Calendar › Morning Rundown › 2026-10-20

Kospi sinks 3.7% on AI doubts. Brent bid again

Rundown · 2026-10-20

Monday's chip bounce did not travel. The Nasdaq rose 1.11% and the semiconductor index ended an eight-session losing streak, but Seoul sold chips again overnight: the Kospi closed −3.73%, with SK hynix −4.23% and Samsung −2.98% (Korea JoongAng Daily). Quotes are as of 06:05 ET. NQ is −0.35% and sits in the lower third of a 0.93% overnight range. YM is +0.21%, and its whole overnight range sits above Monday's settle. That is Monday's split turned inside out: Monday the Dow lagged, this morning it leads. Oil is the other story. Brent is +1.8%, at its highest since May, on more tanker attacks in Hormuz and Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia. December WTI is +2.0%, and November WTI expires today. The 10-year closed Monday at 5.15% (US Treasury), +6bp, and is about 2bp lower overnight. Housing starts at 08:30 are the only US data that might matter. The real test comes at 16:01 ET, when Netflix reports.

Overnight

• Against Monday's settles, 06:05 ET. ES −0.05% · NQ −0.35% · YM +0.21% · RTY +0.03%. YM is ahead of NQ by about half a point of %. Monday ran the other way: the Nasdaq beat the Dow by 1.2 points of %.
• Ranges as reference, not as a forecast. ES has ranged 0.42% and sits in the lower third. Its high was 0.24% above the settle and its low 0.19% below it. NQ has ranged 0.93% and also sits in the lower third. Its low, 0.66% below the settle, came during Seoul's selloff. YM has ranged 0.41% and sits mid-range. Its low was barely above the settle, so YM has not traded below Monday's close all night. RTY has ranged 0.42% and sits mid-range. These are narrow ranges for ES, YM and RTY. Only NQ has moved much.
• Asia sold tech again. Kospi −3.73%, its lowest close since 7 April. Foreign investors sold a net 535 billion won and domestic institutions a net 1 trillion won. Local analysts cited profit-taking and unresolved worries about the credit risk and profitability of AI spending (Korea JoongAng Daily). The US rebound on Monday did not help Seoul at all. Nikkei −1.30%, Hang Seng −1.32%, Shanghai +0.12%. China's loan prime rates were left unchanged (PBOC).
• Europe is lower on chips and on France. DAX −0.97%, CAC 40 −0.87%, FTSE 100 −0.74%, STOXX 600 −0.76%. European chip stocks opened down 3-4% or more, with STMicro, Infineon, ASM International and BE Semiconductor all lower (Investing.com, 07:34 GMT). France is the second weight. Saturday's protests drew roughly 550,000 people nationwide by official counts, with buildings burned and thousands arrested. French 10-year yields rose about 10bp on Monday, and the gap over German Bunds widened to its widest since the euro debt crisis of the early 2010s (The Guardian and CNBC, as reported 19 October). The National Assembly is reported to vote today on the first part of the 2027 budget, which seeks €54 billion in savings.
• Nothing broke in the US overnight. The Fed is in its blackout period, and no major US earnings came out after Monday's close. The one company story is 3M, which announced late Monday an expanded data-centre supply deal with Amazon (see Index Movers).

The Dollar & FX

• DXY −0.14% overnight. The dollar is a little softer across the board. US yields are about 2bp lower overnight, after Monday's 6bp rise in the 10-year. No US speaker or data has moved it.
• 6B is carrying the move: GBP/USD +0.35%. UK unemployment fell to 4.7% for June to August, down 0.1 percentage points on the quarter. Regular pay growth held at 3.7% (ONS, 20 October). A firmer jobs market makes the Bank of England less likely to ease. Two BoE speakers are on the calendar: Mills at 08:30 ET and Greene at 13:00 ET.
• 6C: USD/CAD −0.39%. CAD is firmer with oil. December WTI is up 2.0% overnight, and the oil link has outweighed softer Canadian inflation since Monday's CPI. This is the second session in a row that crude has driven CAD more than the Bank of Canada outlook.
• 6J: USD/JPY −0.20%. The yen gained a little as Asian stocks fell and US yields eased overnight. The move is small for a 3.7% fall in the Kospi.
• 6E: EUR/USD +0.05%, flat. The euro is holding steady even with French unrest and wider OAT spreads. That makes today's French budget vote the live risk for 6E. A failed or watered-down vote is the outcome that would hit the euro, not the vote itself.
• 6A: AUD/USD +0.19%. AUD is barely firmer despite the selloff in Asian stocks. RBA Assistant Governor Hauser speaks at 18:30 ET.
• Fed odds. The funds rate is 3.75-4.00% (Fed). Polymarket puts an October 28 hike at 14% this morning. CME FedWatch was reported at about 15%, so the two sources agree on roughly 14-15%, down from above 40% after CPI on 14 October.

Energy & Metals

• CL: two contracts, two stories. November WTI rose 2.22% on Monday into today's expiry, while December WTI, now the most active contract, fell 0.48%. Brent fell 0.28%. November gained while the rest of the curve fell, which is what happens when shorts close out a contract that is about to expire with tight prompt supply. Overnight, December is +2.0%. It sits near the top of a 2.93% overnight range.
• Brent: −0.28% Monday, +1.8% overnight, back through $110 and at its highest since May. The catalyst is new. Reuters, citing Kpler data, counts at least 18 tanker attacks in two weeks. Flows out of the Gulf fell to about 8.5M barrels a day from more than 20M two weeks earlier. The Houthis struck Saudi energy sites, airports and military targets again (Oilprice, 19 October). US Energy Secretary Chris Wright says crude flows are back to about 80% of pre-war levels, but refined-product shipments are still restricted.
• Why oil fell Monday and rose overnight. The weekend's mine reports were already in the price by Monday's settle, and Brent eased. The overnight rally came on new Houthi attacks on Saudi soil. Those are a different supply risk from Hormuz shipping.
• GC: −0.50% Monday, −0.70% overnight. It sits at the bottom of a 0.87% overnight range, and its high was only 0.16% above the settle. Gold is falling with the dollar softer, the 10-year 2bp lower and oil up 2%. None of the usual drivers explains this move. Last week gold traded with Treasury yields. This morning it is trading against them, and against the haven demand you would expect from tanker attacks and a Kospi selloff. We do not know the cause. A move without an explanation is a reference point, not a signal.

Where We Left Off

• Monday's RTH: S&P 500 +0.41%, Dow −0.07%, Nasdaq Composite +1.11%, Russell 2000 +0.25% (AP). Investrade and MarketWatch match all four. The Nasdaq-100 rose 1.17%.
• Treasury yields Monday: 10-year 5.15%, 2-year 4.77%, 30-year 5.48% (US Treasury, 19 October). That is +6bp, +3bp and +5bp on the day, more than reversing Friday's small decline.
• The rebound was narrow. Technology and consumer discretionary were the only S&P 500 sectors that rose. Energy and consumer staples were the weakest, and utilities fell 1.7% on the Dow Jones utility average. Amazon rose 4.98% after Morgan Stanley named it a top pick, and it was the largest single contributor to the S&P 500. Chips ended their eight-session losing streak.
• What carries over: Monday's bounce came while the 10-year rose 6bp. So rates did not cap tech on Monday, just as falling rates did not help it last week. Tech is trading on the AI financing story, not on yields. Seoul is a pure AI-supply-chain market, and it rejected Monday's bounce outright. That is why NQ is the weak index this morning.

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Hits

Pre-market · Earnings: KO, PM, RTX, VZ, LMT, MMM, GM, NOC · n/a · n/a · YM · ES

08:15 · ADP NER Pulse, weekly · n/a · 24.75K · USD

08:30 · Housing starts, Sep · 1.30M · 1.275M · RTY · USD

08:30 · Building permits, Sep prelim · 1.39M · 1.403M · RTY

08:30 · BoE's Mills speaks · n/a · n/a · 6B

08:55 · Redbook same-store sales y/y · n/a · 10.4% · n/a

10:00 · Pending home sales m/m, Sep · −0.5% · 0.3% · RTY

11:30 · 6-week bill auction · n/a · n/a · rates

13:00 · BoE's Greene speaks · n/a · n/a · 6B

16:01 · Netflix Q3 results · n/a · n/a · NQ · ES

After close · Earnings: ISRG, COF, CB, UAL · n/a · n/a · ES

16:30 · API crude stocks · −1.3M · −11.1M · CL

18:30 · RBA's Hauser speaks · n/a · n/a · 6A

19:50 · Japan trade balance, Sep · −181B yen · −1,105.6B yen · 6J

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

Today · French budget vote, reported · n/a · n/a · 6E

Consensus: TradingEconomics. Housing starts date confirmed on the Census Bureau's release schedule. The Netflix time is from the company's own announcement. The other earnings times come from a calendar listing and were not each confirmed with the company.

This is a light day for US data, and the fulcrum is after the close. Housing starts at 08:30 are the only release that is likely to move anything, and mostly RTY and homebuilders. The morning's earnings are heavy in the Dow, through KO, VZ and MMM, and in defence names, through RTX, LMT and NOC. That fits YM leading this morning. Netflix at 16:01 is the first megacap AI-era earnings test of the week, ahead of Tesla and Meta on Wednesday. Its reaction will set NQ's tone for tomorrow's session, not today's. For 6E, the French vote matters more than anything on the US calendar.

Index Movers

Ranked by likely index contribution. Monday closes, and pre-market moves as of about 06:00 ET.

• AMZN +4.98% Monday, +0.3% pre-market. Morgan Stanley named it a top pick. It was the biggest single contributor to both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 on Monday. It is also in the Dow, and it helped hold the Dow near flat. This morning it is part of the 3M story below.
• The chip names are giving back part of Monday's bounce. MU +2.97% Monday, −2.5% pre-market. AMD +1.76%, −1.5%. INTC +2.43%, −1.3%. NVDA +1.38%, −0.2% and AVGO +1.78%, −0.4%. Together with AAPL −1.0% pre-market, after −0.15% Monday, these explain most of NQ's deficit. AAPL is the second-largest weight in both cap-weighted indices.
• MMM −1.66% Monday, +4.4% pre-market. Late Monday 3M announced an expanded deal to supply optical interconnect and other data-centre products to Amazon. Amazon gets a warrant for up to 3.16 million 3M shares. Most of it vests only as Amazon's cumulative purchases build toward $6 billion (Investing.com, 20 October). 3M also reports Q3 before the bell. It is a Dow component, but a low-priced one, so its pull on YM is real but modest.
• The Dow's Monday drag came from banks and health care. JPM −1.82%, AMGN −1.75%, GS −0.62% and CAT −0.68% cost the price-weighted Dow the most. UNH +1.36% and IBM +1.83% offset part of it. The KBW bank index is on its longest weekly losing streak since 2008. This morning JPM is +0.4%, UNH +0.5% and KO +0.7% ahead of its results. CAT −1.1% is the main YM drag.
• RTX +1.6% pre-market ahead of its results. It is an S&P 500 name only. Defence is in focus with three primes reporting this morning.
• CRWV −0.44% Monday, −3.9% pre-market. Goldman's upgrade to Buy on Monday could not lift it. It is too small to move an index, but it is the clearest gauge of the AI financing worry that drove Seoul overnight.

What Would Change The Read

• Scoring Monday's calls. We asked whether YM would follow NQ higher after the cash open. It did not. The Dow lost 0.07% while the Nasdaq gained 1.11%. We asked whether the chip names would keep their pre-market gains. They did. The sector ended its eight-session losing streak, but Seoul has now sold the rebound. We asked whether Brent would react to the next Hormuz report. It fell 0.28% on Monday, then rose 1.8% overnight on new attacks, which suggests the market is not yet pricing a long disruption.
• Whether NQ's overnight low holds as a reference into the cash open. It was set during Seoul's selloff. If NQ trades back through it with Europe's chip names still down, the Asian selloff is carrying into the US. If NQ recovers to mid-range, Monday's bounce is still intact.
• Whether YM's lead survives the morning earnings. KO, VZ and MMM all report before the bell. If YM stays above Monday's settle through the open, the rotation into Dow names is real. If it falls back, this morning's split is just chip weakness.
• Whether gold keeps falling against its usual drivers. If it keeps falling with yields and the dollar both lower, something other than rates is driving it. If it bounces as yields fall, last week's link to the 10-year is back.
• How the euro takes the French vote. EUR/USD is flat into it. A failed vote with wider OAT spreads would test that.

The Bottom Line

Monday showed that US tech can rally while the 10-year rises 6bp. Seoul then showed that the AI financing worry is still there. NQ opens weaker because the chip names that led Monday are giving some of it back. YM opens firmer on an earnings morning full of Dow and defence names. Oil is bid again on Houthi strikes against Saudi Arabia, and November WTI expires today. Gold is falling without a clear reason. With little US data until Netflix reports at 16:01, the day comes down to whether the chip rebound survives a second session and how the euro takes the French vote.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._