🛢️ Brent just crossed $110. Drones did it.
A strike on Saudi Aramco's Shaybah field, a U.S. diplomatic withdrawal, and an inventory draw three times the forecast — oil's having a very bad morning.
Listen to the same-day episode — Ep. 088
🛢️ Brent just crossed $110. Drones did it.
A strike on Saudi Aramco's Shaybah field, a U.S. diplomatic withdrawal, and an inventory draw three times the forecast — oil's having a very bad morning.
📊 Today's Numbers
Brent Crude ▲ $110.95/bbl: highest since 2008 crisis territory
WTI Crude ▲ $98.53/bbl: up 1.42% on the day
U.S. Crude Inventories ▼ 3.06M barrels: draw was 3.7x the forecast
Tesla Net Income ▼ $787M: down 29% year-on-year
Meta Q4 Revenue Guidance ▲ $74.5B midpoint: beats consensus
Hang Seng ▼ ~2.50%: Lenovo alone fell 10%
🛢️ COMMODITIES
Photo: Tom Fisk
Brent Tops $110 as Drone Strike Hits Saudi Aramco Oilfield
Yesterday's oil market was already nervous. Then a drone hit Shaybah, U.S. officials started leaving Riyadh, and Brent crossed $110. At that price, you're paying roughly what drivers paid at the worst of the 2008 oil spike.
Brent surged 1.96% to $110.95/bbl, up nearly 70% year-on-year, after the Shaybah drone strike compounded an already tense two weeks of at least 18 vessel attacks across regional shipping lanes
U.S. crude inventories fell 3.06 million barrels to 412.5 million barrels last week, far exceeding the 820,000-barrel draw analysts had pencilled in — tighter supply at the world's biggest consumer is its own tailwind
Strait of Hormuz transits collapsed to just 4 on October 18, against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day: the rerouting costs are now structural, not temporary, and they're baked into every container and barrel moving through the region
💬 That inventory miss isn't a rounding error. Three times the expected draw, right as a key Gulf facility takes a direct hit. The supply story was already tight before the drones showed up.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Craig Adderley
Tesla Q3 Net Income Tumbles 29% Despite Narrow EPS Beat
Tesla beat on EPS and still sold off. The reason is buried in the operating line: the company is spending so heavily on Optimus humanoid robots that its core car business can't keep up.
Non-GAAP EPS of $0.48 beat the $0.45 consensus, but net income fell 29% to $787 million, and operating income collapsed 56% year-on-year to $718 million
Automotive revenue declined 3% to $20.56 billion, with lower average selling prices and battery-supply shortfalls compressing what was already a thin-margin business
Free cash flow came in at $1.53 billion, a significant positive surprise against expectations of roughly negative $4.51 billion — the one number that may keep the post-earnings damage contained
Tesla shares dropped more than 3% in extended trading. The stock was already down 14% year-to-date before the print.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Monstera Production
Meta Guides Q4 Revenue to $74.5bn as AI Ad Engine Surges
While Tesla investors were digesting a profit collapse, Meta gave markets something cleaner: a Q4 revenue guide that topped consensus, powered by an AI ad engine that keeps printing money even as the company burns billions on hardware.
Q4 revenue guided to a $73–76 billion range, midpoint $74.5 billion, beating the $73.73 billion analyst consensus and setting up what could be a record holiday-quarter print
Reality Labs posted a $4.13 billion operating loss on just $443 million in Q3 revenue, missing even the $513 million analyst estimate, a reminder that Meta's long-term hardware bet is still very much a long-term bet
The Muse AI assistant, launched in September, was cited as a key driver, with Zuckerberg linking it directly to ad-performance gains — the $130–145 billion 2026 capex programme is starting to show measurable results
💬 Reality Labs lost more money last quarter than most countries spend on their entire science budgets. The ads business is subsidising a bet that's been "almost there" for four years. Eventually one of those two facts has to shift.
📰 Also Today
Bank of Korea holds at 3.00%: After back-to-back hikes in July and August, the BoK paused Thursday as domestic growth slows — but with oil at $110 and the Fed sitting at 3.75–4.00%, the breathing room for Korean households is narrower than the headline suggests.
New Zealand Q3 CPI slows to 3.70%: Annual inflation came in below the 3.80% forecast, but at 1.70 percentage points above the RBNZ's 2% target, markets still price a rate hike as near-certain at next week's meeting — the NZD softened immediately on the release.
Hang Seng tumbles 2.50%, Lenovo falls 10%: Citi cut Lenovo's price target by 20%, triggering a 10% single-session drop; the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 1.20%, with the Nikkei 225 and Shanghai Composite each losing around 1.00% as mixed megacap earnings reignite doubts about the AI investment cycle across the region's tech exporters.
🎧 Listen to today's episode — The Open Bell
Four ships through Hormuz instead of eighty-five is the number I'd want in front of me before Friday's open, and if you agree, I hope you'll get today's issue to whoever else needs it.
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Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.