Stocks Climb at the Open as Gold Jumps and Oil Slips; Focus Turns to China

Stocks opened higher Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 210.69 points (0.46%) to 46,401.3, the S&P 500 up 38.67 (0.58%) to 6,702.68, the Nasdaq Composite up 180.18 (0.79%) to 22,860.2, and the Russell 2000 up 2.76 (1.13%) to 246.17. Commodities were mixed: Crude Oil Dec ’25 at $56.25, down $0.90 (−1.57%), while Gold Dec ’25 jumped to $4,337.40, up $124.10 (+2.95%). With equities firm and haven demand evident in gold, attention now turns to the global backdrop. China’s latest scorecard shows momentum bifurcating between humming factories and a still-weak property complex, according to AInvest. Headline GDP expanded 4.8% year over year in the third quarter, with September industrial production up 6.5%, while fixed-asset investment fell 0.5% year to date, the first such decline since 2020, amid property investment down 13.9% and new-home prices −0.41% month over month. Policy rates were left unchanged (1-year and 5-year LPR at 3.00% and 3.50%), signaling targeted easing rather than a broad stimulus push. The backdrop arrives as Beijing heads into Malaysia talks ahead of a potential Xi–Trump meeting at APEC on Oct. 31–Nov. 1, a setting that could shape discussions on trade levers from rare earths to agricultural purchases, per the Article Build.

Investors are holding their breath as Bitcoin recovers from last weeks drop. Crypto’s evolution from rebellion to rate-sensitive mainstream asset is coming into focus in an AInvest “Capital and Power” episode. with Zack Guzman. He is the founder of Trustless Media and host of Coinage, and Guzman argues Bitcoin has “graduated” as institutional ETF flows rise, yet warns the old Wall Street nemesis remains. “They always find new ways to introduce leverage,” he says, invoking the lessons of FTX and Terra. His bigger worry is the quiet systemic footprint of dollar-pegged tokens: “Tether owns more U.S. debt than Germany,” and stablecoins are “the new money-market funds.” The punchline for traditional markets: “If banks are touching stablecoins, the next bailout might come because of crypto.” Guzman also highlights tokenization’s promise for media, noting, “Trustless owns half, and the NFT holders own the other half,” while criticizing World Liberty Financial, a stablecoin venture linked to Donald Trump, as “alarming” for potentially using crypto “to sell the office of the presidency.” Guzman highlighted the danger in the Coinage documentary, "Trump’s Crypto Empire: The Truth About USD1 & World Liberty Financial."

Closer to home, the credit cycle narrative is turning more constructive, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. A recent "Daily Spark" from Apollo, noted that default and delinquency rates have peaked and are moving lower, with tailwinds from the AI build-out—notably data centers and related energy infrastructure, alongside an industrial renaissance across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, biotech, and automation. Slok's charts show support for his thesis.

Reduced trade-war uncertainty and higher equity prices are reinforcing consumption, leaving upside risk that growth reaccelerates in coming quarters. However, a recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that investors are shifting their portfolios to consumer staples, utility and healthcare stock worried about market volatility and a potential downturn in the U.S. economy.