Midterm rally meets Asian chip rout as the Bank of England decides at noon

• US: Wall Street closed sharply higher last night. The Dow ended up 3.03% at 53,356.12, the S&P 500 up 1.58% at 7,688.62 and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.44% at 25,736.51. Futures are the only live read and they are softer: S&P 500 futures are down 0.11%, Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.91%.
• Europe: Yet to open. On Wednesday the FTSE 100 closed up 1.79% at 10,829.21, the DAX up 2.22% at 26,437.67 and the CAC 40 up 1.96% at 8,177.89.
• Asia: The Kospi ended down 5.28% at 5,383.80, Taiwan down 3.20% at 41,574.72 and the Nikkei down 1.79% at 61,077.90. China went the other way: the Hang Seng is trading up 3.91% at 24,854.77, while the Shanghai Composite is barely changed, up 0.10%.

Democrats won both chambers of Congress, and markets treated the result as a relief rather than a threat. The bigger transmission was oil. Vice President JD Vance blamed the Republican losses on the Iran war, and traders bet the White House would now look for an exit. Brent is flat at $94.56 this morning but down 19.62% over five sessions. Cheaper oil eases inflation fears and leaves consumers more to spend, which helps explain why the US 10-year yield closed 5.8 basis points lower at 4.894% and consumer discretionary stocks rose 4.26% while energy fell 4.74%.

That peace trade remains a bet, not a deal. Trump has warned he could 'finish the job' if Iran refuses a binding agreement, and Tehran's leadership is signalling resistance.

The same election hurt the AI trade. Texas elected a governor who pledged a moratorium on new data centres, raising fears of wider curbs. Then Qualcomm's handset revenue fell 26% to $5.14bn, short of the $5.25bn expected, and its shares dropped more than 6% after hours. Arm beat estimates but its royalty growth of 8% disappointed. Scarce, costly memory is squeezing smartphone demand. Samsung and SK Hynix led Seoul lower, with a sell-side trading curb triggered during the session. China's chipmakers rose on Beijing's support, including a 25 basis point cut to a central-bank relending rate, though that does not cleanly explain why Hong Kong so far outran Shanghai.

Fear faded in the US: the VIX closed down 20.26% at 16.61 and the MOVE index of bond volatility fell 6.09% to 93.885. Our own breadth count across PrimerIQ's US universe showed 3,992 advancers against 2,030 decliners on Wednesday. Leadership was unusually rotated, though, with technology flat (-0.01%) as most other sectors rose. Gold is up 1.50% at $4,134.20 and the dollar index down 0.19% at 101.321, which looks more like a weaker dollar and lower yields than a flight to safety. Asia is the warning: the Kospi now sits 42.64% below its 52-week high.

The UK's main event comes at noon rather than 07:00. The Bank of England announces its decision and new forecasts at 12:00 GMT, with a quarter-point rise from 3.75% to 4% widely expected; money markets priced about an 80% chance as of Wednesday. Goldman Sachs expects a 7-2 vote. September's CPI of 3.5%, driven mainly by fuel, is the backdrop, so this week's oil slide complicates the message.

German industrial orders rose 4.4% in September, reported this morning, short of the 4.8% forecast.

US productivity and costs follow at 13:30 GMT, alongside weekly jobless claims. Wednesday's US data was mixed: ADP showed 86,000 private-sector jobs added in October against roughly 67,000 expected, while ISM services slipped to 54.5 from 54.9.

National Grid's underlying operating profit rose 13% to £2.6bn and underlying EPS 22% to 37p, and it now guides to full-year EPS growth of 15% to 16%; London has yet to deliver its verdict. Diageo reported modest first-quarter sales growth with North America still weak, while Nintendo's first-half operating profit rose 49.1% with its full-year forecast unchanged. On Wall Street, Amdocs closed down 30.07% after weak guidance tied to a dispute with T-Mobile.