Market Commentary: 13 November 2026

Trend Reversal

• Stock markets (MSCI World Index) have gained 12% this year.
• The FTSE World Government Bond Index has declined by 0.5%.
• Volatility has increased in recent weeks.

Please note that the content of this review should not be considered as investment advice or any form of recommendation. If you require investment advice, please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our qualified team.

Key Themes

The past month has seen many recent trends flipped on their head. Shares moved lower along with oil prices and bond yields. Tech stocks suffered a correction following a strong run, as the Democrats had their best midterm election result since Nixon held the Presidency.¹ Whether investors have extrapolated too much from that ‘blue wave’ remains to be seen, and in a wider sense the narrative is now flipping between positive and negative on a regular basis.

UK

The UK had its own political event recently, in the form of the Autumn Budget. The changes announced were relatively modest, with banks and gambling stocks rising as the additional taxes on those sectors proved to be smaller than some feared. Defence companies also rose in response to higher defence spending.²  With the pound gaining ground as well, the UK has been the best performing region over the past month (+3%), along with mainland Europe.

United States

The Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, with many of their candidates promising to halt the proliferation of data centres in key states such as Texas and Ohio.³  Investors took profits from AI stocks both before and after the election, with many now trading 20% lower than last month. Semiconductor firm NVIDIA received a double whammy after its CEO Jenson Huang was forced to resign following an alleged affair with a Chinese spy.⁴  Until recently the world’s most valuable company, NVIDIA has now dropped by one-third and lost that place to Apple.

Europe

French stocks have bounced, after being heavily sold during August and September due to concerns about high government debt and rising inflation rates. The oil price has provided a release valve by declining almost 20% so far this month, as investors bet that the midterm results lead to President Trump reining back the conflict with Iran. The Spanish and Italian stock markets have comfortably outperformed the German and French this year.

Asia & Emerging Markets

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index has become closely tied to AI stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung and SK Hynix. This is causing a high level of volatility, with the index often rising or falling by more than 8% per month. October’s drop has carried into November so far, despite a small bounce in recent days. Elsewhere, Brazil has provided a more traditional example of emerging market volatility, as the national stock market declined over 20% in sterling terms on 26 October following a surprise election result.⁵

Bonds

Investors appear undecided about how to price government bonds currently. The US 10-year Treasury yield dropped from 5.3% to 4.8% in one month but has risen to 5.1% again following a high inflation reading this week. Much will be determined by the US-Iran conflict. Before its onset inflation appeared to be under control, but central banks are now concerned with containing any pass-through price rises, by hiking interest rates until demand slackens.

Points of Interest

Anthropic is targeting the second-biggest stock market flotation ever on 19 November, although it will not quite beat the record set by SpaceX just a few months ago. The maker of the Claude AI model has grown revenues at an extraordinary pace, becoming one of the fastest-growing companies in history (alongside its rival OpenAI). The proposed valuation of over $1 trillion will require that exceptional growth to continue well into the future, to be justified.⁶

Summary

People sometimes complain that the news is becoming more depressing nowadays, and there have certainly been some negative headlines in the financial markets during recent weeks. However, less is said when share prices simply rise gradually in the background, which has broadly been the case since 2023. Let us hope then that the current headlines abate, as we enter what is traditionally the best period of the year for the stock market: an autumn dip isn’t uncommon, and the November to April period tends to produce the strongest returns on average, over the long term.⁷

Note: Past Performance Is Not A Reliable Indicator Of Future Performance

Sources may be found online here, or provided on request