Calendar › Morning Rundown › 2026-11-05

Dow's best day since April 2025. NQ slips on chips

Rundown · 2026-11-05

The split between YM and NQ is still the story. On Wednesday the market treated the Democratic sweep as relief: Dow +3.03%, its best day since April 2025, S&P 500 +1.58%, Nasdaq-100 +0.91%, with Microsoft, Amazon and Apple up 5-7% while the chipmakers fell. Overnight the chip selling spread to Asia and to Qualcomm's results. As of about 06:35 ET: YM +0.63%, RTY +0.74%, ES +0.17%, NQ −0.46%. Qualcomm is −8.7% pre-market after a handset miss. Gold is +1.78% after Wednesday's +3.37%, and WTI is +0.68% after an 8.29% drop on hopes of an end to the Iran war. The 10-year closed Wednesday at 4.90% (US Treasury), down 5bp, and is about 1bp lower overnight. The Bank of England raised Bank Rate to 4% at 07:00 ET, by 8-1, with one vote for a half-point (BoE), its first hike since 2023. Jobless claims and Q3 productivity at 08:30 are next.

Overnight

• Against Wednesday's settles, about 06:35 ET: RTY +0.74% · YM +0.63% · ES +0.17% · NQ −0.46%. That is the same order as Wednesday's cash session, a day after the order flipped on Tuesday. The Dow and small caps are carrying the relief trade; NQ is carrying the chip selling.
• Ranges since the 18:00 reopen, as reference only. ES has ranged 0.60% (0.38% below to 0.22% above its settle) and sits near the high. NQ has ranged 1.75% (1.40% below to 0.36% above) and sits mid-range. YM has ranged 0.74% and has not traded below its settle; it sits in the upper fifth. RTY has ranged 0.85% and sits at the high. After Wednesday's 2.6% ES range, a 0.6% night is a much narrower reference.
• How the night ran. At about 03:00 ET, NQ was down about 1.0% and ES 0.2%, with YM up 0.3%, as the Asian chip selling peaked. NQ has recovered more than half of its overnight low since; ES moved from red to green.
• Asia: chipmakers sold off hard. In Seoul the Kospi fell about 4.8%, with SK Hynix down about 9% and Samsung Electronics about 6.7%, and a five-minute program-trading halt was triggered. In Tokyo the Nikkei fell 1.79%, dragged by Advantest, Tokyo Electron and Lasertec (each down about 10-12%). Outside the chip names the region was bid: Hang Seng +3.67%, Australia's ASX 200 +2.61%.
• Europe is higher. STOXX 600 +0.58%, DAX +0.80%, FTSE 100 +0.79% and through its February record. Toyota raised its full-year operating profit forecast and expanded its buyback; Commerzbank's profit target came in a little under expectations.
• What broke while the US was closed: Qualcomm and AppLovin results (below), and IRGC reports of tanker fires and a mine strike in the Strait of Hormuz, which are unconfirmed.

The Dollar & FX

• DXY is roughly flat this morning after falling about 0.5% on Wednesday to a five-week low. It has ranged 0.37% overnight and sits at the high, so the dollar has firmed into the European morning rather than extending the slide. The read on Wednesday was that a divided Congress means less room for deficit-funded tax cuts and spending.
• 6B: GBP/USD −0.06% after the Bank of England, up from −0.15% and its overnight low just before the decision. The MPC raised Bank Rate 25bp to 4% from 3.75%, by 8-1; Catherine Mann voted for 4.25% (BoE). It now expects inflation, 3.5% today, to reach about 5% by mid-2027. Governor Bailey said the hike "shouldn't be seen as the first in an inevitable long sequence," but that unless the Middle East conflict is resolved it is unlikely to be the last (BoE). Gilt yields were lower going in, so the market had already read it as an energy response rather than the start of a long cycle. The next MPC decision is December 17.
• 6E: EUR/USD −0.10%, also at its overnight low. No euro-area driver of its own; it is the mirror of the dollar steadying.
• 6C: USD/CAD −0.14%, a firmer loonie as crude bounces 0.7%.
• 6A: AUD/USD +0.11%, back above 70 US cents after a strong Australian trade surplus, and the Australian market had its best session of the region.
• 6J: USD/JPY −0.01%, unchanged. The yen did not pick up a haven bid from the chip selling, which says the Asian move was sector rotation rather than risk-off. The BoJ's September minutes (released overnight) showed the board backing further hikes.
• Fed pricing. TradingEconomics puts the chance of a December hike near 79%. We could not get a same-day CME FedWatch reading or a dated prediction-market figure to cross-check it, so treat that as one source.

Energy & Metals

• CL: −8.29% Wednesday, +0.68% overnight. WTI settled at its lowest since August 31 as the election result was read as lowering the risk of escalation and raising the odds of an end to the Iran war. Overnight it has ranged 2.72% (1.67% below to 1.06% above the settle) and sits near the high. Brent: −8.67% Wednesday, +1.47% overnight.
• The mechanism. Wednesday's drop priced the war premium down, not a supply change: the EIA showed a 0.9M-barrel crude draw where a build was expected, and a 3.6M-barrel distillate draw. The overnight bounce comes alongside the unconfirmed Hormuz reports, the kind of headline that rebuilt the premium in earlier weeks. EIA natural gas storage at 10:30 is the only scheduled energy print.
• GC: +3.37% Wednesday, +1.78% overnight. Wednesday was gold's biggest gain since August. Overnight it has ranged 2.18% (0.15% below to 2.03% above the settle) and sits near the high. Silver is +1.17%.
• Why gold is still bid. Wednesday it was a dollar and rates move: the dollar slid and the 10-year fell 5bp. This morning the dollar is flat and gold is still climbing, so the bid is no longer only the dollar. Lower oil also lowers the odds the Fed has to keep hiking, and that is a real-yield argument for gold.

Where We Left Off

• Wednesday's RTH: Dow +3.03%, S&P 500 +1.58%, Russell 2000 +1.58%, Nasdaq Composite +1.44% (AP; Investrade matches all four). The Nasdaq-100 rose 0.91%, the laggard.
• Treasury yields Wednesday: 10-year 4.90% (−5bp), 2-year 4.58% (−3bp), 30-year 5.28% (−4bp) (US Treasury, 4 November).
• The rotation inside tech. The market read a Democratic Congress as slower data-centre spending, and it rewarded the spenders and punished the suppliers. Microsoft +6.68%, Amazon +6.12%, Apple +5.31% to a record, Alphabet +3.18%; against that Nvidia −3.17%, Micron −7.00%, Broadcom −2.00%, and the semiconductor index fell about 4%. Consumer discretionary (+4.26%) led on lower oil; energy fell.
• Why the Dow outran everything. Microsoft, Goldman Sachs (+3.56%), Home Depot (+6.53%) and Apple are high-priced Dow members and all rose sharply; Caterpillar (−5.23%) was the main drag. NYSE breadth was better than 3:1 advancers.
• The refunding was a non-event. Treasury kept nominal coupon auction sizes unchanged and said it expects to hold them for the next several quarters (US Treasury). The 3-, 10- and 30-year auctions run Nov 9, 10 and 12.
• What carries over: the chip trade. The hyperscaler-up, supplier-down split did not end at the close. It went to Seoul and Tokyo overnight and is in Qualcomm, Arm and Micron pre-market. That is why NQ is the one index red.

Yesterday's Data

• ADP +86K vs 69K expected: hiring held, and job-changers' pay rose to 7.6%.
• Trade deficit $105.0B vs $108B expected: record imports, led by AI capital goods.
• ISM services 54.5 vs 54.8 expected: backlogs highest since 2022, prices paid at 73.0.
• Crude −0.9M vs 0.9M build expected: distillate down 3.6M as demand jumped.

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Hits

07:00 · Bank of England decision: raised to 4%, vote 8-1 (out) · 4.00% · 3.75% · 6B · USD · GC

08:30 · Initial jobless claims, week to Oct 31 · 196K · 194K · USD · ES/NQ · GC

08:30 · Continuing claims, week to Oct 24 · 1,710K · 1,701K · USD

08:30 · Nonfarm productivity, Q3 prelim · 2.8% · 1.4% · USD · rates

08:30 · Unit labour costs, Q3 prelim · 0.6% · 1.2% · USD · rates · GC

08:50 · Fed's Hammack speaks · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

09:10 · Fed's Barkin speaks · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

10:30 · EIA natural gas storage, week to Oct 30 · 81 Bcf · 80 Bcf · NG

11:30 · 4- and 8-week bill auctions · n/a · 3.910% · 4.020% · rates

19:00 · Fed's Logan speaks · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

Consensus: TradingEconomics. The BoE consensus is the Reuters poll. Release times from TradingEconomics, cross-checked against the agency schedules. Challenger job cuts for October were already out before this brief (43,994 vs 43,281 prior, TradingEconomics). There is no 10:00 release today. ConocoPhillips, Kimberly-Clark and Tapestry report before the bell; Airbnb, Affirm and Lyft after. Friday: October payrolls (65K consensus, TradingEconomics), then UMich at 10:00.

08:30 is the fulcrum now that the Bank of England is out. The BoE delivered the expected hike with a hawkish dissent and a 5% inflation forecast, and cable took it calmly. Claims at 08:30 are the last labour read before payrolls; a jump would sit badly with a 79% December hike price. Unit labour costs feed straight into the same argument. Hammack and Barkin before the open are the first Fed voices since the election.

Index Movers

Ranked by index contribution. Wednesday's moves close to close; pre-market as of about 06:43 ET.

• NVDA −3.17% Wednesday, −0.99% pre-market. The largest weight in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, so even a 1% move outweighs everything below it for ES and NQ. It is following the Asian chip selling, with no company news.
• QCOM +5.33% Wednesday, −8.73% pre-market, after fiscal fourth-quarter results. Handset chip revenue fell 26% to $5.14B, against $5.25B expected (Reuters, citing Visible Alpha); the data-centre outlook was upbeat. It is in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, and it is the single biggest stock-specific drag on NQ this morning.
• AMD −2.95%, AVGO −1.54%, MU −2.68% pre-market. Three more S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 chip weights following Asia lower. Micron fell 7.00% on Wednesday already.
• AMZN +6.12% Wednesday, +1.48% pre-market; META +1.11%; GOOGL +0.82%; MSFT +0.16%. The hyperscaler side of the trade is still bid, and it is what keeps ES green while NQ is red.
• APP +10.69% Wednesday, +18.86% pre-market, after third-quarter results: revenue +55% to $2.18B, net income $1.44B (AppLovin, SEC filing). An S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 member, a lift for NQ, though small next to the chip drag.
• GS +3.56% Wednesday, +1.54% pre-market. One of the highest-priced Dow members, it does more for YM than its size suggests, and a big part of why YM leads again.

What Would Change The Read

• Scoring Wednesday's calls. We asked whether NQ would keep lagging. It did: the Nasdaq-100 rose 0.91% against the Dow's 3.03%. We asked what the refunding would do to the long end. Nothing bad: sizes were held and the 10-year fell 5bp. We asked whether gold would hold once the dollar steadied. So far yes: the dollar is flat this morning and gold is up another 1.8%.
• Whether the chip selling stays in chips. NQ is red while ES is green, which is a sector story. If ES turns red with NQ after 09:30, it has become an index story.
• Whether cable holds its post-BoE bounce. The 8-1 vote had its dissent on the hawkish side, not the dovish one. If GBP/USD gives the bounce back, the market is reading the "not inevitable" guidance over the dissent.
• Whether gold holds without the dollar. It is up on a flat dollar this morning. A strong claims print that lifts the 2-year would test that.
• Whether the Hormuz reports are confirmed. Crude is bouncing off an 8% drop on unconfirmed headlines; confirmation or denial is the swing for CL.

The Bottom Line

Wednesday's relief rally had a clear shape, and that shape is still in place this morning: buy the spenders and the Dow, sell the chip suppliers. YM and RTY are higher, NQ is lower, and ES sits in between at the top of a much narrower overnight range than Wednesday's. Gold has kept climbing even as the dollar steadies, and crude is bouncing off its biggest drop in months on headlines no one has confirmed. The Bank of England has hiked without upsetting cable; claims and labour costs at 08:30 are the last labour data before Friday's payrolls.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._