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On Tuesday, November 3, the US holds midterm elections - the re-election of Congress in the middle of the presidential term. Democrats need to win back just three seats in the House of Representatives to take it over and stall Donald Trump's agenda in the final two years of his term.
Gold closed October with a 6.87% decline, and on Friday it hit a new yearly low of $3,870. On Monday the metal is being bought back: XAU/USD around $3,900, up 0.64% for the day, with an intraday high of $3,919. The metal is still about 30% below the all-time peak of $5,600 set in January.
Friday's session was the worst for the Nasdaq since the start of June: the index lost 2.86%, the S&P 500 - 1.82%. This week the market goes through US elections, earnings reports from major technology companies and employment data all at once.
On Monday, November 2, spot gold is trading around $3,906.39 per ounce - up $30.55 (+0.79%) from Friday's close of $3,875.84. The rebound follows Friday's plunge of nearly 3.5% to a one-year low. Reuters recorded $3,900.05 (+0.6%) at the start of the Asian session.
Brent crude (the benchmark grade used to price oil in Europe and Asia) fell to $110.06, losing $3.37 in a day. The reason is not OPEC+, which on Sunday left December quotas unchanged, but Tehran's statement that the Strait of Hormuz could be opened in two days.
After the Binance hack, US spot Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds through which Bitcoin is bought like a regular stock) showed an outflow of $643.3M on Friday, October 31 - the largest in four months.
Bitcoin gained about 1% to ~$78,600 in Monday morning hours and is closing its third straight day of gains - even as a week ago Binance disclosed a $6.3B theft, the largest in crypto exchange history.
On Friday, October 30, the Nasdaq Composite (the index of American technology stocks) closed at 25,437.00, down 747.73 points, or 2.86%. This is the index's worst day since June 5, and it lost more than 5% over the course of October.
On Friday, October 30, spot gold closed around $3,875 per ounce: down 3.62% for the session and down 3.74% for the week. From the August level of roughly $4,700, the metal is now 18% lower.
From November 2 to 6, the market will get four reasons to move at once: the US midterm congressional elections, decisions from four central banks and the US employment report on Friday. The dollar enters this week after two weeks of decline and, for the first time in a long while, at its 200-week moving average.
On October 29, XAU/USD fell more than 1% - from the day's high of $4,069 to $4,019. Strong US economic data interrupted gold's three-day winning streak and reinforced the market's bet that the Fed will raise rates in December.
Bitcoin failed to hold above $81,687 and dropped to $80,297 on the Bitstamp exchange, down about 0.3% over the day. Buyers did not break through the 50-day moving average ahead of the Fed decision and tech earnings reports.
Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Tuesday, October 27, that the government is ready for decisive action in the currency market. This is a direct hint at intervention - selling dollars from reserves to support the yen.
WTI crude (the U.S. benchmark grade, with futures traded on the NYMEX exchange) slipped on Monday from its peak level of $103.28 - a five-month high - to around $100.51. The market paused ahead of a week with three central bank meetings at once.
On October 28 at 21:00 Moscow time, the Fed will announce its rate decision, and the market expects almost no move: the probability of a hike fell from 73% to 9.4%. The main focus will be the wording of the statement and the press conference at 21:30 Moscow time.
On Friday, the USD/CAD pair fell below the psychological level of 1.4000 and traded around 1.3975 - a one-month low. This is the seventh consecutive losing session for the US dollar against the Canadian dollar, and the second week of decline in a row.
According to calculations by analytics firm K33, BTC's 28-day realized volatility (a measure of the actual magnitude of price fluctuations over a period) has dropped to 1.2% - nearly the lowest value for all of 2026. The market has frozen right before the Fed meeting and the US elections.
