Market News

There are plenty of ways to track the latest concerns around France and Europe, and we've already talked about some this week:

• Macro pulse: France-Germany yield spread breakout puts euro area contagion risk in focus
• Connecting the dots: How France’s budget problems are turning into the euro’s problem

In adding to that, I think EUR/CHF is quietly becoming one of the better charts for doing so as well. Unlike EUR/USD, there is less need to disentangle the story from Fed expectations or swings in the dollar. The message here is arguably much cleaner considering the precedence that when investors become more nervous about European risk, the safe haven Swiss franc tends to benefit from it.

And that seems to be what we are seeing play out over the…

Hola Prime, the global proprietary trading firm known for its 1-Hour Payout model, today announced it has paid out more than $10 million to its funded traders. The milestone caps a period of rapid growth for the firm, which has built its reputation on speed, transparency and consistency in how traders get paid.

Across the $10 million distributed, the average payout to a Hola Prime trader stands at approximately $1,800. The firm's fastest payout to date was processed in 36 seconds from request to completion, and its highest total payout to a single trader reached $70,776.

"Crossing $10 million isn't a number we're celebrating for its own sake. Every dollar of…

European stocks are opening lower across the board to start the session:

• Eurostoxx -0.7%
• Germany DAX -0.8%
• France CAC 40 -0.6%
• UK FTSE -0.4%
• Spain IBEX -0.4%
• Italy FTSE MIB -0.5%

The softer open stands in contrast to another record-setting session on Wall Street yesterday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both pushing to fresh highs. However, that momentum isn't carrying through to trading today with Asian and now European investors showing a similarly more cautious tone this morning.

One of the factors keeping risk appetite in check is oil prices. Brent crude is trading back above $100 as markets weigh fresh Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia alongside potential supply disruption from a storm approaching the Gulf of Mexico.

That is helping to keep the…

When you look at mortgage rates or the S&P 500, I'm pretty sure that Treasury auctions are not the first thing that would cross your mind. But perhaps they should get a little more attention.

And there is a timely example coming up later today. The US Treasury is set to sell $39 billion of 10-year notes at 1700 GMT, in what will be a reopening of an existing issue. The question is, why should anyone outside the bond market care about this?

Let's take a step back and think about what the auction actually means to start with.

The US government regularly sells Treasury debt to investors in order to finance its borrowing needs. Investors then effectively decide what return they need in order to lend that money to the government.

So, just imagine…

There are a few notable expiry levels to watch today, as highlighted in bold below.

They are all for EUR/USD and layered between 1.1250-70, with the closest ones being less than 30 pips away from the spot price.

The expiries at 1.1250-55 could offer some pull factor on price action heading into the cut later today, with that sitting just above the 100-hour moving average of 1.1243 as well.

As such, the expiries could act as a potential ceiling for any upside price extensions during the session ahead.

That being said, the currency pair is tracking lower so far today with the dollar holding firmer amid higher Treasury yields. That continues to be the bigger driver of trading sentiment in my view. 10-year Treasury yields are keeping above 5.30%,…

If tariffs were supposed to bring down the US trade deficit, then the latest numbers clearly show that things are not exactly going according to plan.

The US trade figures for August showed the deficit widening to $105.6 billion, up from $92.8 billion previously. But more strikingly, imports jumped 4.3% to a record $420.8 billion while exports rose by a much smaller 1.4% to $315.2 billion.

And that seems to be the exact opposite of what Trump's tariffs approach was supposed to achieve. Surprise, surprise. Not.

Let's take this back to the basic idea behind tariffs. The use of tariffs is to make foreign goods more expensive in order to encourage companies and consumers to buy American instead. And over time, you should be importing less as a…

The softer US jobs report on Friday last week continues to paint a softer picture of the labour market, yet there is still one part of the story that doesn't seem to line up.

The September non-farm payrolls rose by just 29k, well below expectations of 90k, while the unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%. Meanwhile, July and August were also revised down by a combined 60k and wage growth slowed to just 0.1% on the month. That's a clear enough signal that hiring is losing momentum.

But so far, that weakness hasn’t translated into any meaningful rise in layoffs.

US initial jobless claims fell to 197k in the previous week, leaving them close to their lowest levels in decades. And as the chart below shows, claims remain remarkably subdued even as…

What if I told you that one of crypto's biggest businesses is built partly on interest that stablecoin holders never actually see?

Just imagine giving someone $1,000 and asking them to keep it safe for you. Now, they put your money into a very safe account that earns them around 4% a year and hand you a digital receipt worth $1,000. You can redeem it whenever you want.

Fast forward to a year later and your receipt is still worth $1,000. But somewhere in the background, that money has been earning interest.

In very simplified terms, that is one of the most important business models sitting underneath the stablecoin market.

According to DeFiLlama, the total value of stablecoins sits at roughly $308 billion currently. Meanwhile, a three-month US…

• Houthis claim strikes on three Saudi sites including Riyadh airport, unconfirmed
• Households weather RBA hikes as debt-to-asset ratio hits 1997 low, Deutsche Bank says
• RBI decision today: most economists expect a hike to 5.50%, MUFG sees a hold
• Ether fi joins the stablecoin rush: why every crypto platform wants its own dollar
• RBI expected to hold at 5.25% today, MUFG sees two hikes by February
• Add a new risk to keep oil near $100: Gulf hurricane joins Houthi strikes and Iran tensions
• Two veteran bond bears turn bullish on long Treasuries as yields top 5%
• Goldman Sachs sees five drivers behind US rates selloff, says move may be overdone
• Glamsterdam in plain English: how Ethereum plans to cut out the middlemen in block building
• Japan real wages rise…

Deutsche Bank's argument is hawkish at heart. If each hike does less damage to household cash flow than in the past, the RBA may need to do more to slow demand, which keeps a fifth hike in November in play and supports the short end of the Australian yield curve. That would also lend some support to the Australian dollar against currencies where central banks are closer to the end of their tightening. The risk to this view comes from asset prices. A deeper housing slump or a sharp correction in global AI stocks, both flagged in RBA staff work, would test whether balance sheets are as robust as they look. With oil above $100 keeping inflation pressure elevated, the RBA has little room to give households the benefit of the doubt.

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Earlier:

• <a href="https://investinglive.com/central-banks/rba-papers-show-a-20-ai-stock-slump-could-cut-australian-spending-by-about-2-5" target="_blank"…

If confirmed, a strike reaching Riyadh would mark a significant widening of the conflict beyond Saudi Arabia's southern border region, and oil traders will treat it as a test of how exposed the kingdom's core infrastructure has become. That matters because Saudi export capacity, including the East-West Pipeline that has only just returned to near-normal flows, is central to the recovery in Middle East supply. Until Saudi authorities confirm or deny the claims, any price reaction is likely to reflect headline risk rather than lost barrels, adding to the premium that has kept Brent around $100. Confirmation of damage or civilian casualties would raise the risk of a stronger Saudi military response, which could escalate further. An official…

House stablecoins chip away at Tether and Circle's dominance by redirecting the interest earned on reserves to the platforms that hold user deposits. That's a gradual threat to incumbent issuers rather than a sudden one. For Ethena, each new partner adds demand for its infrastructure and potentially for USDe and USDtb as backing assets, which ties its growth to how many platforms sign up. The risk for traders is fragmentation: liquidity split across many smaller dollar tokens can mean wider spreads and slower redemptions under stress. Until backing mixes are disclosed, the market can't fully price the difference between these coins.

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Other:

• Glamsterdam in plain English: how Ethereum plans to cut out the middlemen in block building
• Bitcoin…