Market Summary (Oct 14, 2025)

We’re seeing a tug-of-war between renewed risk-off selling and tentative hopes for de-escalation in the US–China trade spat. Equities have dipped into a familiar wash-out mid-week, but our base case is that any near-term slide in the S&P will be met with dip-buyers ahead of the Nov 1 tariff deadline. Gold remains in a strong momentum rally—with its characteristic Monday pump, mid-week suck-out and Friday break-out—and continues to benefit from safe-haven flows despite talk of a thaw in trade tensions. The dollar has held up impressively through a partial government shutdown, while JPY and CHF are trading strictly as risk-sentiment proxies (stronger on fresh escalations, softer on each round of verbal détente). We expect elevated volatility into the weekend, with AUD and NZD most vulnerable on risk-off moves and crypto playing out as a leveraged risk-on proxy.