1 AM IN NEW ORLEANS AT THE GOLD CONFERENCE SO FOR THESE WEEK THE COMMENTARIES WILL BE SHORT. I WILL DO MY UTMOST THE RETRIEVE ALL DATA FOR YOU
EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: OCTOBER 2026 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 4,036.000000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 10/28/2026 DELIVERY DATE: 10/30/2026
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED
072 H GOLDMAN 3
905 C ADM 3
TOTAL: 3 3
MONTH TO DATE: 13,699
GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR OCT./2026: 3 CONTRACTs NOTICES FOR 300 OZ or 0.00932 TONNES
total notices so far: 13,699 contracts FOR 1,369,900 OZ OR 42.609TONNES
SILVER NOTICES: 47 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 235,000 OZ /
total number of notices filed so far this month : 3886 CONTRACTS (NOTICES) for 19.430 million oz
GLD
GOLD PRICE LOSS OF 23.45
HANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 30.04 PTS OR 0.82%
HANG SENG CLOSED DOWN 639.81 PTS OR 1.00 %
Nikkei CLOSED UP 639.81 PTS OR 1.00%
//Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.35%
//Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) CLOSED UP AT 6.6614
/ OFFSHORE CLOSED UP AT 6.6684 Oil DOWN TO 101.97 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT DOWN TO 114.61 Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL MIXED
ONSHORE USA/ YUAN// WITH YUAN TRADING 6.6614OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING UP TO 6.6684 ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL // OFF SHORE AND UP ON THE DOLLAR)// / AND THUS STRONGEROFF SHORE YUAN TRADING UP AGAINST US DOLLAR/ AND THUS STRONGER
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| Gold | Ounces |
| Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oz | nil |
| Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz | 1 ENTRIES i) Out of HSBC 388.745 oz |
| Deposit to theDealerInventory in oz | 0 ENTRIES |
| Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oz | DEPOSITS/CUSTOMER//gold 0 ENTRIES xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| No of oz served (contracts) today | 3 CONTRACTS 300 OZ 0..00932TONNES OF GOLD |
| No of oz to be served (notices) | 7Contracts 0700OZ 0.02177 TONNES |
| Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month | 13,6969notices 1,369,900 OZ 42.609 TONNES |
| Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers inventory this month | NIL oz |
| Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this month |
dealer deposits: 0
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DEPOSITS:CUSTOMER ACCT
ENTRIES: 0
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comex withdrawals
1 ENTRIES
) Out of HSBC 388.745 oz
adjustments: 0
COMEX IS DRAINING GOLD
chaos inside the comex
THE FRONT MONTH OF OCT OI STANDS AT 10 CONTRACTS HAVING A LOSS OF 201 CONTRACTS.
WEDNESDAY WE HAD A NORMAL DELIVERY OF 1,369,600OZ ( 41.9751TONNES) OF GOLD STANDING FOR DELIVERY: TODAY: 1,370,600 OZ OR 42.631 TONNES FOR A GAIN OF 1000 OZ (0.0311 TONNES) OR 10 CONTRACTS UNDERWENT A QUEUE JUMP WHERE THEY WILL TRY AND TAKE DELIVERY OVER ON THIS SIDE OF THE POND.
.
NOVEMBER LOST 270 CONTRACTS FALLING TO 3,111
DECEMBER, THE LARGEST DELIVERY MONTH IN THE CALENDAR, ITS OI FALLS BY 2814 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 278,582
.
We had 3 contracts filed for today representing 300 oz
Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer and 0 notices issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equate to 3 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 6 notice(s) was (were) stopped (received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account
To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for OCT /2026. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (13,6969 to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of OCT ( 10 CONTRACTS) minus the number of notices served upon today 3 x 100 oz per contract) equals 1,370,600 OZ OR(42.631Tonnes of gold) to which we add our two exchange for risk in Oct totalling 837 contracts for 83,700 oz or 2.60346 tonnes. Thus Oct standing for gold reduces to 45.2345tonnes
THUS: INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for OCT. /2026. contract month,we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (13,699) to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of OCT(10 contracts minus the number of notices served upon today 3 x 100 oz per contract) equals 1,370,600 OZ OR(42.631Tonnes of gold) plus our first exchange for risk totalling 837 contracts//83700 oz//2.60346 tonnes//standing ADVANCES to 45.2345 tonnes
new total of gold standing in OCT becomes 45.2345TONNES//
TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING FOR OCT.: 45.2345TONNES WHICH IS NOW VERY STRONG FOR THIS NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF OCT./
WEDNESDAY VOLUME: 161,759fair
COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION
NEW PLEDGED GOLD:
241,794.285 oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 5.94 TONNES
204,937.290 OZ PLEDGED MANFRA 3.08 TONNES
83,657.582 PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690 tonnes
265,999.054, oz JPM No 2
1,152,376.639 oz pledged Brinks/
Manfra: 33,758.550 oz
Delaware: 193.721 oz
International Delaware:: 11,188.542 oz
total pledged gold: 1,756,101.607 oz 54.62 tonnes pledged gold lowers
total inventories in gold declining rapidly
total pledged gold: 1,756,101.607 tonnes oz 54.62 tonnes
TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED GOLD 23,206,8454.845oz//
TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD 14,829,077.809 tonnes (461.246 tonnes)
TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD 8,377,765.0360oz.
REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON 13,072,783 oz ((REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD)=
406.618Tonnes //
total inventories in gold declining rapidly
SILVER COMEX
OCT DELIVERY MONTH
OCT 29
| Silver | Ounces |
| Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory | NIL oz |
| Withdrawals from Customer Inventory | 3 entries i) Out of HSBC 28,107.371 oz ii) Out of Loomis: 300,330.390 oz iii) Out of Manfra: 407,924,170 oz TOTAL WITHDDRAWAL: 728,352.060 OZ |
| Deposits to the Dealer Inventory | 0 ENTRY |
| Deposits to the Customer Inventory | ENTRIES: 1 i)Into Loomis 62,724.5000 oz |
| No of oz served today (contracts) | 47 CONTRACT(S) ( 235,000 OZ) |
| No of oz to be served (notices) | 0 Contracts (0.000 MILLION oz) |
| Total monthly oz silver served (contracts) | 3886 contracts 19..430 MILLIONoz |
| Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers inventory this month | NIL oz |
| Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer inventory this month |
DEPOSITS INTO DEALER ACCOUNTS
ENTRY:0
DEPOSIT ENTRIES/CUSTOMER ACCOUNT
1ENTRIES:
i)Into Loomis 62,724.5000 oz
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
withdrawals:
3 ENTRIES
) Out of HSBC 28,107.371 oz
ii) Out of Loomis: 300,330.390 oz
iii) Out of Manfra: 407,924,170 oz
TOTAL WITHDDRAWAL: 728,352.060 OZ
adjustments : 5
a) customer to dealer Asahi 5,392,199.154 oz
b) Nwxt 4 dealer to customer
CNT: 94,763,254
c) JMMorgan: 346,810.590 oz
d) LoomisL 39,102.400 oz/’
e) Manfra 10,111,633 oz
TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 104.6398MILLION OZ//.TOTAL REG + ELIGIBLE. 335.871Million oz
registered silver dropping in numbers
CALCULATIONS FOR THE NEW STANDING FOR SILVER FOR OCT
FRONT MONTH: SILVER OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS: 47 FOR A LOSS OF 111 CONTRACTS . WEDNESDAY WE HAD 19.200 MILLION OZ STAND: TODAY: 19.430 MILLION OZ FOR A GAIN OF 230,000 OZ (46 CONTRACTS). THUS A 46 CONTRACT QUEUE JUMP//WHERE THEY WILL TRY AND TAKE DELIVERY ON THIS SIDE OF THE POND.
.
NOVEMBER LOST 2 CONTRACTS DOWN TO AN OI OF 1560
DECEMBER LOST 25 CONTRACTS UP TO AN OI OF 85,187
TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 47 or 235 ,000 oz
CONFIRMED volume WEDNESDAY; 49,858/ strong/raid/
AND NOW OCT. DELIVERIES:
To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in OCT. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 3886 X5,000 oz = 19.430 MILLION oz.
Then we take the difference between the front month of OCT. and the number of notices filed for today x 5000 to give us our standing
Thus the standings for silver for the OCT 2026 contract month: (3,886)Notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of OCT (47) minus number of notices served upon today ( 47x 5000 oz) equals silver standing for the OCT .contract month equating to 19.430 MILLION OZ to which we add silver’s TWO exchange for risk for 450 contracts (2.25 million oz).. total standing RISES AT 21.680 million oz//. ( a very strong delivery month)
We must also keep in mind that there is considerable silver standing in London coming from our longs
There are ONLY 104,639million oz of registered silver
JPMorgan as a percentage of total silver: 125.145 ///335.871million: 37.31%
The record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price on that day at $18.42.
The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44.
BOTH GLD AND SLV ARE MASSIVE FRAUD
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OCT 29/2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $23.45 HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A DEPOSIT OF 2.56TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1043.36TONNES
OCT 28/2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $23.45 SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A DEPOSIT OF 0.20TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1041.65TONNES
OCT 27/2026/WITH GOLD UP $38.30/HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.65TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1040.80 TONNES
OCT 26//2026/WITH GOLD UP $28.40/HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A MASSIVE WITHDRAWAL OF 16.17TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1041.45TONNES
OCT 23//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $49.65 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.56 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1057.62 TONNES
OCT 22//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $87.75 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. A DEPOSIT OF 1.14 TONNES OF GOLDINTO THE GLD//// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1060.18 TONNES
OCT 21//2026/WITH GOLD UP $8.55 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD.// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1059.04 TONNES
OCT 20//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $41.05 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD. //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1059.04 TONNES
OCT 19//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $19.65 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:A DEPOSIT OF 5.13 TONNES OF 0.29 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/. //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1059.04 TONNES
OCT 16//2026/WITH GOLD UP $60.50 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.29 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/. //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1053.91 TONNES
OCT 15//2026/WITH GOLD UP $60.50 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.21 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/. //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1054.20 TONNES
OCT 14//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $66.25 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.41 TONNES
OCT 13//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $13.25 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF OF 2.281TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE THE GLD//: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.411 TONNES
OCT 12//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $24.20 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1053.13 TONNES
OCT 9//2026/WITH GOLD UP $60.00 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.562 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD//: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.411 TONNES
OCT 8//2026/WITH GOLD UP $16.85 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 3.703 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1059.873 TONNES
OCT 7//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $46.70 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.27 TONNES
OCT 6//2026/WITH GOLD UP $30.60 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: A DEPOSIT OF 0.754 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.27 TONNES
OCT 5//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.20 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.854 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.696 TONNES
OCT 2//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $43.00 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: A DEPOSIT OF 0.854 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.55 TONNES
OCT 1//2026/WITH GOLD UP $19.55 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.711 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.696 TONNES
SEPT 30//2026/WITH GOLD UP $7.80 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD:: A DEPOSIT OF 2.847 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD// //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1057.407 TONNES
SEPT 29//2026/WITH GOLD UP $11.75 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1054.56 TONNES
SEPT 28//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $150.20 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1054.56 TONNES
SEPT 25//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $150.20 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD //:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1054.56 TONNES
SEPT 24//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $18.70 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 1.43 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD://:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.84 TONNES
SEPT 23//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $58.00 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.41 TONNES
SEPT 22//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.30 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A DEPOSIT OF 0.31 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.41 TONNES
SEPT 21//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $41.20 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A DEPOSIT OF 2.26 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.10 TONNES
SEPT 18//2026/WITH GOLD UP $26.45 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A DEPOSIT OF 0.85 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1052.84 TONNES
SEPT 17//2026/WITH GOLD UP $14.05 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A DEPOSIT OF 1.71 TONNES OF GOLD INOT THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1051.99 TONNES
SEPT 16//2026/WITH GOLD UP $53.40 /HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A DEPOSIT OF 2.86 TONNES OF GOLD INOT THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1050.28 TONNES
SEPT 15//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $19.45 /NO CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.353 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1047.420 TONNES
SEPT 14//2026/WITH GOLD DOWN $54.50 /SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.353 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1047.420 TONNES
SEPT 11//2026/WITH GOLD UP $1.05 /SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD AT THE GLD://A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.353 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/:/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1050.277 TONNES
/
GLD INVENTORY: 103.36 TONNES, TONIGHTS TOTAL GOLD INVENTORY
SILVER
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XXX
OCT 29 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.25: :HUGE CHANGES AT THE SLV:// A HUGE DEPOSIT OF 1.354 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 499.681 MILLION OZ
OCT 28 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.25: :NO CHANGES AT THE SLV:// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 498.327 MILLION OZ
OCT 27 WITH SILVER UP $0.25: :NO CHANGES AT THE SLV:// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 498.327 MILLION OZ
OCT 26 WITH SILVER UP $0.25: :SMALL CHANGES AT THE SLV:// A DEPOSIT OF 451,000 OZ OF SILLVER INTO THE SLV // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 498.327 MILLION OZ
OCT 23 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.94 : :NO CHANGES AT THE SLV:// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 497.876 MILLION OZ
OCT 22 WITH SILVER DOWN $2.72 : : SMALL CHANGES AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 632,000 OZ INTO SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 497.876 MILLION OZ
OCT 21 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.28 : : STRONG CHANGES AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 858,000 OZ INTO SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 498.508 MILLION OZ
OCT 20 WITH SILVER UP $0.68 : :NO CHANGES A WITHDRAWAL OF 943,000 OZ INTO OUT OF SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 497.650 MILLION OZ
OCT 16 WITH SILVER UP $1.19 : :MEGA HUGE CHANGES A DEPOSIT OF 4.374 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 498.593 MILLION OZ
OCT 15 WITH SILVER UP $1.19 : :SMALL CHANGES A DEPOSIT OF 406,000 OZ INTO THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 494.219 MILLION OZ
OCT 14 WITH SILVER DOWN $3.25 : :SMALL CHANGES A WITHDRAWAL OF 135,000 OZ OUT OF THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.948 MILLION OZ
OCT 13 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.97 : :HUGE CHANGES A DEPOSIT OF 722,000 OZ INTO THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.813 MILLION OZ
OCT 12 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.51 : :HUGE CHANGES A DEPOSIT OF 722,000 OZ INTO THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.948 MILLION OZ
OCT 9 WITH SILVER UP $0.62 : :SMALL CHANGES A DEPOSIT OF 948,000 OZ INTO THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.226 MILLION OZ
OCT 8 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.74 : :SMALL CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 532,000 OZ FROM THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 492.278 MILLION OZ
OCT 7 WITH SILVER DOWN $1.36 : :SMALL CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 451,000 OZ FROM THE SLV// // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 492.910 MILLION OZ
OCT 6 WITH SILVER UP $0.31 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.361 MILLION OZ
OCT 5 WITH SILVER UP $0.87 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.361 MILLION OZ
OCT 2 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.74 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.578 MILLION OZ
OCT 1 WITH SILVER UP $0.57 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.400 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.578 MILLION OZ
SEPT 30 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.55 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 994,000 OZ INTO THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 494.978 MILLION OZ
SEPT 29 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.58 : :SMALL CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 566,000 OZ FROM THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.984 MILLION OZ
SEPT 28 WITH SILVER DOWN $2.91 : :SMALL CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 0.542 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 494.436 MILLION OZ
SEPT 25 WITH SILVER DOWN $2.91 : :SMALL CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 0.542 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 494.436 MILLION OZ
SEPT 24 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.96 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.813 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 493.533 MILLION OZ
SEPT 23 WITH SILVER UP $1.58 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.716 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// :INVENTORY RESTS AT 494.346 MILLION OZ
SEPT 22 WITH SILVER UP $0.10 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: :INVENTORY RESTS AT 496.062 MILLION OZ
SEPT 21 WITH SILVER UP $1.04 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: :INVENTORY RESTS AT 489.558 MILLION OZ
SEPT 18 WITH SILVER UP $1.04 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: :INVENTORY RESTS AT 489.558 MILLION OZ
SEPT 17 WITH SILVER UP $1.10 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.265 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV/ :INVENTORY RESTS AT 489.558 MILLION OZ
SEPT 16 WITH SILVER UP $0.95 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 813,000 OZ FROM THE SLV/ :INVENTORY RESTS AT 490.823 MILLION OZ
SEPT 15 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.16 : :HUGE CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 813,000 OZ FROM THE SLV/ :INVENTORY RESTS AT 491.636 MILLION OZ
SEPT 14 WITH SILVER DOWN $0.91 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV:/ :INVENTORY RESTS AT 492.449 MILLION OZ
SEPT 11 WITH SILVER DOWN $3.50 : :NO CHANGES IN INVENTORY AT THE SLV:/ :INVENTORY RESTS AT 492.449 MILLION OZ
CLOSING INVENTORY 499.681MILLION OZ OF SILVER
GOLD COMMENTARIES:
1.PETER SCHIFF//JOHN RUBINO//RAVEN
JOHN RUBINO
ALASDAIR MACLEOD…
UK budget: The wrong direction
If the Burnham government really wanted to improve the UK’s economic outlook, it is going in the wrong direction.
Chancellor Healey’s maiden budget confirms that it’s politics what drives economics, and not the other way round. Politically, it was understandable. The government is boxed in by the accumulation of 21st-century tax burdens on a struggling economy. And the Bank of England will have told Healey’s Treasury that inflation will almost certainly rise due to developments in the Middle East which will also undermine economic growth.
It is a recipe for stagflation faced by his namesake, an earlier Healey chancellor in the 1970s. But don’t tell the voters.
MacleodFinance Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
SubscribedFurther constraints come from Labour’s parliamentary party, populated by capitalist-haters screaming for more welfare. All Healey could do is what all socialist politicians resort to, which was to raid savers’ savings to the tune of £4.3bn. It might not sound a lot in a £3 trillion economy, but a parable about straw and a camel’s back comes to mind.
Property prices are already declining as a result of previous policies, so no matter we’ll tax landlords as much as 49% of their rental profits. They are a hate figure for all socialists, as are “rich” savers who are similarly affected. It amounts to a raid on private individuals’ savings to cover a soaring welfare bill which broadly remains untouched.
The direction of Healey’s policies should come as no surprise, justified by Keynesian misconceptions. By comparing the success of China’s economy with that of the UK’s stagnation, we will be struck by China’s sky-high savings rate. Meanwhile, the UK’s is under a continuing savings tax squeeze and struggles to match 10%. This is illustrated in the ONS chart below (note the covid shutdown led to an aberration in 2020):
This is arguably the most important factor the Keynesians would not like you to see. A high savings rate reduces consumer spending while providing stable finance for industrial production. It is the recipe for economic progress and technological development. Furthermore, other things being equal it leads to a surplus on the balance of trade. China’s massive trade balance is directly linked to her high savings rates, while the deficits on the UK’s balance of trade are linked to her low savings rate:
Put another way, Healey’s tax on savings is an additional burden on the economy, which will further undermine the perennially over-optimistic outlook of the Office for Budget Responsibility which advises the Treasury.
The UK is on a path of continuing decline and immiseration. But cheer up, it will soon come to an end as the entire G7 led by the US faces a forthcoming bond crisis which will destabilise financial markets and seriously undermine currencies. Metaphorically, we are about to move from the torture chamber to the scaffold. Get it over with, and we can more on.
END
CHRIS POWELL AND HIS GATA DISPATCHES
4. ANDREW MAGUIRE//KINESIS LIVE FROM THE VAULT/295
END
5. COMMODITY REPORT ///RARE EARTHS
YOUR EARLY CURRENCY VALUES/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING.7:30 AM
SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 30.04 PTS OR 0.82%
HANG SENG CLOSED DOWN 639.81 PTS OR 1.00 %
Nikkei CLOSED UP 639.81 PTS OR 1.00%
//Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.35%
//Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) CLOSED UP AT 6.6614
/ OFFSHORE CLOSED UP AT 6.6684 Oil DOWN TO 101.97 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT DOWN TO 114.61 Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL MIXED
ONSHORE USA/ YUAN// WITH YUAN TRADING 6.6614OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING UP TO 6.6684 ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL // OFF SHORE AND UP ON THE DOLLAR)// / AND THUS STRONGEROFF SHORE YUAN TRADING UP AGAINST US DOLLAR/ AND THUS STRONGER
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ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP TO 6.6614
OFFSHORE YUAN: UP TO 6.6684
1A.HANG SANG CLOSED DOWN 156.83 PTS OR 0.68%
1 B. SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 30.04 PTS OR 0.82 %
2. Nikkei closed UP 639.81PTS OR 1.00%
WEST TEXAS INTERMEDIATE OIL UP TO 101.97
BRENT; 114.61
3. Europe stocks SO FAR: ALL MIXED
USA dollar INDEX DOWN 3 BASIS PTS TO 102.200 EURO FALLS TO 1.1148 DOWN 7 BASIS PTS
3b Japan 10 YR bond yield:RISES TO. +2.842 UP 3 FULL BASIS PTS/ VERY TROUBLESOME//Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA CROSS NOW AT 157.79… JAPANESE YEN NOW FALLING AS WE HAVE NOW REACHED THE ENDING OF THE YEN CARRY TRADE AGAIN AND THE REPATRIATION OF YEN DENOMINATED BONDS TRADING IN THE USA/EUROPE. JAPAN 30 YR BOND YIELD: 3.902 UP 3 FULL BASIS PTS
3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000
3d USA/Yen rate now well ABOVE the important 120 barrier this morning
3e Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen UP //CHINESE ONSHORE YUAN: UP (6.66614 AND OFFSHORE: UP AT 6.6684
3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion USA. CENTRAL BANK OF JAPAN WILL NO LONGER DO QE.
Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt. GOVERMENT ASKED JAPAN PENSION FUNDS AND INSURANCE FUNDS TO BUY MORE JAPANESE BONDS AND REPATRIATE ALL FOREIGN BONDS.
3g Oil DOWN for WTI and DOWN for Brent this morning
3h European bond buying continues to push yieldsLOWER on all fronts in the EU German 10yr bund YIELD DOWN TO +3.3468 Italian 10 Yr bond yield DOWN AT 4.493SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD DOWN TO 3.969
3i Greek 10 year bond yield DOWN TO 4.309%
3j Gold at $4030.50 /Silver at: 52.87 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $100.00
3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 0AND 4 / 100 roubles/80.90
3m oil (WTI) into the 101 dollar handle for WTI and 114 handle for Brent/
3n Higher foreign deposits moving out of China// huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/
JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 157.79 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 2.842% UP 3 BASIS PTS STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION//YEN CARRY TRADE NOW UNWINDING//YEN BOND TRADING OVERSEAS TO BE REPATRIATED.//JAPAN 30 YR: 3.902 UP 3PTS..: USA/SF this 0.8278 as the Swiss Franc . Euro vs SF: 0.9229
USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 4.9920 DOWN 6 BASIS PTS…NOW BELOW 5.00%
USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 5.3310 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS/
USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.6770 DOWN 6 BASIS PTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 49.84UP 0 BASIS PTS/LIRA GETTING KILLED//IDIOTS FOR SELLING GOLD AND USA DOLLAR RESERVES.
10 YR UK BOND YIELD: 5.3136 DOWN 2 PTS
30 YR UK BOND YIELD: 5.7086DOWN 3 BASIS PTS
10 YEAR FRENCH BOND YIELD; 4.8930 //DOWN 3 BASIS PTS
10 YR CANADA BOND YIELD: 3.902UP 3 BASIS PTS
5 YR CANADA BOND YIELD: 3.604 UP 3 BASIS PTS.
1a New York Opening report
Tech Futures Tumble As Alphabet Plunges, Small Caps Rise Ahead Of PCE, ECB
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 08:13 AM
US futures are lower, with Nasdaq contracts sliding as Alphabet’s ugly search miss revived the “is AI capex paying off” debate, while Microsoft’s Azure beat and lighter capex, a roughly 1% drop in oil on fresh US-Iran diplomacy chatter and news that Christine Lagarde will quit the ECB nine months early round out the morning’s drivers; as a result small caps outperform while the 10Y yield hovers just around 5%. As of 7:30am ET, S&P futures are 0.3% lower at 7,768 while Nasdaq futures are down about 1% and Dow futures are flat; Russell 2000 futures are up 0.5%. Yesterday the S&P 500 rose 0.28% to 7,744, closing within 1% of its record high after the Fed’s on-hold decision, while the Philly semi index gained 1.75% led by an 11% surge in Oracle. In premarket trading, Mag 7 names are mixed: Alphabet plunges 10% after search and advertising sales missed, confirming our article from last night, while Microsoft rises about 3% after its Azure beat; software is down 3% (per JPM) after ServiceNow (-18%) and Fortinet (-26%) disappointed. The day’s driver is (again) AI, only this time in reverse: JPM’s desk says the market is trading with a defensive bias, with the AI theme being sold and Discretionary and Financials bid, “pointing to the broadening / ex-AI trade.” Treasuries extend Wednesday’s post-Fed gains, with yields 1-2bps lower (the 2Y touched 4.67% overnight), as traders trimmed bets on the pace of Fed hikes after Kevin Warsh’s press conference (December hike odds are now about 80%); gilts and bunds also rise (though lag Treasuries) as European energy prices retreat. The Bloomberg dollar index is up 0.1%, paring the bulk of its Fed-induced losses, while EUR/USD lingers just above its year-to-date low into the ECB decision. In commodities, Brent briefly slipped to a $113 handle after Semafor reported the US is involved in talks on a temporary peace deal with Iran, even as Iran’s IRGC claimed three tankers hit mines in Hormuz; gold falls 1% but holds above $4,000, silver slides 2.6% and copper is softer. Bitcoin is down 1.4% after dipping below $80,000. US economic data slate includes initial jobless claims, Q3 GDP, September personal income, spending and PCE (all 8:30am). The Fed is in its post-meeting quiet period with no speakers scheduled; Treasury auctions $44 billion of 7-year notes at 1pm.
In premarket trading, Magnificent Seven stocks are mixed: Alphabet (GOOGL) -10%, Amazon (AMZN) -1%, Nvidia (NVDA) -0.6%, Tesla (TSLA) -0.4%, Meta Platforms (META) +1.1%, Apple (AAPL) +1.2%, Microsoft (MSFT) +2.9%.
- Alphabet (GOOGL) plunges 10% after the company reported disappointing search and advertising sales that reinforced investor concerns about AI’s threat to its core business.
- Microsoft (MSFT) is up 2.9% after the company posted increasing growth in its cloud business and kept its capital expenditures in check, satisfying investors amid a drumbeat of concern that spending on artificial intelligence won’t pay off.
- Apple (AAPL) +1.3%, Meta Platforms (META) +1%, Tesla (TSLA) -0.2%, Nvidia (NVDA) -0.5%, Amazon (AMZN) -1.8%
- Software companies are broadly lower after disappointing quarterly results from ServiceNow and Fortinet added to concerns about the industry’s prospects in a world awash with AI.
- Blue Owl Capital (OWL) rises 4% after reporting a larger uptick in fees than analysts expected in the third quarter.
- Carvana (CVNA) is up 8% after the used-car retailer reported better-than-expected results on a key profit measure.
- Caterpillar (CAT) shares slump 9% after the company posted third-quarter earnings that only modestly beat expectations, raising concerns about the durability of the broad rally in AI-related stocks.
- Chipotle (CMG) is up 7% after the restaurant chain reported comparable sales for the third quarter that beat the average analyst estimate.
- DoorDash (DASH) agreed to buy rival Instacart (CART) in a deal that values the company at about $17 billion, the latest sign of consolidation in an increasingly competitive delivery market. Shares of Instacart are halted.
- EBay (EBAY) jumps 6% after the online auction company’s net revenue forecast for the full year beat the average analyst estimate.
- Fortinet (FTNT) plunges 26% after the security software company gave a disappointing outlook for service revenue.
- Glaukos (GKOS) is up 15% after the eye-focused medical device maker boosted its net sales guidance for the full year. The guidance surpassed Wall Street’s expectations.
- Marvell Technology (MRVL) falls 11% as the company is said to be in advanced talks to buy data center optics maker Lumentum Holdings (LITE), according to people familiar with the matter. Lumentum rises 6%.
- ServiceNow (NOW) drops 19% after the software company’s forecast for fourth quarter current remaining performance obligation fell short of the average analyst estimate.
In other corporate news, DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for $65 a share in cash and stock, a $17 billion deal it plans to fund partly with debt; Marvell is in advanced talks to buy data-center optics maker Lumentum, according to Bloomberg, which explains Lumentum’s premarket pop and Marvell’s 10% slide; Microsoft kicked off a 10-part US dollar high-grade bond offering, because nothing says “capex in check” like a jumbo bond deal the morning after earnings; Bristol Myers, Merck and Eli Lilly delivered beat-and-raises, with Lilly lifting its FY revenue guide to $91.0-92.0 billion from $85.0-87.0 billion, while Caterpillar fell after a small revenue beat spurred AI concern; Deutsche Telekom has hit the brakes on a merger with T-Mobile US, opting against a formal bid for now partly because of pushback from its works council (and activist Elliott, which had pushed it to ditch the plan); Samsung’s chip profit surged 15-fold yet the stock fell about 4% after it withheld shareholder payout plans until January and lifted FY26 capex by more than 60%; Shell announced a $5 billion buyback as record refining margins from the Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars lifted profit, while TotalEnergies’ Q3 profit more than doubled; Anthropic is working with RetailBook to market its IPO shares to UK retail traders, even as banks delay offloading part of a $15 billion loan tied to an Anthropic-linked Texas data center after the state paused new projects over grid risks; Trian offered about $1.4 billion for Wendy’s; and some BP board members favor a breakup, Semafor reports.
Wednesday’s tentative AI rebound has run into a wall: Alphabet’s miss, Samsung’s silence on payouts and a Fed that held rates while keeping a December hike in play all landed overnight, and as Bloomberg’s Jan-Patrick Barnert put it, “it’s the same spending binge, three different verdicts.” Alphabet’s search revenue growth slowed to 12% from 17% even as Google Cloud revenue doubled, and the company posted negative free cash flow for a second quarter running, a first since going public; Microsoft went the other way with Azure up 48% and capex below expectations, and Oracle jumped 11% on a path back to positive free cash flow. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped as much as 1.1%, with Alphabet doing about a quarter of the damage, while Russell 2000 futures rose, a split that looks a lot like the broadening trade that has dominated October.
“We are seeing the fears over AI and tech spending superseding the expectations for huge profits, especially at these elevated levels for some companies,” said Nick Twidale, chief market analyst at AT Global Markets. “As we have seen such stellar moves over the first half of the year, the expectations for Q3 are so high that anything less than excellent is a disappointment.”
Investors are jittery about tech results and are looking past the “picks and shovels” theme to find other beneficiaries, according to Rajeev De Mello, global macro portfolio manager at Gama Asset Management. “South Korea and Taiwan are exposed to these shifts resulting in poor performance for EM equities,” he said.
The rotation away from AI is no longer a one-day affair: the AI theme has not lagged this much over two quarters since the trade began, with Goldman’s US Quality pair beating its Broad AI basket again this quarter.
JPM’s Market Intel desk under Andrew Tyler calls Alphabet’s results “a bit of a setback for the nascent re-ignition of the AI / Tech trade” and says premarket price action points to a resumption of the broadening trend of recent weeks, which, given the economic strength and robust earnings cycle, could extend. JPM’s Mark Schilsky was less diplomatic, writing that Alphabet printed “a straight up miss” in which search missed buyside estimates by 2% because “pricing is declining way worse than investors were thinking” despite the strongest query growth in five years. The desk stays Tactically Bullish, would buy any dips and sees the primary risk as a spike in kinetic conflict in the Middle East, hedged via longs in crude and equity vol.
Goldman’s desks see a market in transition. Richard Privorotsky writes that “the market has moved past questioning capex durability. The new question is value capture,” while US sales trader Ariana Contessa saw “greenshoots of demand” in AI and semis “after 2-3 weeks of very little offense,” mostly from long-only funds; activity on the floor was “a 4 on a 1-10 scale.” Privorotsky’s punchline: “Pain trade is hyperscalers u/p while de-risked picks and shovels start working.” Goldman’s Eric Sheridan kept his Buy on Alphabet but cut his price target to $385 from $435, noting capex of $51.4 billion and Cloud revenue up 103% YoY. Meanwhile, the GS vol desk notes the 62bp FOMC straddle “failed to realize” and that the market sits “closer to a dealer long gamma pocket”, with today’s straddle at 65bps and Friday’s (post-Amazon) at 94bps. All this as hedge funds remain the most bearish in five years with the S&P sitting 1% from a record, and as Nomura’s McElligott argues the pod purge will pass.
On the Fed, the 10-2 hold (Cook and Hammack wanted a hike) came as expected, but it was Warsh’s press conference that moved markets: JPM’s Jay Barry notes the long end sold off after Warsh revealed there will be no policy vote at one meeting in 2027 and two in 2028, while Warsh “seemingly took comfort in the evolution of financial conditions, resurrecting the narrative that long-term rates might have done the Fed’s work for them.” Warsh’s own line: “while overall financial conditions are tighter, I am unable and unwilling to call them tight.” Goldman still expects a “second and final hike in December,” with March “also possible,” and estimates September core PCE at +0.34% m/m (3.11% y/y).
The other big story this morning is out of Frankfurt: ECB President Christine Lagarde will step down on February 7, 2027, nine months before her term expires, the ECB confirmed, with the European Council to appoint a successor; Pablo Hernandez de Cos and Klaas Knot are seen as the top candidates, per Bloomberg, and European Council President Costa says the search starts today. The announcement lands hours before today’s ECB decision, which is expected to hold the deposit rate at 2.5% (with a move to 2.75% in December the consensus call), and a press conference that, per Bloomberg, “will be about France more than rates.” Meanwhile, euro-area 1-year inflation swaps hit their joint highest since 2023 at 3.88% after Dutch TTF gas topped €100/MWh for the first time since the 2022 energy crisis.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 rises 0.6% to 647.81, with 426 members up and 158 down, as the region outperforms global peers after a slate of upbeat earnings; France’s CAC 40 (+1.0%) leads while Spain’s IBEX (-0.8%) lags on BBVA. JPM notes Defense, Homebuilders and Semis baskets are higher while Software lags. Haleon is the standout loser after pulling Centrum products from Chinese shelves, while Technip Energies and Shell lead gains on earnings. Here are the biggest European movers:
- Technip shares rise as much as 9%, the biggest gain in more than 18 months, after the engineering and technology company delivered earnings ahead of expectations and higher margins.
- Shell shares gain as much as 3.5% after the oil major reported 3Q profit that beat analyst estimates and announced a $5b share buyback.
- Aixtron shares jump as much as 9.1%. The chip-equipment company reported a large order beat in the third quarter and reiterated its full-year guidance.
- Renault shares rise as much as 3.5% after the French carmaker confirmed its financial outlook in a challenging environment.
- Air Liquide shares jump as much as 3.3%. The French maker of industrial chemicals reported 3Q revenue that beat the average analyst estimate amid a context of higher energy costs.
- Haleon shares fall as much as 14%, the most since its London listing in 2022. A change in China regulations on raw-materials imports meant it had to pull all over-the-counter Centrum vitamins and supplements from shelves there.
- Campari shares slide as much as 7.5% after the drinks maker said it’s guiding for a “marginal topline decline” in the US.
- Knorr-Bremse shares slide as much as 7.5%, to the lowest since December, as its Rail Vehicle Systems unit missed on orders, revenue and adjusted Ebit in 3Q.
- BBVA shares decline as much as 5.9% as the Spanish lender reported weak revenues in its home market, with net interest income below expectations and net income 5.5% lower than a year earlier.
- ING shares fall as much as 4.2% after the lender reported quarterly pretax profit that came in about 6% below consensus. Morgan Stanley said shares could face pressure as consensus may come down slightly for the year.
- AB InBev shares decline as much as 3.4%. Slumping beer volumes in China are the main disappointment, overshadowing an overall beat on organic sales growth in the third quarter.
Asian stocks fell as concerns over the sustainability of the AI trade resurfaced following lackluster results from Alphabet and Samsung, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropping as much as 1%. South Korea’s Kospi led declines, falling as much as 3.2% before paring to a 1.2% loss, as Samsung’s lack of a new shareholder return plan disappointed; Taiwan’s Taiex fell 1.8% (UMC dropped as much as 9.8% on a profit miss), China’s CSI 300 lost 1.2% and the chip-heavy STAR50 slid as much as 4.6%. Japan bucked the trend: the Nikkei rose about 1% to 64,581, its third straight day of gains, with Goldman’s Japan desk noting Advantest (+6%, after lifting guidance and announcing a ¥280 billion buyback) made up about 65% of the index gain and the GS Japan semi basket swung 4.7% intraday; Japanese banks rose 2.5% on the “Fed hawkish hold.” The ASX 200 added 0.4% while the Hang Seng was little changed. Investors also braced for the largest-ever Topix rebalancing at the close, expected to trigger around $60 billion of passive trading.
In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is up 0.1%, on track for its first gain in three weeks, and the DXY trades in a 102.06-102.33 range, paring some of Wednesday’s post-Warsh losses. EUR/USD is down 0.1% at 1.1142 and lingers just above its year-to-date low ahead of the ECB and the Lagarde news, with options flashing bearish signals; JPM’s Patrick Locke attributes yesterday’s dollar weakness to the Fed’s meeting-schedule change “reintroducing some institutional risk premium for USD.” USD/JPY is little changed at 157.87 as the BoJ begins its two-day meeting, and the Korean won rose 0.6%, leading Asian peers. Antipodeans are lower with metals.
In rates, Treasuries hold small gains, off session highs, led by long-end tenors as investors continue to digest Wednesday’s Fed announcements with support from lower oil prices; yields are 1bp-2bp lower with the 10Y around 5% (it touched 4.99% overnight) and the 2s10s curve about 1bp flatter, unwinding a small portion of Wednesday’s post-FOMC twist-steepening; traders now price about an 80% chance of a December hike and 70bps of tightening by next September, down from about 78bps before the decision. The curve twisted steeper through Warsh’s presser, and JPM continues to like 10s/30s steepeners. In Europe, gilts rise for a second day with the 10-year yield falling 3bps to a five-week low of 5.29% as energy prices decline and the market digests a budget that, per DB, saw Chancellor Healey “successfully buying himself more time”; bunds are 30 ticks higher into the ECB. Japan’s two-year JGB auction drew firm demand with a bid-to-cover of 4.03. The week’s auction cycle concludes with the $44 billion 7-year note sale at 1pm; the WI yield of 4.905% is 18bp richer than September’s auction, which tailed by 0.7bp. Treasury also sells $115 billion and $110 billion of 4- and 8-week bills at 11:30am. The IG calendar is expected to pick up after the FOMC, with HSBC first out of the gate and Microsoft’s 10-part deal on deck.
Market participants will be parsing PCE for “signs that higher energy costs are feeding into underlying price pressures,” wrote Lloyd Chan, strategist at MUFG Bank.
In commodities, WTI is down $1.52 at $101.26 (7:30am ET) while Brent December was down 0.8% at $114.44 earlier, after Brent briefly slipped to a $113 handle on the Semafor report that the US is involved in talks on a temporary Iran peace deal; per Semafor, if diplomacy fails the US is ready to resume combat operations shortly after the midterms, and the WSJ reported that VP Vance wrote to Iranian hardliner Mohsen Rezaei to revive talks. Iran’s IRGC Navy claimed three “non-compliant” oil tankers hit naval mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours. Dutch TTF gas is down about 4% after topping €100/MWh yesterday, and France says Europe is set to release 42 million barrels of oil. Spot gold is down 1% at the bottom of a $4,016-4,069 range, silver is down 2.6% and LME copper is softer after hitting resistance even as Chinese import demand hit a record.
US economic data slate includes initial and continuing jobless claims, Q3 advance GDP, GDP price index and core PCE q/q, and September personal income, spending, PCE and core PCE (8:30am). There are no Fed speakers scheduled; Treasury auctions $44 billion of 7-year notes at 1pm.
Corporate events: Eli Lilly, Caterpillar, Mastercard, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Linde, Altria, ICE and Cheniere report before the bell; Amazon, Intel, Starbucks, Coinbase, Sandisk, Gilead, Reddit and Roblox report after the close. The ECB announces its decision at 9:15am ET, followed by Lagarde’s press conference.
Market Snapshot
Top Overnight News
- A global rally in technology shares stalled after disappointing earnings from two industry heavyweights revived doubts over whether billions of dollars in artificial intelligence spending will deliver sufficient returns. (BBG)
- Alphabet fell 10% in postmarket trading as its search-related revenue growth slowed to 12% from 17% in the previous quarter, even though Google Cloud’s revenue doubled; it posted negative free cash flow for a second quarter running, a first since going public. (BBG)
- Samsung’s chip profits surged 15-fold, yet the stock fell about 4% in Seoul because it withheld plans for shareholder payouts until January, a day after SK Hynix’s $45 billion payout. (BBG)
- Microsoft shares rose in extended trading after first-quarter results beat expectations on key metrics, including Azure growth of 48%, with capital spending below expectations; the company has since kicked off a 10-part US dollar high-grade bond offering. (BBG)
- ServiceNow tumbled 18.1% in postmarket trading after its forecast for fourth-quarter current remaining performance obligation fell short of the average analyst estimate. (BBG)
- European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde informed the Governing Council and European Council President António Costa that she will resign effective February 7, 2027; Costa says the EU will start the search for a new ECB president today. (BBG)
- The Trump administration is involved in ongoing negotiations centered around a temporary peace deal with Iran; if diplomacy fails, the US is ready to resume combat operations shortly after the midterms. (Semafor/BBG)
- Iran’s IRGC Navy claims three “non-compliant” oil tankers hit naval mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, the semi-official Fars news agency reports. (BBG)
- Europe is set to release 42 million barrels of oil, France says. (BBG)
- Shell announced one of its highest-ever share buybacks, $5 billion, as the Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict lead to record margins for its oil-refining business. (BBG)
- DoorDash to buy Instacart for $65 a share in cash and stock, and plans to use debt financing to help fund the $17 billion acquisition. (BBG)
- Marvell Technology is in advanced talks to buy data-center optics maker Lumentum, according to people familiar with the matter. (BBG)
- Deutsche Telekom has hit the brakes on a merger with T-Mobile US, opting against a formal bid for now partly because of pushback from its works council. (BBG)
- Banks are delaying plans to offload part of a $15 billion loan to fund a data center tied to Anthropic in Texas, after the state put a hold on new projects while assessing risks to its power grid. (BBG)
- Traders are pricing a roughly 80% possibility that the Fed will deliver a 25bps hike in December, receding slightly from before Wednesday’s decision; by September they price a total of 70bps of tightening, down from around 78bps. (BBG)
- The US placed an effective ban on imports from Chinese genomics powerhouse BGI Group and two related entities under the forced-labor law. (BBG)
- US House Democrats demand President Trump preserve conversations with Grok and other AI bots: Politico
- US Department of Agriculture confirmed New World Screwworm in Arizona. (Newsquawk)
- BofA total card spending rose 6.0% Y/Y in the week to 24 October (prev. +4.9%), with spending growth among lower-income households consistently outpacing that of higher-income households over recent weeks. (Newsquawk)
- China names Zhang Shengmin as new Politburo member and will hold its party congress in Beijing in the second half of 2027. (BBG)
- Goldman expects the Fed’s December hike to be the last, with March “also possible”; GS estimates September core PCE at +0.34% m/m (3.11% y/y). (GS)
- JPM’s Market Intel desk stays Tactically Bullish, would buy dips, and sees the primary risk as a spike in kinetic conflict in the Middle East, hedged via longs in crude and equity vol. (JPM)
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk
APAC stocks were ultimately mixed as the region reflected on recent key events, including the FOMC rate decision and several big tech earnings. ASX 200 was kept afloat as strength in real estate, energy, financials and utilities atoned for the losses in the tech, consumer and mining sectors, but with gains capped amid a lack of fresh pertinent drivers. Nikkei 225 was choppy, briefly wiping out its early gains, before rebounding later in the session, with some caution seen as the BoJ kick-started its 2-day policy meeting. Meanwhile, attention was also on the largest-ever Topix rebalancing, which is expected to trigger around USD 60bln in passive trading at Thursday’s close, with the reshuffle affecting more than 700 stocks and involving additions, deletions and free-float weight adjustments. KOSPI underperformed with index heavyweight Samsung Electronics pressured following its earnings results, in which it reported Q3 net income rose by more than 500% Y/Y to KRW 75.2tln, but failed to meet the lofty expectations. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were somewhat varied as participants digested a deluge of earnings, despite another firm liquidity effort by the PBoC, which continued with its CNY 1tln-plus open market operations.
Top Asian News
- China is to hold a party congress in Beijing in 2027.
European bourses are broadly firmer to start Thursday’s trade, with it being the busiest earnings day for Q3 in Europe. France’s CAC 40 (+1.0%) leads while the IBEX (-0.8%) lags. Outside of earnings (see more below), a modest boost across the equity space was seen following a Semafor report stating that the US administration is reportedly pursuing negotiations for a temporary peace agreement with Iran, although significant obstacles remain. Starting with earnings in South Korea for Samsung Electronics (-4.1%), its chip profit surged 15-fold Y/Y, driven by strong AI demand, but shares declined as investors were disappointed by the absence of new shareholder-return plans. To add, the chipmaker plans to increase FY26 CAPEX by more than 60% to KRW 84.4tln, after selling out of high-end chips for 2027. Moving to European earnings: STMicro +1.1%, Q3 metrics were mixed but its Q4 revenue guidance beat expectations (USD 4.15bln vs exp. USD 4.11bln); BBVA -5.2%, net income beat however, the metric missed for the Spanish region; ING -3.2%, metrics missed consensus across the board and it plans 400 job cuts; Shell +3.0%, adj. profit beat and announced a USD 5bln share buyback programme; Lloyds -4.9%, PBT beat estimates but disappointed investors by not lifting guidance. US equity futures are mixed, with clear underperformance in the NQ following disappointing Alphabet (-10.2%) pre-market earnings, in which EPS and revenue missed expectations, resulting in shares slumping pre-market. On the other hand, Microsoft (+3.6%) is higher pre-market after stronger-than-expected earnings and revenue, driven by robust Azure cloud growth and AI demand, alongside an upbeat cloud outlook and continued positive free cash flow. Alphabet (GOOGL) Q3 2026 (USD): EPS 2.12 (exp. 3.03), Rev. 127.6bln (exp. 127.91bln), Oper. income 40.58bln (exp. 43.16bln), Google Services rev. 96.30bln (exp. 98.4bln), Google Cloud rev. 30.71bln (exp. 29.1bln), Google Search & other rev. 63.35bln (exp. 64.85bln). Microsoft (MSFT) Q1 2027 (USD): EPS 4.92 (exp. 4.72), Rev. 92.3bln (exp. 90.6bln), Oper. income 45.9bln (exp. 44.1bln), Net income 36.6bln (exp. 35.1bln), Cloud rev. 63.9bln (exp. 61.62bln).
FX
- DXY is marginally firmer, but has slipped off best levels, and trades within a 102.06 to 102.33 range, paring some of Wednesday’s losses, which came after Fed Chair Warsh’s press conference lacked hawkish surprises; the Fed held rates as expected, with Hammack and Cook dissenting in favour of a 25bps hike. Focus turns to a busy US docket, including Q3 GDP, Sep PCE and weekly Jobless Claims at 12:30GMT/08:30EDT.
- EUR/USD is lower and holds towards the bottom end of a 1.1125 to 1.1161 range ahead of the ECB at 13:15GMT/09:15EDT, where policymakers are expected to hold rates at 2.50% despite elevated energy prices and inflation concerns (Full Newsquawk Preview available).
- GBP/USD is a touch softer within a 1.3295 to 1.3336 range, after marginal gains on Wednesday following the FOMC and the Autumn Budget, where the OBR raised its 2027 inflation forecast to 3.4% (prev. 2.0%) and cut its GDP growth forecast to 1.0%. Newsflow for the UK has been quiet, and the docket ahead is light.
- USD/JPY trades in a 157.60 to 158.07 range as the BoJ kicks off its 2-day meeting, where it is expected to keep rates unchanged, with focus on its language around achieving the 2% price target. Overnight, Japanese Consumer Confidence printed 35.0 (exp. 35.1), while Tokyo CPI is due tonight.
- Antipodeans are lower, with AUD/USD at the bottom end of a 0.7031 to 0.7068 range (with losses across metals not helping) and NZD/USD in a 0.5610 to 0.5637 range. RBNZ Governor Breman said chances of a December rate hike are high, after Wednesday’s surprise 4-3 vote to hold, while NZ ANZ Business Confidence rose to 52.5 (prev. 51.9). Australian Import Prices fell 1.1% Q/Q (exp. +1.3%).
Central Banks
- ECB President Lagarde to step down on 7 February 2027.
- BoC Governor Macklem said the US deficit spending is a question of political will, adding the inflation forecast is based on pass-through of fuel costs, and the estimate of the neutral rate of interest may rise, while he will have more to say on his future in due course.
- RBNZ Governor Breman said the chances of a December rate hike are high.
Fixed Income
- Fixed benchmarks in the green, benefitting from the lack of hawkish surprise from the FOMC, despite the two hawkish dissenters. Otherwise, focus this morning swiftly returned to geopolitics, amid VP Vance’s mediation efforts; however, a recent Semafor report poured cold water on Vance’s efforts, though with current US focus on mediation, while strikes remain an option post-midterms.
- USTs just off best in 105-26 to 106-07 parameters, firmer by around 10 ticks as things stand.
- Bunds firmer by 30 ticks, holding at the upper end of 121.96 to 122.21 parameters into the ECB; Newsquawk preview available. This morning, action has been in tandem with USTs, and also a function of the pullback in Dutch TTF thus far, benefitting from constructive commentary from officials and energy desks.
- Gilts in-fitting, and seemingly taking the lack of hawkish surprise from the Fed as an excuse to pare back on market expectations around the BoE a touch, which are widely regarded as being too hawkish. Additionally, the lack of mistakes from Chancellor Healey during Wednesday’s budget is supportive, despite criticism from the various business bodies thereafter. Further, while he has kicked a welfare review into 2027, he continues to express an openness to cutting spending, to some degree at least. These points are supporting the space, to an 85.58 high, the highest since the final week of September.
- Japan sells JPY 2.12tln 2-year JGBs b/c 4.03 (prev. 3.89), average yield 1.905% (prev. 1.964%), Tail in price 0.014 (prev. 0.014).
Commodities
- Crude benchmarks declined overnight amid mediation hopes, after reports of a lot of back and forth between the Iranians and Americans via mediators, while US VP Vance reportedly reached out to Iranian hard-liner Rezaei in a bid to restart peace talks. Price action has been choppy in the European morning, with benchmarks bouncing off lows; WTI Dec’26 trades within a USD 100.71-102.31/bbl range, and Brent Jan’27 within a USD 109.75-111.00/bbl range, after settling at USD 102.78/bbl and USD 111.64/bbl, respectively, on Wednesday.
- Semafor reported that US President Trump is seriously considering resuming strikes on Iran shortly after the midterms if diplomacy fails, while the US remains engaged in negotiations over a temporary peace deal. Thereafter, reports suggested Iran agreed in principle to the proposed mechanisms but rejected any nuclear concessions, maintaining that nuclear negotiations can only take place after the war ends, the siege is lifted and the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Elsewhere, the White House said the US will not attack Iran before the midterm elections and that the blockade will remain in full force, while Iranian FM Araghchi said Iran could reopen Hormuz within days if its conditions are accepted. Iran’s IRGC Navy claimed three tankers struck naval mines and caught fire while using an unauthorised southern route of the Strait of Hormuz, while UKMTO reported a vessel on fire 9nm north of Khasab, Oman.
- Dutch TTF is lower by around 4% and sits towards the bottom end of a EUR 96.46-99.10/MWh range. The EU Energy Commissioner said the bloc is better able to handle the crisis than in 2022, with gas use 18% below 2022 levels.
- Spot gold is lower by 1% and holds at the bottom end of a USD 4,016-4,069/oz range, after fading the post-FOMC knee-jerk uplift overnight. Spot silver is lower by some 2.6% within a USD 52.49-54.39/oz range, while platinum and palladium futures are lower by around 2.0% and 1.3%, respectively.
- Base metals are softer, with 3M LME Copper at the bottom end of a USD 14,349.00-14,506.45/t range, having stalled after its recent advances amid mixed risk sentiment. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that the LME plans to turn metal held in its Hong Kong warehouses into digital assets that can be used for financing.
Trade/Tariffs
- White House said US President Trump has directed officials to negotiate agreements with trading partners to address national security risks from imports of robotics and industrial machinery from any country.
- China condemned the US adding three Chinese firms to the Xinjiang Act list and MOFCOM called on the US to halt Xinjiang-related pressure and smear campaigns against Chinese companies, while it warned it will take firm action to safeguard its interests.
- Indian Trade Minister said a trade deal with the US will not compromise any sensitive interests of farmers or other stakeholders.
Geopolitics: Middle East
- The US administration is reportedly pursuing negotiations for a temporary peace agreement with Iran, although significant obstacles remain, according to Semafor citing an administration official. Trump confirmed VP Vance had written to Tehran to restart talks but downplayed the effort as humanitarian. The US is reportedly prepared to resume military strikes shortly after the midterm elections if diplomacy fails, pending presidential authorisation.
- US VP Vance reached out to Iranian hard-liner Rezaei in a bid to restart peace talks, according to WSJ. The outreach aims to test whether enough common ground exists to persuade Trump against ordering a short, intense strike on Iran in the coming weeks, while some US officials believe engaging Iranian hard-liners could produce a better diplomatic outcome.
- US President Trump said at a rally in Ohio that they will rename the Strait of Hormuz the Trump Strait. Trump separately commented that Iran needs help with medical supplies and that VP Vance’s letter to the Iranian official was about supplies to help people, while Trump added that he didn’t tell Vance to write to Iran.
- White House principal deputy press secretary Kelly told the Jerusalem Post that the US will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections, while she added that Iran is in very bad condition, both economically and militarily. Furthermore, she stated that the blockade will remain in full force and effect, with oil flowing in record numbers of barrels through the Strait of Hormuz.
- US reportedly warned allies to brace for possible Iran strikes, according to AP citing two diplomats.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said Iran could reopen Hormuz within days if its conditions are accepted, according to Press TV. In later comments, Araghchi said they will continue close, sustained contacts with mediators to give diplomacy a chance.
- Iran’s IRGC Navy claimed three tankers struck naval mines, exploded and caught fire while travelling through an unauthorised southern route of the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, with the vessels subsequently abandoned. The Navy also claimed to have intercepted and safely landed a US MQM-170 reconnaissance and decoy drone west of the Strait of Hormuz.
- Iranian press noted a ‘baseless claim’ by US CENTCOM that main transit routes through the Strait of Hormuz have been cleared of sea mines.
Geopolitics: Ukraine
- Russian President Putin’s aide said Moscow is negotiating with Washington regarding lifting sanctions against the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Geopolitics: Other
- Japan’s Coast Guard said North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile, which appeared to have landed outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, while a media report noted that North Korea fired around 10 missiles.
- South Korea’s Defence Ministry said North Korea’s deployment of older weapon systems near the border appears to be performative.
Crypto
- Bitcoin slumped overnight, falling from a high of USD 81.29k to a low of USD 79.59k. The choppiness this week comes ahead of USD 11bln worth of options expiring this week.
US Event Calendar
- 8:30am: Oct. 24 Initial Jobless Claims, est. 198k, prior 194k
- 8:30am: Oct. 17 Continuing Claims, est. 1720k, prior 1728k
- 8:30am: 3Q A GDP Annualized QoQ, est. 3.2%, prior 2.2%
- 8:30am: 3Q A Personal Consumption, est. 3.4%, prior 3.8%
- 8:30am: 3Q A GDP Price Index, est. 3.2%, prior 6.1%
- 8:30am: 3Q A Core PCE Price Index QoQ, est. 2.4%, prior 3.3%
- 8:30am: Sept. Personal Income, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
- 8:30am: Sept. Personal Spending, est. 0.6%, prior 0.9%
- 8:30am: Sept. PCE Price Index YoY, est. 3.6%, prior 3.4%
- 8:30am: Sept. Core PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
- 8:30am: Sept. Core PCE Price Index YoY, est. 3.1%, prior 3.0%
- 11:30am: US to sell $115 billion of 4-week bills and $110 billion of 8-week bills
- 1:00pm: US to sell $44 billion of 7-year notes
Central Bank Speakers
- No Fed speakers scheduled (Fed external communications blackout per Bloomberg; JPM says Fedspeak resumes Friday)
- 9:15am: ECB rate decision; Lagarde press conference follows
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
A more cautious tech mood is the main theme in markets as we go to print, as underwhelming results from Alphabet and Samsung have renewed doubts about the returns on AI spending. That comes after a decent session yesterday, which saw the S&P 500 (+0.28%) close within 1% of its record high following the Fed’s on-hold decision, which also led to a steepening in the Treasury curve. In Europe, the 1yr inflation swap reached its joint highest level since 2023 ahead of today’s ECB decision as natural gas prices breached the EUR 100/MWh level. That said, oil prices are reversing much of yesterday’s rise overnight amid reports of renewed US-Iran outreach.
Starting with the tech moves, Alphabet’s shares sank by almost -10% in after-hours trading, after its Q3 sales fell just shy of analyst expectations due to disappointing Google Services revenue ($96.3bn vs $98.4bn est.). With ad revenue growing at its slowest pace in five quarters, the results raised questions about whether the payoffs will come fast enough to justify the company’s soaring capex spend. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics is trading about -5% lower in Asia this morning after the operating profit in its chip unit came in below analysts’ optimistic expectations and the company delayed its new shareholder return plan.
Microsoft did gain about +3% in extended trading after delivering a beat in cloud computing revenue (+48% yoy vs +44% est.) but this was insufficient to brighten the overall gloomy tech mood this morning. Nasdaq futures are trading -1.20% lower, with those on the S&P 500 down -0.35%. This is a notable change from yesterday’s session, which saw an ongoing rebound in the Philly semiconductor index (+1.75%). That was led by a surge for Oracle (+10.73%) as it projected a return to positive free cash flow as well as strong gains for CoreWeave (+7.32%), though the broader Nasdaq (+0.27%) saw only a modest gain.
A more downbeat mood is also visible in most Asian markets this morning, with KOSPI (-1.20%) down after Samsung’s earnings, though it has recovered from about -3% down earlier on. Elsewhere, the CSI 300 (-1.20%) and the Shanghai Composite (-0.93%) are also trading lower. In contrast, the Nikkei (+0.66%) and the S&P/ASX 200 (+0.45%) are bucking the broader regional weakness, while the Hang Seng (+0.06%) has fluctuated between gains and losses. Tech earnings will remain in focus today with Amazon and Intel reporting.
Prior to the overnight moves, yesterday’s main event was the FOMC decision, which kept the fed funds rate at 3.75-4.00% as widely expected. The decision saw two dissents, with Governor Cook and Cleveland Fed President Hammack voting in favour of a 25bp hike. The Committee upgraded its view on economic activity from “solid” to “strong” and noted still elevated inflation, but an on-hold decision was framed as allowing for “the accumulation of more information”. Chair Warsh repeatedly returned to the theme of strong growth in the press conference and noted that “while overall financial conditions are tighter, I am unable and unwilling to call them tight”. While Warsh continued to eschew forward guidance, his comments reinforced the September SEP signal that saw the vast majority of the FOMC expect another rate hike by year-end. Our economists continue to see the Fed raising rates by 25bps in December and March. You can see their full Fed reaction here
Away from policy, Warsh laid out a planned change in the FOMC meeting schedule by next fall, saying that in 2027, one of the eight FOMC meetings will be designated for a strategy discussion with the other seven being policy decision meetings. He signaled that in 2028 this would then shift to six policy meetings and two strategy meetings.
Markets pared back Fed hike expectations following Warsh’s press conference, having gone into yesterday’s meeting pricing fully three 25bp hikes over the next year. By the close, pricing of a December hike eased from 91% to 84%, with 71bps of tightening priced by next September (-5.2 bps on the day). The Treasury curve saw a notable steepening in response. The 2yr yield ended the day -4.0bps lower at 4.70%, down from around 4.77% just before Warsh spoke. The 10yr yield closed +2.0bps higher at 5.00%, but is a couple of basis point lower again this morning. The curve steepening weighed on the dollar, with the euro yesterday (+0.26%) recovering from its 17-month low against the greenback.
Central banks will again be in focus today, with the latest ECB decision, which is also widely expected to keep rates on hold after the September hike. Virtually nothing is priced for today’s meeting though a hike is 89% priced by December. Our economists’ baseline is a final hike to 2.75% in December, with some risk of a further hike to 3% in early 2027. For today, they see the ECB focus as being on communications. With energy prices rising above the September “adverse” scenario, some hawkishness is justified, but higher yields and tighter financial conditions leave room for a balanced overall tone. See their full ECB preview here.
Ahead of the ECB meeting, European markets saw modest moves. Yields on 10yr bunds were +1.2bps higher, while those on OATs (-0.9bps) and BTPs (-0.3bps) edged lower. The bund sell-off was stronger at the front-end with the 2yr yield rising +4.1bps amid a resurgence in energy costs. Front-month European natural gas rose above the EUR 100 level for the first time since the 2022 energy crisis, settling +4.85% higher at EUR 100.72/MWh. The latest rise comes amid historically low European gas storage for this time of the year. However, the gas refilling outlook hasn’t really worsened of late so the rise of over +35% in natural gas prices so far this month appears to represent a rising risk premium heading into the winter and may well be overdone. The rise in energy put pressure on inflation pricing once again, with the 1yr euro inflation swap up +5.3bps to its joint-highest level since 2023 at 3.88%.
Rising energy prices also meant European equities struggled to gain traction. The Stoxx 600 (+0.07%), FTSE 100 (+0.07%), and CAC 40 (-0.00%) closed relatively unchanged, while Spain’s IBEX (-1.45%) registered a steeper fall. However, there were more positive moves in European credit, with IG (-4bps) and HY (-16bp) spreads tightening after their recent sell-off.
While European gas prices reached new highs, oil had a more mixed 24 hours. Brent settled +1.26% higher at $115.32/bbl yesterday but is trading -1.15% lower this morning after the WSJ reported that US Vice President Vance is engaging with Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a key hard-liner in Iran’s regime, to revive peace negotiations. Trump sought to downplay the report last night, saying that Vance’s outreach focused on offering medical supplies to Iran. The moves come amid concerns on possible re-escalation between the US and Iran, with AP reporting yesterday evening that US officials have told allies to be prepared for renewed military action against Iran after next week’s midterm elections.
In other Middle East news, the Israeli shekel (-2.06%) was the worst performing major currency yesterday, as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bloc achieved a slight edge over the opposition bloc in Tuesday’s election. However, there is no clear path to a governing majority, as potential outcomes include complex coalition building, a broader unity government or fresh elections. See our EM strategists’ take on the election outcome and the path ahead here.
Over in the UK, yesterday’s main focus was the first budget from Chancellor Healey. The key announcements included a 2pp additional tax on property and savings income from April, which comes on top of a 2pp rise last year and takes the basic, higher, and additional rates for property and savings income to 24%, 44%, and 49% respectively. Meanwhile, the bank tax increase was smaller than expected, from 3% to 6% for 15 months from January. Some energy reforms, like the removal of standing charges, were also proposed. Finally, Healey announced that he would lower the UK’s fiscal headroom to £15bn in 2029-30, before it rises back to £22bn in 2030-31. Our economists see the net impact of the budget as marginal, with Healey successfully buying himself more time as big questions remain regarding the UK’s long-term fiscal position. You can see our UK economists’ budget recap here. Gilts outperformed in response to the budget, with 10yr yields down -2.5bps to 5.32%.
Finally, the Bank of Canada raised its policy rate by 25bps to 2.50% as expected. The statement said that “there could be a need to increase the policy rate further” but that the Governing Council agreed to proceed carefully, noting that there was still some excess supply in the economy. In the press conference, Governor Macklem said that the hike was “needed to reduce the risk that elevated energy prices could spill over and become generalized inflation”. Canada’s 2yr yield rose by +4.0bps in response, with money markets pricing another BoC hike by January.
Looking to the day ahead, markets will continue to navigate an event-packed calendar that includes the ECB’s rate decision, US Q3 GDP, September PCE, and Eurozone October economic confidence data. Amazon, Intel, and Blue Owl are among those reporting earnings. The US will also hold an auction for $44bn of 7yr Notes. Finally, today marks the start of the EU-Canada summ
xxx
1b) European opening report
1 c) Asian report
end
2.NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA/
NORTH KOREA
SOUTH KOREA/
JAPAN//
JAPAN CHINA/USA
3 CHINA
4. EUROPEAN AND SCANDINAVIAN COMMENTARIES PLUS NATO
FRANCE
Behind France’s School Blockades And ‘Yellow Vest’ Riots, A Far-Left Network Years In The Making
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 08:05 AM
Authored by Etienne Fauchaire via The Epoch Times,
PARIS – Five weeks have passed since students in the Paris suburbs blockaded a high school to protest overcrowding and staff shortages. Within a month, they joined forces with the Yellow Vests, and rioting led to nearly 8,000 arrests.
On Oct. 17, at least 3,000 shops were looted or damaged, according to French Commerce Minister Serge Papin. The movement’s next round of protests followed on Oct. 24, with 70,000 police officers deployed across the country.
Statements from trade unions, social media posts, and the far-left, as well as foreign flags and slogans seen and heard at the protests, show that the movement was backed and promoted by a range of left and far-left actors, including LFI lawmakers, Trotskyist groups, and activists linked to political Islam.
Since Oct. 1, the French government has blamed France Unbowed (LFI), a hard-left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for the upheaval, calling it “a maneuver organized by LFI and its ultra-left proxies.” Mélenchon, LFI’s presidential candidate and a former deputy of the National Assembly, once belonged to the International Communist Organization (OCI) and has voiced support for socialist regimes, including those of China, Cuba, and Venezuela.
LFI denies this accusation. Manuel Bompard, LFI’s national coordinator, called on the government “not to descend into conspiracy theories.”
‘A Movement Manufactured From Scratch’
The first student blockade, regarded as the starting point of the high school movement, took place on Sept. 17 at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, southeast of Paris, after teachers protested staff shortages.
The previous day, the local LFI chapter had announced its support for the protest.
LFI lawmakers Louis Boyard and Clémence Guetté attended the blockade on the first day. A week later, on Sept. 28, Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis, joined protesting students at Lycée Paul-Éluard, which had become another focal point of the movement in the heavily immigrant suburb north of Paris.
Asked the following day about clashes outside the schools, Bagayoko said that violence could be “legitimate” but that “whenever it can be avoided, that’s better.” The Paris police prefect subsequently referred his remarks to prosecutors over possible incitement to commit an offense.
Mélenchon also intervened on Sept. 28, accusing the government on social media platform X of having “ordered repression” against “harmless” students, with an “obvious racist aftertaste.” He urged LFI activists to place themselves between students and police.
The president of the Union Syndicale Lycéenne (USL), a left-wing high school students’ union, called for a nationwide mobilization on Sept. 26. On Oct. 1, the French Interior Ministry reported disruptions at 1,027 of France’s approximately 3,700 high schools.
The USL’s president, Ryad Rani, 19, has longstanding ties to LFI. At age 14, he interned for LFI lawmaker David Guiraud, who is now the mayor of Roubaix. He later ran on an LFI-backed slate in March’s municipal elections and appeared alongside Boyard on a panel at the party’s most recent summer conference.
The USL and its university counterpart, the Union Etudiante (Student Union), jointly issued the calls to blockade high schools and universities on Oct. 1 and to join a nationwide youth demonstration on Oct. 6.
“This movement began at the end,” Olivier Vial, director of the Center for University Studies and Research, a think tank that studies emerging forms of radicalism, told The Epoch Times.
In a typical French student movement, he said, violence by a radical hardcore group is the final stage, reached once the majority of pupils have obtained satisfaction and gone home.
“Apart from Paul-Éluard, there was first the far left and the violence, and only afterwards did the unions come with their demands. What we are dealing with is a movement manufactured from scratch,” Vial said.
Noah, 21, a film student who identifies with the antifascist movement, told The Epoch Times during a protest on Oct. 13 that he was taking to the streets because of anger over the rising cost of higher education and the lack of government support for students, a shortfall that he said leaves him no choice but to work alongside his studies.
He also said he tolerated ideas from those who were on the center-right as long as they did not support the National Rally.
Several grievances brought Jean, a 21-year-old student, to the protest, he told The Epoch Times on Oct. 24. Pointing to the lack of funding for public education, he accused French President Emmanuel Macron of favoring the ultra-rich by refusing to tax them, arguing that greater wealth redistribution would help those in need, particularly in suburbs with large immigrant populations who he said are less privileged.
The best way to achieve this was to vote for LFI, he said.
LFI’s Radical Hinterland
Among the groups active in the blockades was Permanent Revolution, a Trotskyist organization that emerged from a 2021 split within the New Anticapitalist Party.
Its student wing, Le Poing Levé (the Raised Fist), called for a “black week” of school blockades beginning on Oct. 5. On Oct. 11, the group’s spokesman, Anasse Kazib, launched his 2027 presidential campaign in Saint-Denis, an event the organization described as taking place “under the sign of the high school revolt.”
“Their weight is significant, because they are probably the ones with the greatest momentum today,” Vial said of the radical groups. “LFI is in reality the soft center of this radical galaxy, surrounded by movements with even more extreme positions.”
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told lawmakers on Oct. 20 that there was indeed a “connecting link” between LFI and certain radical organizations. Without naming him, Nuñez referred to LFI lawmaker Raphaël Arnault, a cofounder of the Young Guard, an antifascist group dissolved by the government in 2025 over its involvement in violence.
Yellow Vests Without the Yellow Vests
The call for nationwide demonstrations on Oct. 17 originated outside the student movement, drawing on the legacy of the Yellow Vest protests of 2018. An anonymous young TikTok creator known as “v2.95” first proposed the date in a video posted Sept. 7, TF1 reported.
Left-wing parties quickly rallied behind the call. On Sept. 11, Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel urged a mobilization on the scale of the 2018 protests. Mathilde Panot, LFI’s parliamentary leader, also endorsed the initiative, while the CGT and Solidaires labor unions, along with student unions, subsequently joined the call.
“Not only have the Yellow Vests, or rather what is left of them, been co-opted and swallowed up by the far left, but the Oct. 17 demonstrations were organized and instigated by that same far left from start to finish,” Benjamin Cauchy, a prominent figure in the early days of the 2018 Yellow Vest movement, told The Epoch Times.
Cauchy said the French left had initially been hostile to the Yellow Vests, a spontaneous movement made up of entrepreneurs, shop owners, and private-sector employees.
“But after several weeks, seeing that the movement was lasting, the opportunistic far left infiltrated it and then took it over from late December 2018 onward,” Cauchy said, noting that this led to demobilization.
“We wanted lower taxes so we could live off our work; the far left was demanding more welfare benefits.”
The Islamists and Foreign Amplifiers
Another group involved in online promotion of the protests is the far-left RED Youth.
In 2025, the group was among the founding associations of Generation EDR alongside the USL, the Young Guard, and Muslim Students of France. In May 2025, a French government report on the Muslim Brotherhood named Muslim Students of France as among those part of the federation, which it described as the organization’s branch in France.
Among the online posts promoting the protests, one by Franco-Iranian influencer Shahin Hazamy drew millions of views on Instagram.
External actors multiplied during the unrest.
On Oct. 7, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot summoned the Iranian ambassador to France to denounce what he described as a “disinformation campaign” by the Iranian authorities surrounding the student protests.
Al Jazeera France, the French-language arm of the Qatar-funded news network, also endorsed the protests, claiming that French police had used violence against pupils and that high schoolers were being subjected to “repression.”
In the United States, BreakThrough News has also celebrated the unrest and told its hundreds of thousands of followers that high schoolers had suffered police violence.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, alleged in May that BreakThrough News belongs to a U.S.-based network of nonprofits funded by Neville Roy Singham and linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Smith’s committee has been investigating the media outlet over its financial ties to Singham.
BreakThrough News, for its part, has denounced what it calls “persecution,” saying the scrutiny is “fueled by opposition to BreakThrough’s editorial stances and viewpoints, which he calls ‘anti-American’.”
The Role of Media and Education
No single organization is behind this autumn’s unrest, but many groups have a stake in fueling and sustaining the protests, Vial said.
“The people who want to manipulate and mobilize don’t even need to get their feet wet anymore,” Vial said. “They just need to fuel tensions on social networks and indicate the targets.”
Vial said that many demonstrators have already bought into the idea that far-left violence can be justified.
“For years, a whole political culture originating from the radical left has taken root within universities, the media, and online. This culture is so ingrained now that you don’t even need to give them instructions anymore,” he said.
On Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, the polling institute Ifop conducted a study for the news outlet LCI and found that 47 percent of people younger than 35 agreed that “it is sometimes necessary to resort to a certain degree of violence in order to advance one’s ideas within society.” Among supporters of the radical-left LFI party, that number rose to 64 percent.
Ifop also found that 40 percent of the people surveyed who held advanced diplomas accepted the use of violence, compared with 25 percent for people who did not have a diploma.
“For a very long time, we were told that violence was the language of those who did not have the words to express themselves. We are now finding that this is false. The higher the level of education, the greater the acceptance of political violence,” Vial said.
In the Ifop poll, acceptance for political violence was flat at 33 percent across respondents with a vocational certificate, a high school diploma, or a bachelor’s degree.
“So the question is not whether people are educated, but what they have been educated in,” Vial said.
ITALY
Italy’s Meloni Freezes New Military Aid Package For Ukraine, Pending US Midterm Outcome
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 02:45 AM
Ongoing White House pressure on Ukraine’s Zelensky is having a chilling effect. After the US throttled its intelligence-sharing and weapons flows while demanding Ukraine halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, more European capitals have paused arms deliveries.
Italy is the latest, with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni having postponed the delivery of the country’s thirteenth military aid package to Ukraine.
The last shipment of Italian weapons to Ukraine was reported to have happened nearly a year ago, and this new one is said to be on hold pending the outcome of the US midterm elections.
The Meloni government is said to be fiercely divided on the issue, with internal fighting over the direction of Ukraine policy lately spilling into the public sphere.
According to Italian outlet Il Giornale d’Italia [machine translation]: “The US political calendar has therefore become the new point of reference in this Italian period of waiting. However, there is no indication as to which election result might help bring about a decision, nor has a date been set for the aid to be dispatched immediately after the vote.”
Italian officials have sought to emphasize that this pause doesn’t mean the shipment will be halted altogether, amid conflicting reports of a timeline.
Ukrainian media meanwhile provides some of the following background:
- Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini previously claimed that providing further aid to Ukraine could “fuel corruption”.
- After being re-elected as party leader, Salvini publicly promised to do everything in his power to bring Italy’s economic and military support for Ukraine to a complete halt.
- In response, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on 26 October that the new package had already been finalized and would soon be sent to Ukraine.
Another country to have recently ‘stunned’ allies by halting Ukraine military aid has been NATO ‘eastern flank’ member Bulgaria.
This past summer, the country’s Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told reporters, “What we are witnessing is a war of attrition, and no matter how much weaponry is amassed, its only result is the loss of human lives.”
Ukraine earlier this month confirmed it is no longer receiving weapons from Italy:
Other Western allies have complained that policies of countries like Bulgaria and Italy are too ‘Russia-sympathetic’ – and have instead called to keep up the steady flow of arms to Ukraine forces.
END
EUROPE
Europe’s Muslim Population Has Surged Since 2000, And Forecasts See More Growth To Come
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 03:30 AM
Conservative voices have long raised concerns over the demographic shift arising from high sustained migration from the Middle East and Africa, and new data confirms these fears.
According to data published by La Razón, cited by La Gaceta, the number of Muslims in Europe has jumped from roughly 15 million around the year 2000 to approximately 32.5 million today (excluding Russia and Turkey).
Statistics from the Pew Research Center align with this upward trajectory, reporting that Europe’s broader Muslim population – including Russia – climbed to 46 million in 2020, a 16 percent increase from 2010.
Spain has experienced a pronounced increase in its Muslim demographic. Data from the CEU-CEFAS Demographic Observatory shows that Spain’s Muslim population reached between 2.4 and 2.5 million by early 2025, accounting for roughly 5 percent of the total population. Within this group, an estimated 1.79 million are first-generation immigrants, while 680,000 were born in Spain to at least one Muslim parent.
But Spain is not alone. Italy’s Muslim population has reached about 2.7 million. In Sweden, Muslim residents doubled from roughly 4 percent to 8 percent between 2010 and 2020, while Germany saw this demographic hit 7 percent of its overall population by 2020. In the U.K., census data for England and Wales saw the number of Muslims increased from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021.
Even without any further migration, Muslims are expected to increase their share of populations across Europe simply because they have higher birth rates than native ethnicities.
Data from Pew Research previously cited by Remix News estimated the number could triple to 75 million Muslims in Europe by 2050 if they manage to maintain a high birth rate and immigration rates continue their pace. Some are actively cheering on such an expansion, with Muslim influencer Mohammed Hijab even stating in a reply to Elon Musk on X: “Muslims of the West, get married and have many kids try and aim for 5 minimum that is what these fragile far-right anti-Muslims hate the most.”
Meanwhile, birthrates are plummeting for local populations. Thilo Sarrazin, the former Bundesbank board member who authored the 2010 book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany Is Abolishing Itself”) now predicts that by 2070, 80 percent of births will be to non-German mothers.
Poland has been grappling with its own demographic crisis, while France recorded a negative natural population balance in 2025 for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Already back in 2020, over 21 percent of newborns in France were given Arab-Muslim first names.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.
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EUROPE
The Fall Of Europe
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 02:00 AM
Authored by Milton Madriz Cedeño via The Daily Sceptic,
Europe is falling because it has confused the management of inherited wealth with the ability to create new wealth. Part of its political leadership turned public spending, proliferating rules, excessive regulation and presumed moral superiority into sufficient credentials to govern. Productivity, solvency and social cohesion were pushed aside. Today they have returned to collect a bill that no amount of rhetoric can cancel.
On October 24th, France recorded 410,000 demonstrators and 1,314 arrests, according to the Interior Ministry’s provisional tally. After the previous weekend’s protests, the trade minister estimated that at least 3,000 businesses had been affected, and historic buildings were destroyed. The authorities pointed to the involvement of radical far-Left groups in the attacks. In Milan, looting and destruction on October 17th and 18th caused damage to businesses that Confcommercio estimated at close to €1 million. Similar events took place in Rome. In Barcelona, on October 24th, 23 businesses were looted or vandalized, and firefighters were called out 33 times to fires in public streets.
Behind those figures lie livelihoods destroyed, business owners intimidated and public property attacked. People who keep a business running are expected to pay their taxes on time. The security they finance deserves the same promptness. Peaceful protest must be protected and vandalism punished with the utmost firmness. No cause turns someone else’s business into legitimate spoils.
Fritz Scharpf explained that legitimacy also depends on the ability to solve problems. That is the corrosive contradiction of governments that collect vast sums yet struggle to guarantee services, opportunities and security. When the protection they promise deteriorates, their institutional rhetoric loses credibility.
Responsibility lies with identifiable leaders and decisions
Europe’s postwar Left deserves unsparing scrutiny for defending spending and debt commitments without securing a sufficient productive base, turning regulations into displays of virtue and treating too many demands for integration as suspect and impractical. Responsibility also extends to the center-Right that preserved those policies or postponed reform. Since 2004, the European Commission has been led by figures from the center-Right European People’s Party. Changing the letterhead does not erase the bill.
Mancur Olson studied how organized interests accumulate privileges and block adjustments that would benefit society as a whole. His warning sheds light on a Europe in which every protection finds defenders and every reform rallies opponents. Citizens pay for bargains they never negotiated. Acknowledging problems while systematically postponing their solution amounts to managing decline with impeccable manners.
The welfare state needs balanced books
In the second quarter of 2026, gross public debt amounted to 139.9% of GDP in Italy, 119.1% in France, 110.2% in Belgium and 101.4% in Spain, according to Eurostat. The United Kingdom recorded 100.5%, according to the ONS using a comparable measure. Spain’s ratio had fallen year on year. The trajectories differ, but the fiscal constraints facing several major countries are plain to see.
France’s public spending amounted to 57.3% of GDP in 2025, and it ended the year with a deficit of 5.1%. The size of the state does not guarantee balanced finances. High debt commits future resources and leaves less room to respond to crises. Its sustainability depends on growth, interest rates and budgetary discipline.
For a single person with no children earning the average wage, the OECD calculated a tax wedge of 52.5% of total labor costs in Belgium and 47.2% in France in 2025, compared with an OECD average of 35.1%. This includes taxes and contributions paid by employees and employers. Such a burden demands results, not indulgence.
Buchanan and Wagner analyzed the political incentive to grant benefits now and defer their costs. The officeholder receives the applause; a later budget receives the bill. A Left that proclaims itself the defender of the welfare state must explain how it will preserve it when its promises grow faster than the capacity to finance them and the difference is added to the debt.
Protecting pensions and essential services requires priorities and effectiveness. Shielding every budget line as a ‘social achievement’ can jeopardize the achievements that truly matter. The welfare state loses its foundation when its obligations rest on an economy that finds it increasingly difficult to renew itself.
Demography also presents its bill
The European Union’s fertility rate fell to 1.34 children per woman in 2024; Spain recorded 1.10. At the beginning of 2025, 22% of the EU’s population was aged 65 or older. Pension expenditure amounted to 12.3% of EU GDP in 2023. Living longer is an achievement; financing longer retirements requires productivity, employment and foresight.
Net immigration has offset the natural population decline, but increasing the number of residents and increasing the number of productive taxpayers are different processes. Formal employment and integration are essential. A serious family policy must also reduce the obstacles posed by housing, work and balancing employment with family life for those who want children. No population pyramid can be repaired with cheap speeches from the same old politicians.
Talent is moving elsewhere
The European Commission’s January 2026 competitiveness report put the EU’s hourly productivity, adjusted for purchasing power, at 78.5% of the US level in 2024. Venture capital represented just 0.06% of GDP, one tenth of the U.S. share. That weakness makes it harder to turn knowledge into businesses capable of growth.
A Joint Research Centre study published in 2022, using data through mid-2021, identified 40 relocations of headquarters abroad among 147 unicorn companies originating in the EU; 32 moved to the United States. The Draghi report reiterated that warning. Moving a headquarters does not mean closing all European operations, but it reveals the difficulty of retaining companies with substantial potential.
Switzerland and Sweden still lead WIPO’s 2026 innovation index. Europe retains extraordinary capabilities. That makes it all the more serious that its leaders maintain obstacles to putting those capabilities to use. Talent and capital seek places where they can grow; they are under no obligation to finance any government’s nostalgia.
The green transition must answer for its results
According to the IEA, electricity for the EU’s energy-intensive industries cost more than twice as much as in the United States in 2025. Germany completed its nuclear phaseout in 2023, following decisions by Social Democrats, Greens, and Merkel’s center-Right. Retiring firm generating capacity with low emissions while promoting electrification demands answers about costs and alternatives. The promise of a cheap and straightforward transformation must answer for results that have yet to materialize.
The environmentalist Left must be held accountable for emissions, supply and the final price. Invoking the planet grants no immunity from bad industrial policy. Imports of electric vehicles manufactured in China also require scrutiny of the footprint of their factories and batteries. Social and environmental responsibility does not stop at the customs border.
Integration requires governance
In 2025, 45.3% of adults living in the EU who held non-EU citizenship were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 18.2% of nationals. Integration must be measured by employment, economic independence and civic participation. Solemn declarations of intent do not heal a fractured society.
In 2024-25, the United Kingdom spent around £4 billion supporting asylum seekers, including £2.1 billion on hotels. Receiving asylum seekers entails costs that must be acknowledged and financed. Concealing them harms both existing residents and newcomers.
Democratic authorities must exercise rigorous control over their borders, decide applications for protection and demand compliance with the law. Integration requires language skills, work and shared duties. A Left that discredits those requirements weakens the rules of coexistence it is obliged to defend, beginning with its own people.
Islamism that seeks to subordinate civil law to religious authority is wholly incompatible with Western freedoms. Equality for women and freedom of conscience are nonnegotiable. Muslim citizens share the same rights and obligations, including protection against those who would impose religious orthodoxy on them. Defending the Christian, humanist and liberal heritage requires institutions capable of protecting it, for this is the legacy of Western forebears who gave their lives for the freedoms and rights enjoyed today.
Europe’s promise is crumbling
That is why I speak of a fall. The pretense of guaranteeing welfare through obligations without sufficient backing, securing competitiveness by multiplying obstacles and preserving coexistence without requiring duties has collapsed. The strengths Europe retains make its leadership more culpable. Western Rome, whose fall is dated to 476, left a warning that a heritage can outlive those who lose the ability to sustain it.
An economy that makes production more expensive and innovation harder loses ground to those offering better conditions. Competition for investment and knowledge thus opens an opportunity for the whole of the Americas. The continuity of the West will depend on societies capable of turning their freedoms into prosperity. That is the transfer of leadership the Americas must prepare to undertake.
The Americas as the West’s new center of gravity
Talent is nurtured in universities, technical institutes and research centers throughout the Americas. It is found in Canada and the United States, in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and the rest of South America. Differences in funding and scale call for cooperation. No country in the Americas should resign itself to exporting brains and buying back the products of their intelligence.
Brazilian engineering at Embraer, Argentine nuclear technology at INVAP and the antivenoms developed by the University of Costa Rica’s Clodomiro Picado Institute demonstrate a homegrown ability to research, design and compete. They show that the Americas already produce knowledge and solutions for the world. Their universities and businesses can expand that role if they find the financing and conditions to grow.
Costa Rica, where I am based, exported $10.927 billion in medical devices in 2025, accounting for 48% of its goods exports. Panama connects oceans. The IEA identifies opportunities in Latin America to process minerals that currently leave for other regions. We have the resources and capabilities to put more knowledge into what we produce and retain more value within the Americas.
Our ambition must be to develop our own technologies, patents and businesses. Connecting markets, research and capital would allow us to combine energy, food and minerals more effectively with the scientific and industrial capabilities of the Americas. Every country must be able to expand its role in design, manufacturing and specialized services. Natural wealth takes on another dimension when its owners also master the knowledge that transforms it.
That project requires legal certainty, rigorous education, protection for investment and governments capable of controlling crime and delivering infrastructure without letting permits drag on forever. Someone else’s decline does not create our prosperity. The Americas would squander their opportunity if they copied the fiscal and bureaucratic complacency that has weakened a declining Europe.
Our task is to build that leadership with the intelligence of the whole of the Americas and with the freedom of their citizens to create. The Western legacy needs societies capable of sustaining, enriching and carrying it forward. Europe’s leaders must answer for having mortgaged their promise. It falls to the Americas to show that a civilization can also renew its greatness by shifting the center of its dynamism.
Europe may go on charging admission to its past. The Americas have what it takes to build the West’s future.
Milton Madriz Cedeño is a Costa Rican political scientist and expert in public administration and governance. This is an edited English translation of an article that first appeared in DiarioDigitalRD
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EU
EUR Dips After ECB Leaves Rates Unch As Expected
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 09:35 AM
Hot on the heels of ECB President Lagarde’s statement about early retirement, The European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged as was fully expected.
The deposit rate was left at 2.5%, as predicted by almost all economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
On borrowing costs, the ECB is biding its time having hiked twice since the Iran war jolted energy markets. Officials, while worried inflation is headed for double the 2% goal, aren’t seeing signs of the ramp-up in oil and gas spreading elsewhere. Still, surprisingly resilient European growth is waning.
“While the full effects of the energy shock are still unfolding, underlying inflation has remained broadly stable so far and wages do not show a material response at this stage,” the ECB said.
EUR weakened modestly against the USD after the statement…
Finally, some have argued that Lagarde’s early departure will give her more freedom to speak out on issues including the turmoil in her homeland.
“The increased magnitude and duration of the energy shock, as well as the implications for indirect and second-round effects, are likely to drive up inflation and lower growth,” the ECB said in a statement, once again declining to pre-commit to future steps.
“Financing conditions have tightened since the Governing Council’s last meeting, which is likely to weigh on inflation and growth.”
The ECB joins the Fed in holding rates steady this week, with the BoJ expected to follow suit on Friday…
However, as Bloomberg reports, policymakers in Frankfurt are widely expected to hike again in December, when updated economic projections will show how severe inflation pressure is. Tighter financing conditions, exacerbated by France, are damping demand.
Analysts reckon the year-end increase in rates will be the ECB’s last of this cycle, though investors are betting on two more steps in 2027. 
The latter group’s focus is on oil, which has jumped by more than 6% since the ECB last set rates. Natural gas, meanwhile, hit its highest level in almost four years.
END
5.RUSSIA AND ISRAEL AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFIARS
ISRAEL/IRAN/USA //THURSDAY
IRGC Says 3 Tankers On Fire In Hormuz, Challenges US Narrative Strait Is ‘Demined’
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 09:30 AM
Three tankers exploded and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after attempting ‘unauthorized’ passage over the prior 24 hours, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) on Thursday.
The trio of vessels are alleged to have ignored warnings from the IRGC Navy, having also switched off their radar and navigation systems, apparently as part of US-backed operations to ferry crude out of the strait.
British maritime agency UKMTO confirmed that at least one of the ships is on fire, and has conveyed a report that another is also in distress.
News of the vessel hits emerged after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X Wednesday that Iran “continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed” – even as Tehran has continued to hold a firm line on not being willing to negotiate the nuclear file until after the conflict is closed.
DropSite News reviews of the diplomatic front, which has long been stalemated with no forward momentum of late:
- Iran is in “close and ongoing contact with intermediaries” to carry out its 7-Day Plan “in even less than a week,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X Wednesday, adding that Iran “continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed.”
- A new Qatari draft deal, delivered to Tehran on Sunday, would have Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz within four days of sanctions being lifted, down from the seven Iran originally proposed, the Guardian reported. Iran’s response is expected by the end of the week.
- Iranian leaders have also “received well” a letter from Vice President JD Vance proposing renewed talks and a meeting, The New York Times reported. The Times said a response to that is expected on Thursday.
Very remote, vague footage has emerged purporting to show a tanker burning on Thursday:
On the letter, the White House thinking is that a better diplomatic result could be achieved by opening dialogue with other echelons within Tehran leadership.
“Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, and previously Iran’s longest-serving commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the people,” The Wall Street Journal initially reported late Wednesday.
“The letter was sent at Trump’s direction, one person said, and Trump is aware of the outreach. Vance is testing whether Tehran and Washington could find enough common ground to persuade Trump not to give a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks,” WSJ continues.
But all the while Iran’s efforts to impose serious economic damage by seeking daily attacks on international shipping have persisted.
Iran has also asserting that Pentagon and White House declarations that the US has successfully demined the strait is false.
The spokesman for the IRGC, Brigadier-General Hossein Mohebi, has told US Central Command (CENTCOM) to “prove Hormuz’s de-mining claim with independent evidence, not a statement.“
Iran also announced Thursday its forces hijacked an ‘American spy drone’ over the Strait of Hormuz and that it has landed intact:
“The reality of the Strait of Hormuz takes place in the sky, land and sea – not in cyberspace and American media war rooms,” Mohebi said in a statement posted online. Apparently the Iranian side is offering as fresh ‘proof’ multiple burning tankers in the region in question.
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The Day After Midterms: Diplomacy Or Another “Epic Fury”?
Wednesday, Oct 28, 2026 – 11:00 PM
Brent crude futures topped $116.50 a barrel early Wednesday after a WSJ report said the Trump administration is preparing for a brief military campaign against Iran after the midterm elections. 
Trump said at a rally last week, “We may do another little Epic Fury.”
Signals were mixed by early afternoon, as oil and yields pared back their gains after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that Iran continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed.
Related:
The mixed messaging keeps oil whipsawing on headlines like a penny stock, but Brent and WTI both trade in triple-digit territory, and the refining crisis is far from over ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter. EU NatGas prices climbed above 100 euros per megawatt-hour earlier today.
To clarify what may come next in the Gulf conflict after the midterms, Jefferies hosted Atlantic Council Middle East specialist and former US intelligence official Jonathan Panikoff for a discussion with analysts Aniket Shah and Lloyd Byrne.
The conversation centered on the increasing likelihood that a renewed US military campaign against Iran could begin next Wednesday, just one day after the midterm elections.
Panikoff assigned roughly a 55% probability to escalation, compared with a 25% chance of a diplomatic exit. Election-related sensitivity to higher gasoline prices and Iranian retaliation could ease after the vote, giving Washington greater latitude to act.
The summary of the conversation is as follows:
1. Post-midterm escalation is the base case, with the U.S. positioning for an intense campaign.
Escalation is more likely after the midterms, when sensitivity to Iranian retaliation and higher gasoline prices diminishes. Panikoff puts the odds of escalation at ~55%, versus ~25% for an off-ramp and ~10% for muddling through. The U.S. military buildup is the clearest indicator: a third carrier group could temporarily join two others in the region, while longer-range bombers could be deployed closer to a strike decision. Roughly 3,000 targets are reportedly prepared. He anticipates several weeks of intense strikes, after which Trump could declare Iran sufficiently degraded and exit.
2. Iranian retaliation could extend to Gulf infrastructure, particularly if a U.S. campaign lasts several weeks.
A limited U.S. strike (1–2 days) would cause less Iranian retaliation than a 1–3 week campaign. In addition to direct attacks on U.S. assets, Iran may attack Gulf energy and other infrastructure, in order to create political pressure on the U.S. from Gulf governments to end the campaign. Iraqi proxies and the Houthis are a vehicle through which Iran can create broader regional disruption. The Houthis are resourceful, making use of dual-use technology, and are able to assemble Iranian components locally.
3. Iran has rebuilt key capabilities, making unlikely that a single military campaign will lead to a permanent solution.
Iran’s drone capability is back to 100% or above pre-war levels and ballistic missile stocks are ~65-75% and growing faster than expected, while the U.S. and its partners have limited defense capacities. Iran has moved its nuclear assets into harder-to-hit locations. Israel may decide to adopt a “mow the grass” strategy, involving recurring military action. While some Israelis foresee regime collapse within six months under sustained pressure, Panikoff sees 4-7 years as more realistic. Diplomacy is stalled over the summer MOU, despite Qatari/Pakistani mediation.
4. Low-intensity conflict may become the new normal, reshaping Gulf security and U.S. priorities.
Gulf governments are preparing for conflict lasting 2, 4, 7 or even 10 years, rather than a return to the pre-war environment. If Washington steps back, Gulf states could accommodate Tehran, particularly given insufficient defenses. Weaker Gulf participation could also undermine maximum-pressure sanctions. A prolonged blockade would consume U.S. military capacity otherwise available for China, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
5. Investment implications: prolonged instability leaves energy and shipping exposed while reinforcing defense requirements.
Crude may be near pre-war levels, but diesel/jet fuel remain disrupted, escort missions continue and Iran is hitting roughly 3-5% of maritime traffic with drones nightly. Lower reserves, stronger Chinese demand, a tough winter and reduced U.S. SPR releases could tighten energy markets. Gulf infrastructure attacks could amplify oil/refining risks, while maritime disruption could pressure tanker availability, freight and insurance. Iran’s rebuilding, Houthi activity and limited Patriot/THAAD-type capacity also point to sustained demand for air/missile defense and interceptors.
END
Vance Sends Letter To Iranian “Hardliner” Mohsen Rezaei In Bid To Reset Talks
Wednesday, Oct 28, 2026 – 04:32 PM
Update(1633ET): We return to the Western MSM Iranian “hardliners” schtick and its usage in headlines, with oil prices declining on the following Wednesday afternoon story from The Wall Street Journal:
Vice President JD Vance is engaging one of Iran’s most powerful hard-liners to revive peace negotiations even as President Trump threatens to restart the war after next week’s midterm elections, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.
This smacks of desperation on the part of the White House, now seven months into the supposedly swift and decisive “little excursion” where so much “winning” is taking place. According to more from WSJ:
Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, and previously Iran’s longest-serving commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the people.
The letter was sent at Trump’s direction, one person said, and Trump is aware of the outreach. Vance is testing whether Tehran and Washington could find enough common ground to persuade Trump not to give a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks.
More on the “Hardliners!”… “Some U.S. officials say talking to Iranian hard-liners, who have amassed power in Tehran since the U.S. and Israel killed regime leaders at the war’s outset, might yield a better diplomatic result,” WSJ continues.
But Tehran leaders, whether ‘hardliner’ or not, have not appeared to back off demands that the US conform to its seven conditions. They also refuse to take up the nuclear file until the war is resolved.
This is coupled with various widespread reports that the US has put Gulf allies on notice that an intense and brief renewal of the war could return after the November midterm elections. Of course, the administration is not articulating “ok what comes next?” after another major round of bombing.
* * *
Update(0945ET): That was fast. Within a couple hours of an earlier Reuters report saying Qatar had presented Iran with a new US draft deal to end the war, Tehran has issued a fresh denial:
Iran has rejected a proposal from Qatar to end the US-led war on the country, calling it “unacceptable”. Qatar presented the draft deal, which would look to end the eight-month conflict, to Iranian negotiators on Sunday.
However, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that his country could not work with what had been presented, adding that Tehran would show no flexibility regarding the nuclear issue.
The big sticking point indeed centers on the nuclear file. For Iran this is a non-starter, while Washington is demanding negotiations open based on Iran giving up its highly enriched uranium.
* * *
There are emerging Wednesday reports that in the last days Qatari mediators presented Iran with a new draft deal to end the war, even as the Islamic Republic faces threats of a new major US attack, likely to take place after the midterm elections in early November.
An official privy to the diplomatic interaction said that Tehran is considering the draft deal and is expected to send a response to by the end of the week, according to Reuters. “The new draft being considered by Iran sets a seven-day timeline addressing both Tehran’s and Washington’s concerns, laying out daily confidence-building steps that each side must take, the official said,” writes Reuters.
But within several hours after the Reuters report was issued, a senior Iranian official has been cited in international reports as saying Qatar has actually not presented a new proposal to end the conflict.
Tehran’s stance on not wavering on the nuclear issue also remains unchanged. Washington wants the nuclear file to be central to negotiations to end the war, while Iranian leaders say its nuclear program cannot be negotiated until after hostilities end.
Tuesday saw Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Moscow, where he met with Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, PressTV has reported. The Moscow meeting took place on the sidelines of the 8th Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit.
As for any alleged new US ‘draft deal’ offer, Iran is unlikely to be in the mood for compromise so long as it remains under threat of imminent US attack. President Trump has over the least week been talking about joining up with Israel to “finish the job” against Iran.
Also there’s new reporting in The Wall Street Journal which warns of preparations for a short and intense new military campaign against Iran to be launched soon after the midterm vote in the US.
“The U.S. has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the U.S. midterm elections, people briefed on the conversations said,” WSJ writes Wednesday.
“The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the U.S. and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations,” it continues.
And this has apparently included more costly and dwindling defenses and munitions for Israel: “The U.S. military is sending an additional Patriot system to Israel from Texas to beef up its missile defenses in the country, according to flight tracking data and two officials with knowledge of the movement,” the same report reveals.
Preparations have also reportedly included moving American troops back from bases that are in or near the Gulf, putting them out of harms way in anticipation of Iran’s retaliation.
More Latest Developments
via Newsquawk…
- Qatari mediators reportedly presented Iran with a new draft agreement on Sunday aimed at ending the conflict with the US and Israel, with Tehran expected to respond by the end of the week. The proposal outlines a seven-day timeline of daily confidence-building measures addressing both sides’ concerns, potentially beginning early next week, with several countries acting as guarantors, according to Reuters citing an official briefed on the negotiations.
- However, according to Reuters citing a senior Iranian official, Qatar has not presented a new proposal to end hostilities between Iran and the US and that Tehran’s policy of showing no flexibility over the nuclear issue remains unchanged.
- US President Trump replied anything is possible when asked if there will be strikes against Iran after the election.
- US told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the US midterm elections, according to people briefed on the conversations cited by WSJ.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said sustainable regional security requires collective responsibility, mutual respect for sovereignty and cooperation among regional countries without foreign military intervention. In later comments, Araghchi said the destructive consequences of any military adventurism provoked by Israel in the Persian Gulf region for international markets remain a serious concern for gas exporting and gas consuming countries.
- Iranian source denied a report of a Trump-backed plan being delivered via Pakistan’s army chief, stating this was completely false and that no new proposal was presented to Iran. The source added that Tehran’s conditions are clear, and without a convincing response and tangible implementation, the Strait of Hormuz won’t reopen.
- Israeli PM Netanyahu and rival Eisenkot both claim a mandate to lead the country following Tuesday’s inconclusive election. With 48.4% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to secure 55 seats, Eisenkot’s bloc 50 seats and Arab parties 15 seats, according to Israeli media. Seat projections remain subject to change, with definitive results expected by Thursday.
END
ISRAEL TBN
END
ISRAEL
There Are Multiple Paths Out Of Israel’s Election Deadlock
Wednesday, Oct 28, 2026 – 10:35 PM
More Israelis voted in Tuesday’s election than in any poll since 2001, yet neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his challengers have a straightforward path to power. Complicating matters are the stunning gains made by the Joint List and Ra’am, two slates representing Palestinian citizens of Israel that almost all Israeli political leaders have promised to exclude from any future governing coalition.
With 85 percent of votes counted on Wednesday, Netanyahu and his allies stood on 53 seats, while former army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc had 48. The Palestinian parties together sat on 19. A minimum of 61 of Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, is needed to form a majority government, and no one is close to that magic number.
Middle East Eye explores the possibilities as coalition-building negotiations set to begin.
Netanyahu stays in power
When the exit polls were released at 10pm on Tuesday night, showing Netanyahu’s bloc trailing Eisenkot’s, many were prematurely writing the prime minister’s political obituary. Over the following hours, it became clear that not only was Netanyahu’s Likud party the largest in parliament with an expected 26 seats, but his coalition was also set to gain five MPs more than the Zionist Jewish opposition trying to replace him.
As sitting prime minister, Netanyahu will remain in office until a viable government can be formed to replace him. It’s likely that President Isaac Herzog will give Netanyahu the opportunity to try and form a government first, as he has the largest party.
There are two ways Netanyahu could do this. The first is by convincing MPs from some of the opposition parties to abandon their bloc and join his government. Several of the opposition parties are very right wing and contain Israeli settlers and former settlers who Netanyahu might think could be tempted over. However, this would need a significant number of defections.
The alternative is that Netanyahu forms a unity government alongside some of the key parties in the opposition, such as Eisenkot’s Yashar and Naftali Bennett’s MPs in the Together slate.
This would be the preference of US President Donald Trump, who endorsed Netanyahu ahead of the election, and Herzog. It would likely mean that at least one of Finance Minister Belzalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right parties would be excluded from government.
Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, longstanding allies of Netanyahu, would be at risk of missing out, too, as the opposition have campaigned fiercely on the principle that Haredi youth should be conscripted into the army.
However, Netanyahu’s personal brand is toxic to the opposition leaders, and especially their voters. Another former army chief, Benny Gantz, destroyed his political career by joining a unity government with Netanyahu in 2020.
Assaf David, an analyst at Israel’s Vanleer Institute think tank, told Middle East Eye: “If the final results show Netanyahu’s bloc in the lead, then some of the opposition parties might decide that it’s better to have a government of Netanyahu without Smotrich and Ben Gvir than to go for a second round of elections in which the right-wing bloc will be much more organised and the opposition bloc less organised.”
Eisenkot forms a minority government
The math for Eisenkot doesn’t look good. Yashar and his natural allies trail Likud and Netanyahu’s bloc significantly. Overall, however, voters have elected nearly 70 anti-Netanyahu MPs, including the Palestinian parties.
That means the retired general could try to form some sort of government with the help of the Joint List and Ra’am. It’s unlikely that both the Palestinian slates would formally join a coalition. Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and other opposition leaders have ruled out cooperating with the Arab parties.
However, Eisenkot could seek to form a minority government with the support of the Palestinians from the outside. This, David warns, could come with significant risks, as Netanyahu would likely present the move as Arabs stealing the election alongside a minority of Jewish MPs.
“If there is no Jewish majority against Netanyahu, relying on the Arab vote to tip the scale against Netanyahu will be very dangerous, not just politically, but even security-wise,” he said.
“Netanyahu will be able to incite his supporters to use political violence, and I don’t even rule out the possibility of people trying to assassinate Eisenkot.”
Another election
In 2019, Israel held two elections with results not dissimilar to today’s. In both cases, neither Netanyahu nor his former army chief rival, this time Benny Gantz, was able to form a government.
Israel’s president gives candidates 28 days to form a government before offering the opportunity to someone else. That window can be extended by 14 days upon request. As things stand, sliding towards another election would suit Netanyahu. He would remain prime minister until those fresh polls are held in a few months’ time.
And it is likely, David says, that the conditions would favour Netanyahu and his allies rather than the opposition. Around 67,000 Israelis are estimated to have returned from abroad to vote on Tuesday, and most are believed to have supported Netanyahu’s opponents. It’s unlikely they will all make the effort again.
Similarly with the Palestinian vote. An astonishing 80 percent of Palestinian citizens of Israel voted this year, up from 54 percent in 2022. Many were voting for the first time and breaking a longstanding boycott in the face of rising discrimination, insecurity and horror in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Returning similar numbers in a re-run with a right-wing base energized to stop the Arab vote will be a serious challenge.
“The bloc that resists Netanyahu understands that it has a one-shot opportunity right now, because they had the tens of thousands of voters that came to vote from abroad and a huge majority of Arab Palestinian citizens voting,” David said.
“These two facts that are in favor of the opposition bloc will not repeat themselves next time. So, I believe that everybody in the opposition bloc knows that they have to seize this opportunity and rely on the Arab vote.”
END
RUSSIA VS UKRAINE
Russian Oil Refineries Boost Output Following Ukraine’s 3-Day Pause On Energy Attacks
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 04:15 AM
Just after Ukraine’s President Zelensky conceded Tuesday that he did in fact hold to a brief energy ceasefire at President Trump’s insistence, Reuters is reporting a major rebound in Russian crude output.
“Russian oil refineries increased crude processing by 25% in the second half of October compared to the beginning of the month after persistent drone attacks on the plants ceased, three industry sources told Reuters.”
“Since mid-March, Russian refineries had faced weekly attacks by Ukrainian drones that caused domestic fuel shortages and prompted authorities to ban exports of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, as well as begin importing oil products by sea,” the report adds.
Days after Trump proclaimed an Oct.11 energy ceasefire deal – which didn’t actually look fully agreed to at the time (given some level of mutual attacks persisted) – “Russian authorities said some of the last attacks this month were strikes at refineries in Ryazan and Surgut carried out in mid-October, with no further strikes after October 16,” Reuters writes Wednesday.
On Wednesday Ukrainian media is citing direct confirmation of an energy strike pause from a closed-door meeting with reporters that happened the day before:
In the first 72 hours of the energy truce, Ukraine suspended strikes on Russian oil refineries while its forces focused on other targets, the president added.
“I said, ‘Let’s respond calmly by striking other targets for at least 72 hours. We won’t touch the oil refineries.’ That didn’t help. There was all kinds of rhetoric, and no one thanked us for those three days,” Zelensky said.
“There was the incident involving the Ryazan oil refinery (on Oct. 15). There were other operations as well. We targeted data centers and locations where Russian ballistic missiles are concentrated,” Zelensky has also explained.
The Ukrainian side has complained bitterly about the request from Washington, given a key part of its strategy is to pummel Russian energy in order to starve the Russian state of vital funds to feed its war machine.
Kiev will no doubt chafe further at these emerging reports of a Russian crude output rebound.
The US Treasury was also ordered by Trump to issue a general license suspending US sanctions on Russian diesel fuel until April 2027.
Making matters worse for Ukraine, FT is reporting the following significant headline this week: Washington discusses Russian deals for US oil majors in Ukraine peace talks. This puts even greater distance between the differing ‘goals’ in terms of what the US and Ukraine hope to get out of engaging Moscow diplomatically.
According to officials cited in the FT report, “the White House and the Kremlin suggested that after the war ends, a joint venture involving American and Russian oil giants could be revived off the coast of Sakhalin, an island in the Far East.”
They further discussed “bringing in American giants to a plan to resume sales of Russian oil to Europe via the Druzhba pipeline.” Kiev’s ardent hawkish backers in the European Union are meanwhile trying to maintain leverage, but are likely to find themselves very distant from the negotiating table.
END
Zelensky Sends Massive Overnight Drone Wave On Russia, With Record 1,214 UAVs Intercepted
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 09:05 AM
Facing pressure from President Trump to halt all attacks on Russian refineries, Ukraine’s Zelensky is perhaps getting his last licks in. Overnight Ukraine sent a record number of drones into Russian territory, with Russia’s military saying it intercepted over 1,200 drones across the country.
This means that in total that many hundreds more were likely launched, or possibly even thousands, as part of the long-running Ukrainian UAV strategy of overwhelming Russian air defenses.
The Moscow region was once again heavily targeted, with the city’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claiming that 613 drones had been sent on the capital area alone.
“The majority were neutralized by the Ministry of Defense’s air defense forces at a great distance. 231 drones were destroyed as they approached Moscow,” Sobyanin said.
Operations at capital region’s airports were once halted due to the inbound threat, including at Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovsky – but by morning the restrictions were lifted.
Significantly, the attack happened as currently more than 22 foreign leaders are being hosted at the Russia-Africa summit in Moscow, which has also had President Putin’s participation.
The Russian defense ministry listed out in addition to the Moscow region that there were attacks on the territories of the Bryansk, Belgorod, Kursk, Kaluga, Tula, Smolensk, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tver, Oryol, Ryazan, Vladimir, Samara, Saratov, Penza, and Rostov regions.
As for impacts and damage, one notable hit occurred on the Bashkir Soda Company (BSK) in Republic of Bashkortostan, according to Russian independent outlet Astra.
For more background:
BSK is one of Russia’s largest chemical complexes and the country’s leading producer of soda ash and baking soda. The enterprise is part of the Roskhim holding company, which owns a controlling 57.43% stake.
The complex is also listed in the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade’s classified registry of defense-related enterprises. BSK supplies military-industrial plants with hydrochloric acid and dichloroethane and is Russia’s sole producer of terephthaloyl chloride, a compound used to manufacture synthetic ballistic fibers, high-strength polymers, and aramid materials. These materials are used in body armor, helmets, and protective components for military equipment and aircraft.
While none of this has substantially changed Russian forces’ ground momentum along the front lines, the Institute for the Study of War has recently said that the aerial campaign is effectively pressuring the Kremlin, given the steady economic setbacks and devastation.
In Ukraine, Russian aerial strikes have continued to result in high casualties among civilian bystanders:
At least 13 people have been killed after a Russian drone hit a busy platform at the main train station in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said. State rail company Ukrzaliznytsia said on Thursday that a jet-powered drone hit the platform where a train was preparing to leave for the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia.
Regional Governor, Oleksandr Hanzha, said on Telegram that at least 14 others were injured and six were in critical condition, including an 11-year-old boy.
President Zelensky condemns the “horrific attack”…
“Moscow simply does not have enough air-defense coverage to shield every piece of infrastructure in its rear, even ten of its most valuable commercial sites,” an ISW assessment concluded. However, nothing has indicated that President Putin is ready to change course – instead we are seeing things steadily escalate on both sides.
END
6/.GLOBAL ISSUES, COVID ISSUES, VACCINE INJURIES/HEALTH ISSUES
GLOBAL ISSUES//AI
COVID VACCINE INJURY REPORTS; DR MARK CRISPIN MILLER
In memory of those who “died suddenly” in the United States and worldwide, October 19-26, 2026
Realty star Anika Rashaun (34,C); soaps star Alan Dysert; film exec Thomas Hayes; film writer David Atchison; voice actor Eric Bauza (46); actor Matthew Lamb’s mother; film critic Ann Hornaday; & more
| Mark Crispin MillerOct 28 |  |
A survey of the likely global toll of COVID “vaccination,” based on the reports collected by our worldwide team of researchers this past week.
Note: These reports are not arbitrarily included. For a list of the criteria we use, see this footnote.¹
UNITED STATES (109)
‘The Challenge’ alum Anika Rashaun dies at 34 after breast cancer battle
2026-10-23
“The Challenge” alum Anika Rashaun has died at 34 after a battle with cancer. The reality star’s friend Tiara Ramos shared the news in in an Oct. 5 Substack post titled, “Breast Friends Forever: RIP to my Sister,” referencing the title of their podcast, which they started when Rashaun was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer last summer. “Her diagnosis was a shock. Despite her mother having breast cancer years earlier, she was never identified as high-risk or told by her doctors to prioritize mammograms. That was one of the many failures she experienced within the medical system during her time battling cancer. But that is a story for another day,” Ramos wrote.
‘All My Children’ star Alan Dysert dead at 75 after ‘incurable cancer’ diagnosis
2026-10-26
“All My Children” alum Alan Dysert died on Friday. He was 75. Alan’s wife, Michele, said on Facebook that she’s “heartbroken” over the soap star’s death. Alan previously revealed in his 2023 memoir, “Lights, Camera, Cancer!,” that he was diagnosed with a “rare, aggressive and incurable cancer.” He wrote in the book that his treatment included four major cancer-related surgeries, a recurrence, chemotherapy and 29 CT scans.
A movie exec “died suddenly”:
Thomas Hayes, 66
2026-10-22
Thomas Hayes, 66, of Los Angeles, California, died unexpectedly on October 3, 2026. After settling in San Jose, Tom became the founding chairman and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, helping guide the region through its transition from semiconductor manufacturing into the emerging internet economy. In 2015, he moved to Los Angeles and joined Paramount Pictures as Senior Vice President and Head of New Media, where he focused on new technology, distribution, content, and new media talent.
No cause of death reported.
A film and video game writer “died suddenly”:
Reported on October 11:
David Nicholas Atchison, 48
2026-10-11
Atlanta, GA – After graduating from Westlake High School in 1996, David attended West Georgia College. Following his freshman year, he chose a new direction, leaving school to serve six years in the Air Force Reserve. With his service behind him, David set his sights on Los Angeles, California, where he went on to work as a writer at 20th Century Fox Studios, bringing to life the imagination he had nurtured since childhood. After his years at Fox, David published Occult Crime Taskforce (OCT), launched Authentic magazine, and created the Warriors comic series and the Method Man one-shot. He brought his storytelling to video games with Activision’s Singularity, and to younger audiences with Smoosh. He also lent his talents to some of the biggest stories on screen, contributing to Netflix’s Fast & Furious: Spy Racers and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.
Researcher’s note – VA urging veterans, staff to get latest COVID-19 vaccine [sic] booster: https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2023/09/18/va-urging-veterans-staff-to-get-latest-covid-19-vaccine-booster/
No cause of death reported.
Eric Bauza has died; voice actor for Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
2026-10-26
Eric Bauza has passed away in the US. While his face might not be familiar, his voice certainly is: Bauza was the modern-day voice of iconic Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny and a lisping Daffy Duck. He was 46. Bauza died unexpectedly at home due to a cardiovascular condition, reports the trade publication Variety. His family announced the news on Instagram.
High Potential’s Matthew Lamb, 14, Announces Death of Mom
2026-10-21
Matthew Lamb, the young teenage star of ABC’s High Potential, is mourning the death of his mom, Meredith Elliott Lamb. The 14-year-old actor portrays Elliot Radovic on the series, the son of Kaitlin Olson‘s Morgan. He shared a statement: “I’m not quite sure how to write this. As I’m sure many of you know, my mama passed away this Saturday. She was everything to me. She taught me school, she taught me empathy, she did everything for our family. She always had the biggest smile and she gave the best hugs. Truly the most selfless person I know.”
Researcher’s note – Matthew’s mother, Meredith Elliott Lamb, senior staff and integral part of the Broadway Artists Alliance, died suddenly on October 17, 2026, of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at age 51: https://porterfuneralhome.com/ObituaryDetails.aspx?id=103509&Name=Meredith_Anne_Elliott_Lamb
Ann Hornaday, Longtime Washington Post Film Critic and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Dies at 66
2026-10-19
Ann Hornaday, the longtime film critic at The Washington Post, died Sunday at her home in Baltimore [MD] following a battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. She was 66. Hornaday spent more than 20 years at the Post, joining in 2002 and leaving in 2025. Over the course of her time at the Post, she wrote hundreds of reviews, in-depth profiles and stories, including deep looks at films like “The Hurt Locker,” “Jaws” and “Oppenheimer.”
Researcher’s note – Hornaday was almost surely “vaccinated”. In this February 2022 article for The Washington Post, one of the most intensely “vaccine”-pushing media sources, Hornaday says that in-person movie theaters could attract customers “with the right combination of pricing, theater upgrades and safety measures, including vaccination [sic] mandates”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/02/17/hornaday-cinema-risk-covid/
Music legend John Anderson dead at 71, days after attending event
2026-10-22
Country music legend John Anderson has died at 71, just days after attending the Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Nashville. The Swingin’ hitmaker’s family confirmed he died peacefully in his sleep at his home. No cause of death was confirmed.
Roxana Amed, Renowned Argentine Jazz Singer, Has Died
2026-10-26
As reported to LA NACION, Roxana Amed passed away this Sunday, October 25, at the age of 63. The renowned singer and songwriter—one of the most prominent voices in Argentine jazz—had been dealing with an illness. At this time, the official cause of her death has not been disclosed. Born in Buenos Aires and a resident of the United States for more than a decade, Amed built a distinguished career both at home and internationally, blending jazz with elements of folklore, Argentine rock, and poetry. In addition to her work as a performer and songwriter, she served as a faculty member at the University of Miami.
Researcher’s note – U. of Miami’s covid “vaccination” mandate: Link
‘Ah! Leah!’ Singer Donnie Iris Dead at 83
1990-10-26
Donnie Iris, best known for the 1980 hit “Ah! Leah!” died Monday at the age of 83 after a three-year battle with bladder cancer. After decades as a popular touring attraction, Iris announced his retirement from the road earlier this month, issuing the following statement: “After much thought, and in light of recent health issues, I have made the difficult decision to retire from future concert performances. Music has given me far more than I could ever put into words. From the earliest days to every chapter of my life, your support has been a constant source of joy and inspiration … It has been my great honor to make music for you.”
Music producer, disability advocate and Macon studio head Joey Stuckey dies at 53
2026-10-20
Macon, GA – Joey Stuckey, a local musician, sound engineer and disabilities advocate who spent decades producing music and teaching others, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 53. The beloved blind musician brought the Macon community together just three weeks ago to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his Shadow Sound Studio on Third Street as part of the eighth annual Joey Stuckey Alive Day on Sept. 29. The musician’s death also comes just days ahead of his “King of Strings” EP which was set to release Friday.
Belmar and Lake Como Say Goodbye to Tommy T, a Jersey Shore Legend
2026-10-24
BELMAR/LAKE COMO, NJ – There are some people who become such a familiar part of a community that it’s almost impossible to imagine the place without them. Thomas K. Uhrig, known to just about everyone along the Jersey Shore as “Tommy T,” was one of those people. For decades, Tommy T was part of the soundtrack of the Jersey Shore. And now, the music plays on without one of its most devoted fans. Uhrig, 66, of Neptune City, formerly of Freehold, passed away unexpectedly at his home on Saturday, October 17, 2026. He was laid to rest this week, leaving behind a grieving family, countless friends and a local music and nightlife community struggling to come to terms with the sudden loss of someone who seemed like he would always be there.
No cause of death reported.
Prayers Pour In for Rock Icon Jack White After Devastating Death of His Older Brother
2026-10-24
Rock icon Jack White is mourning the loss of a man who helped shape his life long before the future rock star ever picked up the guitar riffs that would make him famous. White announced that his older brother Edward Gerard Gillis died on Oct. 23 after a battle with cancer. He was 60.
NHL Star Ronald Duguay Dead at 69 After Cancer Battle
2026-10-22
Ron Duguay–the former NHL star who was dating Sarah Palin–is dead after a long battle with cancer. Sarah announced his death Thursday on Instagram, saying he died “peacefully” on Thursday “after a hard fought battle with cancer.” She says a celebration of life will be announced at a later date. The former Governor of Alaska also wrote, “It’s with a shattered heart, but also deep peace knowing Ron is with Jesus now. He fought so hard. Love never ends.” Sarah had just asked fans to pray for Ron on Thursday, sharing a heartbreak photo of him in a hospital bed while the two held hands. He battled colon cancer for about 2 years after first being diagnosed in 2024. Ron was 69 years old.
Former NFL Star Allen Bailey Dead at 37
2026-10-21
Former NFL defensive end Allen Bailey has died at age 37, TMZ has learned. Allen’s brother, Alford Bailey Jr., tells TMZ Allen’s wife found him dead yesterday inside their Florida home. We’re told the family believes he died from natural causes. Bailey spent the first eight seasons of his NFL career with the Kansas City Chiefs before joining the Atlanta Falcons in 2019. He played two seasons in Atlanta, appearing in 31 games before being released in 2021.
No cause of death reported.
Reds’ World Series champion dies at 63
2026-10-23
The Cincinnati Reds are mourning the loss of former MLB first baseman and 1990 World Series champion Todd Benzinger, who died Wednesday at the age of 63. The Reds announced his passing Thursday, remembering Benzinger for his role on one of the most celebrated teams in franchise history. For Reds fans, Benzinger will always be remembered as one of the players who helped deliver the franchise’s 1990 championship – and as the man who caught the final out that completed the historic sweep.
No cause of death reported.
Police Say Kansas City Chiefs Star Didn’t Die of ‘Natural Causes’
2026-10-22
Former Kansas City Chiefs lineman Allen Bailey went into cardiac arrest before he died at his Florida home on Tuesday, a police report obtained by TMZ has revealed. The report says that Bailey, 37, was pronounced dead about 10 minutes after first responders arrived at his Green Cove Springs residence. The cause of death came despite the family telling TMZ that they believed he died of natural causes. An investigation into his death is still underway. Bailey’s wife, Lauren Bailey, found him dead, the NFL star’s brother, Alford Bailey Jr., told TMZ Wednesday.
FOOTBALL PLAYER AT JOHNSON C. SMITH UNIVERSITY DIES FROM HEALTH EMERGENCY AFTER HOMECOMING WEEKEND, ATHLETES AT BLACK SCHOOLS HAVE DIED AT INCREASED RATES LATELY
2026-10-22
Charlotte, North Carolina – Charles Smith, 49, died on October 21, 2026. Charles also known as big Chuckie played football at Johnson C. Smith University in the past. He later encountered health issues and suffered a cardiac arrest medical emergency. The heart trouble led to admittance into the hospital which then led to further medical problems. Sadly on Oct. 21st Charles died. His death was right after Johnson C. Smith University’s homecoming.
Refugio legend Toya Jones dies at 49, leaving a lasting legacy in Texas sports
2026-10-23
END
RABOBANK/MICHAEL EVERY/OR OR PICTON/GIFFIN OR RABOBANK EXECUTIVE/COMMENTARY ON WORLDLY AFFAIRS
7. OIL AND NATURAL GAS/ENERGY COMMENTARIES
8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES
BRAZIL
Greenwald Unpacks Brazil’s Political Drama As Bolsonaro Deletes “True President-Elect” Claim
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 07:10 AM
Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro briefly declared himself “the true president-elect of Brazil” on Wednesday before deleting the statement.
President Trump said the same day that he would not endorse Bolsonaro’s claim, suggesting the Trump administration would limit its support for Bolsonaro’s election challenge.
Bolsonaro arrived in Miami on Wednesday after leaving Brazil earlier in the week, citing the “politicization of the justice system in Brazil” under left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His abrupt departure followed a Supreme Court order requiring him to surrender his passport immediately after the runoff election.
Argentina’s migration department said Bolsonaro and his family entered Misiones province through a border crossing late Tuesday night using valid travel documents. They immediately boarded a private jet bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, then flew directly to Miami. 
Journalist Glenn Greenwald added more color to Bolsonaro’s now-deleted statement:
It seems as Flavio Bolsonaro and his allies just deleted that statement in which Flavio declared himself “the true president-elect of Brazil,” and then re-posted the letter without that declaration.
I had just spent 30 minutes speaking to everyone I could trying to understand how it made any sense at all to make this claim — either in general or the way they did it: so impulsively and suddenly, with no groundwork laid for it — and nobody could make sense of it. So it seems wise that they removed it.
Greenwald posted a clip of Trump that makes it clear he does not intend to back Bolsonaro’s now-deleted claim.
Greenwald continued:
Brazil’s Federal Police issues a statement that Flavio Bolsonaro is not considered a “fugitive” from justice because he has not been charged with any crimes and there was no order issued for his arrest when he left Brazil for the US.
Part of the motive here is to explain away the embarrassment that Brazilian authorities had no idea what was going on in their country all day, but it is also true that — contrary to many prevailing media and political narratives in the US — Flavio has not been charged with (let alone convicted of) crimes and no arrest order had yet been issued when he left.
To sum up: Bolsonaro has reached Miami to circumnavigate Lula’s totalitarian crackdown, but his political endgame remains unclear.
His claim to the presidency quickly disappeared off the internet yesterday, and Trump declined to endorse it. Meanwhile, Brazil’s own Federal Police undercut the whole fugitive narrative. The battle over legitimacy, judicial power, and Brazil’s political future is far from over, as Lula’s socialist regime will face immense headwinds in a Senate that has shifted right.
END
U.S./GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING 6;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSING\
OPENING LEVELS OF CURRENCIES// AND CLOSING ASIAN STOCK MARKET AND OPENING EUROPEAN STOCKS:6 AM EST
EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.1148 DOWN 0.0007
USA/ YEN 157.79 DOWN 0.035 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.75% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//END OF YEN CARRY TRADE BEGINS AGAIN DEC 2024/Bank of Japan raises rates by .25% TO 1.75 ..TAKAICHI NEW PM AS YIELDS RISE//JAPAN DEEPLY IN TROUBLE WITH RISING RATES AND A FALLING YEN!! BANK OF JAPAN WILL NO LONGER DO QE. URGES PENSION AND INSUANCE FUNDS TO BUY JAPANESE BONDS//
YEN CARRY TRADERS MURDERED
GBP/USA 1.3227 DOWN 0.0001 OR 1 BASIS PTS
USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.39900 UP 0.0004//CDN DOLLAR DOWN 4 BASIS PTS//
Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 30.04 PTS OR 0.82%
Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 156.83 PTS OR 0.68%
AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 0.35%
// EUROPEAN BOURSE: ALL MIXED
Trading from Europe and ASIA
I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: ALL MIXED
2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG CLOSED DOWN 156.83 PTS OR 0.68%
/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 156.93 PTS OR 0.68%
AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED UP .35%
(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 639.81 PTS OR 1.00%
INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE GREEN
Gold very early morning trading: $4030.50
silver:$52.87
USA DOLLAR VS TRY (TURKISH LIRA): 49.84 UP 0 BASIS PTS AND NOW WE SEE THEIR STUPIDITY OF SELLING SOME OF THEIR GOLD AND ALL OF THEIR USA DOLLAR RESERVES. THE COUNTRY IS IN BIG FINANCIAL TROUBLE
USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIAN ROUBLE: 80.790ROUBLE// DOWN0 ROUBLE AND 46 BASIS PTS.
UK 10 YR BOND YIELD: 4.9920 DOWN 6 BASIS PTS
UK 30 YR BOND YIELD: 5.3310 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS
FRENCH OAT 10 YR BOND YIELD: 4.8930 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS.
CDN 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.9020UP 3 BASIS PTS
CDN 5 YR BOND YIELD; 3.6040UP 3 BASIS PTS
USA dollar index early THURSDAY MORNING: 102.000 DOWN 3 BASIS POINTS FROM WEDNESDAY’s CLOSES
THURSDAY MORNING NUMBERS ENDS
And now your closing THURSDAY NUMBERS 10.00 AM
Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 3.8156% DOWN 7 in basis point(s) yield
JAPANESE BOND 10 yr YIELD: +2.820% UP 1 FULL POINTS BASIS POINTS /JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/
JAPAN 30 YR: 3.8888 UP 1 BASIS PTS//
SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.947 DOWN 6 in basis points yield
ITALY 10 YR BOND: 4.4680 DOWN 9 points in basis points yield ./
GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.3780 DOWN 4 BASIS PTS
IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES : MID DAY THURSDAY
Closing currency crosses for day /USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/10:00 AM
Euro/USA 1.1159 UP 0.0004 OR 4 basis points
USA/Japan: 157.82 DOWN 0.0002 OR YEN IS UP 2 BASIS PTS// HIGHLY INFLATIONARY TO JAPAN
Great Britain 10 YR RATE 5.3352 UP 25 BASIS POINTS //
GREAT BRITAIN 30 YR BOND; 5.6760 DOWN1 5 BASIS POINTS.
FRANCE 10 YR: 4.896 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS
CANADIAN DOLLAR DOWN 4 BASIS PTS TO 1.3989
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The USA/Yuan CNY 6.6614 ON SHORE ..UP
THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE// CNH UP TO 6.6680
TURKISH LIRA: 49.84 UP 0 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WATCH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.//
Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 9 in basis points from WEDNESDAY at 4.961% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%)
USA 30 yr bond yield 5.310 DOWN 16basis points /10:00 AM
USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.633 DOWN 10 BASIS PTS.
GOLD AT 10;00 AM $4033.00
SILVER AT 10;00: $5263
Your 11:00 AM bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest ratesTHURSDAY
DAY CLOSING TIME/ 12:00 AM///
London: CLOSED UP 27.57 PTS OR 0.58%
GERMAN DAX: CLOSED UP 335.68 PTS OR 2.52%
FRANCE:UP42.45 OR 1.07 PTS
Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 25.90PTS OR 0.14%
Italian MIB: CLOSED UP 178.06 TS OR 0..36%
WTI Oil price 100.44
USA DOLLAR INDEX: 101.88 OR DOWN 16 PTS
Brent Oil: 113.440:00 EST
USA /RUSSIAN ROUBLE: 80.88 / ROUBLE DOWN 0 AND 38 100
CDN 10 YEAR RATE: 3.8260 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS.
CDN 5 YEAR RATE: 3.5640 DOWN 4 BASIS PTS
CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM//
Euro vs USA 1.1169 UP 0.0013 OR 13 BASIS POINTS//
British Pound: 1.3371 UP 0.0045 OR 45 basis pts/
BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 5.2940 DOWN 7 FULL BASIS PTS//
BRITISH 30 YR BOND YIELD: 5.7044 DOWN 1 IN BASIS PTS.
FRENCH 10 YR BOND: 4.910% DOWN 2 BASIS PTS
JAPAN 10 YR YIELD: 2.842% UP 2 FULL BASIS PTS (DANGEROUS TO THEIR ECONOMY
JAPANESE 30 YR BOND: 3.896 UP 2PTS AND STILL VERY DANGEROUS TO THEIR ECONOMY
USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 157.90 UP 0.070 OR YEN DOWN 7 BASIS PTS//GETTING FURTHER AWAY FROM 160.00/ EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3979 DOWN 0.0008 PTS// CDN DOLLAR UP 8 BASIS PTS
West Texas intermediate oil: 102.31
Brent OIL: 114.96
USA 10 yr bond yield DOWN 9BASIS pts to 4.965%
USA 30 yr bond yield: DOWN 5 PTS to 5.315%
USA 2 YR BOND 4.639 DOWN 10 PTS
CDN 10 YR RATE 3.8300 DOWN 4 BASIS PTS
CDN 5 YEAR RATE: 3.572 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS
USA dollar index: 101.85 DOWN 4 BASIS POINTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 49.84 UP 0 BASIS PTS GETTING QUITE CLOSE TO BLOWING UP/IDIOTS SOLD GOLD
USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 81.28 DOWN 0 AND 78/100 roubles //
GOLD $4,020.50 3:30 PM)
SILVER: 52.25 3;30 PM)
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: DOWN 132.48 POINTS OR 0.25%
NASDAQ 100 DOWN 410.65 PTS OR 1.38 %
VOLATILITY INDEX 16.61DOWN 0.30PTS OR 1.77%
GLD: $ 367.57 DOWN 4.94PTS OR 1.32%
SLV/ 47.28PTS DOWN 1.78 OR 3.63%
TORONTO STOCK INDEX// TSX INDEX: CLOSED DOWN 16,06TS OR 0.04%
END
end
TRADING today ZEROHEDGE 4 PM: HEADLINE NEWS/TRADING
Ad-mageddon Slams Tech, Spikes Spreads; Rates Reprice After Fed Fallout, Macro Maelstrom
WRAP UP
USA DATA RELEASES
US Economy Grows 3.4% In Q3, Fastest Pace In A Year, Supercharged By Massive AI Capex Spending
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 09:00 AM
The US economy grew in the third quarter at the fastest pace in a year, supercharged by the debt-funded AI capex spending spree and a resilient American consumer.
Real Gross domestic product (adjusted for inflation) increased an annualized 3.4% in the three months through September after growing 2.2% in the second quarter, according to the initial estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The rise in GDP beat the 3.2% median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Real final sales to private domestic purchasers – a closely watched metric that combines consumer spending and fixed private investment – rose 4.9% in the third quarter, up from 4.6%. Government spending also increased, largely reflecting oil sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Higher imports, which count as a negative in calculating GDP, offset some of the gains.
While personal spending came in stronger than expected, rising an annualized 3.8%, above estimates of a 3.4% print, the biggest driver behind the world’s largest economy continued to be relentless business spending (which has resulted in a massive debt bubble to go along the AI stock bubble). Outlays for equipment contributed more to GDP in the third quarter than at any time since 2011 outside of the pandemic rebound.
Household spending was similarly robust, increasing an annualized 3.8% for a second straight quarter, even amid historically low consumer sentiment tied to cost-of-living concerns.
“It looks like a strong quarter driven by domestic demand activities and a drag from trade,” said Eric Winograd, senior economist for fixed income at AllianceBernstein. “We talk about the boost to growth from AI, but a lot of that stuff is imported.”
Meanwhile, separate figures from the agency showed inflationary pressures mounted at the end of the quarter. The personal consumption expenditures price index – the Fed’s preferred measure – rose 0.5% in September, the most in six months. Excluding food and energy, the so-called core gauge advanced 0.3%; both were in line with estimates.
Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh said on Wednesday after the central bank held rates steady that “economic growth has strengthened” as he hailed “healthy” consumer spending and capital expenditures that he said were at a “historically high share of GDP”.
The GDP report is the last major reading on the health of the US economy before next week’s midterm elections, whose results will determine who controls Congress for President Donald Trump’s final two years in office, with many campaigns targeting concerns around affordability and high prices.
END
Fed’s Favorite Inflation Indicator Surges In September As Soaring Energy Costs Drags Americans’ Savings Rate To 4-Year Lows
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 08:15 AM
Following the hot CPI and PPI (and the internals), this morning’s PCE should not provide too many surprises with expectations for the headline price Index to rise a significant 0.5% MoM in September (accelerating notably after deflating for the first time since COVID in June).
And sure enough, headline PCE rose 0.5% as expected, pulling the price index up 3.6% YoY – highest since May…
The (old) Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) – printed in line with expectations (+0.3% MoM and +3.1% YoY), a very slight uptick…
The sudden resurgence in crude prices did not help at all, smashing PCE Energy to record highs!!
SuperCore PCE (Services ex-Shelter) surged to its highest YoY since Dec 2024…
Interestingly, and more problematically for The Fed, Acylical inflation is now hotter than Cyclical…
In other words, inflation is becoming embedded…which maybe why Services costs are making up such a huge proportion of overall costs…
And that is evident in the income and spending data, which both disappointed (Income +0.2% vs +0.5% exp and Spending +0.5% vs +0.6% exp
)…
Spending is accelerating while wage growth is decelerating…
And that dragged Americans’ savings rate tumbling to its lowest since Oct 2022…
This is not good news… at all!
END
USA ECONOMIC REPORTS
RAVEN…
The Commercial Real Estate Crisis Is Far From Over
Just because the headlines have gone quiet doesn’t mean the losses have disappeared.
I‘ve been harping on the problems in commercial real estate for years now, and one of the more interesting developments over the last several months has been how little anybody seems to be talking it them anymore.
For a while, commercial real estate was supposedly going to bring down the banking system. Then the regional bank failures came and went, the Federal Reserve helped stabilize the financial system, and the market collectively decided that the problem had been contained.
But just because something has disappeared from the headlines doesn’t mean it has disappeared from the balance sheet. In fact, I would argue that we’re approaching precisely the point in the credit cycle when some of the more serious problems should start revealing themselves.
Credit conditions are tightening, borrowing costs remain elevated, and we’re beginning to see signs of strain in private credit. It would be remarkable if commercial real estate, which spent the better part of the last decade gorging itself on cheap financing, somehow emerged from this environment completely unscathed.
And now we have some new numbers that suggest the problem is very much alive.
According to a recent report from CRE Daily, citing research from commercial real estate analytics firm Trepp, an alarming percentage of office properties approaching refinancing simply don’t generate enough cash flow to support replacement financing under today’s conditions.
Trepp examined 309 commercial mortgage-backed securities office loans totaling $18.2 billion, all scheduled to mature by September 2027, less than a year from now.
Its findings were extraordinary: approximately 75% of Class A office loans would require additional equity to refinance, compared with 61% of lower-tier Class B and C properties.
Think about that…these are supposed to be the crown jewels of commercial office real estate. The nicest buildings, in the best locations, with the strongest tenants. And three-quarters of the loans in this particular sample may need somebody to show up with a fresh pile of cash just to get refinanced.
The reason is straightforward. During the era of cheap money, lenders and borrowers structured enormous amounts of commercial real estate debt as interest-only financing. Rather than paying down principal over time, property owners simply serviced the interest and assumed they could refinance when the loan matured.
That strategy worked beautifully when interest rates were falling and property valuations were rising, which everyone assumed would go on forever (thanks, Janet Yellen). It looks considerably less brilliant today.
Trepp found that roughly 80% of the maturing Class A loans in its sample were interest-only, compared with approximately 55% of Class B and C loans. Among interest-only loans, 84% faced refinancing shortfalls. For loans that had been amortizing, that figure dropped to 40%.
In other words, the problem isn’t necessarily the quality of the real estate. It’s the capital structure attached to it.
And that’s something I’ve been arguing for years: when an entire financial system gets accustomed to refinancing debt instead of actually paying it down, rising interest rates eventually expose just how much of the apparent prosperity was dependent on cheap credit.
Also, the income numbers make the situation even more troubling. Trepp calculated that refinancing just half of a maturing loan balance at par following a two-year extension would require annual net operating income growth of approximately 18%.
For context, median office NOI growth between 2020 and 2025 was just 0.6% annually. Good luck closing that gap with rent increases.
Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield recently climbed above 5%, putting additional pressure on commercial borrowing costs. Even if the Federal Reserve cuts short-term interest rates, there’s no guarantee longer-term yields will cooperate, particularly with inflation concerns and federal borrowing requirements hanging over the bond market.
This creates a rather unpleasant situation for property owners who borrowed against valuations established in an entirely different interest-rate environment.
And the maturity schedule suggests we’re nowhere near finished dealing with it.
Trepp estimates that $78.1 billion in private-label CMBS loans will reach their final contractual maturities between October 2026 and the end of 2027. Approximately $61.1 billion of that comes due next year, including $22.2 billion tied to office properties.
Nearly $22 billion of the overall maturity pool carries debt yields of 8% or less, suggesting substantial refinancing challenges.
Meanwhile, the distress is already showing up in payment performance. As of September, CMBS loans at least 30 days delinquent totaled approximately $48.7 billion, representing 8.02% of the $606.6 billion tracked by Trepp. That’s an increase of nearly 12% since the beginning of the year.
These are not numbers that suggest everything has magically healed itself.
Consider two Manhattan properties highlighted in the report. At 667 Madison Avenue, an approximately $254 million refinancing was completed despite weakening debt-service coverage. Meanwhile, 60 Madison Avenue saw its $100 million loan transferred to special servicing after occupancy declined to 58% and operating income deteriorated sharply. Same city. Same asset class. Very different outcomes.
I don’t think every commercial property is going to default, nor do I think every refinancing problem necessarily translates into a catastrophic loss. Some owners will contribute additional equity. Some lenders will extend loans. Some properties will find buyers, and others will be restructured.
But none of those options makes the underlying economic losses disappear.
A loan extension is not a recovery. A refinancing that requires a substantial equity injection is not evidence that the original investment worked. And a lender avoiding foreclosure doesn’t mean its collateral is worth what it was five years ago.
Or, in other words…
It simply means for now the financial system has found another way to postpone recognizing the damage.
The larger concern, in my opinion, is what happens as these problems collide with tightening credit conditions elsewhere.
Private credit has its own issues with valuations, liquidity, underwriting and borrowers who have grown accustomed to abundant financing. Regional banks still carry substantial commercial real estate exposure. And institutional investors that once viewed office buildings as dependable sources of income are discovering that both their cash flows and their exit valuations can deteriorate simultaneously.
These problems don’t have to explode all at once to become meaningful.
In fact, commercial real estate distress may continue unfolding as a slow-motion balance-sheet adjustment rather than a single spectacular crash. Losses can be absorbed through restructurings, equity write-downs, bank provisions and years of diminished returns.
But that doesn’t mean the consequences won’t eventually spill into broader lending conditions.
When banks become less willing to extend credit, borrowers have fewer refinancing options. When refinancing becomes more difficult, collateral values come under pressure. And when collateral values decline, lenders become even more reluctant to lend.
It’s a familiar feedback loop, and one that has played out in virtually every major credit downturn.
Of course, there are reasons not to assume the worst. Office markets are highly fragmented, some premium buildings continue to attract tenants and financing, and stronger sponsors may have sufficient liquidity to weather the storm. The Trepp sample is also concentrated in securitized office loans and shouldn’t be mistaken for a complete picture of every commercial mortgage in America.
Still, I find it difficult to look at these numbers and conclude that the commercial real estate crisis is behind us. If anything, the next 12 to 18 months could be considerably more revealing than the last 12 to 18 months, particularly if long-term interest rates remain elevated and credit availability continues to deteriorate.
I’ve been warning about this sector for years, not because I believe every office tower is worthless or every bank is insolvent, but because the mathematics of commercial real estate financing changed dramatically when the era of free money ended.
And mathematics has a funny way of eventually asserting itself, regardless of how many extensions, modifications or optimistic valuations get thrown at the problem.
The commercial real estate crisis hasn’t necessarily ended. We’ve simply gotten bored of talking about it. And as we’ve learned from previous credit cycles, that’s often when investors should be paying the closest attention.
END
Major Fast-Food Chain Faces Wave Of Restaurant Closures As Franchise Giant Files For Bankruptcy
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 12:25 PM
Wendy’s could see up to 60 more restaurants closed across the United States through mid-November as one of its largest franchise operators battles bankruptcy, according to USA Today.
Meritage Hospitality Group, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 17, has already shuttered 33 restaurants since entering bankruptcy proceedings and could reportedly shut down dozens more by November 13.
Meritage previously closed 60 underperforming locations before filing for bankruptcy. Reports differ on whether the 33 closures since the filing count toward the up-to-60 figure, so the total could reach roughly 120 or more.
The restaurant company operated 314 Wendy’s restaurants across 15 states when it filed for bankruptcy.
Meritage reported a $31.5 million net loss in 2025, followed by another $23.1 million loss during the first half of 2026, according to QSR Magazine.
The franchisee blamed weak sales, aggressive discounting and what it described as less effective Wendy’s marketing under the chain’s previous leadership. The financial pressures have been compounded by stubbornly high beef prices, which the Trump administration has struggled to bring down despite aggressive efforts to boost imports.
In February, President Donald Trump authorized an additional 80,000 metric tons of tariff-free beef imports from Argentina. Moreover, the White House in August allowed another 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef trimmings into the country at reduced tariff rates in hopes of lowering hamburger prices. However, the measures have delivered little relief so far. Ground beef prices have climbed over 22% since Trump returned to office.
Meritage’s bankruptcy has also triggered a bitter financial dispute between the restaurant company and Wendy’s, with the fast-food chain claiming the operator owes approximately $147 million in royalties, fees and other contractual charges.
The latest development has only made Wendy’s already difficult few years go from bad to worse. The burger chain has suffered over 300 net restaurant closures since 2024, including 245 during the first half of 2026, according to NRN.
KING NEWS
| The King Report October 29, 2026 Issue 7958 | Independent View of the News |
| Please do NOT respond to or open emails that claim to be from us or other brokers and ask you to download or open an item. We’ve gotten many scam emails that use brokers’ names, insignias, etc. As expected, the Fed refrained from hiking rates; but two dissenters want to hike rates. More below. WSJ: U.S. Warns Gulf of Possible Short, Intense Renewal of Iran War After MidtermsThere are new signs that the American and Israeli militaries are preparing a potential wave of strikes to muscle Tehran to the negotiating table. The U.S. has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the U.S. midterm elections, people briefed on the conversations said…https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-warns-gulf-of-possible-short-intense-renewal-of-iran-war-after-midterms-cd1a55e1?mod=hp_lead_pos5 @Newsforce: Iran has rejected a new plan from Qatar to end its eight-month war with the U.S., calling it “unacceptable.” The main sticking point is Iran’s nuclear program: the U.S. wants Iran to give up its highly enriched uranium, while Iran says it won’t budge on the nuclear issue. FT: China rushes to shore up markets as AI trade sours‘National team’ of funds and brokers buy stocks after CSI 300 index enters technical bear market There are signs that Beijing has deployed its so-called national team of state-aligned funds and brokers to buy Chinese stocks and dissuade domestic investors, who make up the majority of trading activity in mainland China, from fleeing the market…https://www.ft.com/content/2bb82c45-04b2-4ccc-9002-f54483fb044e?syn-25a6b1a6=1 @lisaabramowicz1: November is projected to be a record month for US investment-grade bond sales, with Bank of America forecasting $175 billion of issuance. That would be up 27% from November 2025.https://x.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/2115443427089289577/photo/1 Equity trading was muted on Wednesday morning because it was Fed Day. There was a rotation out of Fangs and into AI bubble stocks. Near 10:15 ET: MU +4.32%, SPCX -2.95%, Meta -0.82%, TSLA -2.19%, SNDK +4.06%, NVDA +0.1%, GOOGL +1.135, AMD +0.51%, APPL -0.68%, S&P 500 +0.16%, DJIA +0.22%, Nasdaq -0.01% The propensity for stocks to rally on Fed Day induced the usual suspects to manically buy the NYSE opening. The S&P 500 gapped higher (7735.56, +9.96 pts) and quickly hit a daily high of 7742;75 at 9:31 ET. A pro dump appeared; the S&P sank to its daily low of 7718.37 at 9:49 ET. But it was Fed Day, and traders are conditioned to buy opening declines. The S&P 500 Index rallied to 7735.05 at 10:04 ET and then traded sideways with a series of tops between 7735 and 7736.47 until it broke higher at 11:45 ET. The rally attempt aborted quickly; the index fell to 7734.08 at 12:24 ET. The S&P 500 Index then inched higher until it spiked to 7751.06 at 12:54 ET. Again, the rally aborted quickly; the S&P 500 fell to 7740.35 at 12:57 ET. After a modest rebound, the index fell to 7732.06 at 13:32 ET. The index then went inert as traders awaited the FOMC Communique release at 14:00 ET. The pattern rally for the FOMC Communique release began at 13:50 ET. The S&P 500 Index rallied to 7744.33 at the 14:00 ET FOMC Communique release and then declined. FOMC Communique Highlights· On a 10-2 vote kept rates unchanged; Gov Cook & Cleve Fed Pres Hammack voted to hike.· “Inflation remains elevated… The Committee will deliver price stability.”· “Economic activity is expanding at a strong pace.” (economic upgrade from ‘solid pace’)· “Uncertainty remains elevated owing, in part, to geopolitical developments.”· “Domestic spending has been resilient.” “Job gains have kept place with workforce.”https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20261028a.htm The S&P 500 fell to 7723.53 at 14:16 ET on the modest Fed economic upgrade. The index went inert. Warsh Press Conference Highlights· Reiterated key points in FOMC Communique· “Capital investment is robust; inflation remains elevated.”· “The committee will deliver price stability.”· “Economic growth has strengthened, led by healthy consumer spending…”· Capital expenditures are at a record percent of GDP.” Members more discerning about it.· Jobless claims at lowest level in a generation.· Americans still dealing with inflation that is running above Fed target for over 6 years.· “Inflation is too high.” Must prevent inflation from “broadening out.”Noted FOMC Meeting schedule for 2027. Warsh: We have decided to change FOMC schedule next fall, 8 meetings is right number a year. One meeting will not have a vote on policy rate. One meeting will be focused on strategy. Expect in 2028 to have 6 policy-setting meetings. Warsh Q&A Highlights· “Inflation compensation as measured by swaps is going the right way.”· In September we removed a dose of accommodation.· The Fed consensus is that monetary policy is starting to work.· “Inflation expectations have gone up in near-term, but longer-term measures show households and businesses have confidence that the Fed will deliver price stability.” (Mr. Bond disagrees!)· “Interest rates affect almost everything…” including AI capex and the “new technology wave.”· ABC reporter: Did midterms affect rate hold? Warsh: No, “nothing to do with politics.” (total BS)‘Don’t believe in forward guidance when the economy is this strong.’ @spomboy: A reporter (from Korea!!) finally asks Warsh the obvious question: why is the Fed doing QE to the tune of $40b a month if you said QE should only be used in emergencies?? Answer: waiting for the task force report. And gold is DOWN??? The S&P 500 rallied into Warsh’s presser on the hope that he would say something to boost stocks. The S&P 500 hit 7737.42 at 14:30 ET but reversed quickly and fell to 7722.37 at 14:33 ET. When Warsh said inflation swaps are moving in the right direction, the S&P 500 jumped to 7758.29 at 14:37 ET. After a retreat, the S&P jumped again when Warsh said, “households and businesses have confidence that the Fed will deliver price stability.” The S&P 500 Index hit its daily high of 7758.43 at 14:42 ET. Astute traders recognized the S&P 500 could muster only a meager new high; so, they unloaded. The S&P fell to 7730.94 at 14:55 ET. The last-hour rally took the S&P to 7750.31 at 15:04 ET. Selling resumed; the index fell to 7728.78 at 15:13 ET. The S&P plodded higher; MSFT and Google’s results loomed. The S&P hit 7749.40 at 15:59 ET and slipped to a 7743.98 close (+0.28%). Positive aspects of previous session S&P 500 +0.28%, DJIA +0.19%, Nasdaq +0.27%, Nas 100 +0.55%, SOX Index +1.75%SP Info Tech +0.48%, Energy +0.41%, Financials +0.36%, Comm Services +0.35%, Industrials +0.28%, Health Care +0.25%, Materials +0.16%; Consumer Discretionary +0.02%; Dec Brent -$1.23 at 16:16 ET Negative aspects of previous session DJTA -2.46%; SP Utes -0.8*%, Real Estate -0.65%, Consumer Staples -0.38%; USZs -17/32 at 16:20 ET‘Bond King’ Jeff Gundlach notes the US deficit increased $500B in the past two months.Per the Bond King, the US deficit is now $3T annualized or 9+% of GDP.The other instances of US deficit at 9+% of GDP: Civil War and WWII.Dec WTI +$1.76, Dec Diesel +1.67¢ at 16:21 ET Ambiguous aspects of previous session Will the auctions of $500B+ of US debt this week affect bonds? First Hour/Last Hour NYSE Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour: Down; Last Hour: Up Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to day traders]: 7740.26Previous session (S&P 500 Index) High/Low: 7758.43 (14:42 ET); 7718.37 (9:49 ET) Bond investor Jeff Gundlach on Fed’s rate pause: ‘What are you waiting for?’ – CNBC“What are you waiting for? You just upgraded the economy right here,” he said, referring to Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh’s comments about a strong macroeconomic environment during the central bank’s post-decision news conference. “We’re headed to 4% handle headline CPI. The commodity index is rising in a bull market, and I don’t understand why the Fed is so reluctant to move.”https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/28/bond-investor-jeff-gundlach-talks-feds-rate-pause-with-cnbc.html ‘No Point’: UC Berkeley Professor Abandons Grading Students’ Homework Due to Overuse of AIhttps://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/10/26/no-point-uc-berkeley-professor-abandons-grading-students-homework-due-to-overuse-of-ai/ GOOGL EPS 2.12, 3.02 expected (per LSEG); Revenue: $127.6B, $128.22B exp per LSEG; Cloud revenue: $30.7B, +103%. Cloud operating income: $11.1B vs $3.6B y/y; Services rev: $96.3B, +11%. Search & other +12%; includes $8.7B loss on equity securities; Capex: $51.4B; Free cash flow: -$9.1B; No share repurchases in the quarter, vs $11.5B y/y; Gemini app has 1 billion users; -10.74% at 17:44 ET MSFT EPS 4.92, 4.73 exp per LSEG, excludes impact of OpenAI investment; Revenue $92.3B, $90.69B exp per LSEG; Cloud revenue: $63.9B with growth accelerating 30%. MSFT +4.92% AT 16:12 ET.MSFT ran from 530.02 at 15:59 to 535.00 (high) second later. Obviously, it moved on inside info. ServiceNow (cloud services) sank over 10% in after-hour trading on EPS 1.00 with 1.02 expected. Today – Google’s bad results are eclipsing MSFT’s good results. NQZs were slammed early on Wednesday night and hit a low of 29,613.75 (-365.75) at 19:44 ET. NQZs jumped to 29,677.75 at 19:47 ET, 60 points in 3 minutes, on this: WSJ: Vance Reaches Out to Iranian Hard-Liner in Bid to Restart Peace Talks 19:46 ETThe vice president sent a letter to Iran’s security chief at President Trump’s direction. Will someone save tech trading sardines via October performance gaming? That is the question! With the Fed blackout ending tomorrow, will hawkish and anti-DJT officials publicly advocate rate hikes? Or will they wait to advocate rate hikes until after the Midterm Elections? ESZs -29.75; NQZs -292.50, USZs +12/32, Dec WTI -$0.93, Dec Gas -0.28¢, ¥/$ 157.89 at 20:00 ET Expected earnings per Nasdaq: AMZN 2.01, LLY 5.38, MA 5.14, INTC 0.28, MRK 2.12, CAT 7.12, BMY 1.28, MO 1.51, MDLZ .72, DHI 3.03, HSY 2.12 https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/earnings Expected Economic Data: Sept PCE 0.5% m/m & 3.6% y/y; Sept Core PCE 0.3% m/m & 3.1% y/y; Q3 GDP 3.2%, GDP Price Index 3.5% q/q; PCE 3.4% q/q; Core PCE 2.8% q/q; Initial Jobless Claims 199k, Continuing Claims 1.72m; 7-Year Note Auction ($44B) S&P 500 50-day MA: 7698; 100-day MA: 7610; 200-day MA: 7301 (Close 7743.98, +0.28%)Nasdaq 100 50-day MA: 29,812; 100-day MA: 29,559; 200-day MA: 29,894 (Close 29,813.16, +0.55%) DJIA 50-day MA: 52,253, 100-day MA: 52,342; 200-day MA: 50,577 (Close 52,475.10, +0.19%) (Green is positive slope; Red is negative slope) @Handre: Between 1820 and 1900, real GDP per capita in the United States grew eightfold. No welfare state. No central bank. No income tax. The federal government consumed less than 3% of GDP for most of that period, and the results speak for themselves. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and a commodity-backed dollar created the conditions where capital formation exploded. Entrepreneurs knew that what they built, they kept. John D. Rockefeller drove kerosene prices from 58 cents per gallon in 1865 to under 8 cents by 1885, delivering affordable light to millions of ordinary households, not through government mandate but through relentless productive competition. Real wages for manufacturing workers doubled between 1860 and 1890. Immigration surged… Critics point to inequality, child labor, and dangerous working conditions, ignoring that mass poverty preceded industrial capitalism. Andrew Carnegie’s Pittsburgh was brutal, but it was also dramatically better than the subsistence farming the workers’ grandparents had endured. The railroad network grew from 9,000 miles in 1850 to over 160,000 miles by 1890, financed almost entirely by private capital once you exclude the genuinely corrupt land-grant subsidies, which free market thinkers condemned at the time. State intervention produced scandals; private lines produced the freight. Minimal government produced the fastest sustained material improvement in recorded human history to that point. Fox’s @BillMelugin_: NYT reports that operatives with Democrat Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign were behind the effort to find & recruit a candidate named Dan Sullivan to run against incumbent GOP Senator Dan S. Sullivan… to confuse voters and peel votes from him… Reviewed text messages and documents that reveal in summer 2025, a Peltola staffer received instructions from campaign staffers to find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as possible. The staffer complied, going through voter records, and compiled a list. The operation “involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name and made his pitch to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs.” Per NYT: “The plan worked. This spring, a retired teacher from a tiny fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle, reachable only by air and sea, announced his candidacy for Senate. His name was Dan J. Sullivan.” @ggreenwald: There are major questions about how Flavio Bolsonaro left Brazil this morning with his family for the US without detection by Brazil. All morning, Brazilian authorities were utterly confused and clueless. As rumors circulated that Bolsonaro had left Brazil, they had no idea if it was true. At one point, they thought they had located a plane in Argentina, but Bolsonaro wasn’t on it. That seems to have been a decoy. Some Brazilian media outlets are now reporting that the US Govt did not merely agree to allow Bolsonaro to enter, but actively planned, participated in and even executed the exit of Bolsonaro and his family from Brazil to the US: meaning that it was a covert extraction operation by US officials carried out right under the noses of Brazilian intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, who had no idea it was happening. (Bolsonaro has now arrived in the US, but the secrecy of all this means the US Govt has not publicly spoken on it. Everyone, including me, is working on finding out their version). There are lots of questions for both governments, some pretty serious implications as well, and ultimately lots of embarrassment for Brazilian officials no matter how it happened (to say nothing of the authoritarian and anti-democratic stench of having Brazil’s globally notorious tyrannical judge order the passport seizure of Lula’s opponent a mere 7 minutes after Lula was declared the winner). To reiterate: Please do NOT respond to or open emails that claim to be from us or other brokers and ask you to download or open an item. Recently we’ve gotten numerous scam emails that use brokers’ names, insignias, etc., that ask us to claim payments, receipts, info, etc. ‘Tis the season for scams! | |
SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGHT
NBA Legend Who Earned Nearly $200 Million Admits He’s Broke As Wild Spending Habits Revealed
Wednesday, Oct 28, 2026 – 06:10 PM
NBA legend Paul Pierce claims he is “drowning financially” as mounting expenses and a bitter legal battle threaten to drain what’s left of his once-massive fortune, according to court documents obtained by TMZ.
The 49-year-old Boston Celtics icon alleges he is now “tapped out” after losing his lucrative television job at Fox Sports.
Pierce, who previously raked in approximately $119,000 per month from the network, claims his regular salary has evaporated, leaving him with no steady paycheck. The former NBA star reported earning just $23,000 from business ventures in September.
The Basketball Hall of Famer claims he has just $300,000 left in the bank and approximately $3 million in property holdings, despite reportedly raking in $195 million over his 19-season NBA career.
The court filings also offer a glimpse into Pierce’s lavish spending habits.
The former Celtics superstar reportedly spends a whopping $7,000 per month dining out, $5,000 on groceries, $8,000 on childcare, $3,500 on entertainment, $3,200 on utilities and another $1,000 on clothing.
The expenses come on top of approximately $28,000 in monthly child support and $20,000 in spousal support, pushing his reported monthly financial obligations toward $75,700.
The financial revelations surfaced amid an ongoing legal battle with Pierce’s former girlfriend, Princess Santiago, with whom he shares a son born earlier this year. Santiago is asking for about $30,000 a month in child support; Pierce has argued for about $4,145. In September, a court document showed a temporary order for Pierce to pay $8,508 a month in support, $100,000 toward her legal fees and $10,000 for a forensic accountant.
Santiago is seeking an additional $40,000 in attorney fees and says Pierce has not paid the $10,000 he was ordered to pay so she could hire a forensic accountant to scrutinize his finances. In her latest motion, she alleges he has withheld records on his cannabis company and Fox Sports income and did not disclose an interest in a commercial property. The filings do not establish that he hid assets.
“I believe in growth, accountability and healthy co-parenting. Paul has finally made an effort to see King and I appreciate that,” Santiago told People. “At this time, I am focused on maintaining stability and consistent, healthy decision-making for our son while he continues building a positive father-son relationship moving forward.”
END
Luxury Hotel In One Of America’s Wokest Cities Sells At Shocking 94% Loss
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 02:55 PM
A luxury hotel in downtown Portland has sold for 93.6% less than its previous purchase price, according to the Portland Business Journal.
The 221-room Royal Sonesta hotel, located at 506 S.W. Washington St., was purchased for just $6.83 million by an entity linked to Laxmi Hotels Group.
The property last sold for $108.3 million in 2016, a staggering $101.5 million more than its latest sale price.
The bargain-basement deal was part of a larger eight-property hotel portfolio acquired by Laxmi.
The steep markdown comes as downtown Portland continues to grapple with the fallout from years of rampant drug use, crime and deteriorating street conditions.
The upscale hotel sits diagonally across from the Washington Center building, an area that previously became notorious as one of downtown Portland’s most prominent open-air drug markets.
Portland has also long been a hotbed of far-left Antifa activity. During the summer of 2020, rioters repeatedly targeted the federal courthouse amid months of unrest. The turmoil continued in 2025, when anti-ICE demonstrators stormed a federal immigration facility, leaving four officers injured, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Months later, police dismantled a protest encampment outside the same facility following prolonged demonstrations involving Antifa activists.
Portland isn’t the only city where a Royal Sonesta hotel has suffered a massive decline in its sale price.
A 360-room Royal Sonesta hotel in Minneapolis recently sold for just $5 million, a roughly 93% discount from its previous purchase price.
Trump Faces Plot Twist In Ilhan Omar Warrant Fight As Old Foe Reemerges; And What Did Obama’s FBI Know?
Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 11:55 AM
The same Obama-appointed judge that President Donald Trump once branded a “Radical Left Lunatic” and demanded be impeached is now tasked with deciding whether the public can see what federal agents were searching for when they raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home.
U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg is presiding over the legal battle to unseal the search warrant used in the October 12 federal raid on the far-left Minnesota Democrat’s Washington, D.C., residence, according to Fox News.
Federal investigators are examining allegations involving Omar’s family immigration paperwork and discrepancies in her financial disclosures.
The investigation includes questions about whether Omar’s father misstated her age in immigration paperwork filed in 2000, which could have allowed her to obtain citizenship through him while she was still a minor, the outlet also reported.
The New York Times, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, and 14 other news organizations are seeking to make the warrant public, arguing that Americans have a right to scrutinize the investigation into the Minnesota congresswoman.
However, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is fighting to keep the documents sealed, warning that their release could jeopardize an ongoing federal investigation.
“This request sounds rash because it is rash,” Pirro argued in a court filing.
Boasberg is no stranger to confrontations with the Trump administration.
In March 2025, Boasberg temporarily blocked deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members. Trump blasted Boasberg as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator” and demanded his removal from the bench.
“HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
The battle even prompted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare public rebuke of Trump, declaring that impeachment was not an appropriate response to disagreements over judicial rulings.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said at the time. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
What Did Obama’s FBI Know?
Meanwhile, the The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security investigated Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi during the Obama administration and found “some evidence that it was fraudulent,” the New York Times reported Thursday, in a story that rests on current and former officials. Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, has denied the allegation, and no one has been charged.
The Times said the agencies looked into the marriage in the summer of 2016 on suspicion that it was arranged to win Elmi immigration status, and that prosecutors then concluded the potential felony fell outside the five-year statute of limitations, so no case was brought. The paper’s account rests on unnamed officials; the evidence itself has not been made public.
The claim that Elmi is Omar’s brother has trailed her for years. She has called it a baseless conspiracy theory, but her answer to the question last week was less categorical. Asked on MS NOW by host Chris Hayes whether there was “some weird kernel of truth” to it, Omar said, “Not to my knowledge.”
The Times report lands in the middle of a live federal investigation. As noted above, Homeland Security agents searched Omar’s Washington home on October 12 under a court-authorized warrant, and the Trump Justice Department has an open criminal probe into her immigration and naturalization records. We noted at the time that investigators were using DNA and weighing a conspiracy charge, which would not be bound by the same clock; that account also came from unnamed sources.
If the Times account is right, the government had evidence of the allegation a decade ago and brought no case. The current investigation, which Omar has called political intimidation ahead of the midterms, is reportedly looking at her immigration paperwork rather than only the marriage itself.
The political fight is moving as fast. 175 House Democrats demanded a halt to the investigation on October 28. No criminal charges tied to the alleged marriage fraud have been announced.
END
Chaos In Florida: Woman (?) In Full Burqa Blasts Islamic Call To Prayer At Pinellas County Meeting
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Thursday, Oct 29, 2026 – 03:35 PM
A woman (we think) in a full black burqa walked up to the public-comment microphone at the Pinellas County, Florida, commission meeting Wednesday and played a recording of the Islamic call to prayer instead of speaking. Board Chairman Dave Eggers ordered her removed, and a sheriff’s deputy escorted her out. The meeting was streamed live on YouTube, and the clip below starts around the moment she presses play.
She said nothing before the audio started. The recording ran for about a minute before Eggers said, “Stop the tape, ma’am,” and then “Just escort out.” When she did not stop it, a sheriff’s deputy took her from the podium, and her removal set off arguments in the audience until Eggers asked for decorum. County rules call for spoken comments, and he said, “We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment,” Fox News reported.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said the woman left without further incident and will not face criminal charges. Nobody has said why she did it. She gave no statement from the podium, and it is unclear whether it was a protest or a prank.
Residents at the meeting were speaking against the expansion of Masjid Al-Rahman, a mosque at 2577 Keystone Road in unincorporated Pinellas County near Tarpon Springs, and the commission had already approved the land-use change for it, 4-3, according to the Tampa Bay Beacons. The vote moves the 2.69-acre site from Residential Rural to Public/Semi-Public. A companion zoning change limits it to community assembly, and the plans call for a building about 1,000 square feet larger than the current one, with new parking and stormwater work. Forward Pinellas and the county’s Planners Advisory Committee both recommended approval unanimously. The next step is site plan review.
Much of the argument at the vote was over a word. County paperwork described the project as a “community assembly facility,” and Commissioner Vince Nowicki, who voted no, pressed staff on why it did not say mosque. “It’s a mosque, right?” he asked. Long-range planning manager Scott Swearengen answered, “I believe so,” and said, “We don’t define church, we don’t define mosque, we don’t define a number of other things.” Nowicki later cited six countywide cases from 2021 to 2025 in which the documents for church projects named the religious use outright.
GREG HUNTEER…
