Chips bounce, Dow slips, and AMD beats after the close on midterm night

Americans voted on Tuesday for all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, and 36 governorships. Republicans entered the day holding a 53 to 47 Senate majority and a narrow House majority. The first polls closed at 6 p.m. ET in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, with results arriving state by state through the evening. No outcome for control of either chamber is claimed in this edition, because at the market close the count was still under way and close races were uncalled.

Two cautions from the morning edition still apply, and they matter more tonight than they did this morning. First, prediction market prices cited in Tuesday reporting put Democrats at roughly 75 to 78 percent for Senate control and about 94 to 95 percent for House control. Those are market prices, not results, and they are labelled as such wherever they appear. Second, control itself may take days to settle: Alaska counts its ranked-choice rounds on November 18, and a Georgia race without a majority would go to a runoff on December 1, while western states count mail ballots slowly, as they did in the last two midterms.

For markets, the timing matters more than any single early call. A changed Congress alters what can pass on spending, taxes, and regulation, but it does not settle the oil, rates, or artificial intelligence questions that moved markets on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday's edition will report called results only where a named news organization has projected them.

Asia's Tuesday closes, carried from the morning edition, set the tone that Europe followed. Seoul's KOSPI fell 3.59 percent to 5,648.79 and Taipei's Taiex fell 3.59 percent to 43,307.54, with Samsung down 4.15 percent and SK Hynix down 5.03 percent. India diverged again, with the Sensex up 1.62 percent to 76,917.85 and the Nifty 50 up 1.58 percent to 23,810.85, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.57 percent. Tokyo was closed for Culture Day, so there is no Nikkei close for Tuesday.

Europe then closed lower almost everywhere. The FTSE 100 fell 1.14 percent to 10,638.43, snapping four straight gains a day after closing near its 52 week high, while the DAX fell 0.45 percent to 25,864.62 and the CAC 40 fell 0.34 percent to 8,020.31. Bayer rose 3.48 percent in Frankfurt after raising its 2026 profit forecast, a rare bright spot, while SAP weighed on the DAX. The pan-European Stoxx 600 fell about 0.6 percent. Yields rose across Europe, with France's 10 year yield up 5.7 basis points, adding to the pressure on equities ahead of the United States vote count.

Canada fell with Europe, not with the United States technology rebound. The S&P/TSX Composite closed down 268.81 points at 35,532.28, its lowest since October 8, as technology fell 1.7 percent and financials slipped. Seven of twelve subgroups fell, gold shares subsided, and the Canadian dollar dipped to 71.39 cents in United States terms, putting the United States dollar near 1.4009 Canadian dollars, essentially flat on the day.

The September JOLTS report is the day's most consequential data release. Job openings rose to 7.523 million, up 333,000 on the month and above expectations, while hires were little changed at 5.4 million and quits rose to 3.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics summary. A labour market that still generates openings at that pace keeps the case for a December Federal Reserve rate increase alive, which is why the 10 year yield rose even as equities split. The standing Federal Reserve rate is 3.75 to 4.00 percent, and the December decision is the next test, after Wednesday's ADP payrolls and Friday's October jobs report.

Elsewhere, the hawkish drift continued in words if not in actions. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said there could be a need to raise the policy rate further, a comment reported on Tuesday alongside the TSX fall. European Central Bank policymaker Joachim Nagel said a December rate hike is very likely to be necessary, according to the evening market wrap. The Bank of England decision on Thursday, November 5, is widely expected to be a 25 basis point increase to 4.00 percent, its first hike since 2023. Australia's hike to 4.85 percent, covered in the morning edition, now reads as part of a global pattern, not an outlier.

The dollar barely moved through all of it. The dollar index traded near 101.8, little changed and near its one month low, while the euro traded near 1.1197 dollars. That calm in currencies, against rising yields, is the session's quiet tell: the bond market repriced labour data, but the currency market waited for the vote count.

Oil spent Tuesday retracing Monday's plunge in fits and starts. Reports of a United States strike on Iran's Qeshm Island, reported by The Wall Street Journal citing United States officials, lifted prices in early trading, while hopes for Qatar-mediated talks between Washington and Tehran pulled the other way. By the settlements, the two benchmarks had diverged: Brent fell 1.12 percent to settle at $103.60, its lowest settlement since October 7 and down 11.93 percent over the last two sessions, while WTI edged up 0.36 percent to $96.81.

The rest of the energy complex firmed. Natural gas rose 1.37 percent to settle at $2.8950 per million British thermal units, and heating oil rose 2.47 percent to $4.5306 a gallon. The pattern across the week is now a round trip with a residue: Brent touched $117.64 intraday on Friday, fell more than 7 percent on Monday, and settled lower again on Tuesday, leaving the war premium much reduced but not gone, and leaving refiners and heating oil as the firmer corner of the complex.

For Canada, the oil tape cuts both ways. Lower Brent weighs on global energy sentiment, but firmer WTI and heating oil support the domestic producers that report this week. Suncor, the largest of them, was due to report after the close, with its webcast on Wednesday morning, covered below.

Canada's earnings day punished good numbers that were not good enough. Shopify reported third-quarter non-GAAP profit of $0.49 per diluted share, up from $0.34 a year earlier, and revenue of $3.74 billion, up from $2.84 billion, yet the stock fell about 8 percent to C$200.19, down C$17.45 on the day, after the release pointed to slower than expected growth in gross merchandise volume and subscription revenue. Thomson Reuters fell about 9 percent even though revenue rose. Together, the two names explain most of the TSX technology fall and much of the index's drop to its lowest since October 8.

Pfizer ran the other way. The drugmaker reported third-quarter revenue of $16.58 billion, above the $15.87 billion expected, and adjusted profit of 87 cents a share, above the 73 cents expected, led by Eliquis sales up 25 percent to $2.52 billion and strength in its cancer medicines, and raised its full-year outlook to revenue of $62 billion to $64 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.95 to $3.05 a share. The contrast with Shopify is the day's company lesson in miniature: a beat only helps when the guide and the growth detail behind it satisfy the market, and on Tuesday they did for Pfizer and did not for Shopify.

Advanced Micro Devices reported after the close and gave the United States chip rebound its fundamental anchor. Third-quarter revenue rose 45 percent to $13.38 billion, above the roughly $13.09 billion expected, and adjusted earnings reached $2.09 a share, above the $1.95 expected, as data center revenue nearly doubled, up 97 percent to a record $8.5 billion on EPYC processors and Instinct MI450 graphics processors. Client and gaming revenue fell 8 percent to $3.7 billion, the soft spot in an otherwise strong quarter.

The guide is what moved the stock. AMD forecast fourth-quarter revenue of about $17 billion, plus or minus 3 percent, above the roughly $16.29 billion consensus, with an adjusted gross margin of about 55 percent, down from 56 percent in the third quarter. Shares rose about 7 percent in extended trading, to about $520 from a regular session close near $484.50. That after-hours gain does not change Tuesday's closes, but it sets up Wednesday's open as the first real test of whether the American chip bounce has earnings behind it or only relief behind it.

Two items remain open at this edition's close. Suncor was due to release third-quarter results before 6 p.m. Alberta time, after the market close, with a webcast on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. ET; no verified Suncor figures were available in time for this edition, so none are printed here. The midterm count, covered above, is likewise incomplete, and Wednesday's edition will report both in full.

Compare Tuesday to the last five days and the shape is a partial retracement, not a reversal. Friday, October 30, was a tech-led fall: the Nasdaq down 2.86 percent, the S&P 500 down 1.82 percent, the Dow down 1.09 percent, and the TSX down 1.74 percent. Monday, November 2, split the tape: the S&P 500 down 0.51 percent and the Nasdaq down 1.07 percent, but the Dow up 0.41 percent and Toronto up, on positive breadth of 1,027 gainers against 473 decliners. Tuesday split it the other way: the Nasdaq up 0.83 percent and the S&P 500 up 0.36 percent, but the Dow down 0.38 percent and Toronto down 0.75 percent. The net of the three sessions leaves the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq still below Friday's closes, the Dow just above its Friday close, and Toronto below its Friday level.

The chain linking the drivers runs in order. First, oil: Brent's Friday spike to $117.64 intraday fed inflation fear, Monday's more than 7 percent plunge on diplomacy hopes eased it and lifted gold 1.8 percent, and Tuesday's mixed settlement left Brent lower again but WTI firmer, a sign the market is pricing talks, not peace. Second, labour: Monday's strong manufacturing survey and Tuesday's hot JOLTS report pushed yields up to 4.97 percent, which hurt rate-sensitive stocks and metals, gold down 0.90 percent, silver down 2.23 percent, and copper down 2.52 percent on Tuesday, even as it left the dollar near 101.8. Third, chips: the artificial intelligence spending doubt that hit Seoul and Taipei overnight met an American earnings answer in AMD's beat, so the same sector fell in Asia and rose in New York on the same day.

Sector rotation, not broad liquidation, is the honest description. Semiconductors rose about 4.3 percent in New York on Tuesday while London miners and Toronto technology fell, and Monday's positive breadth argues against panic even in a falling tape. What would change the reading is Wednesday's open: if AMD's after-hours gain holds and the vote count resolves without a long legal fight, the retracement extends. If the count drags and Friday's jobs report runs hot, the yield leg of the chain tightens again, and Tuesday's chip bounce becomes the exception rather than the turn.