US stock indices begin the week very close to record highs, ahead of a busy quarterly earnings calendar. The S&P 500 rose 1.15% over the course of last week, while the Nasdaq-100 edged 0.24% higher after coming down from intra-week highs. The Dow Jones meanwhile gained 0.9% over the same timeframe, although the narrower index remains comparatively further removed from potential new record highs of its own. Generally speaking, markets enter the fourth quarter of the year in somewhat high spirits, as investors expect the strong growth in semiconductors to continue to do the heavy lifting. With that said, international capital appears to be withdrawing from Korean stock markets, uniquely concentrated as they are around computer memory. Geopolitical turmoil, both in the Middle East and Russia, remains a sticking point for crude oil markets, although by and large the worst-case scenario is somewhat priced in. A shaky energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is starting to emerge, after the former suffered a sustained campaign of long-range drone attacks against its oil refining capabilities. Unfortunately, such developments were offset by a Houthi strike on Riyadh airport that killed 13 people on Sunday. To complicate matters, hurricane Isaias is now ravaging the coastal United States, forcing local oil producers to halt production in the Gulf of Mexico, further restricting petroleum deliveries. Suffice to say there are many strings currently pulling oil markets in different directions, but the end result is that Brent Crude remains over $100 per barrel. Q3 is over and US companies up and down the leaderboard are primed to publish their latest quarterly reports. Earnings season fires up this week, starting with the major players in the banking sector and followed by semiconductor giants later on. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Citigroup (C) are all scheduled to report before market open on Tuesday, as are Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and UnitedHealth (UNH). Bank of America (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS) and BlackRock (BLK) follow on Wednesday, as attentions begin to turn to the chip manufacturing industry. ASML (ASML) also reports on Wednesday, before its primary client, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM), delivers its latest on Thursday. Both companies together represent a reliable bellwether for the global semiconductor industry and in fact TSMC has already provided a decent clue in the form of last week’s preliminary Q3 revenue figures, which hit TWD 1.49 trillion ($46.8 billion) to easily beat estimates of TWD 1.46 trillion ($45.7 billion). Beyond the earnings schedule, the economic calendar also has a few points of order to contribute. The September CPI figures are set to hit the newswires on Wednesday, giving the latest reading on US inflation, while the producer price index follows a day later on Thursday, as do the latest retail sales numbers. On Friday, market participants will lock on to Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech, which is expected to focus heavily on the Federal Reserve’s future interest rate path. Although the US bond market will be closed today, the NYSE and Nasdaq will remain open as usual; Canadian and Japanese stock markets will however be closed. #Q3 #EARNINGS #OIL About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
Trade from a timetable copied online and the opening minutes can quickly catch you with a wider spread than expected or leave an order waiting on Sunday for a market your broker has not opened yet. This guide settles the four session times on a UK clock, keeps winter and summer separate, explains why different Sunday-open and Friday-close answers circulate, and shows what changes during the weeks when the UK and US alter their clocks on different dates. In normal aligned weeks, the UK times are GMT (winter): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00; BST (summer): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00, with continuous trading in between as Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York rotate in that order. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the New York-based weekly boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time. The London session itself remains 08:00–17:00 on a UK clock all year. The normal weekly boundary is based on 17:00 New York, while the temporary 21:00 UK exception follows from the different UK and US daylight-saving dates. The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in UK time, with a temporary move to 21:00 during the UK–US clock-change gaps. These are practical retail-market benchmarks rather than the opening and closing bell of one exchange, so a broker’s published product hours always take priority. Trading continues through the intervening weekdays because forex is an over-the-counter market with no single central exchange. Banks, dealers and other participants trade across global financial centres, allowing Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York to pass liquidity from one region to the next. One centre is therefore already active as another is approaching its close, although liquidity and spreads can change considerably during each handover. An over-the-counter market is one in which trades are agreed directly between participants such as banks, dealers and brokers, rather than on a central exchange with a single order book. Prices and trading hours therefore depend on who is quoting, which is why forex has no official opening bell. Every time in this article is shown on a UK clock: GMT in winter and BST in summer. If a timetable elsewhere does not match, it is commonly displaying US Eastern time, UTC or the broker’s server time instead. For this reason, UK traders should set their platform to UK time where possible and check their own broker’s contract specifications before leaving an order over the weekend. Timing note: the table converts the widely used 17:00 New York weekly boundary and rollover into UK time. Individual brokers can open later, close earlier or insert short maintenance breaks, so their published schedule is the final reference for an executable trade. The four forex sessions follow the working hours of major financial centres rather than officially announced trading windows. This is why the London session hours quoted across the industry do not always agree. Some timetables use each centre’s local business day, others convert everything from US Eastern time or UTC, and some quietly combine summer and winter hours in the same figure. On a UK clock, the London session is fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year; what changes is where Tokyo, Sydney and New York appear relative to it as the relevant countries alter their clocks. The table below uses a common nine-hour session convention for planning purposes. The Sydney and New York rows can temporarily move by another hour when their daylight-saving dates do not line up with the UK, so those exceptional weeks should always be checked separately. These hours are therefore best treated as practical planning windows rather than exchange-controlled opening and closing times. The Sydney session is the first major session of the new trading week and falls in the middle of the night for UK traders. Liquidity is usually at its thinnest here, with Australasian pairs such as AUD/USD and NZD/USD among the few instruments attracting meaningful regional volume. Orders can sit inside a much wider spread, while the same position size may slip further than it would once Tokyo or London is fully active. Price ranges can look convincing on the chart during these hours but often fail to hold when broader liquidity returns. The Tokyo session follows Sydney and overlaps with it for several hours, bringing the strongest activity in yen and other Asian currency pairs. It still falls in the early morning for UK traders, when sterling and euro pairs commonly consolidate inside comparatively narrow ranges. Breakout traders can be punished by false moves during this quieter window because a brief push beyond support or resistance may lack enough participation to continue. In exchange, range traders often get cleaner boundaries to work with before London volume arrives and changes the character of the market. The London session is the largest forex session by global trading volume, and much of the day’s movement in sterling and euro pairs is commonly completed during it. On a UK clock, it runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year and does not move on a British trader’s watch when the clocks change; only its relationship with the other sessions shifts. Price can move fastest during the first half hour as London orders arrive, sometimes covering the range built throughout the Asian session in one push. For a UK trader, this is the only major session that requires no mental time-zone conversion. The New York session opens during the UK afternoon, overlaps with London for several hours and contains many of the most closely watched US economic releases. Spreads can widen noticeably in the minutes surrounding figures such as inflation, employment or GDP data, even though the wider overlap usually provides deep liquidity. Once London closes, price often loses direction as European participation drops and the US session moves into its quieter second half. The late New York session reaches into the UK night without the forex market being closed, so anyone holding a position must consider thinner liquidity and overnight financing before leaving it open. London is the only session that connects to both the end of the Asian day and the start of the US day, so a UK trader meets two overlaps of completely different character within one day. An overlap means two sources of market participation are active at the same time. Quote depth generally improves, spreads on major pairs usually narrow and price can cover more ground in a shorter period because more orders are competing around the same levels. The benefit is more efficient execution in normal conditions, but the downside is that a fast-moving market can also reach a stop much sooner. Volatility is therefore not automatically good for profit; it increases both the available movement and the speed at which a trading error can become expensive. The table shows the standard seasonal planning windows used in this article. The London–New York overlap can move temporarily during the weeks when the UK and US change their clocks on different dates. The London–Tokyo overlap falls in the UK early morning, with the Asian session winding down just as London participation begins to arrive, making yen crosses such as GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY the instruments most directly affected. Market depth is still a step below the afternoon London–New York overlap, so an early move may not have the same order flow behind it. For example, GBP/JPY might push above the high formed during Tokyo, retreat briefly and then test that level again as London desks become active. The Asian range is often challenged for the first time in this window, but the move should not be treated as established direction until London volume has properly entered the market. The London–New York overlap falls in the UK afternoon and is normally the deepest-quoted, tightest-spread part of the UK trading day. A large share of the intraday movement in major pairs is concentrated here, while US inflation, employment and growth releases can add sudden order flow to an already active market. For example, a US employment release might drive GBP/USD through the high formed during the London morning and turn a measured move into a rapid breakout within seconds. The available movement and the speed at which a poorly placed stop can be taken out are therefore two sides of the same overlap. Neither overlap is automatically better; they simply have different characters. The morning overlap is a handover, with Asian volume leaving and London volume arriving, so direction is often unresolved while the market tests the overnight range. The afternoon overlap has the two largest pools of liquidity active together, making a move more likely to attract enough participation to run its full intraday course. Treating both periods as the same kind of “overlap” is therefore a common misjudgement. Read more: Forex Volatility: Measuring and Trading Currency Pair Swings The UK–US clock change gap occurs because Britain and the United States do not begin and end daylight saving time on the same dates. The US normally moves to daylight time on the second Sunday in March and returns to standard time on the first Sunday in November, while the UK moves forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October. This creates a two- or three-week gap each spring and a shorter gap each autumn in which New York sits one hour earlier on a UK clock. During normal aligned periods, an 08:00 New York open appears at 13:00 in the UK whether Britain is using GMT or BST: EST is five hours behind GMT, while EDT is five hours behind BST. During a mismatch, the difference falls to four hours, moving the New York session to 12:00–21:00 UK time and the London–New York overlap to 12:00–17:00. US economic releases tied to Eastern Time also arrive one hour earlier for a UK trader during these windows. Most generic forex timetables mislead readers in precisely these weeks because they assume Britain and the US change their clocks together. A schedule that is correct for most of the year can therefore place the New York open, a US data release or the daily rollover one hour late. For this reason, traders should reconfirm the overlap window and all scheduled release times against a UK clock before planning the day. The UK dates are published by GOV.UK, while the US dates follow the federally mandated second-Sunday-in-March and first-Sunday-in-November rules. The 2027 US date is the scheduled date under current federal law. As of 2 October 2026, a House-approved proposal to make US daylight saving permanent was still awaiting Senate approval, so traders should confirm that the law has not changed before relying on the 2027 row. The practical rule is simple: during every March and late-October clock gap, check the platform clock, the broker’s rollover notice and the release time shown by an economic calendar configured for London. That five-minute check is considerably cheaper than discovering the difference when a data release arrives an hour earlier than expected. Three different answers commonly circulate for the Sunday forex open: 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 UK time. They cannot all describe every trading account because forex has no central exchange ringing an opening bell. The tradable time is set by the broker’s product schedule, while the time shown on the platform may be its server time rather than GMT or BST. Many forex brokers run their servers on GMT+2 in winter and GMT+3 in summer so that each trading day ends at 17:00 New York time. That convention helps produce five complete daily candles per week, but it does not create a universal Sunday opening time. The reliable answer is the one published by the reader’s own broker under market hours, contract specifications, product details or trading conditions. Holiday schedules and service notices should also be checked because they can temporarily override the normal timetable. Server time is the clock a broker’s trading server uses to stamp prices, candles and orders. It often differs from the trader’s local time, so a platform left on server time can show the market open or a data release at an hour that does not match the UK clock. The same rule applies at the other end of the week. A general timetable may place the Friday boundary at 22:00 GMT or 22:00 BST, but an individual broker can stop accepting orders earlier, close a particular product later or insert a short maintenance break. During the UK–US clock-change gaps covered in the previous section, a weekly boundary tied to New York can also appear one hour earlier on a UK clock. For this reason, the broker’s published UK-time conversion is more useful than a time copied from another website. No executable prices are available between the Friday close and the Sunday reopening. If political, economic or other market-moving news arrives during that gap, the first quote of the new week may appear above or below Friday’s final price without trading through the levels in between. A standard stop cannot execute while the market is closed; if the first available quote is already beyond its trigger, it normally fills at the next obtainable price instead. Spreads are also usually wider during the opening period because fewer liquidity providers are quoting, so the same position can cost more to exit than it would during London or New York hours. Consider two traders who both bought GBP/USD late on Friday 31 January 2025, shortly before the weekly close, and left the position open. The United States announced new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on Saturday 1 February, and GBP/USD reopened sharply lower on Monday 3 February. The figures below are an illustration built on that weekend's publicly recorded daily prices and the published RAW-account starting spread of 0.2 pips; they are not a RADEX MARKETS quote. The spread paid on entry is the difference between the ask and bid: (1.24242 − 1.24240) × 10,000 = 0.2 pips For GBP/USD, one pip equals 0.0001. As USD is the quote currency, the pip value is first calculated in dollars and then converted into pounds: 50,000 units × 0.0001 = $5.00 per pip $5.00 ÷ GBP/USD rate 1.2424 = £4.02 per pip Trader A's planned stop distance, potential reward and risk-to-reward ratio are: (1.24242 − 1.22800) × 10,000 = 144.2 pips at risk (1.27000 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 275.8 pips of potential reward 275.8 reward pips ÷ 144.2 risk pips = 1:1.91 144.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £580.33 planned loss if the stop fills at its level Trader B's tighter stop gives: (1.24242 − 1.23500) × 10,000 = 74.2 pips at risk (1.25700 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 145.8 pips of potential reward 145.8 reward pips ÷ 74.2 risk pips = 1:1.96 74.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £298.62 planned loss if the stop fills at its level These figures exclude commission, overnight financing and any difference between the stop trigger and the actual execution price. Outcome One: The Market Does Not Gap Through the Stop Trader A's stop at 1.22800 sits below the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the position survives the reopening. Price later falls through the stop and the sell order fills at 1.22790. The execution slippage, total price loss and cash loss are: (1.22800 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 1.0 pip of slippage (1.24242 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 145.2 pips actually lost 145.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £584.35 actual loss The order has filled normally because an executable price existed close to the stop. The result is slightly worse than the £580.33 planned, mainly because the spread was still wide, but the market did not reopen beyond the trigger. Outcome Two: The Market Gaps Through the Stop Trader B's stop at 1.23500 is already above the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the first available fill is 1.22910. The distance beyond the stop is: (1.23500 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 59.0 pips beyond the stop The total loss is then calculated from the original entry to the actual fill: (1.24242 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 133.2 pips actually lost 133.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £536.06 actual loss The additional loss created by the gap is: £536.06 actual loss − £298.62 planned loss = £237.44 extra loss In the second outcome, the stop still triggers the exit, but it cannot supply a price that never existed: Trader B planned to risk £298.62 and lost £536.06, almost as much as Trader A, whose stop was nearly twice as far away. The execution report should therefore be checked against the first available bid and ask rather than against the chart's midpoint alone. This is why holding a leveraged position across the Friday close requires both the planned stop loss and the possible weekend gap to be included in the risk decision. Read more: Gap trading strategy: how traders read and trade market gaps Forex rollover is the point at which an open position passes from one trading day into the next for settlement and financing purposes. A position held through that cut-off normally receives an overnight adjustment, also called a swap or rollover charge, which may be debited from or credited to the trading account depending on the pair, direction and broker rate. The widely used rollover point is 17:00 in New York. During the normally aligned clock periods, that converts to the following UK times: Although both rows show 22:00, the underlying time zones are different. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps explained earlier that New York remains only four hours behind the UK, so the same 17:00 New York rollover temporarily arrives at 21:00 UK time. A broker may also use its own server cut-off, which is why the contract specification remains the final reference for the actual account adjustment. Wednesday is different because spot forex normally settles on a T+2 basis. A position carried through Wednesday rollover picks up the financing associated with the weekend settlement period, so the adjustment is usually three times the normal daily amount. The Wednesday cut-off is therefore normally 22:00 UK time, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps. Public holidays can alter the multiplier or the day on which it is applied, so the broker’s current rollover calendar should be checked before holding a position through a shortened settlement week. T+2 settlement means a spot forex trade is settled two business days after the trade date. Because a position held through Wednesday’s cut-off settles across the weekend, it carries three days of financing rather than one. Liquidity can thin briefly around rollover as banks and liquidity providers update their books and calculate the new trading day. Spreads may widen even when no major news is being released, making the minutes around the cut-off a poor time to open a short-term trade. Read more: What are swap fees and how are they calculated in forex trading? UK bank holidays do not close the global forex market, but they can remove a significant share of London participation. For traders using a UK clock, that usually means shallower order books, wider-than-normal spreads and a greater chance that the same order size slips further than it would on a normal London trading day. The dates above follow the official England and Wales calendar except where a regional difference is stated. Bank-holiday dates change from year to year, and brokers may also alter dealing hours around Christmas and New Year, so both the government calendar and the broker’s holiday schedule should be checked before orders are left resting. Read more: What Is Slippage in Trading? Causes & 6 Tips to Reduce It This mapping works because approaches that enter and exit quickly need liquidity and price movement online at the same time, while longer-holding approaches are usually better served by careful entry placement than by chasing the day’s noisiest period. Read more: Best time to trade forex: When to enter the market during the day The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in both GMT winter and BST summer, with continuous weekday trading in between. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time; see the table under Forex Market Hours in the UK. The usual benchmark is 22:00 UK time on Sunday, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps, but 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 answers circulate because brokers use different product schedules and server-time displays. The reader should follow the market hours published by their own broker, as explained under What Happens at the Sunday Open and the Friday Close. The normal Friday close is 22:00 GMT in winter and 22:00 BST in summer, with a temporary move to 21:00 during a UK–US clock mismatch. Liquidity has often thinned and spreads may already have widened in the final stretch, so the risk of a weekend gap should be considered before leaving a position open. On a UK clock, the London session runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year. Industry timetables differ because their conversion bases differ, not because London moves on a British trader’s clock, so use the session table above as the UK reference. Forex trading operates 24 hours a day during the working week, but it is not open 24/7 because normal currency pricing stops over the weekend. Being able to trade is not the same as it being worth trading: overnight liquidity can be thin, spreads wider and execution more expensive. London uses GMT in winter and BST in summer. Many platforms display broker server time, UTC or US Eastern time by default, so the platform clock should be set or converted to UK time before the trading day is planned. Keep every session on a UK clock rather than repeatedly converting from another time zone. London remains fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year, but Tokyo and New York move relative to it, the morning and afternoon overlaps behave differently, and the UK–US clock-change gaps require a fresh check. The Sunday open and Friday close should always come from the broker’s own published schedule. Set the platform display to UK time, match the main currency pair to the session in which its markets are active, and mark UK bank holidays and the late-Friday period as thin-liquidity conditions to approach carefully. If a short-term trade crosses rollover, include the overnight financing charge in its cost before deciding whether the position is still worth holding. The practical next step is to confirm the actual Sunday open and Friday close with the broker, then copy the session table from this guide and complete it as a personal UK-time timetable for the trading account being used. Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Deeper into trading sessions: Related concepts:
On Wednesday, the Iraqi government approved a 15% devaluation of the national currency, dropping the official exchange rate from 1,300 dinars per US dollar to 1,500. Iraq relies on oil sales for roughly 90% of its government budget, but because of the ongoing hostilities surrounding Iran, the nation’s exports and revenue have both collapsed. Before the conflict erupted earlier this year, Iraq typically exported 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, but as of the time of writing, this figure now stands at around 2.4 million. Iraq, as with most oil producing nations, gets paid for its crude oil exports in dollars, which it uses to purchase a number of vital goods on the international market. Food, medicines, vehicles, heavy machinery, advanced electronics, and even electricity imports are all covered by a steady flow of dollars into the country. For everything else, the government pays in Iraqi dinars. Salaries, pensions, local contracts and virtually all domestic spending involves sovereign money. By devaluing the dinar, every single US dollar brought into the country can now be converted into more dinars than before, allowing Baghdad to stretch its shrinking foreign reserves to better cover domestic spending. The obvious problem is that as far as the average citizen is concerned, imports become more expensive due to the worse exchange rate. The decision, coordinated by the Iraqi cabinet, the country’s central bank, and the ministry of finance, has triggered a significant backlash for exactly this reason. Lawmakers within the Iraqi parliament have protested the devaluation due to the loss of purchasing power and spike in consumer prices, but such concerns will likely fall on deaf ears. To make matters worse, Iraq is currently facing a severe fiscal crisis characterised by a vast operational deficit and record-high debts. Because of the loss of crude oil revenue, the Iraqi government now spends far more than it receives, pushing Baghdad to borrow heavily. According to the ministry of finance, total spending reached the equivalent of $45 billion in the first seven months of 2026, while revenue amounted to $26 billion over the same time frame, resulting in a deficit of $19 billion. For context, the deficit over the first seven months of 2025 totalled just $3.5 billion. The problem is that Iraq has one of the most bloated and inefficient public sectors in the entire world. Huge swathes of the population rely on some form of public sector job, government pension, or welfare payment system to survive. Out of a total population of 48 million, Iraq has an active workforce of just 10-11 million people, and almost half of those are civil servants. Millions more are reliant on pensions and other state benefits, creating a highly dependent population. The Iraqi state acts as a patronage network that captures international wealth via crude oil exports and then redistributes the cash flows to secure political loyalty. Such networks cannot simply be dismantled, even when said cash flows dry up. Reducing public spending is all but impossible because doing so would cause immediate civil unrest and even a potential uprising against the people in charge. Such actions are not unprecedented and in fact occurred during the ‘Tishreen’ protests of 2019-2021. Beyond the petroleum sector, Iraq has almost no domestic industry to speak of. Manufacturing and agriculture combined make up just 8% of GDP, a far smaller share than even other oil-producing nations. Petrodollars are the entire economy, absorbed and funnelled through the state apparatus to appease and stabilise the local population, but cash flows are drying up. The Iraqi government is now building its 2027 budget around $58 per barrel crude oil, which is far below what the country would actually need to balance its books. Unless Iraq dramatically increases its oil exports, the country’s fiscal problems are here to stay. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
The technology sector remains the load-bearing foundation of US equities, lifting both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 to new all-time highs yesterday. It is the first time the SPX has established a fresh record since mid-August, while the NDX has now hit three consecutive back-to-back highs. A number of developments saw specific stocks push higher, contributing to the wider sense of optimism that continues to pervade the AI trade. Google (GOOG) came out with the biggest story of the day, revealing a $4.3 billion deal with Constellation Energy (CEG) to secure 3.6 gigawatts of power, a quarter of which will be sourced from upgraded nuclear power plants from across the United States. Constellation Energy now has the revenue certainty to perform improvement works on 11 different reactors, which include modernised turbines, steam generators, and digital control systems; the company surged 12% following the announcement. The additional power will fuel Google’s ravenous artificial intelligence data centre network, which requires a heavy, uninterrupted supply of electricity to meet its energy demands. Further afield, SpaceX (SPCX) expanded its ties with Nvidia (NVDA) on Tuesday by announcing a deal to purchase $40 billion worth of chips for its Colossus data centre. The space-faring company is rapidly expanding beyond rockets, with plans to operate massive GPU farms both on the ground and in orbit. The Starmind satellite platform will be designed to interface directly with the Starlink infrastructure already in place. Such projects illustrate well the vast sums of money still waiting to be deployed, as well as the insatiable appetite for new chips. SpaceX is finally catching some of the AI tailwinds, pushing share prices up 15% over the last three sessions. As for Nvidia, the company is rapidly approaching a $6 trillion market cap, the first to ever do so, and will hit the historic milestone at roughly $250 per share – a mere 4% gain from current prices. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) also saw its time in the spotlight yesterday after CEO Lisa Su announced that the company will significantly ramp up chip production throughout 2027 to meet the incessant industry demand. AMD has been courting suppliers such as TSMC and Foxconn to ensure the chipmaker has adequate wafer capacity for its new AI hardware offerings, while markets in general have been waking up to the importance of high-performance server CPUs, for which the company is well known. AMD closed the session 2.8% higher yesterday and is set to open at a new record high later today. Analysts at Citi recently raised price targets to $800 per share from $650 currently. In the same vein, Marvell Technology (MRVL) raised its annual revenue guidance for 2028, substantially revising the previous estimate of $18 billion to $20 billion. The company is heavily involved in AI infrastructure and pumped 6% after the revision, adding to the 240% gain achieved so far this year. The relentless drive in the technology sector is all the more impressive given the macroeconomic drop against which such developments are occurring. US treasury yields are still sitting at multi-decade highs, with the 10-year note at 5.31% and the 30-year at 5.69%; Brent Crude refuses to dip below $100 per barrel; Iranian peace prospects remain tenuous at best; interest rates are set to rise for the foreseeable future. Despite everything, earnings are robust and show no signs of abating. The AI trade is alive and well. #GOOG #SPCX #AMD About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
The S&P 500 is up 13% year-to-date, which may sound perfectly admirable, but the headline figure hides much of what is going on under the surface. While the index as a whole appears to be doing well, investors would do well to remember that the S&P 500 is weighted by market cap. When the likes of Nvidia, Apple or Microsoft make a move, the index will dutifully plod along the same path, even when the bottom 100 stocks go in a completely different direction. This fact can make the overall performance of the index somewhat misleading. If a large company goes up 10% and a small company goes down 10%, all else equal, the S&P 500 itself will rise. The same is true of any other index. This would not normally be a problem, but the S&P 500 is currently extremely ‘top-heavy’ from a historical perspective. The top ten companies now make up around 40% of the entire index; the top five make up over a quarter of it. Such a skew is not normal. In the year 2015, the ten largest companies made up only 17% of the S&P 500, but this figure has essentially gone up in a straight line over the last decade. Even during the height of the dot-com bubble, the top ten only managed to occupy roughly 25% of the S&P 500. Over the last 35 years, concentration at the top averaged just 21%. A look at year-to-date stock performances in the top ten reveals the following: The extraordinary outcome of the above table is that Nvidia, Apple and Micron alone are responsible for roughly 4.5% of the rise in the S&P 500 so far this year. As stated in the opening paragraph, the index as a whole rose 13% over the same time frame. While absent from the top ten, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is also worth mentioning here. At number 13, the chipmaker only accounts for 1.4% of the S&P 500, but the company has gone up almost 200% since January, meaning its contribution adds a full percent to the index’s gains. Four companies. Four companies out of five hundred account for nearly half of the 13% rise seen in the S&P 500 in 2026. These are not the signs of a healthy index. Goldman Sachs recently reported that market breadth has fallen to its lowest level since the early 2000s and the dot-com bubble. Analysts at the Kobeissi Letter claim that only half of all stocks are currently trading above their 200-day moving average, while only 25% are trading above their 50-day moving average. Zooming out, the picture gets even uglier. 44% of all stocks are trading at least 20% below their 52-week highs, while almost 60% are trading at least 20% below their all-time highs. The dramatic implication is that most of the index is already in bear market territory. At the absolute bottom of the table, nine companies are down over 50% since the start of the year. On an average trading day, more individual stocks are hitting fresh 52-week lows than 52-week highs. So many of the companies making up the S&P 500 have been forgotten as market participants pivoted towards artificial intelligence, semiconductors and everything in between. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) and enterprise software got completely decapitated this year, as agentic tools such as Claude revolutionised the game almost overnight. Salesforce (CRM), SAP, ServiceNow (NOW) and Adobe (ADBE) all got hammered, while IT consulting firms were unceremoniously booted out of the door. The tech sector has essentially split in two, resulting in the software and hardware sides going their respective ways. Money poured out of the former and into the waiting hands of the latter, producing the kind of explosive rises observed in the likes of AMD and Micron. Outside of tech, many legacy giants have undergone harrowing drops in share price in recent years as shifting consumer habits pulled the rug from underneath their feet. Paramount (PSKY) is down 90% from its record high; Nike (NKE), Lulu Lemon (LULU) and PayPal (PYPL) are all down 80% or more; Estée Lauder (EL) is down 75%; Roblox (RBLX) is down 70%; the list goes on. Questions of breadth and health aside, the current situation with the S&P 500 perfectly illustrates the benefit of investing in a weighted index as opposed to picking individual stocks. There is no need to guess which stocks are going to do well because the weighted nature of the instrument automatically feeds the winners and starves the losers. It is a passive rebalancing engine. The long-term chart of the SPX is a mirage. The index hides the hundreds of stocks that have performed abysmally in recent times. The disparity is historically abnormal and investors are beginning to see the writing on the wall. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
The dollar managed to remain firm last Friday, despite an abysmal jobs report. The September non-farm payrolls numbers were objectively terrible, enough to challenge the prevailing narrative of a resilient labour market, falling short of even the most pessimistic of expectations. The headline number came in at just 29k jobs, a far cry from the predicted 90k, while the U-3 unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, beating both the forecast figure and the prior reading. Adding insult to injury, the BLS subtracted 29k jobs from the August estimate, and 21k from the July statement, resulting in a net loss of 10 thousand for that month. The shocking report all but cements an interest rate pause during the next FOMC decision at the end of October, with FedWatch now showing implied odds of only 22% of a rate hike three weeks from now. For all the bad news, the long-term outlook on the dollar has not fundamentally changed. Yields on the 10-year US Treasury note remain at highs of 5.27%, while those on the 30-year are offering 5.61%. Markets are universally expecting high inflation and high bond yields for the foreseeable future, and no major economic zone looks structurally stronger than any other. Just as markets were grappling with Friday’s NFP report, European CPI figures revealed a nasty spike in inflation within the common currency area, with the headline rate rising to 3.8% in September from 3.2% the prior month. The French bond market is looking particularly jittery, as yields on the 10-year drew uncomfortably close to 5% last week, approaching multi-decade highs and growing further apart from the lower yields offered by German debt. France’s total debt burden soared to 119% of GDP in June, the highest level since 1946, while growth is expected to hit an unimpressive 0.7% this year. All things considered, the DXY dropped a grand total of 0.12% on Friday, proving that currency traders have bigger things to worry about than jobs figures. The deafening silence around precious metals tells the same story; gold and silver are facing an uphill battle in light of the 5-6% yields on offer elsewhere. Semiconductors continue to drag US indices higher, but market breadth is completely non-existent. The geopolitical quagmire in the Middle East is showing absolutely no signs of improvement, while Brent Crude sits comfortably at $102 per barrel. And yet, for all the turmoil, crypto remains shockingly resilient. In the absence of any clear winner, the cold calculation turns to one of relative misery. Bitcoin rose back up to $86,000 on Sunday night and is very nearly in the green for the year. Investors are running out of places to park their cash. As dawn breaks on the fourth quarter, the economic calendar trickles to a halt. Trading floors across China will remain dark until Wednesday due to the country’s golden week market closures. On Monday, the ISM PMI figure will shed some light on the US service sector, which is forecast to remain firmly in expansion territory. Wednesday will see the release of the latest FOMC minutes, offering an insight into how panicked different board members are with regard to inflation. Finally, Friday will deliver the preliminary report of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment. #USD #DXY #OIL About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
