RBA’s Bullock: February rate hike justified, Middle East conflict adds uncertainty

1. Markets diverged during the week. Between the October 23 and October 30 closes, BTC fell 4.78%, the Nasdaq 100 declined 1.98%, and gold and silver dropped 2.72% and 8.59%, respectively. The DAX, KOSPI, Nikkei 225 and Hang Seng advanced. We focus on differences in growth prospects, valuation sensitivity and risk exposures rather than applying a single directional view across assets. 2. Market reactions to Alphabet's and Intel's earnings brought returns on AI investment into focus. Attention is shifting from the scale of capital expenditure to revenue realization, margins and free cash flow. Lower interest rates can ease discount-rate pressure, but a sustained valuation recovery still requires support from both operating performance and financing conditions. 3. The November 3 US midterm elections and November 6 employment report are key events in the coming week. We monitor how post-election fiscal and legislative agendas may affect interest rates, the dollar and industry operating conditions. Our execution priorities are to manage leverage and concentration, retain margin and exit-liquidity buffers, and avoid treating a single political outcome as an automatic trading signal. 4. Following Binance's disclosure of a security incident, industry attention to endpoint protection, access segregation and coordinated incident response has increased. Key assets to monitor: BTC, the Nasdaq 100, crude oil and gold, alongside upcoming earnings from AAPL, AMD, PLTR, ARM, ANET and QCOM.