Morning Edition · Saturday, October 17, 2026
Macro
Trump waives Russia sanctions law's secondary tariffs two days before they take effect, sparing India and China
The executive order suspends 500% tariffs on Russian goods and 100% duties on large buyers of Russian oil and gas a week after Moscow agreed to supply diesel to the US, with gasoline prices up 34% from a year ago.
Markets
Brent touches $110 for the first time since May after attacks on at least nine ships near the Strait of Hormuz
Brent closed at $109.86, up 3.7%, and US crude settled above $100, while China kept its October fuel export quota at about 3.7 million tons, below September's level.
Macro
Warsh offers no rate guidance in Bangkok as US inflation reaches 3.7% and the 10-year Treasury yield stays near 5.1%
Traders cut the odds of an October rate hike to about 20% after the Federal Reserve chair's silence, while still pricing a hike by year-end, and in Tokyo, Rakuten paid a 4.37% coupon to sell yen bonds to retail savers.
Markets
Nasdaq falls 2.1% as fears over AI debt and interest rates hit chipmakers and software stocks together
CoreWeave fell nearly 12% and AMD, Intel and Micron each lost more than 5%, and the S&P 500's 2% weekly decline erased the previous week's gains to a record high.
Crypto
Gold and bitcoin both trade below year-ago prices as Google quantum advance raises the risk to early bitcoin wallets
Bitcoin, near $82,600, is about $25,600 lower than a year ago while gold, near $4,168, is down only $86, and Google says its Willow chip now prepares key quantum states with about 40 times fewer errors.
Macro
Flávio Bolsonaro promises a fiscal adjustment but will not touch minimum-wage indexation or health spending floors before Brazil's runoff
The challenger leads President Lula in recent polls, and on the same day the Senate promulgated an end to the six-day work week, adding a labor-cost change to a race decided largely on fiscal credibility.
Geopolitics
Ukrainian drone barrage shuts all four Moscow airports and restricts flights across 22 Russian airports
Russia says it downed 644 drones over 26 regions in one night, and flights to Moscow were still being diverted into Saturday, while UN migration officials warn that Russian strikes on Ukraine's grid threaten millions with displacement this winter.
Geopolitics
Missiles strike Aden airport again as the Houthis widen attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Bab el-Mandeb shipping route
Yemen's information minister said two missiles landed about 500 meters from a Yemenia airliner preparing to take off, after a Saudi-led coalition struck 82 Houthi targets and the Houthis claimed attacks on tankers carrying Saudi crude.
Markets
India's IT index posts its biggest weekly gain since 2008 as a weak rupee and AI revenue lift HCLTech and its peers
The Nifty IT index rose 11.7% for the week while Asian chip stocks fell, with the rupee near 95 to the dollar and the Reserve Bank of India setting up dollar arrangements for state oil companies.
Geopolitics
Trump says he would welcome Putin at the Miami G20 as Macron warns that ending aid to Ukraine would endanger France
Marine Le Pen has pledged to cut French financial support for Kyiv if she wins power, and a Kremlin-aligned analyst predicts Trump will fail to force Ukraine to hold elections.
Geopolitics
US holds more secret talks with Myanmar's military government in Tokyo as Washington looks at heavy rare earths
The meetings continue a reversal of US isolation of the generals that began with a September visit to Naypyitaw, and the rare-earth deposits under discussion lie largely in territory held by ethnic armies and feed China's processing industry.
World
Berlin demands binding commitments from UniCredit as Italian buyers move deeper into German companies
The German government, Commerzbank's second-largest shareholder with just over 13%, wants guarantees on the bank's Frankfurt headquarters and lending to mid-sized firms before UniCredit takes control, which could happen as early as January.