Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Speculative net long positions in ICE Brent crude fell by 3,250 contracts in the week to October 6, dropping to 201,052 lots. That marks the lowest level in more than two months.

TREE NEWS update: Palestine’s presidential office formally instructed its foreign ministry and UN mission to request an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Palestinian official media reported on October 9. The office said recent attacks by Jewish settlers and the Israeli military on Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps have escalated sharply, and called for international intervention and protection for Palestinians.

TREE NEWS update: UAE Attorney-General Hamad al-Shamsi said the investigation into Dubai Aviation flight FZ1073 shows the co-pilot intended to crash the aircraft into a terminal at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport in a suicide attack. The suspect, a 29-year-old Omani national, planned the attack in advance and used two earlier flights to Tel Aviv to study the route and airport before attempting it on a third flight on September 30. Investigators say he embraced extremist ideology while studying in Australia in 2017, inspired by the September 11 attacks.

TREE NEWS update: US President Donald Trump pressed Mexico to reach an energy agreement during trade negotiations, telling Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum that Mexico should sell Mexican assets to the United States. The demand was conveyed directly to Sheinbaum as part of the ongoing trade talks between the two countries.

TREE NEWS reports: Yemen’s Houthi movement said Saudi warplanes carried out 77 airstrikes and missile attacks on civilian facilities in the past 24 hours, hitting the capital Sanaa and the provinces of Marib, Saada, Al Jawf, Hajjah, Taiz and Amran. The group said F-15 and Typhoon jets flew from King Khalid and Taif air bases, with missiles launched from Najran, and put the total number of Saudi attacks since the escalation began at 1,934.

TREE NEWS update: US Vice President JD Vance described migrant workers as “indentured servants,” according to remarks reported on Wednesday. The characterization by the vice president drew attention to the administration’s rhetoric on immigration and labor. No further details were immediately provided.

TREE NEWS reports: President Donald Trump’s expanded beef imports have not noticeably lowered prices, drawing backlash from ranchers. The import push was intended to ease costs for US consumers, but the price effect has so far been limited, leaving domestic cattle producers frustrated with the policy.

TREE NEWS reports: The Bank of Peru’s head of monetary policy, Montoro, said the effects of El Niño in Peru will continue through the first half of 2027. The central bank official gave the projection without further detail on expected economic or inflationary consequences.

TREE NEWS reports: The Federal Reserve’s overnight reverse repurchase agreement (RRP) facility took in $300 million on Friday, October 9, from a single counterparty, down from $335 million the previous trading day. The near-empty facility reflects how few eligible firms still have reason to park cash at the central bank’s overnight rate.

TREE NEWS reports: Shanghai base metals closed mostly higher in night trading, with international copper up 0.78% and SHFE copper gaining 0.84%. SHFE aluminum rose 0.96%, zinc jumped 1.39%, lead added 0.72% and tin climbed 1.73%, while nickel fell 0.44%. Alumina edged up 0.19% and aluminum alloy gained 0.41%, with stainless steel down 0.26%.

TREE NEWS reports: Nobel laureate Paul Krugman warned that France’s deteriorating public finances are on an “unsustainable path” and could trigger a debt crisis across the eurozone. In an article published on October 8, Krugman wrote that France’s situation is “genuinely worrying,” adding that it is not only France’s problem: as a eurozone member, a runaway debt crisis there could fracture European unity. He said markets are pricing France’s default probability “too low.”

TREE NEWS reports: The number of active US oil drilling rigs rose to 462 in the week of October 9, up from 456 the previous week. The six-rig increase marks a modest pickup in US oil drilling activity.

TREE NEWS reports: London Metal Exchange copper closed $231 higher at $14,540 a tonne, with tin posting the session’s biggest gain, up $1,559 to $53,006/t. Zinc rose $87 to $3,806/t, nickel added $69 to $15,622/t and lead gained $28 to $1,888/t. Aluminium slipped $2 to $3,048/t, while cobalt was flat at $39,245/t.

TREE NEWS update: The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug for the treatment of skin lesions caused by the herpes simplex virus. The approval covers a therapy indicated for herpetic lesions, though no further details on the product, manufacturer or clinical data were disclosed.

TREE NEWS reports: Germany’s 2-year Bund yield rose 1.8bps on Friday to 3.127%, gaining 5.1bps over the week within a 2.994%-3.148% range. The 10-year yield fell 1.4bps to 3.481% but added 1.9bps on the week, trading between 3.415% and 3.538%. The 30-year yield gained 3.4bps weekly to 3.853%, and the 2s/10s spread narrowed 3.169bps to +34.999bps.

TREE NEWS reports: Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos said markets are underestimating the risk of a major AI accident that would drive capital into bonds. The AI narrative has shifted from potentially disinflationary to pushing yields higher, while clients are broadly bearish on French debt. Saravelos sees a breakdown in the AI ecosystem as the biggest systemic risk, which would be dollar-negative and bond-positive.

TREE NEWS reports: The compensation investors demand to hold French government debt rather than Italian debt has risen to its highest level since the euro was created. On Friday, the yield gap between the two countries’ benchmark 10-year bonds reached a record 30 basis points. Until last year, Italy was still seen as the riskier of the two, with higher borrowing costs than France.

TREE NEWS reports: Chilean copper commission Cochilco reported that the Escondida mine produced 76,100 tons of copper in August, down 27.6% year on year. Output at the Collahuasi mine fell 25.1% over the same month to 26,500 tons.

TREE NEWS update: Russia told the World Health Organization about the death of a worker at the Irkutsk Research Institute of Plague Control of Siberia and the Far East and said no second case has emerged, with preventive measures now lifted. The 28-year-old female employee died on Feb. 2 of what was described as community-acquired pneumonia. Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said all medical observation of contacts has ended with no health problems linked to the infection.

TREE NEWS reports: The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (MMA) said about 71.51% of daily crude oil production and 58.84% of daily natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is currently shut in. That equates to roughly 1.5 million barrels per day, or 72% of the region’s oil output, taken offline.