Mon 20 Oct: After the Bell🔒

🎙️📄+ Market Data. Stocks rally | Gold at ATH | Japan at ATH | US NatGas rally

See the ‘Market Data’ post for tables & charts.

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Good evening,

Global stocks rallied on Monday, boosted by optimism over a potential US-China trade deal, a strong day for Apple, propelled by robust iPhone 17 sales, and growing expectations of a resolution to the US government shutdown. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4% ahead of a busy week for earnings, bond, currency, and oil markets traded mostly sideways today, while gold rallied over 4% to a fresh record shy of $4,400.

Amazon Web Services experienced a major outage early Monday, disrupting connectivity for millions of popular websites and apps. Despite the disruption, investors largely viewed it as a short-term technical issue, and market impact was limited.

Today’s notable mega-cap mover was Apple (mcap $3.9tn), which rallied 4% to an all-time high, driven by strong demand for the recently launched iPhone 17 series, which has outsold the previous generation by 14% in the first ten days in both the US and China.