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👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
💾 Chips crash, Seoul bounces: The chip index fell 7.2% on Friday and Intel 28.58%, then the Kospi rose 2.24% this morning.
🗳️ America votes tomorrow: Prediction markets give Democrats a 95% chance of the House and 71% of winning both chambers.
🔐 Binance’s proof slips a day: Customers pulled a net $3.64 billion in 9.5 hours as withdrawals reopened, and the reserve proof is now due tomorrow.
🍎 Apple’s first Ternus report: Apple reports tonight, and its own guide points to $111.7 billion to $113.7 billion of revenue.
🛢️ Oil drops on Hormuz plan: Brent fell 3% to about $110 after Iran said a deal could reopen the strait in 2 days.
✈️ Fuel bites Ryanair: Half-year profit fell 15% to €2.15 billion, and fuel could cost €2 billion more in the year to March 2028.
🚆 Alstom loses a quarter: The train maker fell more than 25% after cutting its margin forecast and warning its cash flow will turn negative.
🇦🇺 Australia decides overnight: The RBA meets with a rise to 4.85% the base case for all 4 big banks after inflation hit 4.3%.
🎥 Sunday show recording is up: Premium members can watch the Portfolio Challenge review, my Medline and T-Mobile orders, and 11 more stocks.
📈 T-Mobile back on old support: Chart of the Day covers the $135 to $151 support zone and the $200 level I am watching.
🧠 One Big Thing
This week’s big decisions start tomorrow, and the most priced of them is the vote. Prediction markets give Democrats a 95% chance of winning the House. The less certain things sit right behind it. Binance owes its customers a proof of reserves tomorrow, after a net $3.64 billion left on the first day of withdrawals. Israel’s prime minister has urged Donald Trump to resume strikes on Iran once the votes are counted, Axios reported. Oil still fell 3% this morning on a peace plan. The Bank of England decides on Thursday and US payrolls land on Friday. Futures bounced this morning after the chip index fell 7.2% on Friday.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
$3.64 billion
Customers pulled a net $3.64 billion out of Binance in the 9.5 hours after withdrawals reopened yesterday, about 2.1% of the $171 billion the exchange holds.
✅ 5 Things to Know
💾 The chip sell-off reached Seoul and Tokyo, stock by stock
7.2%. That is how far the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell on Friday, its biggest one-day drop since June, TokenPost reported. Intel fell 28.58%, its biggest daily fall in more than 40 years, after the forecast that had already sunk it before the open. Qualcomm lost more than 11% and AMD more than 10%. Arm, Sandisk, Applied Materials, ASML and Broadcom all fell more than 5%. The Nasdaq Composite closed down 2.86% and the S&P 500 down 1.82%. TokenPost
Asia answered this morning, one company at a time. South Korea’s Kospi opened lower and then closed up 2.24% at 5,859.08, with SK Hynix up 3.81% and Samsung Electronics up 1.78%. In Tokyo, Tokyo Electron rose 5.16% after forecasting a 50.6% rise in full-year profit and a buyback of up to 150 billion yen. Kioxia, the memory maker, fell 15.78% after its profit outlook fell short of estimates. The Nikkei slipped 0.33%. Aju Press
US futures won back part of Friday. Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.8% and S&P 500 futures up 0.4% at 10am UK, 5am in New York, Yahoo Finance reported. AMD reports tomorrow, and Qualcomm and Arm report on Wednesday. Yahoo Finance
Sensei’s Insight: Friday sold every chip name at once. This morning Asia started sorting them by their own numbers: Tokyo Electron up on a forecast, Kioxia down on one. What I am watching is AMD tomorrow, the first big chip report since Intel’s.
🗳️ The midterms are tomorrow, and the House looks priced
Americans vote tomorrow. Polymarket gives Democrats a 95% chance of winning the House and 72% of winning the Senate, WION reported from prices late yesterday. Kalshi has the House at 93.3% and the Senate at 71%. On Polymarket, the chance of Democrats taking both chambers is 71%. Republicans hold the Senate 53-47 going in. The RealClearPolling average of the generic ballot has Democrats on 51.4 and Republicans on 43.2, Newsweek reported, and more than $1.4 billion has been traded on the midterms. WION Newsweek
What happens when a 95% favourite wins? Very little, because the price already says so. A surprise would come from the other 5%, or from a Senate count that runs for days. Results arrive through tomorrow night in New York, which is the early hours of Wednesday in the UK. The bigger market question sits after the count. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Donald Trump in a call on Saturday to resume strikes on Iran right after the midterms, Euronews reported, citing Axios. Euronews
Sensei’s Insight: The House looks settled by the money already bet on it. A Senate at 71% leaves real room for a surprise. What I am watching is the morning after, because Iran, Binance’s proof and the Bank of England all land within 3 days of the count.
🔐 Binance customers pulled $3.64 billion before the proof arrived
Customers took a net $3.64 billion out of Binance in the first 9.5 hours after withdrawals reopened yesterday, the exchange’s own figures showed. Withdrawals totalled $4.65 billion and deposits $1.01 billion between 6am and 3:30pm UK. Binance lost about $6.3 billion from its hot wallets late on Thursday, and blockchain analytics firms have tied the theft to TraderTraitor, a group linked to North Korea. A spokesperson said Binance has covered about 95% of the impacted amount. “These losses will not be passed on to users,” the spokesperson said. CoinDesk
The proof has slipped. Binance first promised its full proof-of-reserves report by today. The full version is now due tomorrow, because it takes 40 to 50 hours of computing, Bitcoin.com News reported. In plain terms, it is a cryptographic check that customer balances are backed, without revealing any single account. The only public reserve data so far is a snapshot from the start of Saturday. DefiLlama’s count of assets on Binance fell from about $144.9 billion on Thursday to about $128.31 billion this morning. That fall also includes lower prices and the stolen coins. Bitcoin was trading near $78,000. Bitcoin.com News
Sensei’s Insight: The customers voted before the auditors did. A net outflow of 2.1% on day one is a lot of money and a small share of $171 billion. What I am watching is tomorrow’s proof, and whether the next phase of withdrawals gets a date.
🍎 Apple’s first Ternus report holds 9 days of new iPhones
Apple reports its fiscal fourth quarter tonight, the first results with John Ternus as chief executive. The numbers are due at 9:30pm UK, 4:30pm in New York. The call follows at 10pm UK. Apple’s own guide was revenue growth of 9% to 11%, which works out at about $111.7 billion to $113.7 billion. Wall Street expects about $113.3 billion and $1.99 a share, near the top of that range, iThinkDiff reported. Apple guided gross margin to 47% to 48%, including about 1 point from tariff refunds. iThinkDiff
Why is this quarter hard to read? It ran from 28 June to 26 September, so it holds only 9 days of iPhone 18 Pro sales, which began on 18 September. The iPhone Duo, priced from $1,999, went on sale on 23 October and lands in the December quarter. That makes the December guide the number to watch, against a consensus near $153.4 billion. Loop Capital models 79 million iPhones in that quarter, against 85 million on the Street. Apple also warned in July of much tighter supply across the iPhone, Mac and iPad, 9to5Mac reported. 9to5Mac
Sensei’s Insight: This report mostly covers phones sold before the new ones arrived. What I am watching is the December guide and what Ternus says about supply. Supply decides how much of the Duo’s demand reaches the revenue line.
🛢️ Oil fell 3% on a 2-day plan for Hormuz
Brent fell 3% to about $110 a barrel this morning and WTI 3.4% to $100.62, Grafa reported. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Qatar persuaded Tehran to cut its plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to 2 days from 7. US measures would come on day one and the strait would reopen on day two, FinanceFeeds reported. Tehran’s conditions include lifting recent US sanctions and releasing frozen funds. Donald Trump said at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night that talks were “going fine”. Grafa FinanceFeeds
How much of the price is fear? Goldman Sachs puts the geopolitical risk premium at about $27 a barrel, and says it explains most of October’s rally, Euronews reported. Goldman raised its year-end Brent forecast to $105 from $90. Brent’s January contract settled at $113.43 on Friday. OPEC+ kept its December output targets unchanged yesterday, and all 21 members meet on 29 November. Trump also said the US still had “one or two sites” to deal with, which could be done “in 10 minutes”. Euronews
Sensei’s Insight: About $27 of every barrel is fear, on Goldman’s numbers, and a 2-day plan took more than $3 off this morning. What I am watching is whether Washington answers the plan, because a premium built on headlines moves on headlines.
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✈️ Ryanair’s profit fell 15% as fuel costs rose
Ryanair’s half-year profit after tax fell 15% to €2.15 billion from €2.54 billion, even as passengers rose 6% to 125.8 million. Revenue rose 3% to €10.08 billion and average fares fell 4% to €55.70. Its fuel to March 2027 is 80% hedged at $67 a barrel. At current forward prices, it expects fuel to cost about €2 billion more in the year to March 2028. “Unless there is a swift resolution of the Middle East conflict, we expect jet fuel prices to remain elevated well into 2027,” chief executive Michael O’Leary said. The shares rose about 2% in Dublin in early trading, Euronews reported. RTÉ Euronews
🚆 Alstom loses a quarter of its value in a morning
Alstom’s shares fell more than 25% this morning, to their lowest since March 2024, Reuters reported. The French train maker cut its annual margin forecast after problems with its Coradia Max trains in Germany hurt half-year profit. It now expects negative free cash flow for the year, after forecasting positive. The rest of Europe opened quietly. The FTSE 100 was down 0.3% at the open and the DAX 0.2%, investingLive reported, with travel and leisure stocks up 1.7% as oil fell. MarketScreener investingLive
🇦🇺 Australia is expected to raise rates for a fifth time this year
The Reserve Bank of Australia decides at 3:30am UK tomorrow, which is 10:30pm in New York tonight. The cash rate is 4.60%. A rise to 4.85% is the base case, and CBA, NAB, Westpac and ANZ all forecast it, Property Investment Professionals reported. It would be the fifth rise of 2026, CBA said. Australian inflation was 4.3% in the year to September, up from 4.0%. The trimmed mean measure rose 1.0% in the September quarter, against the RBA’s own forecast of 0.8%. Markets price about an 87% chance of the rise, Saxo said this morning. Property Investment Professionals Saxo