Market Digest: Oil Collapse Drives Post-Election Rally as Tech & Crypto Diverge

Thursday, November 5, 2026 | Daily briefing on oil’s collapse, midterm shifts, AI divergence, and crypto’s key levels.

Daily Summary

Our View: Yesterday’s rally was not a reaction to the election outcome, but rather a response to the collapse in oil: Brent dropped 20% this week, marking its sharpest weekly decline since April 2020. The mechanism is simple and powerful—cheap energy eases inflationary pressures, which pulls down bond yields, and falling yields lift both equities and gold together. However, this rapid drop in oil rests on an assumption: that Trump will end the Iran war. Eurasia Group takes a cautious stance on this assumption, lowering the probability of a deal from 20% to 10%. In other words, if the priced-in scenario does not materialize, the reversal will be sharp.On the equity side, the real insight lies in the divergence: while big cloud companies rallied, data center operators and miners posted losses of up to 20%. Jefferies’ read is convincing—new governors will bring rules rather than bans, which serves as an advantage for the big players since it means a curb on uncontrolled spending.

• Dow recorded its best day since April 2025, surging 3.03%. The S&P 500 rose 1.58%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.44%, and Europe’s STOXX 600 hit a two-month high. The VIX fell 20.26% down to 16.61.
• Brent dropped 20% this week, marking its sharpest weekly decline since April 2020. After losing 8.8% yesterday to dip below $100, it stands at $94.07 today. Vice President Vance directly tied the defeat to the war: “The reason we lost is the war.”
• Clear divergence in equities: big tech won, operators lost. Microsoft rose 6.68%, Amazon 6.12%, and Apple 5.31%, while Hut 8 and Cipher dropped over 20%, and CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital,and IREN fell more than 10%.
• Jefferies: New governors will bring rules, not bans. The firm argues that Democrats winning governorships across all five states it tracks for data center exposure could make AI politically safer rather than less so.
• Bitcoin is holding above $80,000, and Zcash jumped 11.7%. Ether gained 5.71% to reach $2,426. Zcash’s NU7 upgrade is expected tomorrow, which will reduce block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.
• The Clarity Act is being evaluated within the sector as “the final nail in the coffin.” Crypto committees spent approximately $170.5 million in the election, with $125.5 million going to Republicans. The new Democratic majority takes office on January 3.
• Gold hit a two-week high at $4,137.50. Yesterday marked its best day since August 19 with a 3.4% gain,prompting Citi to announce a 0-3 month target of $4,500. Silver rose 1.18% and palladium gained 2.02%.
• Today: Bank of England interest rate decision (expected increase to 4.00%); US weekly initial jobless claims; Norges Bank. Tomorrow brings US employment data, with the probability of a Fed rate hike in December sitting at 80.7%.

Story of the Day

The Real Story is Oil, Not the Election At first glance, Wednesday’s rally looks like post-election relief, but the move was actually driven by the crash in oil. Brent lost 8.8% to drop below $100 and closed at $94.62.This week’s total drop is around 20%, and if it holds through Friday’s close, it will mark the largest weekly decline since the week in April 2020 when US crude briefly dipped into negative territory. Today marks the fourth consecutive day of declines: Brent is trading in the $93.82–$94.07 band and WTI in the $86.92–$87.07 band, with both sitting at their lowest levels since August 31.

The chain reaction flows naturally: cheap energy eases inflationary pressure, pushing bond yields down, which in turn lifts both stocks and gold. The US 10-year yield fell 6.62 basis points to 4.88%, the 2-year yield dropped to 4.56%, the dollar index slipped to 101.23, and gold jumped 3.4% for its best day since August 19.

The decline in oil is explicitly political, a fact confirmed by two statements yesterday. Trump acknowledged that the Iran war played a role in his party’s heavy defeat, while Vice President JD Vance spoke even more plainly:the reason we lost is the war; if you want to argue that it was worth it, go ahead, but everyone knows why we lost, and any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer laid out the intention: we are going to end the war, and we already have some Republicans joining us—controlling the purse strings is one of the ways to deter a president waging a war without the consent of the American people. Two sources close to Gulf governmental circles told Reuters that a weakened Trump facing a Democratic Congress has a stronger incentive to seek a deal, making a full-scale assault on Iran look less likely now. Sparta Commodities senior oil analyst June Goh summarizes the market’s read: markets are assessing the impact of the midterms on Trump’s next move in the Iran war and pricing in a higher probability that the war will end.

However, this pricing relies on an assumption, and the assumption itself is controversial. Goh warns that there will be more volatility ahead because the path toward full diplomacy ending the war remains fraught with unknowns, and global strategic reserves have run very thin. Eurasia Group paints a cautious picture with numbers: it lowered the probability of a renewed US strike from 65% to 60%, but also cut the probability of a deal from 20% to 10%, while raising the ongoing-tension scenario from 15% to 30%. The rationale is that Iran is resisting demands and Trump is unlikely to accept terms perceived as defeat. The firm forecasts that an escalation would sharply push Brent into the $110–$125 band. In a note today, Citi also highlights concerns that now that the midterms are over, the White House might focus on executive powers in foreign policy and escalate the conflict with Iran. XAnalysts CEO Mukesh Sahdev reminds us of two structural risks: commercial oil inventories in major consumer countries are near 15-year lows, and Iran could emerge from this election outcome with even stronger resolve. On the supply side, relief is tangible: according to JPMorgan, the re-introduction of Gulf supply returned the market to a surplus of 1.1 million barrels per day in September and 1.4 million barrels in October, nearly matching last year’s 1.3 million barrel average.

AI Divergence: Big Tech Won, Operators Lost The most instructive aspect of yesterday’s session was not the index movement, but the divergence within it. On one side, major cloud companies surged: Microsoft rose 6.68% to $555.80, Amazon gained 6.12% to $266.03, Apple climbed 5.31% to $349.51, and Alphabet advanced 3.18% to $288.93. This was the primary reason the Dow gained 3.03%—its best day since April 2025—since the index has quietly transformed into a mega-tech index. On the other side, data center operators and miners crashed: Hut 8 and Cipher Mining dropped over 20%, while CleanSpark, Core Scientific,Galaxy Digital, and IREN fell more than 10%. TeraWulf, Keel Infrastructure, and Bitdeer, which have lower exposure to Texas, lost “only” 4–5%. The chip sector also sold off: the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 3.6%, Nvidia dropped 3.17% to $200.13, ASML declined 3.60% to $1,496.30, and TSMC slipped 2.24% to $395.75.

An analyst neatly sums up the logic behind this divergence in a single sentence: if you slow down data centers, you essentially pull up the drawbridge on these companies’ moats—they already possess the processing power and will now earn even more. Jefferies strategists take this a step further, reaching a counterintuitive conclusion: Democrats winning governorships across all five states tracked by the firm for data center exposure could make AI politically safer rather than less so, because the new governors are expected to introduce rules and safeguards rather than outright bans. This softens the blow that a disruption in the AI trade would deal to economic growth. Nationwide Chief Market Strategist Mark Hackett points in the same direction: this is the market saying it wants a more rational trajectory in spending and that the probability of getting it has now increased. In other words, regulatory fear can also be read as a solution to the uncontrolled capital expenditure concerns we have debated for weeks.

Asia experienced this divergence in reverse, and the picture today is stark. South Korea’s KOSPI tumbled 5.37% to 5,378—sitting 42.7% below its 52-week high with a weekly loss of 10.55%; SK Hynix lost 9.03% and Samsung dropped 6.65%. In Japan, chip testing equipment maker Advantest fell 11.69%, Lasertec dropped 11.76%, and Tokyo Electron lost 9.89%, pulling the Nikkei down 1.77% to 61,089. Taiwan stands down 3.20% at 41,575 with a relative strength index of 27.9 in oversold territory, down 16.8% from its peak. In the opposite direction, Chinese tech diverged: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 3.46% to 24,747, the Hang Seng Tech index gained over 5%, Alibaba climbed 6.36%, and Tencent added 6.42%. Another winning group was solar energy,with supply chain stocks rallying hard on expectations of increased Democratic support for renewables. Jordan Watson, portfolio manager at Tandem Investment Advisors, drops a cautious note, saying that this rally and the rotation away from AI may be temporary, viewing yesterday’s move not as a pure safety signal, but as a wake-up call regarding the sheer volume of capital poured into AI infrastructure and whether those investments will generate the expected returns.

Crypto: Relief is Here, But Legislation is Out Bitcoin pushed back above $80,000, trading at $80,464 on Thursday morning, up 3.18% over 24 hours. Early Wednesday, as election results rolled in, it had dipped as low as $75,700 before staging a V-shaped recovery. Among majors, Zcash surged 11.7% to $1,318 with $1.2 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours; Ether rose 5.71% to $2,426, Solana gained 3.23% to $96, and XRP advanced 2.44% to $1.3082. BTSE COO Jeff Mei directly attributes the reason for the recovery: bitcoin bounced alongside equities because the market believes the probability of an end to the Iran conflict and high oil prices has increased. Supporting data comes from the derivatives side: Nicolas Quatravaux, head of Paradigm EMEA, notes that approximately $660 million in nominal bitcoin options blocks were processed on election day—more than double the previous day—with about $420 million in calls purchased against $105 million in puts, showing traders bet on a post-election recovery.

However, the legislative landscape has flipped in reverse, which is the real takeaway for the sector. Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, speaks bluntly: a Democratic sweep could be the final nail in the coffin for the Clarity Act for crypto. The bill failed to even pass a procedural vote in September when Republicans controlled both chambers; now, the sector faces the prospect of starting from scratch in a divided Washington. Stefan Muehlbauer, head of US public affairs at blockchain security firm CertiK, shares this view,expecting Democrats to increase scrutiny on crypto firms and Trump’s crypto ventures through congressional hearings and investigations, specifically targeting anti-money laundering, cybersecurity, and consumer protection.

The numbers reflect the scale of spending: crypto political action committees spent approximately $170.5 million, and according to Anton Golub from Forte, at least $125.5 million of that went to Republicans. Golub also identifies the bottleneck: the turf war over stablecoin rewards between banks and crypto firms, as banks oppose exchanges paying rewards to customers on dollar-backed tokens out of fear that deposits will bleed out of traditional accounts. Republicans failed to resolve this dispute while controlling Congress.

Counterarguments provide balance. Brent Fulfer, co-founder of TBV, argues that Clarity was already dead in September, noting that over 70 House Democrats supported the bill and that bipartisan support combined with protections against conflicts of interest could prove more enduring. Jason Fernandes, founder of AdLunam,maintains a conciliatory tone: while a degree of regulation and enforcement against bad actors can feel daunting even for well-intentioned industry participants, it ultimately expands the market pie significantly. Golub believes product-side growth will continue, pointing to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s decision on Tuesday to allow single-stock perpetual futures on eligible US exchanges—though on the same day, a federal judge signaled that these products might fall outside the agency’s authority. Shady El Damaty, co-founder of Human.tech, highlights another risk: Robinhood, which has moved into tokenized stocks, could face intense scrutiny due to its stock token offerings and aggressive crypto strategy. The new Democratic majorities take office on January 3.

Market Tour

Equities Wall Street closed Wednesday strong: the Dow rose 3.03% to 53,356 for its best day since April 9,2025; the S&P 500 gained 1.58% to 7,689; the Nasdaq 100 added 0.91% to 28,437; and the Russell 2000 advanced 1.58% to 2,857. The VIX fell 20.26% to 16.61. Sector-wise, consumer staples/discretionary,financials, and real estate led gains, while energy stocks were the hardest hit by the oil crash: Exxon fell 4.62% to $169.27 and Chevron declined 3.69% to $216.96.

On an individual stock basis, the aforementioned divergence dominated. Additionally, Riot Platforms jumped 14% after announcing a 15-year, $28 billion lease agreement with a leading AI lab for its entire Corsicana campus in Texas, expecting over $2 billion in average annual net operating income once fully operational.AMD rose 1% after forecasting faster growth through 2027. In after-hours trading, Qualcomm fell 6.5% despite beating expectations, while AI-powered advertising firm AppLovin surged 24%. Today, US futures are mixed:Dow futures are up 0.26%, S&P 500 is down 0.3%, and Nasdaq 100 is down 1.17%; Tapestry, Kimberly-Clark,and ConocoPhillips report earnings in the morning, with Airbnb and Akamai reporting in the afternoon.

Asia split sharply on Thursday, serving as the geographical reflection of the aforementioned divergence. Chip-heavy markets crashed: Korea’s KOSPI dropped 5.37% to 5,378, nearing a seven-month low; Taiwan fell 3.20% to 41,575; and Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.77% to 61,089. In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 3.46% to 24,747, bringing its weekly gain to 7.16%, while Shanghai hovered flat up 0.19%. Australia gained 1.39%–1.81%. Indonesia grew 5.47% year-over-year in the third quarter, beating expectations, and its index rose nearly 2%. Australian data center operator NextDC shares surged 48% after Goodman Group and US-listed Digital Realty moved to acquire up to 9.9% of the company—a move NextDC’s board labeled “opportunistic,” coming just two weeks after disclosing a power delay at its Melbourne facility.

Europe closed Wednesday strongly: the DAX rose 2.22% to 26,438, sitting just 0.68% below its 52-week high with a relative strength index of 64.8; the CAC 40 gained 1.96% to 8,178; the Euro Stoxx 50 added 1.97% to 6,266; and the STOXX 600 hit a two-month high. The BIST 100 jumped 4.12% to 11,478 with an RSI of 43.4,pulling out clearly from oversold territory; the index is up 2.93% for the week but still 24.5% below its 52-week high.

Foreign Exchange The dollar index fell 0.27% to 101.23, marking its second consecutive losing session.Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank, issues an important warning: currency and broader market movements do not necessarily reflect a medium-term dynamic, but may instead represent positioning or even an overreaction to midterm election results. What appears clearer is that the drop in oil prices is deeply supportive of risk appetite, much like the decline in yields.

The euro rose 0.49% to 1.1263, hitting a one-month high, while sterling climbed 0.42% to 1.3491, heading for its highest close since September 14. Today, the Bank of England is widely expected to raise interest rates from 3.75% to 4.00%, though notes suggest the bank may push back against investor bets pricing in several more rate cuts next year. The yen strengthened 0.31% to 157.97; Bank of Japan September meeting minutes showed some board members pointing toward a faster pace of rate hikes following their decision to raise rates to a 31-year high of 1.25%, with the market expecting the next hike in December. The Australian dollar rose 0.75% to 0.7020 and the New Zealand dollar gained 0.95% to 0.5646.

Fed expectations remain unchanged: according to CME FedWatch, the probability of at least a 25 basis point hike in December is 80.7%, compared to 77.4% in the previous session. USD/TRY hit a new high at 50.04,with an RSI of 98.5 in extreme overbought territory.

Commodities Oil continued its aforementioned collapse, marking its fourth consecutive day of losses: Brent fell 0.58%–0.85% to $93.82–$94.07, and WTI dropped 1.19%–1.36% to $86.92–$87.07. Brent’s weekly loss stands at 18.43%, with an RSI of 33.4 nearing oversold levels, sitting 25.4% below its 52-week high and down 6.47% on a monthly basis. US inventory data is similarly supportive: according to the Energy Information Administration, crude oil, gasoline, and distillate inventories all fell last week while demand hit a one-year high.Crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have recovered to near pre-war levels, according to analysts,albeit at higher costs.

Precious metals benefited from falling oil prices and a weak dollar: gold rose 1.58% to $4,137.50, hitting its highest level since October 20, following yesterday’s 3.4% surge—its largest daily gain since August 19. Linh Tran, market analyst at XS.com, notes the condition: a weak dollar and low yields helped gold break above the critical $4,000 level, but sustaining momentum above this threshold is vital for the recovery outlook; if investment flows and yield movements continue to provide support, gold could stabilize above $4,000 and open up a recovery path toward $4,200 and then $4,400. Citi is bolder, announcing a 0–3 month target of $4,500 and citing significant upside potential if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and the Yemen-Saudi conflict eases by year-end. Silver rose 1.18% to $52.74, platinum gained 1.44% to $1,522.70, and palladium climbed 2.02% to $1,020, recapturing the $1,000 threshold. Copper fell 0.12% to $6.40, bringing its weekly loss to 3.70%.

Crypto The recovery in crypto was covered above; here we look at two technical and one institutional development. Technically, bitcoin is holding above its 20-day and 50-day moving averages with an RSI of 50.6 in neutral territory, standing 7.93% below its 52-week high. The shift in the options market is noteworthy: the vast majority of downside protection puts have been removed, and traders are pricing in $82,000, while the $90,000 calls available a couple of weeks ago are gone. Positioning has turned upward, but targets are measured. High-leverage perpetual futures data shows traders beginning to accumulate leveraged long positions around $79,000; a potential pullback could test this zone and sweep out those positions. The level to watch on the upside is $82,880: multiple closes above this level are considered a trigger for $85,000 and higher targets.

Flows, however, remain weak, signaling an absence of institutional confirmation for the rally. US-listed spot bitcoin funds experienced a combined $1.04 billion in net outflows on Friday and Monday, following $515 million in outflows last month and a similar sum in the early days of November. In other words, money continues to exit funds while prices recover. Viktoras Karapetjanc, expert at Traders Union, balances the view:despite heavy ETF outflows, bitcoin’s ability to hold above key moving averages is a sign of underlying strength; fading institutional demand may limit near-term upside, but price upward momentum remains solid,and a convincing break of $81,608 would align the technical and macro picture in favor of further gains.

On the institutional side, another development came from Strategy: the company’s preferred stock STRC,which pays a 12% annualized dividend on a daily basis, briefly reached its $100 par value on Wednesday afternoon for the first time since May. The significance is this: when STRC hits $100, Michael Saylor and his team transition from issuing shares to buying them back, using the proceeds to purchase more bitcoin.Strategy had raised over $10 billion via STRC since its IPO in July 2025; since buybacks began in the summer of 2026, it has raised zero capital from STRC and executed over $2 billion in buybacks. MSTR shares rose 6.5% on Wednesday.

Second Story: Trump Media Moves $342M in Bitcoin According to Arkham data, wallets linked to Truth Social parent company Trump Media & Technology Group transferred 4,259 bitcoin—worth approximately $342 million—to Crypto.com. The transfer took place at 02:17 UTC in two nearly equal batches of 2,140.03 and 2,119.31 bitcoin. The coins moved from addresses labeled “2028 Convertible Bond Collateral” to an address reported to belong to Crypto.com. The timing is notable: the company’s Q2 filing stated that as of June 30, 4,260.73 bitcoin were pledged as collateral for its convertible notes, and the withdrawal or distribution of these coins is restricted under the credit agreement. Arkham’s labels align with this arrangement, but do not explain why the coins were moved.

The core issue lies in the calendar. According to the company’s securities filing on November 2, convertible bondholders can demand repayment on November 30, and if all holders exercise this right, the company could be forced to pay out roughly $1 billion. The filing explicitly warns that if refinancing or other measures fall short,Trump Media may have to sell bitcoin or other digital assets to fund the buybacks. The recent transfer represents about 30% of the roughly 14,139 bitcoin the company stated it held as of July 31, including encumbered coins; however, because this figure comes from an older disclosure, it does not prove the company’s holdings have decreased.

An important nuance applies: on-chain movement is frequently interpreted as an intent to sell, but that is not always true; movement alone does not prove a sale. Indeed, in May 2026, the company transferred about 2,650 bitcoin to the same platform, with a spokesperson stating it was part of a broader execution strategy rather than a sale, and in early August, 2nd-quarter custodial management adjustments were cited for another transfer of 2,628 bitcoin. Crypto.com has been one of the custodial partners since the company launched its bitcoin treasury strategy. For investors in Turkey, the lesson here is that the primary vulnerability of the treasury company model is its maturity structure, not just the bitcoin price: a company facing bond repayments while the bitcoin price drops may find itself forced into a seller position, making November 30 a date to watch closely.

Levels to Watch

• Brent, $94 / $110–$125 band: Current level versus the range envisioned by Eurasia Group in its escalation scenario. The firm cut the probability of a deal from 20% to 10%; if the priced-in peace scenario fails to materialize, the reversal will be sharp.
• Bitcoin, $82,880: Multiple closes above this level are considered a trigger for $85,000 and beyond.Below, the $79,000 area is where leveraged long positions have accumulated.
• ETF flows: A total of $1.04 billion in outflows occurred on Friday and Monday, with outflows continuing into early November. Money leaving while prices recover signals a lack of institutional confirmation for the rally.
• Gold, $4,000 / $4,200 / $4,500: According to XS.com, holding above $4,000 is critical; if sustained,$4,200 and $4,400 open up. Citi set its 0–3 month target at $4,500.
• Bank of England, Today: Rates are expected to be raised to 4.00%. Whether the bank pushes back against market pricing for several more rate cuts next year will determine sterling’s trajectory.
• Trump Media, November 30: Convertible bondholders can demand repayment, potentially totaling up to $1 billion. The company’s filing explicitly stated it may have to sell bitcoin.

Weekly Calendar

Date	Day	Development
November 5	Thursday	Bank of England interest rate decision (expected hike from 3.75% to 4.00%); Norges Bank; US weekly initial jobless claims; earnings from Tapestry, Kimberly-Clark, ConocoPhillips, Airbnb, and Akamai
November 6	Friday	US October employment data (expected gain of 65k; ADP beat expectations Wednesday at 86k); Zcash NU7 network upgrade (block time drops from 75s to 25s)
November 11	Wednesday	MSCI announces index deletions (Strategy and Metaplanet at risk)
November 30	Monday	Trump Media convertible bond buyback date; if all holders exercise rights, payout could reach ~$1 billion
December 11	Friday	Deadline for fiscal year 2027 spending agreement; government shutdown risk on the table in a divided government
December	—	Fed rate hike probability at 80.7%; Bank of Japan also expected to hike
January 3, 2027	—	New Democratic majorities take office; passage of the Clarity Act in its current form is viewed as unlikely