Before the bell: Gold hits $4,146 and Nasdaq futures slip 0.6% as the Bank of England decides on a hike

The rotation we flagged last night is holding. Futures tied to the Dow and the S&P 500 are slightly higher this morning, but Nasdaq 100 futures are lower, and gold has pushed further above $4,100. The Bank of England announces a rate decision at 12:00 GMT (7:00 AM ET), and a hike is the widely expected outcome.

Futures around 6:20 AM ET

Quotes from Yahoo Finance. Changes are our arithmetic against each contract's price in the 5-minute bar ending about 3:55 PM ET Wednesday, so they can differ from feeds that measure against a settlement price. Oil is the active December WTI contract.

Where the cash market left off

Wednesday's session closed with the S&P 500 at 7,688.62, the Dow at 53,356.12 and the Nasdaq Composite at 25,736.51, per Yahoo Finance data. Our close story has the day. The 10-year Treasury yield ended Wednesday at 4.90%, down from 4.95%, with the 2-year at 4.58% and the 30-year at 5.28%, according to the Treasury's daily yield curve.

The Bank of England decision

The BBC reports that most analysts expect the Bank of England to raise its benchmark rate from 3.75% to 4%, the first increase in more than three years, after holding at its last six meetings. It said UK inflation was 3.5% in the year to September, up from 3.1%, with fuel costs tied to the Iran war a main driver. A hike is widely priced, so the focus is what the committee signals next; Bloomberg's headline says traders look to December, and the BBC quotes CMC Markets' Chris Cheverall saying the question is increasingly what follows 4%. The practical stakes for borrowers: UK Finance calculates a quarter-point rise adds about 31 pounds a month for a typical tracker mortgage, per the BBC.

For US readers, the link is oil and yields. A central bank raising rates because energy prices lifted inflation is the same bind the Fed faces. See our euro zone inflation update for the European picture.

Company news

• Rheinmetall cut its 2026 outlook for the second time since August, CNBC reported, and its shares fell more than 17% in early trading, taking the year-to-date loss to about 46%. It now expects sales of around 13.2 billion euros, below a prior range of 13.7 billion to 14.2 billion, citing delays to a German Boxer vehicle program and ammunition acceptance testing. Third-quarter sales still rose 32% to 3.15 billion euros and operating profit 62% to 553 million euros, and backlog stood at 78 billion euros, according to CNBC.
• CVS is digesting its plan to split into two companies by the first half of 2028. We covered the announcement and the share reaction.
• Qualcomm and Arm are the drag on Nasdaq futures after Wednesday's reports, as we detailed in The Nightcap.

On the calendar

Per the Nasdaq earnings calendar, ConocoPhillips, Parker-Hannifin, Southern Company, Duke Energy, Cigna, Air Products, Cummins, Kimberly-Clark and Cardinal Health report before the open. After the close, Monster Beverage, Airbnb, Cloudflare, EOG Resources and Simon Property Group are due. ConocoPhillips and EOG are the two to read against crude's 8% drop on Wednesday.

The October jobs report is due Friday, Nov. 6 at 8:30 AM ET, according to the BLS schedule. Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage survey is normally published Thursdays; see our mortgage rates report for where daily rates stand. We could not confirm the time of this morning's jobless claims release from the Labor Department, so check the DOL release.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin traded at $80,189 on Coinbase around 6:25 AM ET, against a 24-hour opening price of $78,374, a gain of about 2.3%. See our earlier bitcoin report.

Sources: Yahoo Finance; Coinbase; U.S. Treasury; BBC; Bloomberg; CNBC; Bank of England; Nasdaq; BLS. Futures are not cash-market closes and can move sharply before the open. This is market information, not investment advice.