Wall Street bankers reveled in a merger boom driven by a wave of megadeals that kicked off this spring. But a worrisome third quarter lull is raising questions about how long the momentum can last. Global mergers and acquisitions activity slowed sharply in the third quarter from the second, according to Mergermarket data. In the US, where the downshift was even worse, third quarter M&A activity fell by nearly half to $535 billion. "We're at a crossroads," said Lucinda Gutherie, head of Mergermarket. Yahoo Finance 2026 is still on pace for a record year in worldwide M&A deals by dollar value, according to Mergermarket data.
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