Weekly Market Update for October 31, 2025

by Gavyn Jensen-Schneider, Research Associate

Market indices rose again with positive trade news and strong earnings reports in the Tech sector. The S&P 500 finished the week up +0.71%, while the Nasdaq rose +2.24%. The 10-Year Treasury yield, an interest rate indicator, closed at 4.09%, up +9 basis points (bps) from last week. The 6-Month US Treasury, a favorite of our US Treasury strategy, rose +6 bps to 3.82%.

US – China trade tensions cooled after Thursday’s meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders agreed upon a one-year trade “truce” that de-escalated restrictive measures they’d each implemented earlier this year. China agreed to postpone export controls on rare earth metals as well as resume the purchase of US soybeans — 25 million metric tons a year — for the next three years. In exchange, the US cut fentanyl-linked tariffs in half to 10%. In addition, both countries delayed tit-for-tat tariffs on the shipping industry. A few key issues went unaddressed, such as the export of Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips, the sale of TikTok by Chinese company ByteDance, China’s purchasing of Russian oil, and a formal trade agreement between the two nations. Nonetheless, President Trump announced plans to visit China next April, and Xi to visit the US sometime after that. Investors are hopeful those future meetings can sort out these unaddressed trade and geopolitical disagreements.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which controls overnight interest rates in the US, decided to cut rates this week by 25 basis points, as was widely expected. The FOMC was somewhat “flying blind” during this meeting as the ongoing government shutdown has reduced the economic data available to them. The limited data makes the FOMC’s mission — to balance maximum employment and stable prices — all the more difficult, leading to a cautious outlook for the next meeting in December. Chair Powell analogized December’s policy rate decision to driving in the fog, saying “what do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down.” Markets were predicting a 90% chance of a December rate cut prior to the Chair’s comments but this fell to a 63% chance by the end of the week.

Corporate earnings season continued in full swing, with 66% of S&P 500 companies having reported so far. Alphabet (Google’s parent company) reported an acceleration of their Google Cloud Services. Amazon had a similar acceleration in demand for their Amazon Web Services. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta increased their capital expenditure outlook for the year following substantial investment in data center capacity and AI development. And though they didn’t report earnings this week, Nvidia made headlines as the first company to reach a $5 trillion market capitalization.

The third quarter earnings season will continue to hum in the next week, with another 27% of S&P 500 companies set to report. Of particular note are financial services provider Block (XYZ) as well as AI chipmakers Qualcomm (QCOM) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Economic data will be slim next week as the ongoing Federal government shutdown continues to delay major datapoints like the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), US nonfarm payrolls, and the unemployment rate, which were all scheduled for release next week. Instead, markets will look to private data releases like the ADP employment report on Wednesday, and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment report on Friday.