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).

Top Overnight News Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces staged a lightning advance on Monday to retake the coast around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait up to the city of Mocha, the government said, pushing the Iran-backed Houthis out of most of the areas they seized last month. RTRS Trump signed an executive order easing restrictions on tax-exempt dyed diesel; Chevron's Wirth warned a US diesel export ban could push prices higher. On the crude front, the US blockade has bottled up at least 50 tankers carrying Iranian oil, UANI said. BBG Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline is back to 5.8m b/d, the energy minister said, after resuming operations 5-6 days after it was hit. BBG A growing number of commercial real-estate buyers are threatening to walk away from recent transactions unless the seller offers better terms. Rapidly rising interest rates are to blame. Investors who agreed to a purchase price earlier this year when financing was cheaper are now demanding price cuts or other concessions before closing. WSJ Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen proposed a sharp deficit reduction and called on the European Central Bank to intervene to bring down surging debt costs as she seeks to assure investors of her financial credentials ahead of the election next year. BBG French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the country is far from needing the European Central Bank to step in even as it wrestles with soaring bond yields. Lescure said circumstances are very different from a decade earlier during the debt crisis, and that France's signature is solid, but it's under pressure. BBG The BoJ may signal this month that underlying inflation has roughly hit its 2% target, three sources familiar with its thinking said, highlighting ‌its readiness to raise interest rates again in the coming months. Any such announcement would largely be symbolic, but it would reinforce dominant market expectations of a December hike and signal the BOJ's readiness to keep raising interest rates in short intervals. RTRS German manufacturing orders plummeted in August, pointing to increasing pressure on industrial demand as the conflict in the Middle East continues to keep energy costs elevated. WSJ A sharp sell-off in US government bonds is starting to reverberate across corporate America, forcing companies to overhaul their borrowing plans and even raising the spectre of defaults among the most lowly rated businesses. Borrowing costs for companies with the lowest credit ratings hit their highest level since May 2020 this month at 17 per cent, driven by the rise in Treasury yields to multiyear highs and by investors demanding more compensation for lending to such businesses. FT Nvidia is on the verge of becoming the first company with a $6 trillion market cap as investors rotate back into the chipmaker. BBG OpenAI is in talks with multiple UAE investment funds to help anchor a $30 billion financing round; DeepSeek is set to raise at least $12 billion in a Tencent- and CATL-led round, and Moonshot AI closed at a ~$50 billion valuation. BBG Google and Constellation Energy inked a deal for 890 MW of nuclear capacity as tech companies race to line up power for data centers. RTRS AMD’s CEO said the company will substantially increase its chip supply in 2027 and predicted “very high” demand for the next few years NY Fed has been visiting big banks to review their loans to private credit firms and understand their exposure, while officials have gone into JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Barclays (BARC LN), and Morgan Stanley (MS) since the spring with questions about overall exposure and risk: Semafor. Ray Dalio warned Treasuries are vulnerable to a pullback in demand from China and Japan; Bessent said the US can "very quickly" bend the debt curve. BBG US Treasury Secretary Bessent said underlying, core inflation is down to around 2.3% and that interest rates are all a function of headline inflation, while he added that mortgage rates will come back down after the Iran conflict. Bessent said they inherited a big stack of debt and could start bending the debt curve very quickly, while he thinks they will see in excess of 3% growth for Q3 and noted the US economy is accelerating. US Senators Warren (D) and Blumenthal (D) reportedly wrote to the Trump administration for answers on industry influence on the AI regulatory framework: Semafor. Japan's 10-year bond sale saw firmer demand than the 12-month average; GPIF didn't discuss portfolio allocation at its September meeting. BBG

📊 $WFC Analyst Insights Morgan Stanley upgrades WFC to Overweight from Equalweight with a $102 PT, implying ~26.8% upside from current levels. The view highlights NIM stabilization, improving profitability, and a stronger funding mix as key drivers of Wells Fargo’s earnings outlook. Operating leverage, higher rates, and improving ROTCE could support a meaningful re-rating through 2027. 🔹 Follow @tenet_research for more analyst insights on other tickers.

Big banks reporting next week. Whats interesting is how hard these got sold into earnings. WFC, BAC, GS (not listed by down -3%ytd) are all RED on the year, the others green but not by alot Semis were the first to price peak AI capex Banks just did it Whos next?

Check me, but it looks like today is the best session for $META relative to the S&P 500 on a non-earnings reaction day since its IPO year WFC price target hike, META Connect Day on tap... 4.5x option volume vs normal...

Wingspire equipment finance is a portfolio company of Blue Owl, formerly known as Liberty Commercial Finance. Offers sale-leaseback arrangements, equipment lines of credit. Industry agnostic. They did $700M of total volume all of 2025, have done several GPU deals this year; this is relatively large one for them. Wingspire has a warehouse lending facility from BofA and WFC.