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Evening edition · Friday, 23 October 2026 · 18:40 CEST

The wind paid for Friday. The tank did not.

Wholesale power fell by a third because the wind came back; heating oil and Brent kept climbing because the Gulf did not calm down. Europe's business surveys cooled, chip stocks learned what "off the charts" costs, and the Rhine at Kaub held above its 2018 line all day.

Morning 08:30 · Evening 17:30 · Sunday 10:00, Berlin time

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ORDINARY · LEAD Chart

The wind paid for Friday. The tank did not.

Wholesale power for Friday cleared at €137.59, a third below Wednesday, because the wind came back. Heating oil rose to €174.25 because Brent did. Your winter has two meters, and only one of them blows in from the North Sea.

Two prices reached German households on Friday, and they moved in opposite directions.

The first is the wholesale price of electricity. Friday's day-ahead auction for Germany and Luxembourg cleared at an average of €137.59 per megawatt hour, after €148.61 for Thursday and €211.94 for Wednesday. Desk arithmetic: Friday is 35% cheaper than Wednesday.

Ordinary & Inherited Life · 2 min · Read the piece →

Desk notes

MARKETS · DESK NOTE

Oil bought the war, bonds bought the fear

Brent touched a five-month high, US crude stayed above $100 and the Dow fell 600 points. The ten-year Treasury yield, which had its biggest one-day fall since 2023 on Thursday, stayed just under 5%. Two scares, two different shelters.

Markets & Macro · 2 min · Read the piece →

PSYCHOLOGY · DESK NOTE

Britons felt worse faster than they spent less

GfK's consumer confidence index fell eleven points in a month, the steepest drop outside the pandemic since the Brexit vote. On the same morning the official till receipts showed volumes down just 0.4%, with fuel up. Mood moves first; wallets move slower.

Psychology & Behaviour · 2 min · Read the piece →

ENERGY · DESK NOTE

Eleven refineries and a dialogue

Berlin opened talks with the oil industry on keeping Germany's refineries. The press release starts where a strategy should: with an inventory of eleven sites and 92 million tonnes a year. The hard part, who pays for the conversion, is still a study.

Energy & Industry · 2 min · Read the piece →

MONEY · DESK NOTE

The survey cooled the committee

Euro-area business growth slowed to a four-month low in October, France shrank, and firms raised their prices more slowly even as their energy costs rose. Six days before the ECB meets, that is the print the hawks did not want.

Money, FX & Committees · 2 min · Read the piece →

HEALTH · DESK NOTE

Ebola passed 9,700 confirmed cases

The Bundibugyo outbreak in Congo reached 9,704 confirmed cases and 4,687 deaths. Kenya has nine cases, Nigeria one with 44 contacts. Europe's disease agency keeps its risk low and its advice dull: inform travellers, do not screen arrivals.

Health & Care · 2 min · Read the piece →

SECURITY · DESK NOTE

Trappes, and the seventy thousand

A gunman killed one person and seriously wounded several others in two towns west of Paris; anti-terror prosecutors have the case. Hours later the interior minister set out 70,000 police and gendarmes for Saturday's protests. One day, two tests of the same institutions.

Security & Order · 2 min · Read the piece →

CLIMATE · DESK NOTE Chart

The storm went west, the Rhine got a day

Storm Austen cut power to 288,600 homes in north-west France with gusts of 161 km/h. In Germany, the Rhine at Kaub spent its first full day this autumn above its 2018 low. The same weather system, two very different invoices.

Climate & Weather · 2 min · Read the piece →

End of edition · added

Before you close the tab

One thing you can do this week

Before Monday, find the date your electricity or gas contract ends, and the notice period, and write both on this month's page of your calendar. Tonight's edition is about prices that move without asking you. The end date of your contract is the one price moment you get to choose.

A habit, not advice. Nothing here tells you what to buy, sign or switch.

What went right

Euro-area factories are selling abroad again. New export orders rose for a third month in a row in October, after nearly four and a half years of declines, according to the flash PMI survey 1. On a day when growth slowed and France shrank, the line about customers abroad pointed the right way.

The day in one sentence

The wind made Friday's electricity cheaper, the Gulf made oil dearer, and a survey of purchasing managers told the ECB it can afford to wait.

In euros at home

Heating oil cost €174.25 per 100 litres on Friday's German average, 0.90% more than on Thursday, €4.96 more than a week ago and €40.21 more than three months ago 2. Desk arithmetic: a 3,000-litre delivery costs about €5,227.50 today, some €1,206 more than the same order three months ago.

Desk arithmetic on the cited average price. Local prices differ by region, quantity and supplier. Nothing here is advice.

Small words

Day-ahead auction

The daily auction in which electricity for each hour of the next day is bought and sold. Germany and Luxembourg share one price zone; Friday's average came to €137.59 per megawatt hour 3. Desk arithmetic: that is 13.8 cents per kilowatt hour, before grid fees, taxes and levies.

Sources for this section

  1. Euro zone growth slows to 4-month low amid rising costs and French strife, survey shows — Reuters via Investing.com, 23 Oct 2026
  2. Heizölpreise aktuell für Deutschland — HeizOel24, 23 Oct 2026, 16:26
  3. Day-ahead price DE-LU, daily (filter 4169) — Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de, retrieved 23 Oct 2026, 16:45 CEST

Commentary for information only. Not investment, legal, tax, medical or political advice. "Desk arithmetic" is our own calculation from the cited figures.

Charts and data in this edition