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A daily board of the prices that move UAE cable, electrical and construction suppliers: copper, aluminium, zinc, steel, cement, oil, gold, stocks, Treasuries and the dollar.
Today's note: 23 Oct 2026
What moved
- Oil spiked. Brent rose about 4.5% to around $113.8 a barrel and WTI rose about 3% to about $100. Brent is up about 15% in a month.
- Base metals fell. COMEX copper dropped about 2.4% to roughly $14,085 a tonne and aluminium fell about 2.7% to $3,092. Copper is down about 5% in a month and aluminium is down about 11%. Zinc was flat at $3,944 (as of 21 October).
- Steel went the other way. US Midwest HRC futures rose about 4% to roughly $1,476 a metric tonne, up about 8% in a month. Shanghai rebar slipped to 3,056 yuan a tonne. This is the first day it’s on the board, so there’s no weekly change yet.
- Risk off. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq fell 2.6%. The EEM emerging-markets ETF fell 2.9%. Gold dropped about 3% to around $4,027. The DFM closed at 5,818 and the ADX at 9,702. Changes for those two will appear once the board has stored a few days of history.
- Rates and the dollar. The 2-year Treasury was at 4.81% and the 10-year at 5.13% (21 October), with the 10-year up 17 basis points in a month. The dollar index eased 0.2% to 101.5.
- Slow-moving indexes (September): the US PPIs for copper wire and cable (+0.8%), steel wire drawing (+0.6%) and cement (flat) all edged higher or held steady.
The truth: For UAE cable, electrical and construction suppliers, today’s board pulls two ways. Cheaper copper and aluminium help anyone buying conductor metal for cable or overhead lines. A 5–11% monthly drop is real money on a tender priced a month ago. But the gain is uneven. Steel, the input for wire, mesh, fencing, towers and rebar, is getting more expensive, and HRC is up 8% in a month. Oil above $110 is good news for Gulf budgets and project pipelines, but it pushes up freight, energy and galvanising costs right now. A 5% US 10-year, with the dirham pegged to the dollar, keeps local financing expensive. The practical read is to lock in metal-price escalation clauses, quote steel-heavy work on short validity and not assume that cheaper copper means cheaper jobs.
Sources and as-of dates for every number are on the Markets board.
The board
| Instrument | Price | Unit | Day | Week | Month | Trend | Source · as of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metals | |||||||
| Copper (COMEX)COMEX front-month, converted from USD/lb | 14,114 | USD/t | -2.2% | -1.7% | -5.3% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Aluminium (COMEX)COMEX front-month; conductor and overhead-line metal | 3,092 | USD/t | -2.7% | -0.2% | -11.0% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Zinc (CME, LME-style)Galvanizing input for wire, mesh and steel structures | 3,944 | USD/t | 0.0% | 0.0% | -6.0% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Copper wire & cable (US PPI)Monthly producer price index; no free daily copper rod feed | 607.7 | index | +0.8% | n/a | +0.8% | FRED (St. Louis Fed) · | |
| Steel | |||||||
| Steel wire drawing (US PPI)Monthly producer price index; proxy for wire rod, no free daily feed | 325.3 | index | +0.6% | n/a | +0.6% | FRED (St. Louis Fed) · | |
| Steel HRC (CME US Midwest)CME front-month, converted from USD/short ton | 1,476 | USD/t | +4.1% | +4.2% | +8.3% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Steel rebar (SHFE)Shanghai rebar futures, as quoted by Trading Economics | 3,056 | CNY/t | n/a | n/a | n/a | Trading Economics · | |
| Construction | |||||||
| Cement manufacturing (US PPI)Monthly producer price index; no free daily Gulf cement feed | 353.0 | index | +0.0% | n/a | +0.0% | FRED (St. Louis Fed) · | |
| Energy | |||||||
| Brent crudeICE front-month | 113.66 | USD/bbl | +4.5% | +7.3% | +14.5% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| WTI crudeNYMEX front-month | 99.88 | USD/bbl | +2.8% | +2.0% | +5.6% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| GoldCOMEX front-month | 4,027 | USD/oz | -3.0% | -3.4% | -8.0% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Equities | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 7,663 | points | -1.2% | -1.0% | -1.3% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,009 | points | -2.6% | -2.6% | -4.5% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| DFM General IndexDubai Financial Market | 5,818 | points | n/a | n/a | n/a | Yahoo Finance · | |
| ADX General IndexAbu Dhabi Securities Exchange | 9,702 | points | n/a | n/a | n/a | Yahoo Finance · | |
| MSCI EM (EEM ETF proxy)iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, used as a free proxy for the index | 61.72 | USD | -2.9% | -3.5% | -10.7% | Yahoo Finance · | |
| Rates & FX | |||||||
| US Treasury 2yDaily constant-maturity yield | 4.81 | % | +2 bp | -1 bp | +5 bp | FRED (St. Louis Fed) · | |
| US Treasury 10yDaily constant-maturity yield | 5.13 | % | +1 bp | -6 bp | +17 bp | FRED (St. Louis Fed) · | |
| US Dollar IndexICE DXY; the dirham is pegged to the dollar | 101.60 | index | -0.2% | -0.4% | +1.0% | Yahoo Finance · | |
How this board works
I’m VikiD, and this is the short daily look at the numbers that sit underneath a cable drum, a coil of galvanised wire or a tonne of rebar on a Gulf site. Metals set the cost of the material. Oil and gas set the region’s budgets and its project pipeline. Rates and the dollar set the cost of money, and the dirham is pegged to the dollar.
Every number comes from a free public source and links to it, with the date it is as of. Futures prices are the latest quote when the board was refreshed, not an official settlement. Some things have no free daily feed: copper and steel wire rod, Gulf cement and Gulf rebar. For those I show the best public reference I can find, such as a monthly US producer price index or the Shanghai rebar contract, and I say so. If a number can’t be fetched, it says “unavailable”. I never fill the gap with a guess.
Each daily note covers what moved, then The truth: what it means for UAE cable, electrical and construction suppliers. It’s not investment advice.