Markets week in review 44/2026: Intel rout, DAX up 2.5%

Big Tech earnings and Intel’s weakest guidance in years sent the Nasdaq 100 down 1.98% and the S&P 500 down 0.57%, a third straight weekly loss, while the DAX rose 2.53% and the FTSE 100 and Nikkei 225 edged higher. Gold fell 3.74% to a one-year low and the expiring December Brent contract rolled off near $118.

Pair	Open	Close	Change	Note
S&P 500	7623.68	7580.07	-0.57%	Third weekly loss in a row; fell 1.8% on Friday after Intel’s guidance
Nasdaq 100	28957.53	28384.85	-1.98%	Rose Monday to Wednesday, then lost 4.8% over Thursday and Friday
DAX	25181.65	25818.21	+2.53%	Four straight gains to above 26,000 on Thursday before a 0.85% dip on Friday
FTSE 100	10690.36	10729.78	+0.37%	Small gain; BP reported $8.5bn underlying profit on Friday
Nikkei 225	62693.16	63290.11	+0.95%	Three-day rally ended with a 2.12% drop on Friday as chip stocks sold off
Gold (spot, $/oz)	—	3875.19	-3.74%	Lowest since October 2025, per FinanceFeeds; down about 7.2% in October
Brent (January, $/bbl)	—	113.43	—	December contract expired on Friday; Hormuz shipping attacks kept prices above $110

The last week of October was one of the busiest of the year for anyone who trades indices and commodities. The three largest central banks that met (the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) all left rates unchanged, four of the biggest US technology companies reported results, oil traders dealt with an expiring Brent contract and a run of attacks on Gulf shipping, and on Friday a single profit warning from Intel set off the worst day for the Nasdaq since June.

The result was a split week. US indices fell for a third week in a row, led by technology. European and Japanese indices finished higher, with the DAX up more than 2.5%. Gold had its second heavy weekly loss in a row and closed at its lowest level in a year.

This recap covers equity indices and commodities. For the central bank decisions and currency moves in more detail, see our forex week in review 44/2026, which this piece links to rather than repeats.

How the figures were measured

Weekly figures below compare the close on Friday 30 October with the close on Friday 23 October. US index closes are from the Associated Press market summary, published by La Nación. Nasdaq 100, DAX, FTSE 100 and Nikkei 225 daily closes are from Investing.com historical data, which we cross-checked against Trading Economics, BBN Times and the Japan Daily Sun where possible. Gold figures are from FinanceFeeds. Oil figures are from the Oil Monitor weekly summary, Investing.com and CNBC. Sources differ slightly on some closing prints; where that matters, we say so.

A note on Brent: the December ICE Brent contract expired on Friday, so the front month changed during the week. That makes a simple week-on-week percentage change misleading, which is why the Brent row above shows only the January contract’s Friday settlement of $113.43, implied by CNBC’s report that it fell $1.59 to $111.84 early on Monday.

The week day by day

Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 October: a steady start

The week opened calmly. The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.09% on Monday and 1.29% on Tuesday, according to Investing.com data, as investors positioned for the big technology earnings due later in the week. In Frankfurt, the DAX rose 0.91% on Monday and 0.71% on Tuesday. The FTSE 100 gained 0.72% on Monday and gave it back on Tuesday. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.22% on Monday before rising 1.73% on Tuesday, the start of a three-day run.

Oil was volatile. WTI settled at $101.76 on Monday and $99.90 on Tuesday, according to the Oil Monitor, before turning higher again in the middle of the week.

Wednesday 28 October: the Fed and the first earnings

The Federal Reserve kept the federal funds target range at 3.75–4.00%, but two of the twelve voters, Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack, wanted a quarter-point hike. Markets read that as a hawkish hold: no change now, but a clear tilt towards tighter policy. Our forex recap for the week covers the statement in detail.

After the US close, Alphabet and Microsoft reported. Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 48% to $33.17 billion, on total revenue of $92.28 billion. Alphabet’s Google Cloud revenue was $30.71 billion, but the company reported negative free cash flow of $9.07 billion, as spending on data centres outpaced the cash its businesses generated. These figures are from the Thrive in Markets weekly summary.

The Nasdaq 100 closed Wednesday up 0.55% at 29,813.16, its high close of the week. The DAX added 0.44% and the Nikkei 1.08%. WTI rose to $102.78.

Thursday 29 October: Alphabet falls, Europe rallies

Alphabet’s Class A shares fell about 13% on Thursday. A company with strong revenue growth can still see its shares fall sharply if investors decide that the cost of that growth is too high, and negative free cash flow is exactly that kind of signal. The Nasdaq 100 lost 1.38%.

Europe had a very different day. The DAX rose 1.31% to close above 26,000, at 26,039.68, its fourth gain in a row. Trading Economics listed Adidas (up 5.79%), Rheinmetall (up 4.16%) and Deutsche Bank (up 3.98%) as the leaders. The ECB kept its deposit rate at 2.50% and euro area third-quarter GDP grew 0.4% on the quarter, twice the 0.2% that had been forecast, according to RTTNews.

In the US, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that GDP grew at a 3.4% annual rate in the third quarter and that the PCE price index was up 3.6% on the year in September. Strong growth and inflation at that level support the case for the Fed to raise rates, which is not usually good news for highly valued growth stocks or for gold.

After the close, Amazon reported sales of $201.9 billion, slightly below the roughly $202.3 billion expected, with AWS revenue up 39.3% to $46.0 billion. Intel also reported, and that was the report that set the tone for Friday.

Friday 30 October: the Intel rout

Intel’s third-quarter revenue of $16.51 billion was up 21% on the year, with data centre revenue up 78%. But the company guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15–16 billion, against estimates near $17 billion, and said it expected PC shipments to fall 25% to 30% from the previous quarter, according to TokenPost. The shares fell about 29%, their steepest one-day drop since 1974.

The selling spread across the chip sector and then the wider market. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell more than 7.2% on the day and more than 15.3% over October. The Nasdaq Composite lost 2.86%, its biggest one-day drop since June, the S&P 500 fell 1.82% to 7,580.07 and the Dow fell 1.09%. The Nasdaq 100 dropped 3.46% to 28,384.85.

Tokyo was the first major market to trade after Intel’s results, and chip-related stocks sold off there too. The Nikkei 225 fell 1,369.36 points, or 2.12%, to 63,290.11, ending a three-day winning streak, according to the Japan Daily Sun. Ibiden fell 15.21%, Fujitsu 16.20% and Lasertec 8.81%. The broader Topix fell only 0.95%, a sign that the damage was concentrated in technology.

The DAX fell 0.85% to 25,818.21 on Investing.com’s data. Trading Economics recorded the close at 25,795, down 0.94%, and named Siemens Energy, Infineon and Deutsche Bank as the biggest decliners. The FTSE 100 edged up 0.07% to 10,729.78, helped by oil companies.

BP reported its third-quarter results on Friday. Underlying replacement cost profit was $8.46 billion, $2.7 billion higher than the previous quarter, and profit attributable to shareholders was $4.7 billion, according to the company’s filing. Its refining indicator margin averaged $46.7 a barrel. Net debt fell to $13.9 billion.

Gold fell more than 3% on the day. FinanceFeeds reported that spot gold ended at $3,875.19 an ounce, its lowest since October 2025, and that December COMEX gold futures settled at $3,898.90. It attributed the drop to rising expectations of a Fed rate hike and to forced selling, citing Commerzbank on margin-call liquidations.

Index by index

S&P 500: down 0.57%

The S&P 500 closed at 7,580.07, down 43.61 points on the week, according to the AP. It is still up 10.7% for the year, but it has now fallen for three weeks in a row, its longest losing run since March, according to TokenPost. Thrive in Markets noted that the index’s record close was 7,818.93 on 6 October. The weekly loss was much smaller than Friday’s fall because the index had gained in the first half of the week.

Nasdaq 100: down 1.98%

The Nasdaq 100 fell from 28,957.53 to 28,384.85. Its loss over Thursday and Friday together was about 4.8%, from Wednesday’s 29,813.16. The index is weighted by market value, so a bad week for a handful of very large companies has a big effect. Our guide to what a stock index is explains how capitalisation weighting works and why the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 can diverge.

DAX: up 2.53%

The DAX was the strongest of the major indices we track, rising from 25,181.65 to 25,818.21. It gained every day from Monday to Thursday. Stronger-than-expected euro area growth coincided with the gains, and Thursday’s leaders, Adidas, Rheinmetall and Deutsche Bank, have little direct exposure to US technology spending. Remember that the DAX is a total return index, which means dividends are assumed to be reinvested; that is one reason its level is not directly comparable with price indices such as the FTSE 100.

FTSE 100: up 0.37%

The FTSE 100 rose from 10,690.36 to 10,729.78. The London index has a large weighting in energy, mining, banks and consumer staples, and very little technology, so the Intel sell-off barely touched it. High oil prices supported BP and Shell.

Nikkei 225: up 0.95%

The Nikkei rose from 62,693.16 to 63,290.11 despite Friday’s fall. The Nikkei 225 is a price-weighted index, so shares with a high price per share, which include several chip-equipment and electronics companies, carry more weight than their market value alone would suggest. That helps explain why it fell 2.12% on Friday while the broader, capitalisation-weighted Topix fell less than 1%.

Commodities

Gold: down 3.74%

Gold closed the week at $3,875.19 an ounce, according to FinanceFeeds, down about 7.2% over October, its second monthly decline in a row. Other sources measured the weekly fall from different reference prices: Thrive in Markets, for example, put it at about 3.0%. Either way, it was a heavy week.

Two forces worked together. First, the rate outlook: strong US growth, PCE inflation of 3.6% and two Fed votes for a hike made a December increase more likely. Gold pays no interest, so higher rates raise the cost of holding it. FinanceFeeds noted that the 10-year Treasury yield held at 4.93% on Friday. Second, liquidation: when stocks fall sharply and traders face margin calls, they often sell whatever is liquid and still showing a gain, and gold fitted that description. Our guide to gold and silver covers the usual drivers, and the XAU/USD profile covers trading gold as a currency pair.

Brent: around $113 for the new front month

The December Brent contract expired on Friday. Investing.com recorded its final price at $117.64, while the Oil Monitor described $117.64 as the expiring contract’s peak. The January contract, which is now the front month, finished the week at about $113. CNBC reported early on Monday that it had fallen $1.59 to $111.84, which puts Friday’s settlement at $113.43. The Oil Monitor gave $113.10.

The difference between those numbers is not an error so much as a feature of futures markets. Each Brent contract is for delivery in a specific month, and when one expires, data providers switch to the next one. When the market is in backwardation, as it was this week, with the nearer contract priced above the later one, that switch shows up as an apparent drop in price that nobody actually traded. Our guides to how commodity futures work and oil trading explain contango, backwardation and how CFD providers handle the roll.

The supply news was all one way. Iran reported four vessels hit near the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre logged 43 security incidents involving commercial shipping in the Gulf in October, 30 of them direct strikes on tankers, and a third US carrier group was heading to the region, according to the Oil Monitor. At the same time, it said, a US proposal had been passed on through Qatari mediators and Tehran said it was open to a diplomatic solution. The EIA reported that US crude inventories fell 1.9 million barrels to 410.6 million in the week to 23 October, the fourth straight weekly draw, against expectations of a small build. WTI settled at $104.12 on Friday, up 0.82% from $103.27 a week earlier, and rose 15.2% over October.

What the split tells us

This week was a good example of why the major indices do not all move together. The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, DAX, FTSE 100 and Nikkei 225 are often described as "the market", but their make-up is very different.

The Nasdaq 100 is dominated by large technology companies, so earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel decided its week.
The FTSE 100 has little technology and a lot of energy and mining, so high oil prices helped it more than tech news hurt it.
The DAX has heavy weightings in industrials, carmakers, financials and defence companies, and responded more to European growth data.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller US companies rose 1.3% on the week, according to the AP, even as the Nasdaq fell 2%. Narrow sell-offs in a few giant companies can leave the rest of the market largely untouched.

Our guide on how stock markets work covers how earnings and guidance move individual shares, and why guidance often matters more than the results themselves, as Intel showed.

Risk notes for a week like this

Index CFDs can move several percent in a day on news from a single company. See trading index CFDs for how point values, opening gaps and overnight financing work.
Under ESMA rules, retail clients in the EU can use at most 20:1 leverage on major indices and gold, and 10:1 on other commodities such as oil. Our guide to CFDs on stocks, indices and commodities explains how the terms differ by asset.
Earnings released after the US close can cause the next day’s open to gap well past a stop-loss. See gap risk and weekend risk.
Expiring futures contracts change the price that commodity CFDs track. Check how your provider handles rollover adjustments.
Most retail CFD accounts lose money; providers typically disclose between 61% and 89% of accounts. See why most retail CFD traders lose.

Example: a trader holds one Nasdaq 100 CFD at $1 per point, opened at Thursday’s close of 29,402.51. At 20:1 leverage, the notional value is about $29,403 and the margin posted is about $1,470. Friday’s fall of 1,017.66 points would mean a loss of about $1,018, roughly 69% of the margin. If the account held $5,000, that is about 20% of the account on one position in one day. Sized to risk 1% of the account with a stop 300 points away, the position would have been well under one contract and the loss limited to about $50, unless the price gapped through the stop. The numbers are illustrative; our position size calculator does the arithmetic for any index or commodity.

What this week teaches

Guidance can matter more than results. Intel’s revenue grew 21%, but a weaker-than-expected outlook led to a fall of about 29% in one day.
Spending can outweigh growth. Alphabet’s cloud business grew strongly, but negative free cash flow of $9.07 billion weighed on the shares.
Indices are not interchangeable. The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.98% in the same week the DAX rose 2.53%, because they hold very different companies.
Gold can fall in a geopolitical crisis. Higher rate expectations and forced selling outweighed the safe-haven argument this week.
Futures expiry can distort price charts. The switch from the December to the January Brent contract changed the quoted price by several dollars without any real trade at those levels.
Sources disagree on closing prints. The DAX’s Friday close was 25,818.21 on one data feed and 25,795 on another. Always check which close a figure refers to.

Scheduled next week

These are the scheduled events for Monday 2 to Friday 6 November. This is a list of events, not a view on how markets will react. Check opening times on our stock exchange hours tool.

Monday 2 November: US ISM manufacturing survey; Apple and Palantir results after the US close.
Tuesday 3 November: US midterm elections; Reserve Bank of Australia monetary policy decision; AMD results after the US close.
Wednesday 4 November: US ADP employment and ISM services surveys; euro area flash inflation estimate for October; Qualcomm, Arm and Arista Networks report during Wednesday and Thursday.
Thursday 5 November: Bank of England monetary policy decision.
Friday 6 November, 8:30 am New York time: US employment report for October from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Weekly: the EIA’s US petroleum status report, usually published on Wednesday.

Sources

Not investment advice. This is general information and education, written without knowledge of your circumstances. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money. Risk warning

Markets week in review 44/2026: Intel’s crash drags the Nasdaq as the DAX gains 2.5%