Nasdaq futures fall nearly 1%, Dow futures rise 0.6%

Nasdaq futures fall nearly 1%, Dow futures rise 0.6%
US Market Evening Brief | Thursday, 5 November 2026 (Hong Kong time; cash-market close is for Wednesday, 4 November, US Eastern time; futures, exchange-rate and commodity data as of approximately 21:35 Hong Kong time)

On Wednesday, the Dow rose 3.03% to 53,356.12 points, the S&P 500 gained 1.58% to 7,688.62 points, the Nasdaq rose 1.44% to 25,736.51 points, and the equal-weight S&P ETF (RSP) gained 1.86% to 223.33 dollars (Reuters, republished) (Finnhub). In premarket trading, Dow futures rose 0.64% to about 53,844 points, S&P 500 futures rose 0.10% to about 7,728 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.79% to about 28,341 points; the 10-year US Treasury yield was about 4.90%, WTI crude was about 89.9 dollars a barrel, up about 2%, COMEX gold for December was 4,125.10 dollars an ounce, up 1.28%, and the US dollar index was about 101.60, little changed (CNBC).

Market themes
After Wednesday’s rally on the “blue wave and oil-price plunge,” markets continued to diverge before Thursday’s open: Dow futures rose and Nasdaq futures fell. Rotation continued, with a different group of chip stocks leading losses. Qualcomm and Arm plunged in premarket trading after earnings, while AMD, Nvidia and Broadcom also fell, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped nearly 1%; financial stocks, meanwhile, rose more than 1% premarket, and Dow futures gained 0.64%. Oil rebounded about 2%–3% after another report of tankers catching fire in the Strait of Hormuz, recovering only a small part of Wednesday’s 8% decline—the market is still betting on a “war premium unwind,” not an “escalation of the conflict.” The Bank of England raised rates by 25 basis points to 4.00% as expected, its first increase in more than three years. Governor Bailey suggested it might not be the last, adding another variable to global rate expectations. Initial jobless claims and third-quarter productivity are due at 21:30 Hong Kong time, but the real test comes tomorrow evening: October nonfarm payrolls will test whether the trade premised on “divided government pushing down yields and oil pushing down inflation” can hold.

I. Futures and Europe: rotation continues as Bank of England raises rates for first time in more than three years

• The divergence in futures extended Wednesday’s closing pattern: Dow futures rose 0.64% to 53,844 points, S&P 500 futures gained 0.10% to 7,728.25 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.79% to 28,340.75 points (CNBC). Reuters said Nasdaq futures were under pressure because chip and data-center-related stocks continued to weaken, while S&P 500 futures were little changed after a sharp rise in the previous session (Reuters, republished). Money has not left equities; it is rotating from the AI chain into the old economy. On Wednesday the Dow rose 3.03% while the Nasdaq gained only 1.44%, and premarket futures widened the gap a little further.
• European trading followed the “old economy” half of the US market: the Stoxx 600 rose about 0.5% intraday, near a record high; the FTSE 100 gained 0.5% to 10,888.64 points; and the FTSE 250 reached a record high. Banks led gains, with HSBC up 1.2% (Reuters) (Data compilation). Europe’s winners were areas benefiting from “falling oil prices and yields,” rather than AI—the divergence in US futures is the other side of the same trade.
• The Bank of England was Europe’s top story today: it raised rates by 25 basis points to 4.00% as expected, its first increase in more than three years. The Monetary Policy Committee voted 8 to 1, with sole dissenter Mann seeking a 50-basis-point increase. UK CPI was 3.5% in September, and the bank expects it to approach 5% by mid-2027 (Reuters, republished) (Data compilation). Governor Bailey said this seemed unlikely to be the last increase unless the Middle East conflict was resolved (Reuters, republished) (Data compilation); Deputy Governor Lombardelli also said further increases could be warranted soon without evidence of easing inflation pressures (Reuters, republished). The Bank of England is the first major central bank to tighten after the US midterms—it tests the market-wide bet that falling oil prices can contain inflation expectations.
• The divide in Asian markets was already visible in the midday brief: South Korea’s KOSPI closed down 5.28% after a program-trading circuit breaker was triggered intraday, the Nikkei fell 1.79%, and the Hang Seng Index rose 3.82% intraday (Data compilation).

II. Bonds, dollar and commodities: yields steady at 4.90%, oil rebounds and gold extends gains

• The bond rally slowed: the 10-year US Treasury yield was about 4.90%, little changed from Wednesday’s close of about 4.92%, after recovering from an early low of 4.865%; the dollar index was about 101.60, little changed (CNBC). Yields and the dollar both stopped falling, suggesting the trade based on “divided government restraining supply and oil restraining inflation” is awaiting fresh evidence—tonight’s initial claims and tomorrow evening’s payrolls are the first tests.
• Oil rebounded after Wednesday’s plunge: WTI futures for December traded at 89.87 dollars, up 2.00%, and Brent futures for January traded at 97.39 dollars, up 2.93%, both recovering part of Wednesday’s losses. Both benchmarks had plunged more than 8% on Wednesday to their lowest closes since 31 August (CNBC). Reuters said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported that two tankers and a tugboat caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz because they tried to use an unauthorized route; Eurasia Group cut the probability of a deal from 20% to 10% and said Brent could rise to the 110–125 dollar range if the conflict escalated (Data compilation) (Reuters, republished). JPMorgan, meanwhile, said restored Gulf supply had returned the global oil market to a surplus of 1.1 million barrels a day in September and 1.4 million barrels a day in October (Reuters, republished). The roughly 2%–3% oil rebound is only a technical recovery: the fundamental supply surplus has not changed, and flames in the Strait of Hormuz could bring the “war premium” back at any time.
• Gold continued to strengthen: COMEX gold for December traded at 4,125.10 dollars, up 1.28%, with an intraday high of 4,155.80 dollars; spot gold had already risen 3.4% on Wednesday (CNBC) (Data compilation). Gold rising, the dollar holding steady and stock indexes diverging are occurring together, suggesting this is not a flight to safety—a weak dollar has given gold a reason to rise without panic.

III. Stocks and sector moves, including earnings: Qualcomm and Arm beat expectations but plunge; AppLovin rises 20% premarket

• Qualcomm was the biggest premarket decliner among chip stocks, falling 11.85% to 152.66 dollars and erasing Wednesday’s regular-session gain of 5.33%. Fourth-quarter revenue of 10.322 billion dollars exceeded the expected 10.111 billion dollars, and adjusted earnings per share of 2.17 dollars beat the expected 2.16 dollars. But handset chip revenue fell 26% year over year to 5.137 billion dollars, dragging chip division revenue down 8% to 9.015 billion dollars; automotive revenue rose 89% to 1.99 billion dollars. Next-quarter guidance called for earnings per share of 2.15–2.35 dollars, versus expectations of 2.27 dollars, and a chip division operating margin of 20%–22%, below the fourth quarter’s 24%. At least 8 brokerages subsequently cut their price targets (Reuters, republished) (Barron's). Qualcomm tells the opposite story to AppLovin: both beat expectations, but Qualcomm beat on current-quarter figures and disappointed on margin guidance—the market is now rewarding only “next quarter far above expectations.”
• Arm likewise “beat expectations but fell”: it dropped 7.19% premarket to 178.00 dollars. Second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 0.52 dollars and revenue of 1.44 billion dollars both exceeded expectations of 0.47 dollars and 1.38 billion dollars, respectively. But third-quarter guidance for earnings per share of 0.56 dollars and revenue of 1.54 billion dollars was only slightly above expectations of 0.55 dollars and 1.53 billion dollars. Several investment banks, including JPMorgan, Piper Sandler and Wells Fargo, cut their price targets (Barron's) (ADVFN). Arm’s guidance was only marginally above expectations, and the market was unimpressed—the earnings-season reward calculation has changed: beating expectations no longer automatically means a rise; guidance and cash flow are the benchmarks for pricing.
• AppLovin was the standout premarket, rising 20.33% to 327.00 dollars. Third-quarter revenue rose 55% year over year to 2.185 billion dollars, above expectations of 2.07 billion dollars; earnings per share were 4.30 dollars, above the expected 4.03 dollars. Fourth-quarter revenue guidance of 2.365 billion to 2.395 billion dollars exceeded market expectations of 2.25 billion dollars, and the buyback authorization was increased by a further 3.2 billion dollars (Dow Jones, republished) (CNBC).
• Other premarket moves: AMD fell 5.28% to 462.95 dollars, Nvidia fell 1.85%, Broadcom fell about 3%, Tesla fell more than 2%, and CoreWeave fell about 4%. Financial stocks moved in the opposite direction, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and American Express each rising more than 1%; Shake Shack rose 3.8%, Peloton rose 7%, and Unity rose more than 3% (CNBC). Stocks that fell sharply after yesterday’s close included Snap (-11.49%), Zillow (down more than 16%), MercadoLibre (-6.26%) and Expedia (down more than 7%) (Dow Jones, republished).
• Today’s earnings procession continues: ConocoPhillips, Cigna and Kimberly-Clark report before the open, followed after the close—early on 6 November Hong Kong time—by Airbnb, Cloudflare, Atlassian and Microchip (Dow Jones, republished) (Data compilation). Airbnb offers a read on consumption and Cloudflare on AI infrastructure demand; tonight’s after-hours reports will test both legs of Wednesday’s rebound.

IV. AI highlights: chip selloff continues as UBS and Citrini disagree

• Major firms’ differences over AI have become public after the election: UBS raised its global AI capital expenditure forecasts to 1 trillion dollars for 2026 and 1.4 trillion dollars for 2027, and introduced a forecast of 1.5 trillion dollars for 2028. It believes Democratic control of Congress is unlikely to interrupt the AI investment cycle. At the same time, it warned that investors are paying more attention to overinvestment, financing and monetization risks, that heightened volatility could become the new normal, and that 2027 debt-ceiling negotiations are the clearest risk to US bonds (Data compilation). Citrini Research, meanwhile, argued in a report published Wednesday that growth in AI infrastructure investment has peaked: hyperscale cloud providers’ annualized capital spending has approached 1 trillion dollars, while revenue across the entire AI ecosystem is at least 200 billion dollars, a gap it considers difficult to bridge (Data compilation). UBS and Citrini are looking at the same numbers but reaching completely opposite conclusions—one bets that “demand remains, but investments must be selective,” while the other bets that “the returns no longer justify the spending”; chip stocks continued to lead premarket losses Thursday, suggesting the market is temporarily closer to the latter.
• AMD is the only hard evidence in the bulls’ hands, but that evidence is weakening: after forecasting faster-than-expected growth in 2027 and a surge in data-center sales, AMD rose only 1% on Wednesday and fell another 5.28% premarket Thursday (Reuters, republished) (CNBC). The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 15.4% in October (ADVFN) and lost another 3.1% on Wednesday to a six-month low (Data compilation). Much of the positive effect of “faster growth in 2027” has already been offset by concern that “the pace of construction may slow”—the driver of AI stock volatility is shifting from “whether demand exists” to “whether construction can be delivered on schedule.”

V. Forward calendar (Hong Kong time)

• 5 November (Thursday), 21:30: US initial jobless claims for last week (market expectation about 197 thousand people, versus 194 thousand the previous week), US third-quarter nonfarm productivity (expected around 2.8%) and unit labor costs; speeches by Federal Reserve officials Barkin and Hammack; after the close (early on 6 November Hong Kong time): earnings from Airbnb, Cloudflare, Atlassian and Microchip (Dow Jones, republished).
• 6 November (Friday), 21:30: US October nonfarm employment report (Bureau of Labor Statistics). A Wall Street Journal survey forecasts 59 thousand jobs added, versus an increase of 29 thousand in September; the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 4.2%. This is the week’s key economic release (Dow Jones, republished).
• Note: The US has entered standard time. Regular US stock-market trading hours correspond to 22:30 to 05:00 the following day in Hong Kong time; actual initial jobless claims and third-quarter productivity figures for this release were not yet available at publication.

(Futures, exchange-rate and commodity data as of approximately 21:35 Hong Kong time on 5 November; CNBC page data are delayed by at least 15 minutes)