Oil fell below $100 as Iran talks in Doha stretched into a third day, lifting stock futures after October's tech rout
U.S. crude dropped more than 4% and Brent slid toward $108 after reports that the Trump administration wants to give diplomacy more time. Gold bounced from a one-year low, yields eased and traders still price a December rate hike.
Photo: Nothing Ahead / Pexels
The week opened with the energy market doing what the stock market could not do on Friday: take some pressure off. U.S. crude slipped back below $100 a barrel overnight as diplomacy around the war with Iran appeared to gain ground, and stock index futures rose with it.
Oil gives back last week's gains
West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery traded near $99.50 to $99.80 a barrel early Monday, down roughly 4.2% to 4.4%, according to TipRanks and Yahoo Finance data. It had settled at $104.12 on Friday. Brent, the global benchmark, fell more than 4% to around $108.30, Bloomberg reported, after ending October at its highest level in six months.
Two developments drove the move. Reuters reported that Iranian negotiators spent Sunday in Doha for a third consecutive day of talks with Qatari mediators aimed at a deal to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi described the talks as "ongoing and progressing" and said Tehran was prepared for "both defence and diplomacy," according to CNBC and Arab News. Separately, CNBC reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump would like to resolve the conflict "diplomatically," and Bloomberg cited a report that Trump wants to give diplomacy more time.
On Sunday, OPEC+ kept its December production targets unchanged, confirming expectations that the group will not adjust policy again until next year while the war continues to disrupt exports, CNBC reported.
Not everyone sees the drop as durable. "Oil is seeing a technical pullback this morning after last week's strong gains," Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, told Reuters. He said the market remains alert to the possibility that rhetoric around Iran could heat up again after Tuesday's midterm elections and push Brent toward $120. Attacks on tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz continue to raise shipping and energy costs, Reuters noted.
Futures, gold and bonds
Stock futures climbed after October's bruising finish. Nasdaq 100 contracts rose about 0.84% to 0.9%, S&P 500 futures gained around 0.44% to 0.52%, and Dow futures were up roughly 0.34% to 0.55%, depending on the time of the reading, according to TipRanks, Investing.com and Bloomberg. On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 1.82% to 7,580.07, the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.86% to 25,437.00 and the Dow dropped 1.09% to 51,770.31.
Gold rebounded after a rough Friday. Spot gold rose about 0.7% to roughly $3,900 an ounce, according to CNBC and Reuters, after sliding about 3.5% on Friday to its lowest level since October 2025. Analysts told Reuters that Friday's tech sell-off had forced some investors to sell safe-haven assets such as gold to raise cash. Silver climbed back to around $50 an ounce after breaking below that level on Friday for the first time in 11 months.
Treasury yields were mixed. The 10-year yield eased about one to two basis points to near 4.91%, while the 2-year yield edged up to about 4.59%, CNBC and Bloomberg data show. CNBC noted that oil and bond yields moved closely together for much of this year, because higher energy prices feed inflation and keep pressure on the Federal Reserve.
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The Fed still leans toward a hike
Cheaper oil has not changed the rate outlook much yet. The Fed held its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4.00% last week, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissenting in favor of an immediate increase. On Friday, two more officials made the case for tightening. "I judge that additional firming of monetary policy will be necessary, and soon," St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said, according to CNBC. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said the committee "needs to implement at least two more 25-basis-point rate increases."
Traders price roughly a 73% chance of a quarter-point hike at the December meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool cited by CNBC on Monday, down slightly from about 76% on Friday.
What to watch today
The October ISM manufacturing index is due at 10 a.m. ET, with economists expecting 54.7 after 54.5 in September, according to Briefing.com and Newsquawk. Its prices-paid component will show how much of the energy shock is still feeding into factory costs. Construction spending for September is released at the same time. After the close, Apple and Palantir report earnings.
For now, the oil market is trading headlines out of Doha. Whether the dip holds may depend less on any single data release than on what happens after Tuesday's vote.
