Aaron Smith

Top Overnight News For most of the war, Iran had an invaluable cushion: dozens of oil tankers holding millions of barrels of crude sitting safely in waters in Asia. Tehran steadily sold the oil to China, bringing in billions of much-needed cash. Now, that floating storage is gone. By mid-October, the reserves were fully depleted, according to analysts at Kpler, as a U.S. naval blockade prevented Iran from replacing the crude it normally sells to Chinese refineries. WSJ The US ordered some diplomats and their families to leave Saudi Arabia because of the threat from Houthi militants, as the Iran-backed group carried out more strikes from Yemen; four people were killed in two attacks on an Aramco oil field and an airport in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. BBG The US and Israel have drawn up plans for renewed strikes on Iran after the midterm elections, with targets likely to include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenals. NYT Aramco told staff to leave its headquarters in Dhahran and work remotely. RTRS Iran's IRGC threatened US bases in the region if Washington keeps escorting ships through what it calls an “illegal” Hormuz route. BBG Saudi Arabia is in talks with foreign governments to give state-owned Aramco access to their strategic oil storage, as the kingdom seeks to make its supplies to customers more resilient during disruptions, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said. BBG The risk-off mood boosted havens, with Treasuries, the yen and Swiss franc gaining. The 30-year US yield touched its lowest since Sept. 23, but there was no relief for embattled French bonds which led a slide in European peers. BBG France's 10-year bond risk premium over Germany widened as much as 18bps to 177bps, the widest since 2011. BBG Over the past two weeks, HFs aggressively net sold global Info Tech stocks at the fastest pace in the past decade (-3.3 SDs), driven by long-and-short sales. Net allocation to Global AI stocks now sits in the 38th percentile while aggregate long/short ratio is in the 6th percentile vs. the past year. Goldman Apple shares have become investors’ preferred Big Tech hedge against AI volatility as the company largely sits out the infrastructure spending boom. BBG DeepSeek raised about $15 billion from investors including CATL and Tencent. BBG JPM's HY AI credit basket is trading at all-time wides, 97bps wider than its widest level in July, with most of the move led by CoreWeave; Oracle has widened far more than the rest of the IG hyperscalers. JPM Japan’s largest labor union group is seeking another year of wage increases big enough to anchor pay growth against persistent inflation. WSJ Japanese monetary policy: the BOJ will keep rates unchanged at its meeting next week according to a report this morning in the Nikkei (this is consistent w/market expectations). Nikkei The Philippine central bank surprised markets with a bigger-than-expected interest rate hike as it seeks to keep inflation in check during one of the worst energy crisis in decades and looming weather-driven shocks. WSJ Turkey's central bank cut its one-week repo rate by 100bps to 36%, its first cut since the start of the Iran war, in line with estimates. BBG The EU reached a provisional deal to overhaul securitization market rules that would unleash billions of euros to finance initiatives in key areas such as defense and climate resilience. BBG Barclays said it’s cutting 5,000 jobs, or about 5% of total headcount, as part of a “technology-enabled” effort to reduce costs as it adopts artificial intelligence across the bank. BBG The US signed a deal with Lockheed Martin for a minimum of 850 F-35 jets. BBG A federal judge barred the DHS from knocking on doors to check on people’s immigration status in nine states through election day, saying the practice likely violates the Voting Rights Act. BBG BofA Total Card Spending (week to October 17th) +4.9% Y/Y (prev. +5.1%); lower-income spending growth has consistently outpaced higher-income spending growth over the past several weeks. Newsquawk Some US banks are reportedly detecting unauthorized AI agents operating within accounts: Axios. The report added that the banks affected include Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC).