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Week Ahead: UK Autumn Budget; Fed, ECB & BoJ decisions; flood of megacap tech earnings make for biggest week of the year
Your guide to the trading calendar over the week of 26-30 October
Note: This is marketing material. This article is not investment advice, capital is at risk.
The last 5 trading days of October could be the busiest and most important of the year. The Federal Reserve, ECB and Bank of Japan are in action along with the RBNZ and BoC, Britain's Chancellor delivers his first Autumn Budget and a host of megacap tech earnings are due, with a focus on AI capex amongst some off the key hyperscalers. All this takes place amidst rising tensions in the Middle East, Israeli parliamentary elections and before the US midterms the following week.
Here’s the key things to watch over the next week.
UK Autumn Budget 💼
The UK Chancellor, John Healey, will deliver his first Budget on Wednesday, 28 October. The Budget this year is a precursor to an early election - expect a steady-as-she-goes event with limited tax hikes as the Chancellor kicks all the big decisions into 2027. The fiscal position could be a lot stronger than reports focused on higher bond yields indicate, with productivity gains the 'secret sauce' to unlock billions in extra headroom. The OBR numbers are a crucial unknown at this stage. Watch for changes to thresholds and national living wage adjustments, and the potential for a defence spending surprise. Follow our Budget coverage here.
Fed, ECB, BoJ to stay on hold, BoC and RBNZ set to hike 🏛️
The Federal Reserve is set to stay on hold this week after raising rates at its meeting last month. Market implied odds for a hike were just 10% by Friday, with a pullback in yields amid a rout in AI-related stocks seemingly negating the need for the Fed to go for back-to-back hikes despite the recent inflation figures still running a little hot. It appears the Fed wants to wait for more data and perhaps raise rates again in December if inflation doesn't cool. Market odds for a hike in December stand around 75%.
The European Central Bank is also set to remain on the sidelines with little need to chase its hiking cycle further right now amid the steep selloff in French bond yields and widening in Franco-German spreads to record levels. Although inflation remains the ECB's biggest risk, financial conditions have tightened somewhat, in part to the turmoil in French OATs. Moreover, whilst energy inflation remains high there are as yet limited signs of this spilling over into broader inflationary pressures. The key thing to look out for will be any signs from Christine Lagarde that the ECB is worried about French debt spillovers and the central bank's willingness to close spreads. Any nod to using the transmission protection instrument (TPI), the ECB's as-yet unused tool to contain any dislocation in sovereign bond markets, would put a ceiling on OAT yields. However, the ECB is likely not keen to be seen to bail out France for fiscal profligacy; doing so could just make matters worse as incentivising still further unchecked borrowing and spending.
The Bank of Japan will be assessing the latest inflation jump but still minded to leave rates on hold this month after its September hike. Japan's annual core consumer inflation rose to 2.1% in September, exceeding the BoJ's 2% target. The BoJ is likely to stand pat this week but could revise up its inflation forecast and signal it's prepared to raise rates again soon, likely in December.
The Bank of Canada is closer to a hike, with reports it's likely to revise up its inflation forecasts in the coming meeting, albeit latest CPI inflation data came in on the soft side. Odds of a 25bps hike are around 80%. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is fully expected to raise rates for a third time this year when it meets, with deputy governor Andrew Hauser saying the inflation had become "materially worse", albeit CPI eased from 4.1% to 3.7% in September.
Earnings flood: Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, SanDisk deliver AI gut check ☁️
AI and the broader tech sector has had a rocky October, with the SOXX semis ETF down around 16% this month and Nasdaq-100 off around 5%. Worries about the AI financing narrative have smacked anything related to the AI trade into touch, following heavy capex concerns from Meta and Lam Research. The sector faces a key test this week with three key hyperscalers Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon set to report alongside semiconductor and memory giants Intel and SanDisk. Wall Street is demanding proof of monetisation from the massive AI buildout and that debt and equity markets are going to be able to absorb demand for financing.
📅 The Heavy Hitters: US Week Ahead Earnings Schedule
Nearly 890 companies are slated to report during the week, including 34 mega-caps valued over $100 billion.
Day | Key Earnings Reports | Market Focus & Key Themes |
Monday, Oct 26 | Verizon (VZ), Cadence Design Systems (CDNS), Nucor (NUE) | Telecom health and infrastructure-adjacent tech demand. |
Tuesday, Oct 27 | Visa (V), Coca-Cola (KO), Boeing (BA), United Parcel Service (UPS), SoFi (SOFI) | Consumer resilience, manufacturing health, and fintech margins. |
Wednesday, Oct 28 | Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), ServiceNow (NOW), Chipotle (CMG), Ford (F), FedEx (FDX) | AI Apex: Cloud infrastructure spending versus monetisation velocity. |
Thursday, Oct 29 | Amazon (AMZN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Mastercard (MA), Intel (INTC), SanDisk (SNDK), Coinbase (COIN), Strategy (MSTR), Starbucks (SBUX) | E-commerce margins, AWS cloud scale, and semiconductor updates plus crypto updates. |
Friday, Oct 30 | AbbVie (ABBV), Chevron (CVX), Exxon Mobil (XOM)General Dynamics (GD) | Pharmaceutical stability, energy cash flows, and defence spending. |
Big week for UK and European earnings with energy windfall and banks in focus 🛢️
European and UK equity markets hit their own Q3 earnings wave during the week of October 26, 2026. While Wall Street focuses on megacap tech, European investors are tracking a critical expansion in corporate margins. Benefiting from a severe energy sector windfall driven by Middle East geopolitical trade disruptions, the STOXX 600 average quarterly growth projection has climbed to 21.9%.
Aside from volatile oil majors, attention shifts heavily to French and German industrial players, banking sector resilience amid the turmoil in French debt markets, and consumer spending across luxury and retail giants. In the UK Shell, Lloyds, HSBC and Unilever are among the large caps in action.
📅 The European Heavy Hitters: Week Ahead Earnings Schedule
The European docket is packed with banking heavyweights, aerospace giants, and global commodity majors.
Day | Key Earnings Reports | Market Focus & Key Themes |
Monday, Oct 26 | No major filings due | N/A |
Tuesday, Oct 27 | HSBC Holdings (HSBA), Novartis (NOVN), Reckitt Benckiser (RKT), Santander (SAN), ASMI (ASM) | Banking & Semis: Asia growth, wealth business and banking margins and European chip equipment orders. |
Wednesday, Oct 28 | Deutsche Bank (DBK),UBS (UBSG), Santander (SAN), BNP | Big banks on eurozone financial stability and French fiscal risks, chemical industrial recovery, and clean energy margins plus a couple of FTSE 100 heavyweights to move the index. |
Thursday, Oct 29 | Shell (SHEL), TotalEnergies (TTE), Volkswagen (VOW3),ING(INGA), Societe Generale (GLE)and Lloyds Banking (LLOY),BBVA (BBVA), BT(BT), Computacenter(CCC), Glencore(GLEN), WPP(WPP), Magnum Ice Cream Company (MICC), Renault(RNO) | The Energy Windfall plus more from the banks, with widely-held Lloyds providing a focal point in the UK. Mining, consumer and advertising trends. |
Friday, Oct 30 | AstraZeneca (AZN), BP(BP), Credit Agricole(ACA),NatWest Group (NWG), | UK consumer banking metrics and pharma earnings and development pipelines |
Economic data dump 📊
US: Investors will digest September's Durable Goods Orders (Tuesday), advance Q3 GDP estimates (Thursday), and the highly anticipated September Core PCE Price Index—the Fed's preferred inflation gauge (Thursday). Elsewhere, Aussie CPI and German CPI inflation reports are due.
Election risks 🗳️
On Tuesday, Israel holds elections for the 120-member Knesset, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition challenged by an opposition bloc led by Israel’s former military chief, Gadi Eisenkot. Investor attention should focus on how this could feed concerns about escalation risks. Ahead of this on Sunday, 25 October, Brazil holds a presidential election runoff between right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.