US Midterms, Bank of England, Apple earnings – all you need to know for the trading week ahead

US Midterm elections, a Bank of England rate call and another big week for earnings on Wall Street means it's another busy week ahead in the markets. After a bruising week for tech shares following disappointing earnings from Alphabet and Amazon risk sentiment is well and truly frayed. We'll be looking at earnings updates from Apple, Palantir, AMD and Qualcomm to do some repair work, but the bar is set high.

Here’s the key things to watch over the next week.

OPEC+ meets with oil at 6-month high

On Sunday 1 Nov, OPEC+ countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, meet to review oil-market developments and production policy. The meeting comes as there is heightened risk of escalation in the conflict between the US and Iran. On Friday Qatari mediators returned to Tehran in an effort to find a deal but the US continued to ready military options for President Trrump to follow through on threats to hit Iran after the midterm elections. Brent crude is at its highest since late April as traders bid up front month contracts to secure deliveries and hedge positions in preparation for fresh disruption to energy flows in the region.

US Midterm Elections

US voters choose the whole House of Representatives and a third of the Senate on Tuesday 3 November. Most results come in overnight, so Wednesday is the first trading day that reacts. Options markets looks relaxed but there is a potential for the election to drive moves across financial markets, depending on how the vote goes.

Brazil's Ibovespa Index tumbled 14% in one day after a surprise presidential election outcome last week, highlighting how elections can make a big difference to the stock market. A move like that for the S&P 500 or Dow Jones is out the question, but an against-consensus result would move the market. Currently markets anticipate the Democrats taking at least the House and the Senate seems too close to call. The expectation is a split Congress, which should eliminate major tax and spending legislation. We see potential for a higher likelihood of a government shutdown and debt ceiling impasse to risks to AI-related sentiment. Already we are noting some unwinding of USD longs into the event risk. 

A Democratic sweep would increase Congressional scrutiny in a number of business sectors such as AI, crypto and financial services. A Democrat-controlled Congress could use ‘must-pass’ legislation as leverage to delay One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax cuts, which could negatively impact equities, particularly consumer and healthcare names. A Republican sweep — the least likely scenario — would permit further tax incentives but create upward yield pressure, with equities historically softening in its aftermath. Gridlock has historically been positive for stocks broadly.  You can read my Midterm Playbook here.

Bank of England expected to hike – will it?

The Bank of England is widely expected to raise interest rates on Thursday, 5 November. Markets are priced for the Monetary Policy Committee to vote for the first hike in over three years in what's anticipated to be a short, precautionary tightening cycle to get in front of possible second order inflation effects from the persistently high energy prices. I remain of the opinion that the market pricing for 4 hikes this cycle is too hawkish, but must concede that the Bank will reluctantly raise rates this month to pre-emptively avoid a later spike in inflation, with the surprisingly resilient economic backdrop providing some ballast. 

UK retail bellwethers to report

Primark-owner Associated British Foods reports full-year results after a difficult period. In September Primark, which is being spun out of the ABF group, warned like-for-like sales would fall 3% in the quarter to 12 September, which sent shares tumbling. UK growth is seen at 0.6% in like-for-like sales this year, but group sales are expected to fall 2.6%, driven down by a-4.7% decline in continental Europe.

Marks & Spencer reports half-year results on Wednesday with profits seen rising to £390mn, with an easy comp with last year's cyber-attack affected £184mn. Look for continued strong momentum in food sales, which last year increased by 7% to £9.7 billion and now make up 56% of group revenues.

Next reports Thursday. I've said before that there are three things certain in life; death, taxes and Next raising its profit outlook while still sounding gloomy. In September's interims there were more mixed signals as the retailer raised profit guidance for this financial year by £12mn to £1.255bn on slightly improved sales expectations and additional cost savings. Full-price sales are now seen rising 6.7% to £6 billion for the year. However, it has cut its forecast UK sales growth to +2.0% from +2.8%, expecting a steady decline rather than a sharp fall, citing rising inflation, higher mortgage interest costs and a weak employment market. 

Apple headlines earnings week on Wall Street

Monday kicks off fast with earnings from Apple and Palantir. Apple has largely shrugged off the tech selloff, rallying 28% this year, leading the Mag 7 easily. Whilst it was punished for a lack of spending on AI in 2025, it's being rewarded in 2026 for its consistently strong execution, product mix and services growth. Wall Street is eyeing earnings per share to rise about 8% year-on-year to around $1.99 a share, on revenues that are set to grow 11% YoY to $113 billion. Investors will be eyeing iPhone demand with data indicating a surge in China sales for the 18 Pro, as well as the high margin services business.

Palantir, which also reports on Monday, has also largely survived the AI selloff despite being in the mix. Its revenues though derive from large government contracts and is neither a hyperscaler spender nor dependent on the AI buildout for demand. Earnings could double this quarter but the question on many investors' lips is around when they might see some shareholder returns.

AMD reports its Q3 earnings on Tuesday,  earnings per share expected to surge nearly 62% to  $1.95 a share, while revenue is expected to rise 42% YoY to $13.1bn. Investors will be watching the data centre segment revenue to gauge whether its AI accelerator chips are genuinely rivalling Nvidia. Another big semiconductor stock, Qualcomm, reports on Wednesday.

Other stocks reporting in the week include Pfizer, Shopify, Amgen, MARA Holdings, Upstart Holdings, Flutter Entertainment, McDonald's, Uber, ARM Holdings, Snap, D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, Airbnb, Cloudflare, SoundHound, The Trade Desk and Moderna.

RBA likely to hike rates for fifth time

The Reserve Bank of Australia is widely anticipated to raise rates for a fifth time this year after an uptick in inflation. It's seen raising the official cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.85% when its Monetary Policy Board meets, after underlying inflation rose to 3.6% in the 12 months to September, a slight uptick from the new revised figure of 3.5% for August.

How strong is the US labour market?

The October US jobs report is due up Friday and will offer a fresh read on the labour market after payrolls rose just 29,000 in September, though another weak number is unlikely to derail a likely Fed hike in December.

September's nonfarm payrolls showed just +29k jobs added and -60k in downward revisions, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%. As noted previously however, the breakeven employment rate has changed dramatically, which has implications for these monthly jobs reports. The Fed itself notes that "employment growth in any given month is almost as likely to be negative as it is to be positive. Furthermore, these negative prints of job growth could be large in any given month [...] it would not be unusual for there to be one or more months in 2026 with declines in total payroll employment as large as -100,000 jobs, even if economic output was growing at the rate of potential output growth.” The 29k print therefore should come as not entirely unexpected even if the economy is at max speed. I don't therefore think we have seen the top in yields and the market is right to price 3-4 hikes this cycle.

Economic data on tap

Lots of economic data to watch out for this week. Among the highlights are the China manufacturing PMI, non-manufacturing PMI data on Saturday 31 October, before a slew of PMIs on Monday including the China RatingDog manufacturing PMI and S&P Global manufacturing PMIs from the Eurozone, Korea, Taiwan, US and UK. The services PMIs come out on Wednesday. Plus, also on Monday is the US construction spending and ISM manufacturing PMI reports. Tuesday sees the US factory orders, durable goods, light vehicle sales, and JOLTS job openings.

On Thursday there is French industrial production numbers alongside German factory orders for a view of the Euro area growth story, plus interest rate decisions from Mexico and Norway. And on Friday, alongside the monthly nonfarm payrolls report we get the University of Michigan consumer sentiment and inflation expectations surveys.