Morning Brew October 22 2026

Good morning.

Risk-off sentiment has returned as yesterday’s optimism failed to carry into the Asian session. Higher oil prices, renewed worries about escalation in the Middle East and fading momentum in the AI trade are weighing on markets. The U.S. State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members to leave its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from several other U.S. missions in the region.

Risk sentiment fails in Asia: Asian equities are sharply lower, with South Korea’s Kospi down more than 3% and Japan’s Nikkei losing more than 2%. European and U.S. futures also point lower: the Nasdaq is down 1.5%, the S&P 500 0.8%, the Dow 0.5% and the DAX 0.4%. Gold is trading near 4,090 and silver near 56, while EUR/USD is at 1.1245, GBP/USD at 1.34 and USD/JPY at 157.70. 

Oil and AI appear to be the main sources of concern. Brent is back above USD 110 a barrel, while the AI trade is struggling to build on yesterday’s recovery.

Bond yields are surprisingly  calm overall, but France remains the main concern. The French 10-year yield is trading above 5% for the first time since 2002, while its spread over German debt is the widest since the euro crisis 15 years ago.

Nestlé reported stronger-than-expected growth this morning, with organic sales rising 4%.

Website outages affected numerous government, hospital, school and other public-facing sites yesterday after two critical vulnerabilities were disclosed in PHP, the server-side programming language used across a large share of the internet and by platforms including WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. The disruption was largely precautionary rather than the result of a single network failure. Cybersecurity agencies advised operators to install emergency patches immediately or temporarily shut vulnerable systems because the flaws could allow attackers to execute code remotely and access servers or databases without authentication. Some older systems may remain offline while updates are tested and deployed.

U.S. equities advanced for a third consecutive session on Wednesday. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 7,757, its strongest daily gain since 9 October, while the Nasdaq 100 added 1.1% and the Dow gained 0.7% to 52,856. SpaceX surged around 8% on strong third-quarter results, Super Micro Computer jumped around 10% after preliminary earnings beat estimates and Nvidia gained around 3% in its best session in more than a month. Chipotle fell around 5% to its lowest level in nearly four years. After hours, Tesla lost around 3% despite a profit beat as capital-expenditure guidance disappointed, while Meta rose 2% after raising its spending outlook and announcing a new class of non-voting shares through a two-for-one stock split.

A US Court  ordered Meta to pay the state $25 billion after a jury found the company had misled consumers about the privacy of their data – one  the largest financial penalties in US history.

European equities also rallied on Wednesday, supported by upbeat corporate earnings and improving AI sentiment. The Stoxx 600 rose 0.9% to 644, its largest gain since 9 October, while the Euro Stoxx 50 climbed 1.4% to 6,208. The DAX gained 1.3% to 25,645, led by SAP and Adidas after the latter reported third-quarter operating profit 36% above consensus. The CAC 40 advanced 1.1% to 7,922.

Russia and Ukraine may return to U.S.-mediated peace talks as early as next month, according to the Kremlin. The announcement followed a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff as Washington renewed efforts to end the conflict.

The outlook remains difficult to read and highly headline-driven. Procter & Gamble’s guidance is the most important scheduled event today, while oil, the Middle East, Russia–Ukraine negotiations, the proposed Tesla–SpaceX merger, the U.S. midterms and broader risk sentiment remain the key drivers. The website outages may add to the cautious tone. Ahead of a heavy week of earnings, inflation data and central-bank decisions, markets are likely to remain volatile and sensitive to sudden shifts in the news flow.

Thursday, 22 October 2026