Calendar › Morning Rundown › 2026-10-26

No Iran strike. Oil gives back 2%

Rundown · 2026-10-26

The weekend took some of the oil premium out, and the index gap is already gone. No strike on Iran came over the weekend, and Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Sunday. WTI is −2.12% and Brent about −1.6% against Friday's settles, after WTI rose 3.82% Friday. Index futures gapped higher at the Sunday open: ES +0.39%, NQ +0.52%, YM +0.19%, RTY +0.32% above Friday's settles. ES, NQ and YM have all filled that gap; RTY has not, and its overnight low is still 0.06% above Friday's settle. Now ES is +0.18%, NQ +0.10%, YM +0.38% and RTY +0.20%. Gold is +0.54% after a 1.29% fall Friday and briefly traded below $4,000 overnight. The dollar is flat. The 10-year closed Friday at 5.00% (US Treasury), +4bp, and is unchanged overnight. Quotes are as of about 06:32 ET. Nothing on the US calendar has printed. This week carries four central banks (Fed and BoC Wednesday, ECB Thursday, BoJ Friday) and Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon earnings. Today has one low-impact 08:30 print.

Overnight

• Against Friday's settles, 06:32 ET: ES +0.18% · NQ +0.10% · YM +0.38% · RTY +0.20%. ES and NQ opened near their overnight highs and have spent the night giving the gap back. YM is now the strongest of the four, the reverse of Friday's cash session, when the Dow was the weakest index.
• The gap, as reference. ES opened 0.39% above Friday's settle and has since traded 0.10% below it. NQ opened 0.52% above and has traded 0.32% below. YM opened 0.19% above and touched 0.03% below. RTY opened 0.32% above and has not traded below Friday's settle all night.
• Ranges as reference, not as a forecast. ES has ranged 0.61% and sits mid-range. NQ has ranged 1.11% and sits in the lower 40% of its range. YM has ranged 0.56% and sits in the upper third. RTY has ranged 0.48% and sits in the lower third. NQ's range is almost twice ES's: the overnight move has been in tech, not in the broad market.
• Asia was mixed. Nikkei −0.80%, with chip and electronics names lower. Hang Seng +0.51%, Shanghai +0.19%, ASX 200 +0.17%. Korea's Kospi was reported about 1.6% lower. China's yuan was reported at its strongest onshore level since June 2022 after a firm PBOC fixing, with the Communist Party's fifth plenum under way.
• Europe is higher after a German beat. DAX +0.82%, CAC 40 +0.73%, STOXX 600 +0.36%, FTSE 100 +0.38%. Germany's ifo business climate rose to 90.2 from 89.9, against 90.0 expected (ifo; consensus per Newsquawk). The gain came from expectations (91.6 from 90.4); the current-conditions index slipped to 88.8 from 89.5.
• What broke while the US was closed. No US strike on Iran over the weekend; the president said there would not be a strike "today". Qatari mediators went to Tehran on Sunday. Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure continued, and Saudi forces responded with airstrikes, so the supply risk has not gone away. In Brazil, Lula won Sunday's presidential runoff about 52% to 48%, and a Tokyo-listed Bovespa ETF fell close to 15%. That is a BRL and Brazil story, not a priority-instrument story, but it is the largest single risk event of the weekend outside the Gulf.
• Clock change. Europe left summer time on Sunday; the US does not until 1 November. For this week only, London's cash session opens at 04:00 ET and closes at 12:30 ET, an hour later than usual in ET terms, so the European close now overlaps the first three hours of the US session.

The Dollar & FX

• DXY 0.00%. Flat, inside a 0.27% range. Fading haven demand after the no-strike weekend is offsetting a market that still prices a December Fed hike. Over five days the index is −0.16%.
• No single pair is carrying the dollar this morning. The moves are small and pair-specific.
• 6J: USD/JPY +0.31%, the largest move among the majors. The yen had been near a one-month high going into the weekend. The BoJ decides on Friday; coverage sees it on hold this week, with a hike expected later. Intervention risk from earlier in the year continues to cap the pair, as reported.
• 6E: EUR/USD 0.00%. The ifo beat has not lifted the euro against the dollar. The ECB decides Thursday. French fiscal stress remains the drag on the euro.
• 6B: GBP/USD −0.15%. The euro has gained on sterling after the ifo print.
• 6C: USD/CAD +0.08%. CAD is slightly softer with WTI down 2%. The Bank of Canada decides Wednesday, the same day as the Fed. Market pricing was reported to favour a 25bp hike (XTB). That makes Wednesday the biggest 6C day of the month.
• 6A: AUD/USD −0.06%. Flat. The RBNZ also decides Wednesday, with a hike reported as expected.
• Fed odds. The funds rate is 3.75-4.00% (Fed), after a 25bp hike in September. The FOMC decides Wednesday, 28 October, and is in its blackout period. CME FedWatch was reported at 90.6% for a hold this week and 79.7% for a December hike (FXStreet, 26 October). Central Bank Watch, which tracks the same futures, showed 71.9% for December. We could not get a live prediction-market figure this morning, so read December as a 72-80% range across two trackers.

Energy & Metals

• CL: +3.82% Friday, −2.12% overnight. December WTI settled Friday at its highest close in more than five months. Overnight it has ranged 2.02% and sits in the lower quarter. Its overnight high is 0.62% below Friday's settle: WTI has not traded at or above Friday's settle since the Sunday open.
• Brent: about +3.1% Friday, about −1.6% overnight. Friday's settle was reported as Brent's highest close since 29 April. It has ranged 1.6% overnight and sits mid-range.
• The catalyst is the absence of escalation, not a deal. Friday's rally came from the Houthi attacks on Saudi sites and a reported tanker strike near Hormuz. This weekend, the strike that had been reported as under consideration did not happen, and mediation started. The mechanism: the premium in crude is about what could happen to Gulf flows, not lost barrels, so it comes out when nothing happens over a weekend. Coverage also flags that strike risk could return after Israel's elections this week and the US midterms on 3 November. A mediation meeting is not a negotiation.
• GC: −1.29% Friday, +0.54% overnight. December gold settled at its lowest close in more than two months on Friday, pressured by a 4bp rise in the 10-year and a firmer dollar. Overnight it has ranged 1.14%, traded briefly below $4,000 near the Sunday open, and now sits in the top 15% of its range. Its high is 0.71% above Friday's settle.
• Gold's driver changed on Friday. Thursday gold fell as yields fell, which pointed to position selling. Friday it fell as yields rose, which is the usual relationship. This morning yields and the dollar are both flat and gold is bouncing. With a December hike priced at 72-80%, the FOMC statement Wednesday is gold's next real-yield input. Silver is +0.16% overnight after −1.92% Friday.

Where We Left Off

• Friday's RTH: S&P 500 −0.52%, Dow −1.24%, Nasdaq Composite −0.21%, Russell 2000 −0.29% (AP; Investrade and MarketWatch match all four). The Nasdaq-100 was unchanged. The S&P and Nasdaq hit five-week lows early, and decliners outnumbered advancers about two to one.
• Treasury yields Friday: 10-year 5.00%, 2-year 4.69%, 30-year 5.33% (US Treasury, 23 October). That is +4bp on each, a quarter of Thursday's 17bp drop in the 10-year.
• Only three S&P sectors rose: energy, technology and real estate (Investrade). Staples, industrials and consumer discretionary led the losses. For the week: Dow +0.4%, S&P 500 −0.5%, Nasdaq −0.7%, Russell 2000 +2.0% (AP).
• What carries over: Thursday's rotation reversed in a day. Thursday the money left tech for defensives and the Dow finished flat while the Nasdaq-100 fell 2.9%. Friday the Dow fell 1.24% and the Nasdaq-100 finished flat. 24 of the 30 Dow members fell, staples were among the worst sectors, and semis bounced. Two sessions in a row the YM-NQ gap has been more than 1% in opposite directions. This morning YM leads again. The open will show whether that is a third reversal or just the overnight gap in a different order.

Yesterday's Data

• Flash composite PMI 57.6, in line, but selling prices rose at the fastest rate since August 2022.
• UMich sentiment revised up to 48.0; 1-year and 5-year inflation expectations held at 4.7% and 3.5%.

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Hits

05:00 · German ifo business climate, Oct (printed 90.2) · 90.0 · 89.9 · 6E

08:30 · Chicago Fed National Activity Index, Sep · n/a · −0.04 · USD

10:30 · Dallas Fed manufacturing index, Oct · 7 (TE forecast) · 9.8 · USD · CL

11:30 · 13- and 26-week bill auctions · n/a · 4.095% / 4.220% · rates

13:00 · 2-year note auction · n/a · 4.787% high yield · USD · rates · GC

Consensus: TradingEconomics (US; no consensus is listed for the CFNAI or the Dallas Fed, so the Dallas figure is TradingEconomics' own forecast); Newsquawk (ifo). The Chicago Fed's own calendar confirms the CFNAI at 08:30 today. The 08:30 slot is not empty, but the CFNAI is the only release in it, and no BLS or Census release is scheduled today. Monday has no fixed weekly US release. The Fed is in its blackout period. We could not load Treasury's own auction page this morning, so the auction times are from TradingEconomics.

This is a structure day before a dense week. Nothing on today's calendar is likely to move the priority instruments. The 2-year auction at 13:00 is the one rates event, two days before an FOMC meeting where a December hike is priced at 72-80%. A weak auction would push front-end yields higher and test that pricing; a strong one would support it. The rest of the week is heavy: durable goods Tuesday; the FOMC, BoC, RBNZ and Microsoft and Alphabet earnings Wednesday; advance Q3 GDP, PCE inflation, jobless claims, the ECB and Amazon earnings Thursday; the employment cost index and the BoJ Friday.

Index Movers

Ranked by index contribution. Friday's moves, close to close. Pre-market volume is thin at 06:45 ET.

• The Dow fell on breadth, not one name. CAT −2.43% was the largest single point drag on the price-weighted Dow, its second heavy loss in two sessions. GS −1.75% and AXP −3.68% followed; AXP fell after Friday morning's earnings, which raised full-year guidance but came in slightly light on revenue. SHW −2.48%, AMGN −1.79%, HD −2.41% and UNH −1.62% added to it. HD and AMGN were Thursday's offsets; Friday they reversed. CVX +2.88% and MSFT +0.66% were the main offsets.
• Staples gave back Thursday's bid: KO −2.76%, PG −2.12%, WMT −1.02%. All three are Dow members and S&P weights. Thursday PG rose 5.6%.
• The Nasdaq-100 held flat on offsetting megacaps. GOOGL −1.24%, AMZN −0.95%, META −0.96% and NVDA −0.59% were the drags. MSFT +0.66%, AMD +1.74% and MU +2.46% offset them. GOOGL and MSFT report Wednesday after the close and AMZN on Thursday; all three are the largest event risk in NQ this week.
• T −7.96%, TMUS −7.71%, VZ −1.19%; CCI +9.06%, AMT +4.08%. Reports on Friday that SpaceX is seeking access to cell sites for its Starlink cellular service hit the carriers and lifted the tower owners. T and VZ are S&P 500 members; TMUS is also in the Nasdaq-100. VZ is a Dow member.
• CRWD +8.25%, PANW +7.22%. An Evercore ISI channel survey pointed to firmer security budgets, and CrowdStrike announced an AI-security partnership with Nvidia. Both are Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500 members and part of why technology was a gaining sector.
• BE −11.24%, FIX −9.26%. Two AI-power names fell after results despite beats: Bloom Energy raised revenue guidance, and Comfort Systems' electrical margins fell about 200bp (Investrade). Both are S&P 500 members. Their losses say the market is still discounting AI-infrastructure beats this week.

What Would Change The Read

• Scoring Friday's calls. We asked whether Thursday's rotation into defensives would hold at the open. It did not: the Dow fell 1.24% while the Nasdaq-100 finished flat. We asked whether the 10-year would keep reversing its 17bp drop. Partly: it rose 4bp. We asked whether gold would hold its overnight low. It did: it settled 1.29% lower, above that low. We said the oil premium could come out fast with no barrels lost. Not Friday (WTI +3.8%), but overnight it has (−2.1%).
• Whether WTI gets back to Friday's settle. It has not traded there since the Sunday open. A headline about strikes resuming would test that. More mediation would extend the move.
• Whether RTY fills its gap. It is the only index future that has not traded at Friday's settle overnight.
• Whether YM keeps leading NQ. The lead has changed sides several sessions running. Three days before MSFT and GOOGL report, NQ's overnight range is twice ES's.
• Whether the 2-year auction moves the front end. It is the only rates event before Wednesday's FOMC.
• Whether gold keeps its bounce without help from yields or the dollar. Both are flat. If gold holds its gain while they stay flat, Friday's position selling is easing.

The Bottom Line

The weekend did what weekends rarely do in this conflict: nothing escalated, and crude gave back about half of Friday's gain. Equity futures opened higher on that, and the broad indices have already given the gap back, with only RTY still above Friday's settle. Friday reversed Thursday's rotation, so the YM-NQ relationship has no settled direction going into a week with four central banks and three megacap reports. Today's calendar is close to empty, which leaves crude headlines and the 2-year auction as the only scheduled tests before Wednesday.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._