Good morning. Wall Street’s top regulator extended its authority into new corners of the financial industry on Tuesday, adopting rules targeting firms that are among the most active buyers and sellers of U.S. government bonds and stocks.

• What has changed: The Securities and Exchange Commission will now require dozens of firms, including high-speed traders and hedge funds, to face new capital requirements, register their activities and report more information on their transactions. The changes resulted from the SEC’s 3-2 vote to broaden its definition of what it considers to be a securities “dealer.”
   
• Why they did this: The SEC has been trying to bring its regulations up to speed with markets, especially for U.S. Treasurys, which are increasingly dominated by electronic trading and intermediaries that act as crucial providers of liquidity. Unregistered market participants acting like dealers accounted for about half of daily Treasury trading activity over electronic platforms in recent years, according to research cited by the SEC.
   
• Industry concerns: Big trading and hedge-fund firms warned the SEC that imposing higher costs on their operations could lead them to scale back, reducing overall liquidity. They also argued the SEC’s timing risked upsetting the market just as the Treasury is trying to finance larger budget deficits.
   
• Broader context: Under the leadership of Gary Gensler, the SEC has taken an expansive approach to its mission of protecting investors and maintaining market efficiency. Republican SEC commissioners have opposed much of Gensler’s agenda as being too aggressive.

Europe’s green agenda collides with geopolitical, economic reality.

The European Union is coming under pressure to pare back its sweeping plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions amid fierce resistance from farmers as well as demands to boost military spending to counter Russia.

The conflict: The EU has rolled out a raft of new regulations, taxes and investment programs in recent years that propelled the bloc to the forefront of the global fight to combat climate change. As European governments implement the measures, however, they are colliding with farmers, business groups and politicians who say the climate agenda is out of step with more urgent problems on the continent.

U.S. whistleblower protection law doesn’t apply abroad, court says.

Tipsters who work for foreign units of U.S. companies aren’t protected by U.S. whistleblower protection law, a federal appeals court in San Francisco said.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a decision that threw out a lawsuit brought by a former Montreal-based employee of business-software company Oracle who claimed he was a victim of unlawful retaliation.

The man tipped off the Securities and Exchange Commission about alleged fraud at Oracle and reported his suspicions internally. He later resigned after he was removed as a project manager, and sued Oracle. Tossing his appeal, the Ninth Circuit said that “nothing in the anti-retaliation provisions in the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts overcomes the presumption that Congress does not regulate foreign conduct.” The Second Circuit reached a similar conclusion in 2014.

Oracle and a lawyer for the former employee didn’t respond to requests for comment.

—Richard Vanderford

• The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said it is investigating worker safety around lead-sheathed telecom cables, opening up a “health hazard evaluation” in Western Massachusetts after receiving a union request.
   
• Four critical bolts needed to hold an Alaska Airlines jet’s plug door in place were missing before the Jan. 5 blowout involving a Boeing 737 MAX, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report on the incident.
   
• Federal judges on Monday heard a challenge to a U.S. regulatory agency’s control over private-equity and hedge-fund managers, according to WSJ Pro Private Equity (subscription required).
   
• The International Trade Commission shot down a push by steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steelworkers union seeking tariffs on imported steel used for cans.
   
• RTX is under investigation by U.S. regulators related to its recall of hundreds of Pratt & Whitney engines.

Tech layoffs just keep coming as sector resets for AI.

The drumbeat of job cuts in the tech industry continued on Tuesday when DocuSign became the latest company to announce layoffs this year, as Silicon Valley keeps a grip on costs while pouring more cash into artificial intelligence.

Since cutting tens of thousands of workers in late 2022 and early last year, the tech industry has extended its belt-tightening after years of growth with little restraint. Companies have emerged from the tech downturn with a new focus on profitability. And the AI excitement that has been a boon to the tech industry is also leading companies to shift resources away from other efforts and, in some cases, increase automation in their own workforces.

• Israel said it would send ground troops to fight Hamas in Rafah, a southern Gaza city on the border with Egypt where more than one million civilians are sheltering from war.
   
• German manufacturing orders jumped unexpectedly in December, driven by bumper aircraft purchases, although excluding larger orders they still fell, reflecting a difficult environment for the sector.
   
• Retail sales growth in the U.K. slowed in January mainly due to easing inflation and weak consumer demand, with cost-of-living pressures entering their third year, according to British Retail Consortium data.
   
• Rains brought by a turbocharged atmospheric river eased across the Los Angeles area Tuesday, but weather officials warned occasional downpours on already saturated ground could trigger more dangerous mudslides and flash flooding.

• Senators threw in the towel Tuesday on a $118 billion national-security and border package after sharp opposition from Republicans scuttled the deal.
   
• As many as 50 of the hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 could be dead, a figure that is considerably higher than the 29 deaths Israel has publicly acknowledged, according to an Israeli assessment shared with U.S. and Egyptian officials.
   
• Donald Trump isn’t immune from prosecution on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled Tuesday.
   
• Adam Neumann, the former chief executive and co-founder of WeWork, is trying to regain control of the bankrupt co-working company less than five years after the board forced him out.
   
• JPMorgan Chase is giving the humble bank branch some swagger.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

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