entertainment Group’s potential decision to suspend operations at its more than 500 locations follows a cascade of postponements for big-budget Hollywood films, most recently the coming James Bond title “No Time to Die.” The studio behind the film, MGM Holdings Inc., on said it was delaying the film for the second time, to next April, from this November. It had originally been scheduled for release in April of this year.

Supporters of QAnon are increasingly going public on LinkedIn, expanding their online presence and prompting the professional-networking site to take steps to limit the spread of the community that promotes politically themed conspiracy theories.

Hundreds of LinkedIn members have updated their professional profiles with phrases and acronyms associated with QAnon, or have supported QAnon-related posts with positive comments or “likes,” according to an analysis by social-media research firm Storyful.

In response, Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has taken steps to remove QAnon posts with misleading information and to kick out people who break the site’s rules on sharing articles and videos. “QAnon misinformation is not tolerated on LinkedIn,” a LinkedIn spokesman said.