Brazil's polls missed badly, Wall Street hit a record anyway, and back home there's a regulatory story explaining why your portfolio's had a rough week. Let's get into it.

Every major poll heading into Sunday's vote showed President Lula da Silva leading the first round. Instead, right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro finished first with about 47% of valid votes to Lula's roughly 45%, a two-point lead that essentially no credible survey predicted. It's now the fourth presidential campaign in a row where final polls underestimated a Bolsonaro, after both of Jair Bolsonaro's runs. Neither candidate cleared the 50% needed to win outright, so the two head to an October 25 runoff, a race now widely seen as leaning Bolsonaro's way after Sunday's surprise.

Markets didn't wait for the runoff to react. Brazil's currency, the real, jumped over 4% against the dollar Monday. The Ibovespa, Brazil's main stock index, was positioned for a strong open after already closing Friday up 2.63%. US-listed Brazilian assets moved even harder: the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) surged 13%, and Brazilian fintech Nu Holdings, which counts 118 million of its 139 million customers inside Brazil, spiked 12%. Investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who had reportedly built a position in Brazilian assets since June, looks to have been well-positioned for the outcome.

Why markets like this result: Bolsonaro is seen as more market-friendly than Lula on fiscal and regulatory policy, and investors are pricing in a real chance his momentum carries through the runoff. Brazil's Congress also turned over entirely Sunday, with early results suggesting gains for right-leaning parties regardless of who wins the presidency, which matters because it shapes how much room either candidate actually has to govern.

Why it matters beyond Brazil and its markets: as Latin America's largest economy, a rightward shift here would be read as part of a broader regional and global trend, with real implications for commodity markets and how the region aligns over the next several years.

NEPSE fell another 20.48 points Monday to close at 2,566.76, its fifth losing session in six trading days, with turnover thinning to Rs 3.27 billion from Friday's Rs 3.89 billion. Only 32 of 359 companies gained. The proximate trigger: the Securities Board of Nepal's new rule requiring major shareholders, anyone holding 5% or more of a listed company, to give 15 days' advance notice before selling shares, with that notice then published publicly through NEPSE.

The stated goal is protecting retail investors from being blindsided by sudden large sell-offs. But market analysts argue the rule is one-sided: it polices exits without placing any similar disclosure requirement on large buyers, who can quietly accumulate shares without warning, which critics say creates its own risk of manipulation. Investors and brokers say the 15-day wait is itself discouraging trading activity, a plausible explanation for the market's recent thinning volumes alongside its falling index.

Elsewhere in Nepali politics: the Nepali Congress's 15th General Convention is in closed session across three Kathmandu venues, with the party weighing General Secretary Gagan Thapa's political report. In a separate but related sign of churn, former Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal has quit the NCP entirely to launch a new "Socialist Awakening Campaign," a notable fracture on the Nepali left heading into a politically active season.

*The data presented below are from the official sites of NEPSE, NASDAQ and London Bullion Market Association respectively.

🇺🇸 Nasdaq: closed Friday at a fresh record, 27,190.86, up 1.2%, as the weak jobs report pushed down rate-hike expectations. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% to 7,722.72, and the Dow rose 0.5% to 51,176.96.

🥇 Gold: trading around $4,150 an ounce, down modestly for a third straight session as the dollar firms and rate-cut bets for October fade slightly.

🥈 Silver: around $61.70 an ounce, up roughly 2% on the day, continuing to outperform gold.

Covered above — Brazil's polling upset and the market reaction. See Main Story.

Google has begun restricting free access to its stronger Gemini models, pushing casual users toward its weakest free tier while reserving Pro-level access for paid subscribers. It's a notable shift in strategy for a company that had leaned on broad free access to compete with ChatGPT, and it signals that even well-funded AI labs are starting to treat compute costs as something that has to be recovered directly from users rather than subsidized indefinitely.

Friday's Nasdaq close of 27,190.86 marked a fresh record, with the S&P 500 and Dow also finishing higher, all driven by Friday's weak jobs report pulling down expectations for an October Fed rate hike. Monday's session opened with a second major storyline: Brazilian assets surging on the election upset, pulling investor attention toward emerging-market trades for the first time in weeks.

Why it matters: these are two different kinds of rally, one driven by a dovish domestic data surprise, the other by a foreign political shock, and they're now colliding in the same trading week. That combination tends to produce choppier, harder-to-read sessions as investors try to weigh how much of each story is noise versus signal.

Last week's question on Nepal's Japanese encephalitis outbreak is still collecting replies. We'll share results soon.

New question: Should Nepal's SEBON apply its new share-disclosure rule to large buyers as well as sellers? Reply with A, B or C:

Answers just below. No peeking. 👇

Polling miss (say it: POHL-ing miss)

Meaning: when final pre-election surveys get the outcome meaningfully wrong, often because of how pollsters model who will actually turn out to vote.

Example: "Brazil's election was a textbook polling miss: every major survey had Lula ahead, and Bolsonaro won the first round by two points instead."

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