Rekt Mkts: Oil backs off...crypto finally joining in?

Oil is giving back some of last week's rally, equity futures are higher and crypto is edging green too. Look...I think if Trump is gonna do something to hail mary the markets for midterms it's basically gotta be this week; could be something stronger/more concrete Iran or trade war related I'm not really sure, but you'd think they give it a shot. We've seen another situation of risk feeling awful into Friday, not following through into the weekend and looking like it's going to bounce on Sunday. What's frustrating is crypto clearly seems quite horny here, and I think we just need some macro stability so that it can flourish.

The Fed decision is due Wednesday, with a pause widely expected after September's hike...CME FedWatch tool currently has the probability of a hike at just 9.4%. Despite that, another hike in December is still in the picture, so unchanged rates this week wouldn't mean the tightening is over...just prolonged. Personally I'm not expecting this month's FOMC to be much of a vol event, I don't think they are going to materially change the message either way alongside the aforementioned likelihood of rates holding. The US 10Y finished Friday near 4.99%, up around 3.5bps on the session. WTI futures are around $101.03, down 2.2%, while gold futures are around $4,030, up 0.6%. Qatari mediators reportedly travelled to Tehran on Sunday as part of an effort to de-escalate tensions in coordination with the US. That gives oil a reason to give back some of last week's surge, but talks aren't a resolution to the supply risk and I suppose we'll continue to be volatile around headlines.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures are higher, with chips joining the recovery. Micron is up around 2.3% in premarket after Friday's 2.5% gain, while Nvidia is up 1.4%. Korean memory had a quieter session: SK Hynix finished down 0.2% and Samsung 1.2%. Hynix has held onto most of Friday's bounce; Samsung has given back its much smaller gain. Neoclouds are still getting sold after Musk warned that access to funding was drying up for companies without substantial revenue outside AI data centres, and predicted consolidation. That's his assessment, not proof that every company in the group is in trouble, but it comes at a delicate time for names like CRVW, NBIS etc...not to mention Elon has vested interest himself. The contrast with chips is worth paying attention to though...ppl are buying parts of the AI trade while remaining much less comfortable with the companies borrowing to build the capacity. Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon report this week. Their cloud growth and spending plans should give a better read on whether demand is helping pay for the buildout. More capex can help suppliers without being what shareholders in the companies spending it want to hear. After the selling in recent weeks, another bigger spending number on its own may not be much reassurance.

BTC and ETH are each up around 0.2% over 24H, while SOL is up 1.1% and HYPE 1.7%. HYPE has gone from lagging in Friday's brief to leading this group, but the two biggest names are still doing very little. Cheaper oil and firmer equity futures make for a friendlier backdrop...crypto is participating, just without much urgency in BTC or ETH ahead of the Fed. The latest fully reported ETF session is Thursday, 22 October: US spot BTC funds lost $635.6m and ETH funds lost $110.6m. Friday's entries show a further $137.9m leaving BTC and $4.4m entering ETH. The provisional week comes to $301.2m of BTC inflows and $220.7m of ETH outflows. Earlier BTC buying hasn't all disappeared, altho the end of the week looks much less encouraging than the start. I do find it hard to fully judge these flows as a lot of it is arb/delta neutral activity so I think worth taking with a pinch of salt a bit. ZEC is up around 2.9% over 24H and VVV 1.3%, a better response from the privacy and AI-related names after both lagged the majors in Friday's brief. Certainly notable outperformance from ZEC; the ZEC/BTC ratio is up around 11% in the past week, over 100% in the past 3 months but also still down 17% on the month - I think this outperformance feels like it's going to continue here, and it also feels like as soon as we get a bounce in BTC ZEC is likely to on its way to testing new local highs. Gonna be a fun week. Good luck today.