Trump turned down Iran. Gold lost $130

Rundown · 2026-09-28

There was no weekend gap, but the move since then has been large. Iran used the UN General Assembly on Friday to propose a seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday Trump rejected it, and on Sunday he told Axios he expects talks to resume this week. Index futures opened Sunday within a few points of Friday's settles: ES -7.75 (-0.10%), and NQ filled its gap. The selling came afterwards, through Asia and Europe. At about 06:45 ET, WTI is up $3.87 to $96.28 (+4.19%). Gold is down $132.60 to $4,188.60 (-3.07%), a seven-week low, because higher oil means higher hike odds. The 10-year touched 5.237%, above Thursday's 5.225%, and is at a new 19-year high. NQ is -1.00% and leads the indices lower. The 08:30 slot is empty today. This is the first session of a week that ends with payrolls.

Overnight

Against Friday's settles, as of about 06:45 ET (delayed quotes, not settles). ES (Dec) 7,761.25, -42.50 (-0.54%) from 7,803.75 · NQ 30,579.25, -310.00 (-1.00%) from 30,889.25 · YM 51,903, -260 (-0.50%) from 52,163 · RTY 2,840.5, -18.8 (-0.66%) from 2,859.3
The Sunday open, for the record. ES opened 7,796.00 (-7.75, -0.10%) and made a high of 7,803.00, 0.75 short of the settle. NQ opened 30,870.00 (-19.25, -0.06%) and filled the gap with a high of 30,920.75. YM opened 52,140 (-23, -0.04%) with a high of 52,153. RTY opened 2,857.7 (-1.6, -0.06%) with a high of 2,858.8. None of these is a gap worth trading around. Most of the overnight decline came after the open
Reference levels, and nothing more. Globex ranges so far: ES 7,757.00-7,803.00 · NQ 30,531.00-30,920.75 · YM 51,888-52,153 · RTY 2,837.8-2,858.8. All four are trading near the bottom of those ranges, and Friday's ES settle sits at the top of its range
Asia sold off at its close. Nikkei 65,877.62, -486.58 (-0.73%), closing at the low of the day. Shanghai Composite 3,823.62, -64.75 (-1.67%). Hang Seng 24,642.51, +132.42 (+0.54%) was the exception
Europe is flat. DAX 25,370.93, -37.71 (-0.15%) · FTSE 100 10,713.78, +18.53 (+0.17%). The STOXX 600 is unchanged. Energy producers are helping London. European equities are not pricing the oil move the way US tech is
What happened over the weekend. Foreign Minister Araghchi's plan had the US release frozen funds, lift oil sanctions and end the naval blockade within four or five days, with the strait reopening and talks on a final deal starting by day seven. Trump said Saturday the plan "would not be acceptable". Araghchi replied that no rejection had come through official channels. On Sunday Trump said Iran had overplayed its hand. He also said US forces had helped more than 20 million barrels move through the strait over the weekend. That figure is his claim and has not been verified independently. The Hill reports he is weighing renewed strikes after the November midterms

The Dollar & FX

DXY 101.14, +0.17 (+0.17%) from Friday's 100.97 (ICE, via MarketWatch), range 100.98-101.20. The 52-week high is 101.80. The move is modest given oil +4% and yields at 19-year highs, because the yen is working against it. The dollar's gains are coming from rate pricing: Reuters puts the chance of an October hike at about 66%. The Fed raised to 3.75%-4.00% on 16 September
6J is the only major gaining against the dollar, and Tokyo is the reason. USD/JPY 157.06, -0.22 (-0.15%) from 157.28, range 156.51-157.86. Japan's top currency diplomat, Atsushi Mimura, told Reuters this morning that markets should take last week's warning on the yen from Tokyo and Washington at face value, and that he is not reassured by the yen's recent moves. The pair dropped to about 156.75 after his comments. This follows Friday's report that Trump raised yen weakness with Prime Minister Takaichi. With US yields rising, the rate gap favours the dollar, so an intervention threat is the only reason the yen can hold here
6E is heading back toward its lows. EUR/USD 1.1376, -0.0015 (-0.13%) from 1.1391, range 1.1367-1.1397. The 52-week low is 1.1325. Europe imports energy, and a 4% oil gain works against the euro
6C is weaker even though oil is up 4%. USD/CAD 1.4163, +0.0021 (+0.15%) from 1.4142, range 1.4136-1.4169. Crude usually supports the loonie. This morning the US rate move and the risk-off tone are outweighing it, as they did on Thursday. The 52-week high is 1.4251
6B is up slightly and 6A is down slightly. GBP/USD 1.3259, +0.0014 (+0.11%) from 1.3245. The desk has not found a verified driver for sterling's gain. AUD/USD 0.7012, -0.0011 (-0.16%) from 0.7023, range 0.7005-0.7030, tracking Shanghai's -1.67%
Fed today: Richmond's Barkin at 13:30, per TradingView and Trading Economics

Energy & Metals

CL: November settled $92.41, -$2.20 (-2.33%) on Friday. Investrade and AP agree, and the figure reconciles with Thursday's $94.61. It is $96.28, +$3.87 (+4.19%) now, range $92.68-$96.48. It opened Sunday at $93.58, $1.17 above the settle, and has risen through the night. It is trading within 20 cents of its overnight high. December WTI is $92.04, so the November-December spread is $4.24
The mechanism is the same headline, in reverse. Friday's decline priced in a reopening. The weekend rejection removed it. Neither side has said the talks are over. Trump expects them to resume this week and Tehran says it has had no formal rejection, so the headline risk is two-way and can come at any hour
Brent: check which contract month you are looking at. November Brent settled $104.32, -$2.28 on Friday and is $108.74, +$4.42 now. December settled $97.44, the "below $98" figure in the AP wire, and is $101.10, +$3.66. The November-December spread has widened to about $7.64 from $6.88 at Friday's settle. November Brent expires on Wednesday, so continuous-contract charts are about to roll to December
GC: December settled $4,321.20, +$23.20 (+0.54%) on Friday. Investrade and MarketWatch agree, and it reconciles with Thursday's $4,298.00. It is $4,188.60, -$132.60 (-3.07%) now, range $4,172.70-$4,315.60, and near the low of that range. Silver is -4.7%. The desk flagged on Friday that gold was trading on real yields and the dollar, not on Iran, and this morning confirms it. A failed Middle East deal is the kind of news that would usually support a haven. Instead it pushed oil higher, oil raised hike expectations, and those expectations pushed yields higher and gold lower
Rates. 10-year 5.220%, +5.5bp from Friday's 5.165% close (Tullett, via MarketWatch; AP has 5.15%). The session high of 5.237% is a new 52-week high and the highest since 2007. 2-year 4.926%, +5.8bp. 30-year 5.524%, with a high of 5.543%. 2s10s is about 29bp

Where We Left Off

Friday's RTH close, per AP: Dow 51,828.62 (+478.64, +0.9%) · S&P 500 7,743.41 (+39.28, +0.5%) · Nasdaq Composite 27,068.72 (+129.34, +0.5%) · Russell 2000 2,837.55 (+1.98, +0.1%). All four reconcile with Thursday's published closes, and MarketWatch confirms all four independently. Investrade printed the Russell at 2,844.32, +8.75. That figure also reconciles internally, but it is wrong, and the brief uses AP's
Oil relief carried Friday, and the 10-year gave some back. Yields briefly reached 5.22% after UMich and then eased as crude fell. Technology (+0.83%) and industrials (+0.45%) led. Communications (-1.04%) and energy (-0.93%) lagged
The week, per AP: S&P 500 +1.2%, Nasdaq +2.1%, Dow +0.3%, which ended its three-week losing streak, and Russell -0.8%. What carries over: Friday's rally depended on the reopening story, and the weekend removed it. Small caps did not take part in Friday's move either

Yesterday's Data

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Hits

08:30 · No scheduled release · n/a · n/a · n/a

10:30 · Dallas Fed manufacturing, Sep · n/a, sources conflict · 11.6 · USD · ES

11:30 · 3-month bill auction · n/a · 4.015% · USD

11:30 · 6-month bill auction · n/a · 4.155% · USD

13:30 · Fed's Barkin (Richmond) · n/a · n/a · USD · GC

Any time · US-Iran talks on Hormuz · n/a · n/a · CL · GC · USD · ES

The calendar was enumerated from two sources. TradingView and Trading Economics list the same four items, and neither has anything at 08:30 or 10:00. Monday has no fixed weekly US release. The three Dallas Fed consensus figures the desk found (7.3, 1 and -1.0) are too far apart to use, so the table does not show one.

Today's calendar is light, and the rest of the week is not. Tuesday: JOLTS at 10:00 (7.24M est, 7.271M prior), with Micron earnings due this week. Wednesday: ADP at 08:15 (72K est), and August PCE at 08:30, with core expected at 0.3% m/m and 3.4% y/y. Thursday: claims and ISM manufacturing. Friday: September payrolls, with Trading Economics at 84K and other previews near 100K, against 162K in August. With no data today, the drivers are Iran headlines and the 10-year, and Barkin at 13:30 is the only scheduled event likely to move either.

Index Movers

Ranked by index contribution. The Dow is price-weighted, so $1 in any constituent is worth roughly 5.9 Dow points (divisor about 0.168, secondary source; treat these as approximate). All prices are from MarketWatch. Pre-market quotes are from about 06:50 ET.

META $729.58, -$22.08 (-2.94%) pre-market, after -$25.93 (-3.33%) on Friday to $751.66. It is the largest drag on NQ and ES this morning among the names the desk checked. At a $1.91T market cap, the two sessions have erased Thursday's post-Connect rally. The desk found no company news this weekend. This is a pullback in the name that carried Thursday's tape
MSFT $516.17, +$18.24 (+3.66%) on Friday, about +109 Dow points and the largest single contribution to Friday's gain in the S&P 500, the Nasdaq-100 and the Dow. MarketWatch has it at its highest close since November 2025, after a Copilot relaunch. It is -0.43% pre-market
CAT and GS are most of YM's decline. CAT $808.70, -$12.88 (-1.57%) and GS $924.34, -$11.11 (-1.19%) pre-market together are worth about -143 Dow points, more than half of YM's -260. Both led the Dow on Friday: CAT +$16.33 (about +97) and GS +$12.16 (about +72). CVX +$3.25 (+1.59%), about +19, is the only notable offset
MU $1,059.62, -$22.66 (-2.09%) pre-market (S&P 500, Nasdaq-100). Its fiscal Q4 results are due this week, and one listing puts them Tuesday after the close. At more than $1T in market value, Micron is the AI-hardware report NQ is waiting for
Gold miners and energy are moving in opposite directions. NEM -4.56% to $115.89 (S&P 500) is falling with gold. XOM +1.80% to $163.48 is rising with crude. Both are small at index level, but together they show the day's cross-asset move
AKAM $113.94, +3.20% on Friday, after opening at $125.23 and reaching $128.46 on its $11.6B multiyear cloud agreement with Anthropic. It closed well below the open. At about $16B in market value, it is a sentiment indicator for AI-infrastructure deals, not an index mover

What Would Change The Read

Scoring Friday's calls. We said the overnight relief depended on the Hormuz report firming up. It did not: the plan was rejected within a day. We named 5.225% as the reference level on the 10-year. It broke this morning at 5.237%. We asked whether gold would hold $4,290 if yields turned higher. It did not, and fell through it by more than $100. UMich year-ahead expectations held at 4.6%, which we said would support the hike pricing. The yen went the opposite way to a 160 test and is at 156.51 at its low
Whether talks resume, and on what terms. Trump says he expects negotiations this week and Tehran says it has had no formal rejection. A confirmed meeting would reverse most of this morning's oil and gold move. Renewed strikes, or an incident in the strait, would extend it
Whether the 10-year holds above 5.2%. Yields are now the connection between oil, gold, the dollar and NQ. Nothing is scheduled today to move them except Barkin at 13:30, so the direction depends on crude and on Treasury supply
Whether gold stabilizes above $4,172. That is the overnight low. Gold is trading as a rate asset. If it keeps falling while yields are flat, the selling is positioning, not macro
Whether USD/JPY reaches 156.51 again. That is where Mimura's comments took it. A break below it with US yields at 19-year highs would mean the market is taking the intervention threat seriously

The Bottom Line

Friday's rally depended on Hormuz reopening, and the weekend removed that assumption. There was no gap at the Sunday open. The selling came later, through Asia and Europe, as crude rose, the 10-year made a new high and gold fell 3%. Gold falling on an escalation headline is the clearest sign of how this market works right now. Every Iran headline reaches it through oil, inflation expectations and the Fed, not through haven buying. Today has no data and one Fed speaker, so Iran headlines and the 10-year will drive the tape. The week builds to PCE on Wednesday and payrolls on Friday.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._