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Good evening,
Market sentiment rebounded today, with stocks gaining ground after the White House announced that Trump will meet Xi Jinping next week in Asia. Sentiment is being driven by three main factors: updates on US-China trade tensions, ongoing headlines regarding the war in Ukraine, and, to a lesser extent, expectations for the Fed’s signals. It was otherwise a quiet session; there were no notable corporate deals or IPOs, economic data releases were light, and leading central banks offered no fresh guidance, leaving most of the usual market-moving topics largely uneventful.
The focus was on crude oil with WTI and Brent gaining over 5%, their largest single-day advance since the outbreak of the Israel–Iran conflict in mid-June. The rally reflected renewed supply fears triggered by new US sanctions.
Geopolitics: The Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions late Wednesday targeting Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, over Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The measures block all US assets of these firms and more than 30 subsidiaries and ban transactions with entities linked to them. Treasury Secretary Bessent said the move aims to “degrade the Kremlin’s ability to fund its war machine” and push for an immediate ceasefire.
The EU simultaneously approved its 19th sanctions package, including its first-ever measures on Russian liquefied natural gas.
“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin,” Trump said. “It didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get, so I cancelled it. But we’ll do it in the future.”
Earnings: The notable mover among companies that reported before the open was industrial conglomerate Honeywell (mcap $140bn), which reported strong results with revenue of $10.4bn, and EPS 9% higher than a year ago. The company raised its full-year guidance, driven by solid organic sales growth and robust order momentum. The stock was today’s Dow best performer with a 7% gain to a two-month high.
Intel (mcap $181bn) reported after the close, and shares, which had gained 3.3% during the session, rallied 8% in extended trading. It beat sales and profit estimates on strong demand for AI chips, rebounding from a loss reported a year ago.
Data: US existing-home sales increased 1.5% in September to 4.06mn units, the strongest pace in seven months. The uptick reflects a drop in the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to 6.19%, the lowest level in over a year, while the national median home price rose 2.1% YoY to $415k.
Central Banks: The Bank of Korea held its benchmark interest rate steady at 2.50% as expected, a third straight no-change decision. The Central Bank of Turkey cut its key one-week repo rate by 100bp 39.5%, signalling a slower pace of monetary easing. The move follows a 250bp reduction in September and a 300bp cut in July, indicating a cautious approach amid elevated inflation risks. The Turkish lira (TRY) remained stable at 42.
Day Ahead:
Economics: US CPI inflation (deceleration to 2.9% expected, Michigan Consumer Sentiment and new home sales; Japan inflation; UK retail sales; PMIs for the US, Japan, UK, €-zone, Germany, France, India and Australia. Earnings: P&G, General Dynamics, Sanofi.
See you tomorrow.
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