Post by John (@Agubata)

The 3 things that matter this week

1. Gold broke, and the reason it broke matters more than the level. Spot gold closed around $3,880 on Friday (December futures $3,899), its lowest close since October 2025, after a week in which the Fed held at 3.75–4.00% in a 10–2 vote with Cook and Hammack wanting a hike now, Chair Warsh said he is “unwilling and unable” to call financial conditions tight, Q3 GDP printed 3.4% against 3.1% expected and September PCE came in at 3.6% headline, 3.1% core. December hike odds are around 85%. The textbook says gold should fall on higher rates, and this time it did, but it also fell on Friday when yields and the dollar were both softer, which is what forced selling looks like: it is being sold as a source of cash in a tech rout, not bought as a hedge. One analyst I respect has $3,800 as the next test; the sentiment readings are as bearish as they have been all year, which is usually where the bounces start. My read: do not try to be the hero who buys the exact low, and do not chase the short either. Sell the bounce into the broken shelf, or buy the flush into $3,800 with a tight stop. Both zones are in the gold cell below, with the chart.

2. The midterms on Tuesday are a geopolitical event dressed as a political one. Thirty-five Senate seats, all 435 House seats and 36 governorships are on the ballot on Tuesday 3 November, and prediction markets have a Democratic sweep of both chambers at about 70%. For a chart trader the result itself matters less than what has been promised around it: the President said there would be no new strikes on Iran before the vote, and multiple reports this weekend say Gulf allies have been told to prepare for a short campaign that could begin as early as Wednesday. Tehran, meanwhile, says four tankers hit mines near Oman on Friday night and Saturday, one of them a supertanker with two million barrels on board; the Supreme Leader has ordered an “immediate, geographically unrestricted” response to any new attack; Qatari mediators spent twelve hours in Tehran on Friday and the talks continue in Doha this week. OPEC+ met online this afternoon and kept December output targets unchanged for a third month, which changes nothing because most Gulf members cannot pump to their quota anyway. Brent finished October at $113.43 on the new front month ($117.64 on the expiring December contract, a six-month high), WTI at $104.12. So the sequence for the week is: election result overnight Tuesday into Wednesday SAST, then whatever Washington decides about Iran from Wednesday onwards. Oil, gold and USDJPY will take that news before anything else does.

3. Three central banks, one jobs report, and the biggest crypto theft ever. The RBA on Tuesday 05:30 SAST is priced about 79% for a hike to 4.85%. The Riksbank on Wednesday is expected to hike to 2.00%. The Bank of England on Thursday 14:00 SAST is expected to raise Bank Rate by 25 bp to 4.00%, the first hike of a new cycle, with a split vote expected; the pound ended the week at 1.3387 after a weekly range of 1.3272–1.3434, so it is sitting right under the cap. Euro-area flash CPI on Wednesday 12:00 SAST is expected at 4.0% headline. Then NFP on Friday 15:30 SAST, consensus around +55K after September’s +29K, unemployment 4.2%, earnings +0.3% m/m. On top of that, Binance’s $6.3 billion loss: the exchange says it has replaced 95% of affected customer assets from its own funds and began phased withdrawals on Sunday morning, and the FBI expects the stolen coins to be laundered over the coming weeks. That is a slow drip of selling pressure, not a one-day shock, and it is why my Bitcoin bias stays bearish-to-neutral even though the weekend price action was calm. Earnings are not finished either: Apple reports after the close on Monday, AMD on Tuesday evening, Qualcomm on Wednesday evening, all of them on a Nasdaq that just lost 2% on the week and had Alphabet post its worst day as a public company.

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