Market news & insights

Markets retreated last week, pulling back about 2.5-3% from record levels. While the decline is modest, it is marked by several headwinds that could create further pressure this week.

Government Shutdown Reaches Historic Length

The ongoing shutdown has now reached record duration, and there's still no clear resolution in sight. Healthcare remains the primary sticking point between the two sides. Some reports suggest potential progress, but the jury's still out on whether any deal will materialise or gain bipartisan support before the Thanksgiving holiday season.

Key Economic Data May Be Delayed

The shutdown's impact extends to data releases. Market-influencing government reports, including jobs numbers and CPI data, may be delayed this week — CPI is still technically scheduled, but the shutdown could affect its release. This data delay will make it harder to gauge the economy's true direction and could inject further volatility into markets.

Earnings Season Continues to Impress

Despite these macro headwinds, corporate America is delivering exceptional results. We're seeing an 82% EPS beat rate and 77% of companies exceeding revenue expectations. While we're in the final 10% of S&P 500 reports, some important retail stocks are still due. These consumer-facing companies could provide valuable insights into spending patterns and economic health.

NVIDIA Tests Critical Support Level

AI stocks are facing pressure, with NVIDIA testing a key technical level around $180-$185. The stock experienced five consecutive days of losses before bouncing strongly on Friday with a major wick rejection. If support at $180 breaks, we could see a drop to $165. However, Friday's bounce suggests a possible retest of $193. This is a crucial moment for the AI sector leader, and its direction could influence broader tech sentiment.

Market Insights

‍Watch the latest video from Mike Smith for the week ahead in markets.

Key economic events

Keep up to date with the upcoming economic events for the week.

Artificial intelligence stocks have begun to waver slightly, experiencing a selloff period in the first week of this month. The Nasdaq has fallen approximately 2%, wiping out around $500 billion in market value from top technology companies.

Palantir Technologies dropped nearly 8% despite beating Wall Street estimates and issuing strong guidance, highlighting growing investor concerns about stretched valuations in the AI sector.

Nvidia shares also fell roughly 4%, while the broader selloff extended to Asian markets, which experienced some of their sharpest declines since April.

Wall Street executives, including Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, warned of potential 10-20% drawdowns in equity markets over the coming year.

And Michael Burry, famous for predicting the 2008 housing crisis, recently revealed his $1.1 billion bet against both Nvidia and Palantir, further pushing the narrative that the AI rally may be overextended.

As we near 2026, the sentiment around AI is seemingly starting to shift, with investors beginning to seek evidence of tangible returns on the massive investments flowing into AI, rather than simply betting on future potential.

However, despite the recent turbulence, many are simply characterising this pullback as "healthy" profit-taking rather than a fundamental reassessment of AI's value.

Supreme Court Raises Doubts About Trump’s Tariffs

The US Supreme Court heard arguments overnight on the legality of President Donald Trump's "liberation day" tariffs, with judges from both sides of the political spectrum expressing scepticism about the presidential authority being claimed.

Trump has relied on a 1970s-era emergency law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), to impose sweeping tariffs on goods imported into the US.

At the centre of the case are two core questions: whether the IEEPA authorises these sweeping tariffs, and if so, whether Trump’s implementation is constitutional.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett indicated they may be inclined to strike down or curb the majority of the tariffs, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned why no president before Trump had used this authority.

Prediction markets saw the probability of the court upholding the tariffs drop from 40% to 25% after the hearing.

The US government has collected $151 billion from customs duties in the second half of 2025 alone, a nearly 300% increase over the same period in 2024.

Should the court rule against the tariffs, potential refunds could reach approximately $100 billion.

The court has not indicated a date on which it will issue its final ruling, though the Trump administration has requested an expedited decision.

Shutdown Becomes Longest in US History

The US government shutdown entered its 36th day today, officially becoming the longest in history. It surpasses the previous 35-day record set during Trump's first term from December 2018 to January 2019.

The Senate has failed 14 times to advance spending legislation, falling short of the 60-vote supermajority by five votes in the most recent vote.

So far, approximately 670,000 federal employees have been furloughed, and 730,000 are currently working without pay. Over 1.3 million active-duty military personnel and 750,000 National Guard and reserve personnel are also working unpaid.

SNAP food stamp benefits ran out of funding on November 1 — something 42 million Americans rely on weekly. However, the Trump administration has committed to partial payments to subsidise the benefits, though delivery could take several weeks.

Flight disruptions have affected 3.2 million passengers, with staffing shortages hitting more than half of the nation's 30 major airports. Nearly 80% of New York's air traffic controllers are absent.

From a market perspective, each week of shutdown reduces GDP by approximately 0.1%. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the total cost of the shutdown will be between $7 billion and $14 billion, with the higher figure assuming an eight-week duration.

Consumer spending could drop by $30 billion if the eight-week duration is reached, according to White House economists, with potential GDP impacts of up to 2 percentage points total.

You've been using a 30-pip trailing stop for as long as you can remember. It feels professional, manageable and relatively safe. 

But during volatile sessions, you see your winners get stopped out prematurely, while low-volatility winners drift back and hit stops that are relatively too tight. 

Same 30 pips, different market contexts, but inconsistent in the protection of profit and overall results.

The Fixed-Pip Fallacy?

Traders gravitate toward fixed pip trailing stops because they feel concrete and calculable. The approach is easy to execute, readily automated through platforms like MetaTrader, and aligns with how most people naturally think about profit and loss. 

But this simplicity masks a fundamental problem. 

A twenty-five pip move in EURUSD during the London open represents an entirely different market event than the same move during the Asian session. The context matters, yet the fixed-pip approach treats them identically. 

This becomes even more problematic when you consider different currency pairs. GBPJPY might have an average true range of thirty pips on an hourly chart, while EURGBP shows only ten. The same trailing stop applied to both instruments ignores the reality that volatility varies dramatically across pairs.

Timeframe introduces yet another layer of complexity. Take AUDUSD as an example: a ten-pip move on a four-hour chart barely registers as meaningful price action, but on a five-minute chart it represents a significant swing. The fixed-pip method treats these scenarios as equivalent.

The natural response might be to use something more sophisticated, like an ATR multiple. This accounts for your chosen timeframe, the instrument's normal volatility, and even session differences. But it brings its own complications. 

When do you measure the ATR? Do you use the value at entry, knowing it might be distorted by sessional effects? Or do you make it dynamic, which becomes far more complex to implement in practice?

Perhaps there's another way forward that doesn't rely on abstract measures of volatility but instead responds directly to the movement of price in relation to the trade you're actually in—accounting for your lot size and the profit you've already captured. 

Maximum Give Back: The Percentage Approach

Instead of asking "how do I protect profit after fifty pips," ask "how do I protect profit after giving back a certain percentage of open gains." 

Consider a maximum give-back threshold of 40%. When your trade is up one hundred pips, the trailing stop activates if price retraces forty pips from peak, locking in a minimum of sixty pips. 

But when that same trade reaches two hundred fifty pips of profit, the stop adjusts, and now it activates at a one-hundred-pip pullback, securing at least one hundred fifty pips. The stop distance scales naturally with the magnitude of the win you're sitting on.

This creates a logical asymmetry that fixed pip approaches miss entirely. Small winners receive tighter protection. Big winners get room to breathe.

The approach adapts automatically to what the market is actually giving you in real time, without requiring you to predict anything in advance. 

You don't need to maintain a reference table where EURUSD gets thirty pips and GBPJPY gets sixty. You don't need different standards for different instruments at all. 

The same 40% logic works whether the average true range is high or low, whether volatility is expanding or contracting. It is designed to be more adaptive to regime changes than fixed-pip stops, potentially requiring less manual recalibration as it's responding to the trade itself rather than to abstract measures of what the instrument normally does.

The market tells you how much it's willing to move in your direction, and you protect that information proportionally. Nothing more complicated than that.

Key Parameters to Specify in Your System:

• Maximum Give Back Percent: 30-50% is typical, but is dependent on how much profit retracement you can tolerate. 
• Minimum Profit to Activate: In dollar amount or an ATR multiple form entry. This prevents premature exits on tiny winners, e.g., if it has moved 5 pips at 40% that would mean you are only locking in a 3-pip profit.
• Update Frequency: Potentially every bar. More frequent, but there may be issues if there is a limited ability to look at the market (if using some sort of automation, this could be programmed).

Is Maximum Giveback Always the Optimum Trail?

As with many approaches, results can be highly dependent on underlying market conditions. It is important to be balanced. 

The table below summarises some observations when maximum giveback has been used as part of automated exits.

The major difference isn’t likely to be an increased win rate. It is about keeping more of your runners during high-volatility price moves rather than donating them back to the market.

It may not always be the best approach, as different strategies often merit different exit approaches.  

There are two obvious scenarios where fixed pips may still be worth consideration.

• Very short-term scalping (sub-20 pip targets)
• News trading, where you want instant hard stops

Integrating Maximum Giveback With Your System 

You may have other complementary exit filters in place that you already use. Remember, the ideal is often a combination of exits, with whichever is triggered first.

There is no reason why this approach will not work well with approaches such as set stops, take profits and partial closes (where you simply use maximum Giveback in the remainder as well as time-based exits.

Final Thoughts

To use fixed-pip trailing stops irrespective of instrument pricing, volatility, timeframe, and sessional considerations is the trading equivalent of wearing the same jacket in summer and winter. 

Maximum Give Back trailing adjusts to the ‘market weather’. It won't make bad trades good, but it could help stop you from cutting your best trades short just because your stop was designed for average conditions. 

The market doesn't trade in averages but has specific likely moves dependent on context. Your exits should not be average either. 

Multi-Timeframe (MTF) analysis is not just about checking the trend on the daily before trading on the hourly; ideally, it involves examining and aligning context, structure, and timing so that every trade is placed with purpose. 

When done correctly, MTF analysis can filter market noise, may help with timing of entry, and assist you in trading with the trending “tide,” not against it.

Why Multi-Timeframe Analysis Matters

Every setup exists within a larger market story, and that story may often define the probability of a successful trade outcome.

Single-timeframe trading leads to the trading equivalent of tunnel vision, where the series of candles in front of you dominate your thinking, even though the broader trend might be shifting.

The most common reason traders may struggle is a false confidence based on a belief they are applying MTF analysis, but in truth, it’s often an ad-hoc, glance, not a structured process. 

When signals conflict, doubt creeps in, and traders hesitate, entering too late or exiting too early.

A systematic MTF process restores clarity, allowing you to execute with more conviction and consistency, potentially offering improved trading outcomes and providing some objective evidence as to how well your system is working.

Building Your Timeframe Hierarchy

Like many effective trading approaches, the foundation of a good MTF framework lies in simplicity. The more complex an approach, the less likely it is to be followed fully and the more likely it may impede a potential opportunity. 

Three timeframes are usually enough to capture the full picture without cluttering up your chart’s technical picture with enough information to avoid potential contradiction in action. 

Each timeframe tells a different part of the story — you want the whole book, not just a single chapter.

Scalpers might work on H1-M15-M5, while longer-term traders might prefer H4-H1-H15. 

The key is consistency in approach to build a critical mass of trades that can provide evidence for evaluation.

When all three timeframes align, the probability of at least an initial move in your desired direction may increase. 

An MTF breakout will attract traders whose preference for primary timeframe may be M15 AND hourly, AND 4-hourly, so increasing potential momentum in the move simply because more traders are looking at the same breakout than if it occurred on a single timeframe only.

Applying MTF Analysis

A robust system is built on clear, unambiguous statements within your trading plan. 

Ideally, you should define what each timeframe contributes to your decision-making process:

• Trend confirmed
• Structure validated
• Entry trigger aligned
• Risk parameters clear

When you enter on a lower timeframe, you are gaining some conviction from the higher one. Use the lower timeframe for fine-tuning and risk control, but if the higher timeframe flips direction, your bias must flip too.

Your original trading idea can be questioned and a decision made accordingly as to whether it is a good decision to stay in the trade or, as a minimum action, trail a stop loss to lock in any gains made to date.

Putting MTF into Action

So, if the goal is to embed MTF logic into your trade decisions, some step-by-step guidance may be useful on how to make this happen 

1. Define Your Timeframe Stack

Decide which three timeframes form your trading style-aligned approach. 

The key here is that as a starting point, you must “plant your flag” in one set, stick to it and measure to see how well or otherwise it works. 

Through doing this, you can refine based on evidence in the future.

One tip I have heard some traders suggest is that the middle timeframe should be at least two times your primary timeframe, and the slowest timeframe at least four times. 

2. Build and Use a Checklist

Codify your MTF logic into a repeatable routine of questions to ask, particularly in the early stages of implementing this as you develop your new habit.

Your checklist might include: 

• Is the higher-timeframe trend aligned?
• Is the structure supportive?
• Do I have a valid trigger?
• Is risk clearly defined?

This turns MTF from a concept into a practical set of steps that are clear and easy to action.

3. Consider Integrating MTF Into Open Trade Management

MTF isn’t just for entries; it can also be used as part of your exit decision-making.  

If your higher timeframe begins showing early signs of reversal, that’s a prompt to exit altogether, scale out through a partial close or tighten stops. 

By managing trades through the same multi-timeframe approach that you used to enter, you maintain logical consistency across the entire lifecycle of the trade.

Final Action

Start small. Choose one instrument, one timeframe set, and one strategy to apply it to.

Observe the clarity it adds to your decisions and outcomes.  Once you see a positive impact, you have evidence that it may be worth rolling out across other trading strategies you use in your portfolio.

Final Thought

Multi-Timeframe Analysis is not a trading strategy on its own. It is a worthwhile consideration in ALL strategies. 

It offers a wider lens through which you see the market’s true structure and potential strength of conviction.

Through aligning context, structure, and execution, you move from chasing an individual group of candles to trading with a more robust support for a decision. 

Major companies have announced over 25,000 layoffs in the U.S. this month alone, with Amazon leading the charge with 14,000 announced corporate job cuts.

This number may increase to 30,000 for Amazon by the end of the year, as CEO Andy Jassy pursues a vision of operating like "the world's biggest startup.”

Other big corporations have followed the same trend, with Target making 1,800 corporate cuts, Starbucks 2,000 positions, and, in Europe, Nestlé plans for over 20,000 cuts.

What distinguishes this round of layoffs is the focus on white-collar roles seen as vulnerable to AI-driven automation—affecting middle managers, analysts, and corporate staff.

Gartner analysts predict that by 2026, one in five organizations will use AI to eliminate at least half of their management layers.

According to a KPMG survey, 78% of executives face intense pressure from boards and investors to prove AI is saving money and boosting profits, with traditional metrics often failing to capture its business impact.

Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that AI will "replace literally half of all white-collar workers," while Salesforce's Marc Benioff claims AI is already doing up to 50% of his company's workload.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicts AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, potentially spiking unemployment to 10-20%.

Nvidia Makes History Again As First $5 Trillion Company

NVDA hit a $5 trillion market on October 29, becoming the first company in history to reach this milestone. The achievement came just three months after breaching $4 trillion, further cementing its position as the dominant force in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Since Q4 2022 — when Chat-GPT launched and began the AI-boom — Nvidia shares have climbed by over 1200% and Nvidia's valuation now exceeds the entire cryptocurrency market and equals roughly half the size of Europe's benchmark Stoxx 600 index.

The milestone comes on the back of CEO Jensen Huang unveiling $500 billion in AI chip orders and plans to build seven supercomputers for the US government.

However, there are warnings that AI's current expansion relies on a few dominant players financing each other's capacity, and valuations may be running hot. The real test comes on November 19 when Nvidia reports its quarterly results.

Fed Lowers Rates, but May Be Last Cut of 2025

The Federal Reserve delivered a quarter-point rate cut last night, but Jerome Powell's post-meeting press conference sent a clear message: don't expect another cut anytime soon.

While the Fed moved forward with the expected reduction, Powell pointed to two key obstacles that may prevent further easing this year. First, the ongoing federal government shutdown has created a data blackout, depriving policymakers of critical employment and inflation reports.

Second, Powell revealed "strongly differing views" among Fed officials about the path forward, with a "growing chorus" advocating for a pause before cutting rates again.

Markets responded by adjusting expectations, now pricing in roughly two-to-one odds for a December rate cut — down from what had been considered more certain just hours earlier.

While the Fed still seems to remain committed to eventual rate cuts, the timeline has become dependent on the government shutdown and clearer economic signals about inflation and employment trends.

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President Trump and President Xi have scheduled talks for later this week in South Korea, marking their first face-to-face meeting since Trump's return to office. After two weeks of heightened tension, a preliminary framework was established that effectively takes the threatened 100% tariffs off the table.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent characterised the framework agreement as being "very successful." This diplomatic progress has created some optimism across markets that the world's two largest economies can avoid the deeper trade conflict that was threatening to destabilise supply chains and accelerate inflation.

Copper Tests Key Resistance

Following a dramatic Q3 that saw prices surge to a record high of $5.81 in July, before plummeting to $4.37 by early August, copper has been steadily recovering as supply fundamentals reassert themselves. 

Since breaking through $5.00 in early October, prices have continued to gain strength, rising to $5.11 on October 9. Today's gap higher on trade talk optimism pushed prices back to this key technical level that has proven resistant since March. 

A confirmed breakout above $5.24 could open the door to $5.50 and potentially higher, making copper worth watching closely this week as both supply constraints and improving US-China trade relations provide potential tailwinds.

Fed Rate Decision This Week

The Federal Reserve will meet this Wednesday for the October 28-29 policy meeting, with a quarter-point rate cut seemingly fully priced in by markets. Market pricing indicates a 100% probability of an October cut and an 88% chance of another reduction in December. 

The key moment will come after the meeting during Fed Chair Powell's press conference — particularly on what he has to say about future rate policy and how the Fed views the balance of risks between inflation and employment.

Market Insights

‍Watch the latest video from Mike Smith for the week ahead in markets.

Key economic events

‍Stay up to date with the key economic events for the week.