Oil prices bounced on Thursday, November 5, recovering part of the previous day's steep fall, while chip and AI stocks fell as investors weighed how soon the Iran war could realistically end and what a Democrat-controlled US Congress could mean for the AI buildout, Reuters reported from London.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, Nov 5

Brent crude futures were up around 2.5% at $96.8 a barrel, Reuters said, having tumbled nearly 9% overnight and fallen below $100 a barrel for the first time in two months. In New York trading, the Associated Press put Brent at $96.95 a barrel, also up 2.5% — a different snapshot of the same rebound. Crude had lost nearly 10% in two days before Thursday's recovery.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, Nov 5

Thursday's bounce follows Wednesday's plunge, when Brent settled near $94 as Democratic midterm wins raised hopes of pressure for an end to the Iran war — the earlier development this story updates. Read: Oil plunges as Brent falls to $94 on Iran peace hopes

Traders chose to bet that President Donald Trump, facing a Democratic Congress and hurt by high energy prices caused by the Middle East conflict, would be less likely to escalate the war with Iran, Reuters reported. Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that the war played a role in Republicans' midterm defeat, and Vice President JD Vance was blunter on X: “The reason we lost is the war.”

Source: Reuters via Kitco, Nov 5

AI stocks take the other side of the trade

Chip stocks fell under pressure from concern about possible restraint on the AI buildout from a Democrat-controlled Congress, Reuters said. AP reported the S&P 500 fell about 2% and the Nasdaq composite about 3% in US trading, with Nvidia down 6.3%, AMD down 13.1% and cloud-chip renter CoreWeave down 10%; South Korea's Kospi tumbled 5.3% and Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.8%. The MSCI All-World index was flat on the day, while Europe's STOXX 600 rallied another 0.4%, leaving it just shy of August's record high, Reuters said.

Source: AP via TTNews, Nov 5

The turnaround in oil helped boost the dollar, which had fallen along with US Treasury yields, Reuters reported. Yields on benchmark 10-year US notes were unchanged on the day at 4.89%; the euro held at $1.1222 and the pound at $1.3466 after the Bank of England raised interest rates for the first time since 2023. With the dollar and oil under pressure earlier, gold traded above $4,100 an ounce, having risen 5% in two days — its largest two-day jump since early April, Reuters said.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, Nov 5

Gold's own move was reported separately on Thursday, as the metal hit a two-week high above $4,130 an ounce. Read: Gold hits two-week high as dollar and yields fall

For Punjabi and Indian readers, the oil level still matters more than the daily swing: Brent below $100 — yaani still roughly double the price India budgeted for before the war — keeps fuel, freight and remittance costs elevated for Gulf-based workers and for the trucking families who follow diesel prices on both sides of the Atlantic. Thursday's bounce is a reminder that markets have not priced in a quick end to the war, only a slower path to escalation.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, Nov 5

What happens next

Oil's next move depends on Washington: whether the new Congress moves to restrict the Iran war, and whether talks mediated by Qatar produce a pause that reopens the Strait of Hormuz to normal traffic. Until one of those happens, traders told Reuters the pattern of sharp falls on peace hopes and bounces on uncertainty is likely to continue — with Friday's US jobs report the next test for the dollar, yields and gold.