Wall Street Journal Breakfast FM-Radio | October 20, 2025

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Market Overview

Last Friday, hopes for easing in trade tensions were reignited, U.S. stocks rebounded, and all three major U.S. indexes opened low and closed high, rebounding more than 1% for the week; Earnings reports allayed bad loan fears, regional banks rebounded, regional bank index rose nearly 2%, banks that plunged Thursday due to bad debt concerns—Zions and Western Alliance—rose nearly 6% and over 3% respectively; Jefferies, involved in the credit crisis, rose nearly 6%. Semiconductor index ended its two-day rally, but rose nearly 6% for the week. Oracle despite rising against the market trend previously, fell nearly 7% the next day. After Trump said weight-loss drugs may get cheaper, Novo Nordisk’s European shares fell more than 6%.

U.S. Treasuries prices retreated, with the two-year U.S. Treasury yield rebounding after hitting a new three-year low, but still down for the third straight week. Gold and silver set intraday new highs before plunging: spot gold once dropped more than 3%, silver fell nearly 7% at one point. Gold still rose for the ninth straight week, and gold futures rose more than 5% for the week, its largest weekly gain in almost five months.

The dollar index rebounded after hitting new weekly lows for three days; offshore RMB climbed above 7.12 to a new three-week high intraday, then dropped over 100 pips; bitcoin dropped over 5% intraday, fell below $104,000, setting a new four-month low, before recouping more than half the loss.

Crude oil ended a three-day losing streak off five-month lows, but still fell more than 2% for the week, declining for three consecutive weeks.

In Asian trading, A-shares and Hong Kong stocks saw large corrections, the Shanghai index fell nearly 2%, over 4,800 stocks fell across the market, Agricultural Bank reached a new high against the trend, Hang Seng Tech Index fell over 4%, and Shanghai gold rose above 1,000 yuan for the first time.

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Market Recap

Europe/US Stocks: S&P 500 up 0.53% to 6,664.01, up 1.70% for the week. Dow up 0.52% to 46,190.61, up 1.56% for the week. Nasdaq up 0.52% to 22,679.975, up 2.14% for the week. European STOXX 600 down 0.95% to 566.24, up 0.37% for the week.

A-shares: Shanghai down 1.95% to 3,839.76, Shenzhen down 3.04% to 12,688.94, ChiNext down 3.36% to 2,935.37.

Bond Market: At the end of the bond session, the US ten-year Treasury yield was about 4.01%, up about 4 bps intraday, down about 2 bps for the week; two-year yield about 3.46%, intraday up about 4 bps, down about 4 bps for the week.

Commodities: WTI November crude oil futures up 0.14% at $57.54/barrel; Brent December crude futures up 0.38% at $61.29/barrel, down about 2.3% for the week. COMEX December gold futures down 2.12%, at $4,213.30/oz, up 5.32% for the week. COMEX December silver futures down about 6%, at $50.104/oz, up 6.05% for the week.

Top Stories Details

Global Highlights

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee will be held in Beijing from October 20 to 23, see CCTV News for an infographic on the session. According to CCTV News, the main agenda includes: the Politburo's work report to the Central Committee, deliberating recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development; analyzing the current economic situation and deploying economic work for the second half of the year.

New Expectations for the Fourth Plenary Session. According to Minsheng Securities, major signals expected from the session include: making best use of the advantage of pooling resources for big undertakings, gaining strategic initiative amid sharp international competition; systematic advancement of national strengthening, with financial sector construction aligning with technology and manufacturing; placing greater emphasis on regional adaptation in developing productive forces; more targeted efforts to expand domestic demand and enhance consumption rate; and advancing the national unified market construction.

State Council Executive Meeting: Continued push to cut logistics costs and improve quality and efficiency, increase investment in logistics and warehousing. The meeting covered steps to expand green trade, urging better green trade policies, foster green, low-carbon export capacity, and related products and technology imports/exports. Also, deeper support for grain and agriculture with market player-driven grain purchase efforts to secure farmer income.

He Lifeng held a video call with US Treasury Secretary Bessent and Trade Representative Greer. According to Xinhua, on the morning of Oct. 18 Beijing time, He Lifeng and his US counterparts had a video meeting, based on previous leaders' calls, for frank, deep, constructive exchange of major trade issues, agreeing to hold a new round of China–US trade talks soon.

People’s Daily Commentary: Securing Global Supply Chains Requires Collective Effort. Pseudonym Zhongsheng wrote that as long as both sides practice mutual respect and negotiation on equal footing, China and the US can manage differences, but the US must match words with deeds and not adopt more curbs and threats while calling for talks.

People’s Bank of China governor Pan Gongsheng, head regulator Li Yunze, and CSRC Chairman Wu Qing will attend the 2025 Financial Street Forum and give keynote speeches Oct 27–30. During the forum, important financial policy announcements will be made.

Ministry of Finance and others: Adjusts Hainan offshore visitor duty-free shopping policy. Effective Nov 1: more duty-free goods, some domestic goods may enter duty-free stores and enjoy VAT/consumption tax waiver; age threshold for offshore duty-free shopping rises from 16 to 18; departing travelers can use the policy; islanders face no annual cap on purchases.

According to Xinhua, Cheng Liwen elected Chinese Kuomintang chairman. Mainland's top leader sent a congratulatory message to Cheng Liwen on her election, Cheng replied in thanks.

Shanghai Futures Exchange: Adjusts gold and silver futures margin and price limit ratios. From Oct 21, 2025 evening settlement, up/down limit for gold, silver futures set at 14%; hedged position margin ratio at 15%, standard position margin at 16%.

On Friday, Shanghai Gold main contract broke through the 1,000-yuan mark, up nearly 4% intraday, setting a new all-time high, closing up over 3% intraday.

US to impose a 25% tariff on medium/heavy trucks and 10% on buses from November 1. President Trump signed an executive order Oct. 17 to levy new 25% tariffs on imported trucks and parts, plus 10% on buses.

Before the November Supreme Court hearing on reciprocal tariffs, Trump’s team “adjusted” strategy and offered various exemptions. At the same time, invoking Trade Expansion Act Section 232 from 1962, tariffs may be expanded to heavy trucks, medicines, and furniture as well—for legal risk management in case the Supreme Court rules against, which would force the White House to refund collected tariffs.

Earnings allay bad-debt panic as US regional banks rebound; execs reassuring: “credit quality is sound”. On Thursday, regional US bank stocks suffered their largest selloff in six months due to loan fraud but bounced back Friday as earnings reports showed lower loan loss reserves than analysts expected. Executives tried to reassure investors, easing market panic. Reporting banks Truist rose nearly 4%, Ally Financial over 3%, Fifth Third over 1%.

Truist, Fifth Third and Ally Financial all emphasized solid credit quality and vigilance over certain risks. Truist CEO said overall loan quality remains strong, current issues are sporadic and unconnected. Fifth Third’s Chief Credit Officer said they focused on reviewing clients like collapsed Tricolor and remain confident in other clients’ credit.
US regional banks in renewed crisis, Goldman Sachs: “insane,” these are the top three client worries. Focus is on lending approval processes, how three unrelated fraud cases surfaced in six weeks, whether small banks compromised underwriting to boost lending. The coming earnings season will help determine whether this is isolated or systemic. Goldman says markets remain highly wary of regional banks’ NDFI exposures.
Fraud suspicion: US regional bank preferred shares are “storm center”. Small bank preferred stocks took a hit, with retail-traded 25 USD preferred stocks falling 0.7% Thursday. Investors remain wary of regional banks and any negative news could trigger risks like SVB’s collapse.
“Bond King” Gross: Gold now a momentum/meme asset, regional bank “cockroaches” keep affecting stocks/bonds. He suggests waiting for gold purchases; with oversupply and budget issues, 10-year US Treasury likely won’t yield below 4%, should be near 4.5%.

Three meetings with Zelensky in eight months—Trump hopes to end war without “Tomahawk” missile supply, rules out US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral talks. Trump claims Tomahawk supply would escalate conflict. His plan is a bilateral meeting in Hungary with Putin, with Zelensky kept informed. Zelensky wants robust security guarantees, NATO membership is ideal.

According to Xinhua, Zelensky proposes swapping Ukrainian drones for US Tomahawk missiles, Trump says America also needs Tomahawks.
Russia confirms possible Putin–Trump meeting within two weeks.
Zelensky: willing to attend Trump–Putin meeting in Hungary. According to CCTV, he also said Sunday that Ukraine is open to talks but won’t concede territory. For a ceasefire, both sides should hold current forward lines.

LDP and Japan Innovation Party reach basic joint governance agreement. According to Xinhua and Japanese media, the LDP and Innovation Party are expected to sign the agreement on the 20th. LDP has agreed to Innovation Party’s demand to reduce parliamentary seats by 10%, Innovation will be an "extra-cabinet" governing ally (members not joining cabinet). This all but guarantees Sanae Takaichi's victory in the PM vote on the 21st.

Three scenarios in Japan’s PM nomination: 1. LDP and Innovation form government, Takaichi wins, but their Diet seats don’t reach majority and it’s a “minority government” with tough policymaking; 2. LDP governs solo with Takaichi as PM; 3. Opposition alliance produces a PM (unlikely).
Twists and turns! Sanae Takaichi close to being “Japan’s first female PM”, but the “Sanae Deal” is uncertain. LDP and Innovation have agreed to a coalition, paving the way for Takaichi, but economic policy prospects are unclear, and the cross-party coalition may leave stimulus plans hamstrung by a divided parliament.

Domestic Macro

Fiscal revenue was up 0.5% y/y in the first three quarters, expenditure up 3.1%, stamp duty revenue up 103.4%. For Q1–Q3, national tax revenue 13.2664 trillion yuan, up 0.7% y/y; non-tax revenue 3.1212 trillion yuan, down 0.4%. Stamp duty 314.2 billion yuan, up 34.5%. Of this, securities stamp duty 144.8 billion yuan, up 103.4% y/y.

State Administration for Market Regulation: establish and implement a company reporting system for new energy vehicle fire accidents.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary: over 200 companies waiting to list in Hong Kong. IPO activity is high, Q3 fundraising hit a four-year high. Chen Maobo said over 200 companies are queued, and for mainland businesses seeking global expansion, using HK to raise funds and talent is a great business choice.

China’s energy sector achieves major new breakthroughs. According to CCTV, October 16 was a “breakthrough day”: world’s first commercial modular small nuclear reactor “Linglong One” completed its cold testing; China’s first national deepwater oil and gas emergency response base launched; Northwest’s first 1GW-level peaking coal power project put into operation. Three first-of-their-kind achievements show China’s energy innovation strength.

China’s generative AI users exceed 500 million. According to the “Generative Artificial Intelligence Application Development Report (2025)” released by CNNIC, as of June 2025, China had 515 million generative AI users, up 266 million from Dec 2024, doubling in half a year; penetration: 36.5%.

Domestic Companies

“Doubao” mounts a counterattack, 300 trillion tokens daily. ByteDance’s “Doubao” model now processes 300T tokens/day, up 253×, 157M monthly active users—more than DeepSeek, leading in China. The key: integration with Douyin, multi-modal features, and low user barrier; showing product + ecosystem beats mere tech in the AI market.

Cambricon Q3 revenue up 13×, net profit 570 million yuan, third straight profitable quarter. Q3 revenue 1.727 billion yuan, up 1,332% y/y. First 3Q revenue 4.607B yuan, up 2,386% y/y; net profit 567M, turning positive for 3 quarters. Net profit down 17% on quarter; Q1–Q3 net profit: 1.605B, historically first time in the black.

Zijin Mining Q3 attributable net profit soars 57.14%, output + gold price resonance. Q3 net profit: 14.57B yuan, up 57.14% y/y, 11.02% q/q; Q3 revenue: 86.489B, up 8.14%. Output gains + higher gold price drove profit; Jan–Sep output: 65T, up 20%.

Xiaomi’s latest LLM results, Luo Fuli appears. Xiaomi’s AI team and Peking University released a MoE + RL paper, proposing the R3 method and route replay mechanism to solve MoE architecture instability in RL, preventing training collapse. Tests based on Qwen3-30B show R3 boosts performance and stability. Luo Fuli, an ex DeepSeek researcher with 11K+ citations, is featured, but work affiliation not clarified.

Is BAAS exaggerating financials? Interpreting NIO’s lawsuit. JPMorgan says BaaS is a commercial and financial model innovation, not a tool for manipulating accounts. With prior independent probes and regulatory reviews, this lawsuit poses little legal risk for NIO.

Overseas Macro

Key test for US dollar logic: next big stock selloff. Citigroup says the next 5%+ selloff in the S&P 500 will be a touchstone for the dollar’s safe haven function. Until “Fed’s dovish stance/US cyclical weakness” peaks, the dollar will remain weak, but a turnaround may come within three months and the dollar could rebound in 2026.

Two leading indicators warn: Bitcoin market “in fear”. Bitcoin faces double pressure. Options data show surging demand for puts; traders pay premium to hedge downside. Meanwhile, miners deposited 51,000 BTC to exchanges in a week—a multi-month high—preparing to sell? “Miner selling rarely ends well.”

Overseas Companies

Watching OpenAI support Oracle—what is “crafty” Microsoft thinking? OpenAI’s ambitions convinced Microsoft to let rivals take the financial risk rather than itself. But with exclusive contract gone, Microsoft still is sole AI supercomputer supplier for OpenAI (the key). Plus, Microsoft earns 20% of OpenAI’s revenue surge.

Danger signals in AI: ChatGPT’s paid user growth in Europe may have stalled! Deutsche Bank says ChatGPT’s European consumer spending has stalled since May, paid users may have peaked at only 20 million, versus 800M weekly actives, far below the $500B valuation level. If paid growth stalls, AI valuations may face correction.

Largest private funding coming: Meta to raise $30B for data center. Meta to build the world’s largest data center in Louisiana, via an SPV, raising nearly $30B. Meta keeps 20% stake, Blue Owl, Pimco, others fund; Morgan Stanley structures/underwrites deal. Meta keeps debt off-balance-sheet, setting a new financing model for the AI era, avoiding rating impact while expanding data centers.

Understanding top US tech investor Joshua Kushner and his Thrive Capital, helping Altman regain OpenAI. Kushner is OpenAI’s largest external shareholder and Thrive Capital founder. Thrive’s first fund in 2010 was only $5M; by 2023, its eighth fund had grown to $3.3B, including big bets on Stripe and OpenAI, showing great foresight.

Oracle reassures investors, projects 30–40% gross margin, disputes “AI only generates hype but no profit.” CEO Clay Magouyrk says in a six-year, $60B AI infra contract, Oracle may pay $570M up front, appearing unprofitable. As data centers come online, $10B annual revenue vs $6.4B cost implies 35% total margin.

How financially strained xAI plans to finance “world’s most powerful compute cluster + natural gas power plant”. Musk’s backer Valor Equity Partners is raising $20B for an SPV to buy Nvidia chips and lease to xAI. This means xAI hasn’t initially owned all the planned Nvidia chips/power plant at Colossus 2 data center in Memphis; it doesn’t control the power facilities. The structure rests on xAI generating enough cash flow to pay lease and debt.

Japan's three mega-banks plan joint stablecoin. Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Mizuho to launch a digital currency pegged to yen, infrastructure for corporate clients, with plans to add dollar-peg in future.

Trump says “Semaglutide price to drop sharply,” diet drug stocks fall. Trump claims Ozempic will drop from $1,000 to $150/month, but CMS head Oz clarified no deal yet. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly stocks dropped 4–5% after hours. The Trump admin seeks lower prices via tariff exemptions; GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are now in the official negotiation list and face ongoing price pressure.

Nvidia announces first US-made Blackwell chip rolls off. CEO Jensen Huang visited TSMC’s Phoenix fab to celebrate the first US-made Blackwell chips and the mass rollout of the Blackwell product line.

Kering Group said to be near selling beauty business to L’Oréal at ~$4B valuation, may be announced this week.

Industries/Concepts

1. Computing Power :

Today’s Major Previews

China October 1-year and 5-year loan prime rate (LPR).

China September industrial value-added (large enterprises), retail sales, January–September real estate investment, Q3 GDP.

State Council Information Office to hold a press conference on the national economy.

The 4th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to be held in Beijing, October 20-23.

CATL and iFlytek earnings.

Risk warnings and disclaimerThe market involves risks, investment needs caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take individual users’ goals, financial situations or needs into account. Users should consider whether opinions, views or conclusions in this content suit their specific situation. Responsibility for investing based on this is at your own risk. ```