Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your close of business briefing on the stories moving markets and the broader economy.
Natural gas futures caught a bid on Friday, with November Nymex contracts settling up more than one percent after the Commodity Weather Group shifted its forecasts cooler for later this month. Heating demand expectations are back in play, and traders who had been pressing the short side got caught leaning the wrong way.
Turning to geopolitics with direct commodity consequences, Iran's rial is in freefall as the U.S. naval blockade has effectively cut Tehran's oil exports to near zero. Persian Gulf neighbors are filling that supply gap under American military protection, which compounds the pressure on the regime and tightens Tehran's grip over the Strait of Hormuz considerably less than it once did.
And in technology, ChatGPT is seeing its highest web traffic in over a year, snapping a prolonged plateau that had raised questions about saturation in the consumer AI market. The rebound comes despite ongoing security concerns across the broader AI sector, suggesting user appetite for the platform remains resilient even as competition intensifies.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
