Markets, 25 October 2026
Weekend check: Friday's closes revise oil down, steel jumps, copper firms
What moved
- First, a correction. It’s the weekend, so these are Friday’s (23 October) closing quotes. Yesterday’s note used earlier Friday quotes that have since moved. Brent finished around $111.7 a barrel, not $116.7, which is down about 1.3% on the day but still up about 8% in a month. WTI ended up about 3.8% at roughly $103.3, up 12% in a month.
- Steel jumped. US Midwest HRC futures rose about 4.5% to roughly $1,482 a metric tonne, up about 4.6% on the week and 8.7% in a month. Shanghai rebar was 3,051 yuan a tonne, with no weekly history yet.
- Copper firmed, aluminium didn’t. COMEX copper rose about 2.3% to roughly $14,347 a tonne, still down about 2.6% in a month. Aluminium fell about 1.8% to $3,137, down almost 9% in a month. Zinc was flat at $3,944.
- Rates and the dollar. The 2-year Treasury was 4.65% and the 10-year 4.96% (22 October, down 16 and 17 basis points). The dollar index was 101.8, little changed.
- Stocks. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq 0.2%. The DFM fell about 1.4% to 5,734 and the ADX about 1.2% to 9,588. Gold fell about 1.3% to around $4,008, down about 7% in a month.
- Slow-moving indexes (September, unchanged): the US PPIs for copper wire and cable (+0.8%), steel wire drawing (+0.6%) and cement (flat).
The truth: For UAE cable, electrical and construction suppliers, the week ended with steel as the story. A 4.5% one-day jump in US hot-rolled coil, and nearly 9% in a month, is the kind of move that shows up in wire, mesh, fencing, tray and tower quotes a few weeks later. Copper is back near $14,350, so the conductor discount from earlier in the week has mostly gone. Aluminium is the one input still well below last month. Oil is lower than I said yesterday, and I’d rather fix that than leave it. At around $112 Brent it’s still high, which is good for Gulf budgets and bad for freight and energy costs. Lower Treasury yields help financing because the dirham is pegged to the dollar, but one week isn’t a trend. My read: keep metal escalation clauses in, keep quote validity short on steel-heavy work, and check steel prices again before you lock anything in next week.
Sources and as-of dates for every number are on the Markets board.