Moves That Matter

What happened

U.S. stocks opened sharply lower on Friday, October 23, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 547 points (1%) in early trading, the S&P 500 off 0.5% and the Nasdaq down 0.4%, according to the Associated Press. Brent crude rose 1.8% to just over $115 a barrel — its highest level since March, up from under $97 at the start of October — after a 4% jump on Thursday. Meta fell another 2.1% as pressure on technology stocks resumed, while higher fuel costs fed through to consumers: the average U.S. gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.29 on Friday versus $3.07 a year earlier. The 10-year Treasury yield ticked back up to about 4.97% after Thursday's sharp safe-haven rally.

What happened

Apple reclaimed the title of the world's most valuable company on Friday, October 23, overtaking Nvidia. AAPL traded above $351 per share, setting a new intraday trading record, with market capitalization around $5.12 trillion. Nvidia and Google follow. The milestone came on the global launch day of the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable iPhone — a $1,999 (base 256GB) device described as the thinnest iPhone ever when opened flat, with a continuous internal display roughly 50% larger than the latest iPhone Pro. Apple limited purchases to two units per customer and discouraged walk-in sales amid tight supply; preorders had sold out within minutes of opening on October 16, with online delivery estimates already slipping into late January. Apple called demand for the device 'nothing short of extraordinary' on October 18.

What happened

SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory-chip maker and a key Nvidia supplier, on Friday said it has discontinued the review of a potential U.S. public offering for its Solidigm flash-memory subsidiary (the former Intel NAND business). Solidigm had aimed to raise $10B-$15B at a valuation of up to $150B — potentially one of the largest tech IPOs ever — to fund a new U.S. production facility serving AI data-center demand. SK Hynix cited 'market conditions and share price trends' and said the decision does not reflect any change in Solidigm's growth prospects or investment needs.

What happened

American Express reported record third-quarter revenue of $20.1B (+9% YoY) and net income of $3.7B (+28%), with adjusted EPS of $4.68 beating the ~$4.50 consensus (+13% YoY) and GAAP EPS of $5.42 boosted by a gain from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group. Total card spending (billed business) rose 8% to $454B on affluent customers' travel, dining, and shopping. The company raised its 2026 profit forecast to $18.30-$18.60 per share (from $17.30-$17.90) — with adjusted guidance narrowed to $17.60-$17.90 — and stayed on track for 10% full-year revenue growth.

What happened

SpaceX stock rose 1.5% Friday premarket after tanking 9% Thursday, following a Bloomberg report — citing people familiar with the matter — that the Musk-led company is looking 'to secure a minimum of 80,000 cell sites across the U.S., and it's in talks with at least one major cellular infrastructure company to reach that goal.' Bloomberg did not name the infrastructure company or the deal structure. The plan signals a major push into terrestrial wireless infrastructure, most plausibly an expansion of Starlink's direct-to-cell service.

What happened

Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners reiterated a Sell rating on Nvidia with a $180 price target in a note Thursday (covered by Barron's Friday morning), about 15% below NVDA's $212 close Thursday. Nvidia shares were up 1.3% premarket Friday after sliding 4.4% Thursday in the broad AI selloff. Goldberg conceded the near term looks fine — 'Nvidia is heading into early 2027 in a good position,' record sales continue, and the stock could even be a safe haven as peers struggle — but argued 'competitive pressures are mounting' and that Nvidia's aggressive finance bundling is 'a reaction to competitive pressure and a strategic tension at the heart of their business.' A core pillar of his thesis: roughly 55 GW of data-center operations have been announced for next year, but 'no one thinks there are enough electricians, gas turbines and utility interconnect to get beyond 30 GW,' so a large share of the mountain of orders may never materialize.

What happened

CalPERS, the largest U.S. public pension fund with about $640 billion in assets, has cut the combined number of Magnificent Seven shares it directly holds — Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla — by 26% in the first half of 2026, the Financial Times reported on October 23, citing its own calculations from regulatory filings. Deputy Chief Investment Officer Anton Orlich told the FT in an interview that the fund is shifting away from big U.S. tech stocks and increasing exposure to private equity and hundreds of smaller companies, effectively trading large concentrated exposure to seven names for a far more diversified equity book. Orlich said valuations in public equity markets look high and concentrated in a few stocks that could underperform, while private-company pricing is more attractive and could cushion the fund against a public-market downturn.

What happened

Western Digital reported fiscal first-quarter results ahead of estimates: earnings climbed 160% to $4.64 per share (FactSet consensus $4.11) and sales jumped 55% to $4.38 billion (consensus $4.14 billion). The company guided December-quarter revenue to $5.1 billion, well above the $4.57 billion analyst consensus. CFO Kris Sennesael cited 'robust exabyte growth and improved pricing,' with WD shipping 248 exabytes during the September quarter, up 22% year over year. Despite the beat-and-raise, WDC stock sank more than 5% after hours, extending a pullback of more than 50% from June highs.

What happened

In a CNBC interview at Nvidia's GTC Berlin on Thursday, Oct. 22, CEO Jensen Huang said neocloud demand is 'off the charts' but that a shortage of working capital — not customers — is throttling their growth: 'The demand of the capital is much greater than the availability of the capital. That's going to get solved.' He also said Nvidia is trying to establish its chips as a 'financeable asset' that lenders can treat as collateral — 'the residual value of our compute, because it's fungible, it's so productive, it's so durable, it is now becoming an asset class' — and revealed Nvidia has begun guaranteeing utilization floors for some neocloud partners such as Sharon AI. He added that power is the other binding bottleneck, especially in Europe, and that the region needs 'much more' neocloud capacity. NVDA fell about 2% in premarket trading after the comments.

What happened

Lam Research (LRCX) tumbled about 11.8% Thursday — far beyond Wednesday's ~5% after-hours dip — after analysts trimmed price targets following the company's warning that near-term supply constraints could push some December-quarter shipments into March 2027, with guidance for adjusted fiscal Q2 earnings slightly weaker than expected. The crash ignited a broad semiconductor selloff: the PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 6.7%, with KLA and GlobalFoundries down more than 9%, and Marvell, Intel and AMD each falling more than 8%. Motley Fool noted midday that Lam's supply-chain warning had become the catalyst for the day's AI-stock jitters, and the semiconductor rout fed the Nasdaq's worst session since June (-2.6%), its lowest close in over a month, with the S&P 500 falling 1.2% and both dipping below their 50-day moving averages.

What happened

Barclays announced Thursday it will eliminate roughly 5,000 jobs, about 5% of its ~93,000 global workforce, by year-end as part of a 'technology-enabled' cost-reduction push in which AI plays a growing role. About 1,000 cuts were already made in the first half of 2026, with 4,000 more to come by the end of Q4; roughly 60% will hit support functions, including software developers. The announcement came alongside Q3 results showing pretax profit of £2.32 billion, up from £2.08 billion a year earlier but below the £2.42 billion consensus, as fixed-income, currency and commodities (FICC) trading revenue fell 19% to £1.01 billion — the biggest Wall Street FICC slump of the quarter — overshadowing a 47% jump in equities trading revenue. The bank also announced a £500 million share buyback, bringing year-to-date shareholder distributions to £2.8 billion, and targets over £1.1 billion in 2027 cost savings.

What happened

Signals from Meta Platforms that it could soon go on a cash-raising spree helped trigger another massive rotation trade on Thursday, with investors dumping stocks connected to the AI boom and piling into almost everything else, from U.S. Treasurys to beaten-down home builders and software companies, per the WSJ. Meta fell 7%, erasing $124 billion of market cap. The PHLX semiconductor index dropped 6.7%, SpaceX declined 9.1%, and Tesla fell 3.1% after its adjusted net income slid. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite logged its worst day since June, tumbling 2.6%; the S&P 500 fell 1.2% while the Dow ticked up less than 0.1%. The bond rally sent the 10-year Treasury yield tumbling back below 5% — settling at 4.952% vs 5.145% Wednesday — its largest one-day drop since March 2023, when markets were gripped by the regional banking crisis.

What happened

Moderna shares collapsed as much as 25% on Thursday — Reuters reported a close around $183.88, down 25.2% and the stock's steepest one-day percentage fall on record — after partial results from the Phase 3 trial of its personalized melanoma vaccine intismeran autogene leaked early. The data, scheduled for a formal ESMO presentation on Saturday, appeared on the oncology site Oncology Central (later pulled) and circulated on social media; ESMO confirmed the embargo had been breached and lifted it, prompting Moderna and Merck to release the full dataset Thursday afternoon. The data showed intismeran plus Merck's Keytruda reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 42% (hazard ratio 0.58) and the risk of distant metastasis or death by 38% versus Keytruda alone in high-risk melanoma patients. Trading was briefly halted for volatility, and the selloff erased roughly $24 billion of market value. Merck, the co-developer, fell about 1-2%.

What happened

Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino downgraded Netflix from Outperform to Peer Perform on Thursday morning, removing his $95 price target. He warned that 'bears are winning the engagement debate' and that Netflix 'has lost its mojo': engagement 'failed to respond to rising investment,' with U.S. and Canada engagement flat to down in the first half of 2026 despite roughly $3B of added content expense over two years, while YouTube keeps gaining TV share. He cut his 2027 revenue estimate to $56.27B (10.1% growth) from $56.68B and his 2027 EPS estimate to $3.67 from $3.73. In parallel, Argus lowered its Netflix price target to $95 from $120 while keeping a Buy rating (implying ~46% upside from Wednesday's $65.04 close), and Pivotal Research cut its target to $65 from $70, keeping Hold — both citing engagement as the central concern. Despite the downgrades, NFLX bounced ~3% Thursday to ~$67, paring part of Wednesday's 5.3% post-earnings slide.

What happened

Spotify reported Q3 2026 results before the open on October 22. Total revenue grew 16% year over year to €4.97 billion (about $5.6B), just shy of the €4.98B consensus. Premium subscribers grew 9% to 306 million, adding 6 million net new paying subscribers — 1 million ahead of the company's own guidance — while monthly active users rose 11% to 788 million, roughly in line with estimates. The standout was profitability: gross margin hit a record 33.0%, up 136 basis points year over year and slightly ahead of the 32.9% estimate, driven by cost optimization and improved music and podcast unit economics; operating income reached €672 million. Diluted EPS of €2.48 missed the €2.81 consensus and fell from €3.28 a year earlier, partly because social charges ran €13 million above forecast, and free cash flow fell 9% to €735 million. For Q4, Spotify guided operating income of €820 million, above the roughly €803–813M analyst average, and projected 316 million premium subscribers versus 314.7 million expected — while Q4 revenue guidance of €5.2B came in slightly below the €5.23–5.24B consensus. The stock jumped about 4% premarket and was up as much as 9–10% in Thursday's session.

What happened

Comcast reported Q3 2026 results on October 22. Adjusted EPS of $1.07 beat the roughly $0.98–0.99 consensus by about 9%, though it declined 4% year over year. Revenue of $29.3 billion beat estimates near $29.2B but fell 6.1% reported year over year; on a pro forma basis (excluding the Versant separation completed January 2, 2026 and the sale of Sky Germany operations), revenue rose 0.5%. Adjusted EBITDA of $9.11 billion topped the $8.9B estimate, and free cash flow of $4.21 billion beat the $3.2B consensus. The trouble spot was connectivity: Comcast lost 144,000 domestic residential broadband customers, worse than the roughly 131,000–133,000 analysts expected and up from 91,000 losses a year ago, and shed 274,000 video customers. On the bright side, Peacock posted its second straight profitable quarter — its only two since launching in 2020 — with $261 million in adjusted EBITDA, $1.8 billion in revenue, and paid subscribers up 17% to 48 million, boosted by the summer FIFA World Cup ($224M incremental revenue). Universal became the first studio to cross $5 billion at the 2026 global box office, led by 'The Odyssey' at nearly $1.8 billion — Universal's highest-grossing film ever. Comcast said the planned separation of NBCUniversal and Sky into two independent companies remains on track, and paused share repurchases through the separation. The stock initially jumped ~2% premarket before reversing to trade down about 1%.

What happened

Bernstein analyst Madison Rezaei kept an Underperform rating on CoreWeave (CRWV) and cut the price target to $51 from $74, estimating the company needs roughly $85B to fund its existing committed backlog, of which about $9B is covered by existing facilities — leaving a ~$76B funding gap, more than triple Goldman's ~$23B estimate. Rezaei argued unsecured credit is available only at 15%+ yields given where the bonds trade, pushed for shorter-duration contracts to lock in higher per-MW prices, and said Nvidia would likely 'intervene in a true downside' — which raises a floor but 'doesn't necessarily re-energize the stock.' CRWV fell another ~7% in late-morning Thursday trading.

What happened

Tesla's Q3 2026 shareholder deck disclosed that battery availability 'continued to be the limiting factor in increasing auto volumes' and that the company ended the quarter with its largest passenger-vehicle order backlog in four years, reaching back to 2022. The Q3 deck puts battery capacity on its highlights page, a step up from the Q2 deck, which mentioned the backlog claim ('largest since 2023') only verbally. Tesla said it is expanding pack capacity with major projects in Berlin, Texas and Nevada. The context cuts both ways: deliveries fell 2.1% year over year and average selling prices fell again — unusual for a genuinely supply-constrained automaker — while FSD (Supervised) attach rates topped 75% of new North American deliveries and FSD subscriptions hit a record 1.74 million, which Tesla cites as a demand driver.

What happened

Meta disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday that it has signed on to roughly $825 billion in future leases and noncancelable contracts to support its AI buildout, up from nearly $700 billion disclosed in July. The total comprises $355.7 billion in uncommenced operating and finance leases (data centers, energy infrastructure through 2036) and $454.5 billion in noncancelable contracts, with $121.4 billion due in 2027 alone. Q3 capex hit $34.9 billion, and free cash flow came in at negative $2.1 billion — the first negative quarter since Meta went public, versus +$10.6 billion a year earlier. Shares fell more than 6% Thursday morning, and Meta's credit default swaps hit a record high as bondholders repriced the balance-sheet risk. CFO Susan Li lifted the bottom of the 2026 capex guide to $135-145 billion and signaled aggressive AI investment continues into 2027, though no 2027 capex figure was given.

What happened

Anthropic on Wednesday unveiled Claude Duet, a standalone proactive AI agent app built around its Opus 5.5 model and aimed at professionals and small-business owners. Duet delivers a daily morning briefing from connected apps, monitors those apps every few hours, and completes tasks in the background on its own cloud computer — from scheduling meetings and drafting emails to building financial forecasts, dashboards and web apps — surfacing items that need attention rather than waiting for prompts. It integrates with over 6,000 connectors in the Claude Marketplace (Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, HubSpot, DocuSign, Shopify, Stripe) and can make purchases via Stripe's Link wallet or Shopify's Shop Pay, requiring user approval for sensitive actions like payments, messages, signing or deleting. It is launching as a waitlisted research preview for U.S. Claude Pro and Max subscribers (Team and Enterprise plans not supported at launch), with background activity counting against existing usage limits.

What happened

Procter & Gamble reported fiscal Q1 earnings of $2.00 per share, beating the $1.88-$1.94 consensus, on revenue of $23.28 billion (+4%), above the ~$22.8 billion expected, with organic growth across every product category and volumes up 2.4%. The company raised its full-year all-in sales growth guidance to 2%-4% (from 1%-3%), attributing the lift to its completed $3.8 billion acquisition of supplements brand Thorne, while reiterating core EPS guidance of $6.89-$7.11. At the same time, P&G warned that higher commodity-related costs — raw materials, energy, and transportation — will reduce fiscal 2027 profit by about $1.4 billion, up from its prior $1 billion estimate; core operating margin fell 80 basis points despite 250 basis points of productivity savings. Reuters reported that record retail diesel prices from the U.S.-Iran war and a truck-driver shortage on some routes are pushing freight costs higher across packaged goods.

What happened

Lockheed Martin reported Q3 earnings of $7.97 per share, up 15% year over year and well above the $7.52 Wall Street consensus, on revenue of $20.71 billion (+11%), ahead of the ~$20.5 billion expected. The company raised full-year 2026 guidance to $80-$82 billion in sales (from $79.75-$81.75 billion) and EPS of $30.35-$30.75 (from $29.95-$30.65), and lifted its 2026 free-cash-flow forecast to $7.8-$8 billion from $7-$7.2 billion. Backlog jumped 27% sequentially to a record $292 billion, boosted by a $52.5 billion multi-year award for PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors, stockpiles of which were heavily drawn down by U.S. and allied forces in the Iran war. Separately, Lockheed and the Pentagon signed a new 10-year F-35 framework agreement covering 850 jets for the U.S. military plus hundreds more for international customers, locking in production at 156 jets per year.

What happened

French government bonds came under intense selling pressure again early Thursday, Oct 22, taking the spread between 10-year French OATs and German Bunds to about 164-165 basis points — the widest since 2011, per LSEG data. The 10-year French yield traded above 5.08%, its highest since 2002 (highest since July 2002 at 5.0601% per LSEG), while France now pays roughly 43bp more than Italy and 64bp more than Greece to borrow. The pressure coincides with a stalled budget, union talks ending without agreement (a Nov 5 general strike goes ahead), a renewed partial Paris curfew, and a Yellow Vest march filed for Saturday — and with Moody's scheduled to review France's Aa3 (negative outlook) rating on Friday, Oct 23. The real-economy damage became concrete: Carrefour fell as much as 15% in Paris, its largest intraday drop since 2017, after cutting its 2026 outlook and saying riots and looting could cost up to €200 million of operating income.

What happened

On SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call Tuesday, Elon Musk confirmed that the boards of SpaceX and Tesla have each formed a special committee of independent directors to review a possible merger of the two companies. The committees were created at the request of shareholders. Musk described himself as a 'conflicted party' who cannot participate — 'an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can't be in the conversation.' He stressed no terms have been agreed and a deal is 'not a certainty,' but said he supports the idea: 'There's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the Super Intelligence singularity and there's a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing Super Intelligence software, chip design, the Terafab obviously, robotics, mass to orbit with the Starmind constellation (and) connectivity.' Investors cheered: SpaceX shares jumped ~8-10% Wednesday, Tesla rose ~4%. At Tuesday's closes, a combined entity would carry roughly a $3.5 trillion market value (SpaceX ~$2T, Tesla ~$1.5T), with Musk holding about one-third.