PBOC sets USD/CNY reference rate at 6.7840 vs. 6.7829 previous

A Reuters poll run October 16-20 found 94 of 100 economists expecting the Fed to hold at 3.75-4.00% on October 28 — and all 100 expecting a hike in December, against less than half a month earlier. The market is close to the same price, with CME FedWatch at roughly 17% for October and 82.8% for December. With the Fed in blackout since October 17, here are the five dates that decide the rest of the year, what each one is priced for, and the two directions each can take.

Alphabet and Microsoft report after the close on October 28, Amazon on October 29, with hyperscaler AI capex running near $800 billion a year. Meta's negative free cash flow and 9.40% drop on October 22 was the warning; this week's prints decide whether cloud growth and backlog can pay for the buildout. Here are the consensus numbers, the free-cash-flow table and the two-sided test.

Anthropic publicly filed its S-1 on October 26, revealing $16.29 billion of first-half revenue (+1,304% year over year) and a $80.7 billion net loss — of which $72.4 billion is a non-cash convertible-note charge. The real number is the $450 billion of signed, mostly non-cancelable compute commitments. Here is what the filing says, why NVDA, ARM and MU are the tradeable read-through, and the conditions that decide whether the AI trade passes its first public valuation test.

The Federal Reserve will announce its October interest rate decision at 14:00 Eastern Time on October 28, and Fed Chair Warsh will hold a press conference at 14:30. Markets currently wide

December Brent trades at $115.29 while January is $110.71, a $4.58 backwardation. The December Brent-WTI spread is $14.2, versus a $3-5 normal. That gap, not the headline, is where the Middle East supply risk is priced. Here is what the curve says, why the December contract's expiry on October 30 will mechanically cut the headline by $4.6, and the 108.81 neckline that decides the next move.