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👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
🛢️ Oil’s election slide: Brent fell more than 8% yesterday to its lowest since 31 August, after JD Vance blamed the war for the defeat.
🏦 Bank of England raises to 4%: Rates rose to 4% from 3.75% on an 8-1 vote, with one member wanting a bigger half-point rise.
📱 Qualcomm’s cost problem: Handset chip sales fell 26% and the shares dropped after hours, as Qualcomm blamed supply and rising costs.
🇺🇸 The Dow’s best day in 19 months: The Dow jumped 3.03% yesterday, then Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.7% as data-centre stocks gave ground.
₿ Bitcoin back above $80,000: Binance says it has replaced 98% of the stolen funds, and its new reserve check covers 44 tokens.
🥃 Diageo beats a gloomy forecast: Organic sales rose 1.4% when analysts expected a fall, and the shares climbed in London.
✂️ US job cuts drop 71%: Employers announced 43,994 job cuts in October, the day before the official jobs report.
📈 Copart breaks out: Chart of the Day covers the $35 and $40 levels I am watching above and my $31 stop below.
🧠 One Big Thing
Cheaper oil is the fastest way for inflation to come down, and oil just got a lot cheaper. Brent fell more than 8% yesterday to its lowest settle since 31 August, after Vice President JD Vance said the Iran war cost his party the midterms. Why does that move oil? A war that loses elections is a war Washington wants to end. The Bank of England raised rates to 4% today on an 8-1 vote, because energy pushed UK inflation to 3.5%. The price behind that rise fell 8% the day before the decision.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
8%
How far Brent crude fell yesterday, to its lowest settle since 31 August, after the vice president blamed the Iran war for the midterm defeat. It slipped another 0.85% overnight to $93.82.
✅ 5 Things to Know
🛢️ Oil fell 8% after Vance blamed the war for the defeat
Brent and WTI both fell more than 8% yesterday and settled at their lowest since 31 August, Reuters reported. By 11:26pm New York time, Brent was down another 0.85% at $93.82 a barrel and WTI was down 1.36% at $86.92. That makes 4 straight days of falls. Brent has now dropped more than 15% this week, The National reported. Yahoo Finance The National
What changed? The politics. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “the reason we lost” the midterms “is the war”, CoinCentral reported. Reuters said the Republican losses raised expectations that political pressure would push Washington towards diplomacy over escalation. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are also recovering, and JPMorgan estimates the world oil market moved back into surplus in September. KZZI CoinCentral
Tehran has not softened in public. Supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was reported as saying anyone expecting a US policy shift after the midterms was “gravely mistaken”, The National said. Talks have resumed, with Qatar and Pakistan carrying messages. Commercial oil stocks are also low, which leaves prices exposed to any fresh attack. The National
Sensei’s Insight: The market has stopped pricing a long war. A vice president saying the war lost the election is the clearest sign yet that Washington wants it over. Iran’s leadership says otherwise. What I am watching is whether the talks through Qatar and Pakistan produce anything on paper.
🏦 The Bank of England raised rates to 4%, and one member wanted more
The Bank of England raised Bank Rate to 4% from 3.75% at 7am New York time today, its first rise since 2023. The Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1. A quarter-point rise won 8 votes. The ninth member voted for a bigger half-point rise. Bank Rate was last changed in December 2025, when it was cut from 4%. UK inflation reached 3.5% in September, up from 3.1% in August, as the Iran war pushed up energy prices. MoneyWeek
How does that compare with what was expected? Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 7-2 vote, and Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Robert Wood 8-1. Nobody on the committee voted to hold. Markets went into the decision pricing at least 3 more quarter-point rises next year, Reuters said. Governor Andrew Bailey pushed back on that. “Today’s increase shouldn’t be seen as the first in an inevitable long sequence of hikes,” he said. RTE MoneyWeek
London moved early. The FTSE 100 rose to its highest since 7 August this morning, with Barclays, Standard Chartered, Lloyds and HSBC up about 1.5% to 2.5%, ADVFN reported. Banks tend to earn more on their loans when rates rise. Shell and BP fell more than 1% with oil. Yahoo Finance
Sensei’s Insight: Everyone expected the rise. The shape of the vote said more. 8-1, nobody voting to hold, and one member wanting a half point. Then Bailey said not to read it as the first of a long run of rises. And oil, the thing that pushed inflation up, fell 8% yesterday. What I am watching is whether markets keep pricing 3 more rises after he said that.
📱 Qualcomm says demand is fine, and supply and costs are the problem
“We don’t have a demand issue; it’s a supply issue,” Qualcomm chief executive Cristiano Amon said after results last night, TechInsider reported. Revenue for the September quarter fell 8% to about $10.3 billion. Handset chip sales fell 26% to about $5.1 billion, The Motley Fool reported. Adjusted earnings were $2.17 a share, a cent above forecasts. Qualcomm guided December-quarter revenue to $10.4 billion to $11.2 billion. The midpoint of its earnings guide sat below forecasts. TechInsider The Motley Fool
Qualcomm shares fell more than 9% in extended trading by 11:12pm New York time, Investing.com reported. Asia took it badly. SK Hynix fell 7.4% and Samsung Electronics 5.7% in Seoul, while Advantest dropped more than 11% and Lasertec 12.5% in Tokyo. Arm added to it. Its revenue and profit beat forecasts, but royalty revenue, the fee Arm earns on chips built with its designs, rose 8% to $670 million, below expectations. Arm shares slipped about 3% after hours. Investing.com
Which costs? Qualcomm named wafers, packaging, testing and memory, TechInsider reported. It expects its chip margin at 20% to 22% this quarter, down from 24%. Apple blamed higher memory costs for a lower margin forecast last week. TechInsider
Sensei’s Insight: AMD and Qualcomm reported a day apart. AMD’s forecast was bigger than the market assumed, so the shares jumped. Qualcomm’s costs are rising faster than it can pass them on, so the shares fell. Memory runs through both. What I am watching is whether memory costs show up in the next round of phone and PC guides.
🇺🇸 The Dow had its best day in 19 months, then data centres gave ground
1,569 points. That was the Dow’s gain yesterday, 3.03%, to close at 53,356.12, TheStreet reported. It was the index’s best session in 19 months, CoinCentral said. The S&P 500 rose 1.58% to 7,688.62 and the Nasdaq Composite 1.44% to 25,736.51. The biggest names led. Amazon was up 7.22%, Microsoft 7.07% and Apple 6.27% at 2:50pm New York time. Energy stocks fell the most as oil dropped. TheStreet CoinCentral
Overnight, the market split. By 6am New York time, Dow futures were up 0.4%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.7%, Yahoo Finance reported. Data-centre stocks gave back a big chunk of their gains after hours as Democrats won more governor races. Cipher Mining fell 7.5% and TeraWulf 6.3%. Democrats are expected to push for tighter rules on AI and data centres, CoinCentral reported. Yahoo Finance CoinCentral
US weekly jobless claims land today at 1:30pm UK, 8:30am in New York, and Airbnb reports after the US close.
Sensei’s Insight: Yesterday was a relief rally led by the biggest companies. The data-centre builders show what the market still worries about, which is new rules from a Democratic Congress and statehouses. What I am watching is whether the Nasdaq catches up with the Dow or the gap widens.
₿ Bitcoin is back above $80,000 as Binance refills its wallets
$80,390. That was bitcoin this morning, up 4.01% in 24 hours, FinFly reported, using CoinGecko data. Ether rose 6.31% to $2,421.57 and XRP 2.80% to $1.31. On Tuesday night, bitcoin hit $75,740 as the election results came in. FinFly
Binance says it has now replaced about 98% of the $6.34 billion taken in the 29 October hack, up from 95% in its previous update, CryptoNinjas reported. The last 2% sits in less liquid tokens it is buying through the market and over-the-counter desks. Co-chief executive Richard Teng said those purchases were being handled carefully to avoid moving prices. The new reserve snapshot, taken at 7pm New York time on Tuesday, covers 44 tokens, up from 10. Binance estimates 50 to 60 hours to build the proof. Withdrawals for 62 more tokens began reopening at 11pm New York time last night, Coininsider reported. CryptoNinjas Coininsider
Sensei’s Insight: Bitcoin is back above where it sat before the vote. Binance has 2% left to buy, in the tokens that are hardest to buy quietly. What I am watching is the published proof for all 44 tokens, because it is the first check that counts the money that left after the hack.
Stories You Might Have Missed
🥃 Diageo’s sales grew when analysts expected a fall
Diageo’s organic net sales rose 1.4% in the 3 months to September, against a consensus forecast of a 0.4% fall, Investing.com reported. Reported net sales were $4.93 billion, up 1.2%. North America, 36% of sales, fell 3.6%, a smaller drop than the 6.7% expected. Asia Pacific grew 4.1%. “Overall, Q1 was in line with expectations, and we have reiterated our full year guidance,” chief executive Sir Dave Lewis said. Diageo still expects broadly flat organic sales for the year. The shares rose about 5% in morning trading, ADVFN reported. Investing.com Yahoo Finance
✂️ US job cuts fell 71% in October
US employers announced 43,994 job cuts in October, down 71% from a year earlier, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. “This is a low-fire environment,” chief revenue officer Andy Challenger said. Fewer layoffs sit alongside slow hiring. Employers are hiring at the slowest pace since 2013, Indeed economist Cory Stahle wrote this week. Weekly jobless claims follow at 1:30pm UK, 8:30am in New York, after 194,000 the week before. The official October jobs report lands tomorrow at the same time. Yahoo Finance Indeed Hiring Lab