Calendar › Morning Rundown › 2026-10-19

NQ bounces 1.3% off its worst week. Europe sells

Rundown · 2026-10-19

This run started late, at 08:58 ET, so 08:30 has passed. Quotes are as of 09:03 ET. There was no US release at 08:30. Canadian CPI did print, at 3.1% against 3.2% expected (Statistics Canada). NAHB at 10:00 is the only US data still to come. Sunday's Globex open gapped lower: ES −0.32%, NQ −0.56%, YM −0.28% and RTY −0.45% below Friday's settles. All four gaps have filled. NQ now sits +1.28%, near the top of a 2.0% overnight range, after the Nasdaq's 4.5% weekly loss, its worst since June. The bounce is narrow. YM is −0.23%, and Europe is down 1.1-1.6%. Over the weekend Iran said two supertankers hit mines in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday. Brent had settled Friday at its highest since May, and it has eased only 1.4% overnight. The 10-year is about 2bp higher overnight, after Friday's 5.09% (US Treasury). The Fed is in its blackout period, which began on Saturday, ahead of the 27-28 October meeting.

Overnight

Against Friday's settles, 09:03 ET. ES +0.47% · NQ +1.28% · YM −0.23% · RTY +0.48%. NQ is ahead of YM by 1.5 points of %. That split is the reverse of Friday's, when the Dow lost 0.3% and the Nasdaq lost 2.1%.
The Sunday gap, for reference. All four opened below Friday's settle, by 0.28-0.56%. The weekend headlines were Hormuz mines and Saudi-Houthi strikes. All four gaps filled during Asia hours. YM went on to trade 0.56% above its settle before falling back below it.
Ranges as reference, not as a forecast. ES has ranged 1.19% and sits in the upper third. Its low was 0.35% below the settle and its high 0.84% above it. NQ has ranged 2.00% and sits near the top, about 92% of the way up. YM has ranged 0.91% and sits near the bottom, about 12% of the way up. RTY has ranged 1.30% and sits in the upper third. In the same session, NQ is at its high while YM is near its low.
Asia fell early and then recovered most of it. Kospi +1.76%, after it had been down more than 3% early in the session. Nikkei −0.62%, after it had been down more than 2%. Hang Seng +0.52% and Shanghai +0.39%. China's Q3 GDP grew 4.5% y/y against 4.4% expected, and September retail sales rose 1.1% against 0.5% expected (National Bureau of Statistics).
Europe has not joined the bounce. CAC 40 −1.58%, DAX −1.38%, FTSE 100 −1.32% and STOXX 600 −1.14%. Europe imports its energy, so Brent near its highest since May hurts it more than the US. It is also catching up with Friday's US tech selloff, which happened after European markets had closed.
Weekend news. On Saturday, Iran's IRGC navy said two supertankers had exploded after hitting naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz. It repeated that the strait is closed to ships it says are breaking its rules (IRNA via CGTN, 17-18 October). One shipping analyst questioned whether the video of one incident really showed a mine strike. The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted Houthi drones over Riyadh on Saturday and two ballistic missiles early on Sunday.

The Dollar & FX

DXY +0.06% overnight, after −0.22% Friday. The dollar is flat. A higher 2-year yield (about +3bp overnight) is offsetting gains in AUD and CAD. No single US story is moving the dollar.
6A leads the majors. AUD/USD +0.56%. Kospi recovered more than 5% from its low, and China's data beat expectations, so AUD is again moving with Asian risk appetite. It is the strongest major this morning.
6C: USD/CAD −0.29%. CAD is firmer even though Canadian CPI came in at 3.1% y/y against 3.2% expected, and 2.2% excluding gasoline, down from 2.4% (Statistics Canada). Gasoline is up 27.8% on the year. A softer core reading would normally weaken CAD. That it has not suggests oil near $100 is still the main driver. The Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey is due at 10:30.
6J: USD/JPY +0.21%. The yen is weaker as the 10-year rises and the Asian selloff faded. Friday's haven demand has gone.
6E: EUR/USD −0.11%. The euro is weaker as European stocks fall and Brent stays high, which hurts Europe's terms of trade. 6B: GBP/USD +0.04%, flat.
Fed blackout. No Fed speakers until the 28 October decision. The funds rate is 3.75-4.00% (Fed). Reported CME FedWatch odds of an October hike were about 15.5% on Sunday, down from above 40% after CPI on 14 October. December is still priced as more likely than not to bring a hike. Neither figure was checked against CME or a prediction market this morning.

Energy & Metals

CL (December, now the most active contract): +2.61% Friday, −1.26% overnight. It sits a little below the middle of a 2.54% overnight range. November WTI expires on Tuesday. It is −0.68% overnight and trades well above December, so prices for immediate delivery are higher than for later delivery.
Brent: +3.7% Friday, to its highest settle since 19 May, and −1.39% overnight.
Why oil eased overnight even after the mine reports. Hormuz traffic was already severely reduced. Kpler data put flows at roughly 8.5M barrels a day on a seven-day average, from about 20M the previous week (as reported by Oilprice). The weekend's mine reports did not reduce flows any further. The other factor is supply from Russia. Trump signed an executive order lifting sanctions on Russian energy, as part of a deal for Russian diesel deliveries. Analysts say the volumes are too small to change the diesel market (Oilprice, 19 October). Still, it is the first policy step that adds supply instead of taking it away.
GC: +0.26% Friday, +0.06% overnight. It sits in the lower quarter of a 0.84% overnight range. Its high was 0.72% above Friday's settle and has not been revisited.
Gold is flat while oil is near $100 and tankers are being hit. The 10-year is up about 2bp and the dollar is flat, so rates are offsetting any haven demand. Since CPI, gold has traded more on Treasury yields than on Middle East headlines. Friday was the same: the 10-year slipped 1bp and gold rose only 0.26%, while Brent rose 3.7%.

Where We Left Off

Friday's RTH: S&P 500 −1.09%, Dow −0.34%, Nasdaq Composite −2.14%, Russell 2000 −1.66% (AP). Investrade matches all four. For the week: Nasdaq −4.5%, S&P 500 −1.9%, Russell −3.0%, Dow +0.7% (AP).
Treasury yields Friday: 10-year 5.09%, 2-year 4.74%, 30-year 5.43% (US Treasury, 16 October). That is −1bp, −3bp and unchanged on the day. On the week the 10-year fell about 15bp.
Chips led the selloff. Semiconductor stocks fell for an eighth straight session. AMD fell 5.95%, Intel 5.79% and Micron 5.63%. Bonds rallied on the week, but that did not help growth stocks. Concerns about how AI spending is financed outweighed the lower yields. CoreWeave fell 11.9% on Friday and about 25% on the week, as worries about its debt load grew.
What carries over: The Nasdaq's selloff was about financing worries, not interest rates. Lower yields last week did not support tech. So this morning's NQ bounce will not be helped much if yields stay low, or hurt much if they rise. It depends on whether investors keep buying the AI names that were sold off. Earnings from Netflix (Tuesday), Tesla, Meta and IBM (Wednesday) are the first real test of that.

Yesterday's Data

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Actual · Hits

08:30 · Canada CPI y/y, Sep · 3.2% · 3.0% · 3.1% · 6C

08:30 · Canada CPI m/m, Sep · 0.2% · −0.1% · 0.1% · 6C

08:30 · US releases · n/a · n/a · none scheduled · n/a

10:00 · NAHB housing market index, Oct · 32 · 32 · pending · RTY · rates

10:30 · BoC Business Outlook Survey, Q3 · n/a · n/a · pending · 6C

10:30 · BoC Survey of Consumer Expectations · n/a · n/a · pending · 6C

11:30 · 3- and 6-month bill auctions · n/a · n/a · pending · rates

18:50 · RBA's Connolly speaks · n/a · n/a · pending · 6A

All week · Fed blackout before 27-28 Oct FOMC · n/a · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

Tue · November WTI expiry · n/a · n/a · n/a · CL

Consensus: calendar-feed estimates, not checked against TradingEconomics this morning. Canadian CPI was checked against Statistics Canada, and the NAHB prior against NAHB's own page.

This is a structure day for US data. There was nothing at 08:30, and NAHB at 10:00 is unlikely to move anything outside housing names. The session's main drivers are not on the calendar. First, whether NQ holds its gains through the cash open. Second, whether Brent reacts to any more Hormuz incidents. The Bank of Canada surveys at 10:30 matter for 6C ahead of the next BoC rate decision. The weekly calendar is heavier from Tuesday: pending home sales, Thursday's jobless claims and the flash PMIs. Earnings start Tuesday with Netflix and SpaceX after the close, followed by Tesla, Meta and IBM on Wednesday.

Index Movers

Ranked by likely index contribution. Friday closes, and pre-market moves as of about 09:00 ET.

NVDA −1.43% Friday, +1.8% pre-market. It is the largest S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 weight, so it is the biggest single support for ES and NQ this morning. It is not yet back to Thursday's close.
AVGO −4.52% Friday, +3.1% pre-market; MU −5.63%, +3.7%; AMD −5.95%, +3.5%. These are the chip names that led Friday's selloff, and they are now leading the bounce. Together with NVDA they explain most of NQ's lead over ES. TSM's ADR is +2.3%. It is not an index member, but it shows the same rebound in chips.
AMZN −1.87% Friday, +2.0% pre-market. It is a top-five weight in both cap-weighted indices, and the largest support after NVDA among the megacaps. AAPL is −0.6% pre-market after +0.43% Friday. It is the second-largest weight and the main megacap drag this morning. MSFT is −0.1%, so not all of the large AI names are taking part.
YM is red because of high-priced financial, consumer and health names. GS −0.3%, V −0.9%, HD −0.8%, UNH −0.8%, TRV −1.1% and SHW −1.0% are all down pre-market. The Dow is price-weighted, so this broad selling of defensive and financial stocks outweighs CAT +1.6%, its main support. Friday showed the same thing in reverse: those stocks held up, and that is why the Dow lost only 0.3%.
META −3.72% Friday, +0.2% pre-market; TSLA −2.13% Friday, +0.2% pre-market. Both report on Wednesday. Reports say put buying ahead of the results was among the heaviest of the year on Friday. Both are barely up this morning even as the rest of tech bounces.
CRWV −11.9% Friday, +5.9% pre-market; NBIS −12.2%, +6.9%. These AI cloud providers are too small to move the indices much, but they are where the AI financing worry is most visible. No confirmed news explains this morning's bounce. A report about Nvidia offering credit support to these companies could not be dated or verified, so we are not using it.

What Would Change The Read

Scoring Friday's calls. We asked whether ES would stay near the top of a narrow range into options expiry. It did not. The S&P lost 1.09% as chips fell for an eighth session. We asked whether WTI would keep falling while Brent held. It reversed: Brent rose 3.7% and WTI rose too, so Hormuz, not the Russian sanctions story, drove oil. We asked whether gold would keep its link to the 10-year. It did, mildly. Yields fell 1bp and gold rose only 0.26% even with Brent up 3.7%.
Whether NQ's lead over YM holds into the cash open. NQ near its high and YM near its low means the bounce so far is only in tech, not a broad recovery. If YM rises to join NQ, the move is turning broad. If NQ drops back into the middle of its range, the bounce looks like short-covering after the week's losses.
Whether the chip names keep their gains after the open. The sector has fallen eight sessions in a row. A bounce in the pre-market is not the same as a bounce in the cash session, and Friday's pre-market gains in ES also faded.
Whether Brent reacts to the next Hormuz report. The weekend's mine reports moved it less than earlier incidents did. If another report moves it less again, the market is already pricing a long disruption. If Brent jumps again, it is not.
Whether CAD stays firm after the softer CPI. If CAD stays strong despite softer core inflation, oil is the main driver of CAD. If it starts to weaken, the BoC outlook is taking over before the 10:30 surveys.

The Bottom Line

The weekend did not bring the bad news that Friday's put buying was protecting against, and Sunday's lower open was bought back during Asia hours. But the bounce is mostly in the chip names and the AI megacaps. The Dow, Europe and gold are not joining it. With no US data that matters and the Fed in its blackout period, today's session is about positioning before Wednesday's Tesla and Meta results. The two things to watch are whether YM follows NQ higher after the cash open, and whether Brent reacts to more Hormuz headlines.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._