Merck delivered a clean beat-and-raise third quarter. Worldwide sales grew 4% on a constant-currency basis to $18.1 billion versus $17.3 billion expected. Adjusted EPS of $2.49 easily beat the $2.09 Wall Street projected — even after a 12-cent-per-share charge tied to Merck's global license agreement with Shanghai's SciBrunch to co-develop a drug targeting tumor growth. Keytruda, Merck's biggest product, recorded $8.6 billion in sales across intravenous and subcutaneous formulations; the subcutaneous Keytruda QLex brought in $830 million, up 6% year over year, and has tracked ahead of analysts' projections since its September 2025 approval. Winrevair (pulmonary arterial hypertension) also beat at $694 million versus $638 million expected. Merck lifted full-year guidance for the third time this year: worldwide sales of $66.8–$67.3 billion (midpoint roughly in line with Street) and adjusted EPS of $2.77–$2.82 (up from $2.66–$2.76 prior and ahead of the $2.64 Street call), though the revised outlook remains well below Merck's initial projections from the start of the year. Shares surged about 5% premarket and gained more than 5% at the open.
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Eli Lilly reported Q3 adjusted EPS of $7.48 per share versus $5.68 expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet, on revenue of $24.4 billion versus $22.58 billion expected (up from $17.6 billion a year earlier). The tirzepatide franchises carried the beat: Mounjaro (type 2 diabetes) posted $10.72 billion in sales versus $10 billion expected, and Zepbound (weight loss) posted $5.35 billion versus $5.05 billion expected. Lilly hiked its full-year guidance, now calling for adjusted EPS of $35.50 to $36.50 (Street $33.93) and revenue of $91 to $92 billion (Street $88.82 billion). Shares popped nearly 5% in premarket trading to $1,351, retaking a buy point at $1,292.65 out of a cup base, and added nearly 9% at Thursday's open.
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ECB President Christine Lagarde announced Thursday morning that she will step down on Feb. 7, 2027, nearly nine months before her term ends in October 2027. The ECB said she informed the Governing Council and European Council President António Costa; the Governing Council gave her a long standing ovation, and Costa said the succession process starts immediately. The news landed hours before the ECB's October rate decision (released 13:15 GMT), where the bank held all three key rates unchanged (deposit 2.50%, refi 2.65%, marginal 2.90%) while warning that rising energy prices pose upside risks to inflation and downside risks to growth, solidifying ~65% market pricing of a December hike.
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Euro, eurozone sovereign bonds, European banks/stocks: knee-jerk reaction minimal — euro slipped ~0.3-0.4% to ~$1.11 (lowest since May), German 10-yr Bund yield fell ~4bp to 3.34%, STOXX 600 up ~1%. Bigger market relevance is second-order: who succeeds Lagarde determines the ECB's appetite for non-standard tools (e.g. the transmission protection instrument) as French debt stress persists. December ECB hike remains ~65% priced and near-term policy path unchanged, per analysts (Aberdeen, Berenberg). Dollar and global rate-sensitive assets could see ripple effects if the succession tilts the Governing Council's hawk/dove balance.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Q3 GDP grew at a 3.4% annual rate, topping the 3.1% consensus forecast and up from 2.2% in Q2. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the core PCE price index, rose 0.3% in September, lifting the 12-month core PCE rate to 3.1% from 3.0% — both as expected. The data landed at 8:30 a.m. ET, one day after the FOMC voted 10-2 to hold rates at 3.75%-4.00%. After the prints, markets priced 83% odds of a 25bp hike at the Dec. 9 meeting, with 67% odds of a follow-on hike by the March 17 update.
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Broad market: S&P 500 futures fell ~0.4% after the data; rate-sensitive growth/mega-cap tech remain under pressure with 10-year yields near 5.03%. The strong-growth-plus-sticky-inflation mix reinforces the case for December tightening, which is a headwind for long-duration AI/growth names but supportive of banks and net-interest-margin stories.
DoorDash announced Thursday morning it will acquire grocery-delivery rival Instacart in a ~$17 billion deal — its largest ever — at $65 a share, an 11% premium to Wednesday's close and 26% above Instacart's price before sale talks emerged Oct. 22. At least 75% of the consideration is cash, funded from cash on hand plus debt (JPMorgan has committed a bridge loan), with DoorDash targeting an investment-grade capital structure; close expected late 2027 to early 2028 pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. Instacart's board unanimously approved the deal. DoorDash will keep the Instacart brand, app, and enterprise tech, and says customers could save ~$100M/year from not needing both DashPass and Instacart+ memberships. DoorDash also reported Q3 EPS of $1.06 (vs $0.81 expected) on revenue of $4.62 billion (+34%), and had moved its earnings release up from next week to Thursday morning — telegraphing the deal.
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DoorDash (DASH): +6-10% premarket to ~$180-186 on Q3 beat plus deal. Instacart/Maplebear (CART): +~5% premarket to ~$61.25, trading halted; deal value $65/share is a 26% premium to the Oct. 22 close ($51.68) and 11% to Wednesday's $58.42 close. Uber (UBER) +0.4% (had been seen as a rival bidder). Amazon and Walmart are the strategic losers: the combined DoorDash-Instacart is positioned to challenge their grocery-delivery dominance.
Caterpillar reported Q3 revenue of $20.68 billion (+17% y/y) and adjusted EPS of $7.20 (+45% y/y), beating consensus of roughly $7.06-$7.08 on EPS and topping $20.55 billion revenue estimates. Operating margin expanded to ~20.6%, up ~3 points y/y. The order backlog hit a record $78.1 billion, up $6 billion from Q2 and $38.2 billion y/y. Power-and-energy sales rose 18% to $8.78 billion on data-center demand; construction industries rose 18% to $7.98 billion; resource industries rose 15% to $4.62 billion. Despite the beat, the company merely maintained full-year guidance (mid-to-high-teens revenue growth) and kept its $2.2 billion tariff-cost forecast — and shares sank 9-10% in premarket trading to ~$640-$652.
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Caterpillar (CAT): -9% premarket, ~$650, a Dow component. Read-through: AI-infrastructure-adjacent industrials (Vertiv, power-generation names) under pressure; the move sharpens the market-wide AI-capex-sustainability debate hitting megacaps this week. Potential retail-sector effects are nil; this is an industrials/AI-trade story.
The Bank of Canada raised its overnight rate 25 basis points to 2.50%, its first hike since 2023, explicitly citing rising oil-driven inflation. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand surprised markets by holding its official cash rate at 2.75%, but its governor said the chances of a December hike are 'high,' sending the NZ dollar sharply lower. Japan's trend inflation hit a three-year high, with the Bank of Japan expected to hold at its Friday decision while signaling further hikes, and the ECB decides today with an ~84% priced-in chance of a December hike after eurozone inflation hit 3.8%. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields pushed to ~5.02% as markets priced a coordinated global turn toward tighter policy.
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Thursday premarket trading turned into a stress test for the AI trade after mixed Big Tech earnings. Alphabet (GOOGL) slid 10.5% in premarket trading after reporting disappointing results in its core search advertising business and a massive acceleration in cash burn as it poured resources into AI buildout, wiping nearly $400 billion off its market value and dragging Nasdaq futures down about 1%. Microsoft (MSFT) climbed 3.5% premarket after delivering a cash-flow beat and strong Azure growth (+48%), offering a sharp contrast. Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 9.4% premarket on media reports that it is in advanced talks to buy data-center optics maker Lumentum Holdings (LITE) in a potential megadeal, with Lumentum rising 4.3% premarket after soaring 10% after hours. The broader semiconductor space weakened in sympathy (Nvidia -1%, AMD -3.3%, Intel -3.6%), and software extended Wednesday's post-earnings selloff: ServiceNow dropped 19% premarket and Fortinet 25.4%, with Zscaler and Salesforce among the laggards. Asian shares gave up earlier gains, with the KOSPI down 2.6% after a nearly 7% surge a day earlier.
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Reuters reported Wednesday evening, citing two people familiar with the matter, that the U.S. Justice Department has made inquiries into whether Nvidia's $12.93 billion deal to buy open-source platform Hugging Face would harm competition in artificial intelligence. DOJ officials are asking whether the acquisition would let the chip giant 'capture a fundamental distribution point for AI' — leverage to disadvantage rivals or extract negotiating concessions — and have asked about Hugging Face's competitors. The questioning sits inside a broader, years-long DOJ investigation into Nvidia's conduct covering acquisitions, investments, sales practices, and customer pressure; the Hugging Face angle and details of the continued pursuit are reported here for the first time. Investigators are also reviewing Nvidia's December 2025 SchedMD and Run:ai acquisitions and the 2025 Groq licensing-and-talent arrangement, including whether chip allocations were steered to customers that bought networking gear tied to Groq. Nvidia declined to comment; a DOJ spokesperson declined to discuss pending matters, adding the department under President Trump will prioritize 'advancement of Super Intelligence.'
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Nvidia (NVDA): deal-block or deal-conditioning risk on a $12.93B flagship acquisition; regulatory overhang on its broader invest-and-acquire strategy. Semiconductor/AI dealmaking broadly: Hugging Face-related ecosystem names and AI M&A targets face a higher bar; rival chipmakers (AMD, Broadcom) are indirect beneficiaries of any constraint on Nvidia's distribution leverage.
Samsung Electronics reported record third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won (about $80 billion), up nearly ninefold from 12.2 trillion won a year earlier, driven by booming demand for AI memory chips. Revenue climbed about 127% to roughly 195 trillion won, and Samsung said it is the first global technology company to post quarterly operating profit above 100 trillion won. The semiconductor division generated 106.5 trillion won in operating profit — about 99% of group profit — on a sharp ramp in sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) and server storage orders. Net profit of about 75 trillion won missed the roughly 84 trillion won consensus estimate. Samsung also declared a third-quarter dividend of 30 trillion won (4,601 won per share) and said memory demand will keep expanding in Q4 and the chip supply shortage will deepen next year.
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Vice President JD Vance is engaging Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and previously Iran's longest-serving Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, in a bid to revive peace negotiations, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter. Vance sent Rezaei a letter at President Trump's direction, and Trump confirmed Wednesday evening that he approved the contact, saying 'They need help with medical supplies and various things' and 'If you want to do that, that's ok.' The outreach is testing whether Tehran and Washington can find enough common ground to persuade Trump not to give a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks. Discussions so far have focused on a possible framework for negotiations, not specifics of a peace proposal, and Rezaei said last week Iran would not negotiate until specific core demands were met. In early Asian trade, oil eased on the diplomatic signal: front-month WTI fell 0.7% to $102.10 a barrel and Brent fell 0.6% to $114.60.
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Energy/oil: Brent and WTI eased in early Asian trade on the diplomatic signal, after Brent settled near $115 on Oct 28 — a lower war-risk premium would pressure energy stocks and ease inflation headwinds, while a failed channel would reverse it. Broad U.S. equities: any de-escalation would remove a major overhang that has kept oil elevated and fed December Fed-hike pricing; defence and Gulf-exposed names are also sensitive to the strike-vs-talks binary. No single watchlist stock is directly named, but the oil/futures channel affects the broad market and energy sector.
Fortinet reported third-quarter results after Wednesday's close that disappointed a market primed for big beats, sending the stock down about 25% in after-hours trading. Product revenue — firewalls and secure-networking hardware — came in at $765 million, up 37% year over year, a sharp deceleration from 52% growth in the second quarter. Service revenue (security subscriptions) of $1.31 billion missed the $1.33 billion FactSet consensus, and Fortinet cut its full-year service-revenue forecast to $5.15–$5.17 billion from $5.18–$5.22 billion. Billings of $36 billion beat the forecast midpoint by only ~2%, versus an 11% beat in Q2. CEO Ken Xie said on the call that Fortinet is 'leading the next frontier of cybersecurity by securing AI workflow.'
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Fortinet (FTNT) — shares set to shed about a quarter of their value in after-hours trading. Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Zscaler (ZS), SentinelOne (S) — each off more than 6% after hours. CrowdStrike (CRWD) and Okta (OKTA) — each off more than 5% after hours. Broader software/AI-infrastructure sentiment also dented, compounding ServiceNow's after-hours slide the same evening.
Qatari mediators presented Iran with a new draft deal on Sunday to end the war with the U.S. and Israel, and Tehran is expected to send a response by the end of the week, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters on Wednesday, Oct 28. The draft sets a seven-day timeline addressing both Tehran's and Washington's concerns, laying out daily confidence-building steps each side must take; the timeline could begin early next week, with several countries acting as guarantors. However, by Wednesday a senior Iranian official had dismissed what Qatar presented as 'unacceptable ideas and not an offer,' according to a separate Reuters analysis — a sign the proposal is far from accepted. Oil barely moved on the news, with WTI near $102 and Brent near $115, as traders weighed the draft against the parallel risk of a renewed U.S. campaign after the midterms.
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Energy/oil majors and refiners (Brent near $115, WTI near $102 — a deal would unwind the war premium, while dismissal keeps it in place); airlines, shipping and transport (fuel costs, Hormuz routing); broad U.S. equities (oil-driven inflation and Fed December-hike pricing); defense names (U.S. campaign risk after the Nov 3 midterms).
ServiceNow reported Q3 2026 results after the close on Oct. 28: revenue of $4.11 billion, up 20.5% year over year and slightly above the $4.09 billion consensus, with subscription revenue of $3.99 billion, up 21%. But adjusted EPS came in at $1.00 versus the $1.02 analysts expected, GAAP net income fell 44.8% to $277 million ($0.27 per share, versus $0.48 a year earlier), and fourth-quarter guidance — subscription revenue of $4.25–$4.26 billion and cRPO growth guided at about 18.5% — came in below expectations. Shares fell more than 14% in after-hours trading, with Bloomberg-cited coverage saying the sales outlook renewed market concerns about AI disrupting the software industry.
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NOW (ServiceNow) directly: Q4 guidance miss drove a 14%+ after-hours drop. Enterprise application software peers (CRM, WDAY, MSFT) — renewed AI-disruption read-through for the SaaS model. AI-infrastructure names (NVDA and hyperscalers) indirectly — the reaction underscores the market's split between AI winners and software names seen as exposed to AI displacement.
Microsoft reported fiscal Q1 2027 results after the close on Wednesday, October 28, beating expectations on every headline metric. Revenue rose 19% year over year to $92.28 billion, ahead of the $90.62 billion consensus, and adjusted EPS came in at $4.89 versus $4.71 expected; GAAP net income rose 32% to $36.63 billion ($4.92 per share). Azure revenue grew 48%, beating the ~44-45% constant-currency guidance and the ~44.3% Street expectation, with Azure revenue of $33.2 billion and Microsoft Cloud revenue up 30% to $63.9 billion. Capital expenditures of $45.2 billion (including finance leases; $39.4 billion cash capex) came in below the roughly $51 billion analysts expected, and free cash flow of $18.6 billion, though down 27% year over year, beat the ~$8 billion Wall Street expected. Shares jumped about 4% in after-hours trading to around $552, after closing roughly flat at $531.01.
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Microsoft (MSFT) — direct beneficiary, shares +4% after hours. AI infrastructure and chip stocks (NVDA, AMD, Broadcom, memory names) — mixed read-through: the Azure beat validates AI demand, but lower-than-expected capex briefly weighed on chip stocks in late trading. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN) — cloud peers reporting in the same window
Microsoft's print sets the benchmark. PC-exposed names — Windows OEM weakness and memory-price pressure are a headwind.
Alphabet reported Q3 2026 results after the close on Wednesday, October 28, missing on the bottom line and sending shares down 8.5% in after-hours trading to $297.11. EPS came in at $2.12, down from $2.87 a year ago and well below the $3.02 consensus, while revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion, narrowly missing the $128 billion expectation. The EPS miss was driven largely by an $8.66 billion loss on equity securities, versus a $10.73 billion gain a year earlier; excluding one-time items, EPS was $2.67. Google Cloud was the standout, with revenue more than doubling (+103%) to $30.7 billion and operating profit of $11.1 billion, above the $9.8 billion estimate. But Google Services — search, YouTube and subscriptions — fell short, with operating income of $39.2 billion versus $40.8 billion expected, and YouTube ad revenue of $11.21 billion missing the $11.5 billion estimate. Free cash flow went further negative to -$9.1 billion, the second straight quarter of negative FCF, as Q3 capex jumped 114% to $51.4 billion.
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Alphabet (GOOGL) — direct, shares -8.5% after hours, which would put the stock back in the red for 2026. Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) — cloud/AI-spending peers
Alphabet's cash burn sharpens scrutiny of their capex discipline. AI infrastructure and chip suppliers (NVDA, Broadcom, memory names) — Alphabet's $51.4B quarterly capex supports demand, but the negative-FCF backlash raises questions about how long hyperscalers can sustain this pace. YouTube/streaming and ad-dependent names — the YouTube ad miss and Services shortfall weigh on ad-market sentiment.
Oracle shares surged about 12% on Wednesday to $146.11, on pace for their largest percentage gain since April 13, after the company laid out an ambitious long-term outlook at its financial analyst/investor day. Management forecast fiscal 2030 revenue of more than $225 billion — above the $217.7 billion analysts surveyed by FactSet expected — with an adjusted operating margin above 40% and adjusted earnings of more than $21 per share, implying roughly 35% annual revenue growth. CFO Hilary Maxson said Oracle expects free cash flow to turn positive in the second half of fiscal 2028 and exceed $30 billion in fiscal 2029, as capital spending declines, and that the company will limit additional capital raises to $20 billion through fiscal 2030 (excluding refinancing). Oracle also reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 forecast of more than $90 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings of $8.10 per share.
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Oracle (ORCL) — direct beneficiary, +12% on the day
AI infrastructure / cloud peers (Microsoft, Amazon, CoreWeave, AI chip and data-center suppliers) — read-through on whether hyperscaler AI spending can convert to cash flow
OpenAI-linked financing names — relief that Oracle's funding path looks less stretched; broader software/cloud sector — sentiment lift on AI monetization.
The Federal Reserve held its benchmark federal funds rate steady at 3.75%-4.00% on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, exactly as markets expected. The vote was 10-2, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissenting in favour of a quarter-point increase — a hawkish signal that the committee's centre of gravity still leans toward tightening. The statement upgraded its description of activity to expanding 'at a strong pace' (from 'solid pace' in September), said job gains have kept pace with workforce growth and unemployment has changed little, and noted uncertainty remains elevated partly owing to geopolitical developments. In his 2:30 p.m. ET press conference, Chair Kevin Warsh said inflation expectations are 'going the right way' but stressed it is the Fed's responsibility to get inflation down, while declining to call financial conditions tight. Stocks barely budged: the Dow and S&P 500 held gains of roughly 0.1-0.2% while the Nasdaq slipped about 0.2%, and the 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to about 5.03-5.05%.
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Broad market (S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow): muted immediate reaction — S&P 500 and Dow up about 0.1-0.2%, Nasdaq slipping about 0.2% after the decision
Treasury yields: 10-year rose to about 5.03-5.05% from 5.02% just before the announcement and 4.99% at Tuesday's close; 2-year up to about 4.78%
Rate-sensitive growth and megacap tech: Alphabet up nearly 1% and Microsoft down about 0.5% in afternoon trading ahead of their after-close earnings; Nasdaq turned lower on the hawkish tilt
Banks and duration-sensitive sectors (real estate, small caps): Russell 2000 flipped from +0.2% to about -0.3% after the decision as hike odds for December stayed high
Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management, leading a group with restaurant operator Flynn Group and investment firms BlueFive Capital and Sixth Street Partners, offered to buy Wendy's for $7.35 a share in cash, valuing the fast-food chain at about $1.4 billion, according to a Wednesday regulatory filing first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The bid is roughly a 20% premium to Tuesday's close, when Wendy's market value was about $1.2 billion. Shares surged 14-16% in premarket and early trading to around $7.01-$7.12. Trian and related parties hold a 16.3% stake. Trian said Wendy's is 'at a critical juncture' and that the complex, multiyear turnaround it needs — significant capital investment to de-lever and fix system performance — would be easier as a private company. Wendy's had not responded to requests for comment.
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Wendy's (WEN) — direct target, shares up 14-16% toward the $7.35 offer; restaurant peers (McDonald's, Restaurant Brands/Burger King, Yum! Brands) may see takeout-speculation spillover
Trian partners Flynn Group, BlueFive Capital and Sixth Street are involved.
GE HealthCare posted third-quarter earnings per share of $1.34, up 25% year over year and 14 cents ahead of consensus, on revenue of $5.513 billion, up 7.2% and $162 million above estimates. CEO Peter Arduini cited 'strong top-line growth and margin expansion across all segments.' Overall EBIT margin rose to 16.6% from 14.8%, helped by a 0.9% reduction in the tariff rate, and backlog climbed to $23.7 billion on a 1.03 book-to-bill ratio. The company raised its full-year earnings outlook to $4.95-$5.05 from $4.80-$5.00, its strongest earnings growth since the 2023 spinoff, and shares jumped about 7-8% in early Wednesday trading, toward a buy point above 75.65.
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GE HealthCare (GEHC) — direct beneficiary; med-tech peers and health-care equipment names may get a sentiment lift; a breakout above its 75.65 buy point could draw momentum buyers.
Day-before preview for Thu Oct 29, 2026: September PCE, Q3 advance GDP and jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET, then Amazon Q3 earnings after the close (call 5:00 p.m. ET). PCE consensus headline 3.6-3.7% year over year (up from 3.4% in August), +0.5% month over month; core PCE 3.1% YoY (up from 3.0%), +0.3% MoM. Q3 GDP consensus ~3.2% annualized (up from 2.2% in Q2; Atlanta Fed GDPNow ~3.5%). Jobless claims consensus 200,000 vs 194,000 prior. Amazon consensus EPS $1.96-$2.01, revenue ~$202.1-$202.2B (+~12% YoY), vs guide $197-$202B sales and $22.5-$26.5B operating income.
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Vertiv Holdings reported a blowout third quarter Wednesday morning: adjusted earnings of $2.21 per share, up 78% year over year, on net sales of $4.313 billion, up 61% — both far above FactSet consensus of $1.82 EPS and $3.75 billion in revenue. Adjusted operating profit rose 83% to $1.087 billion (18% above expectations) and net income rose 79% to $868 million. The company also raised its full-year guidance, lifting 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $7.10–$7.20 and projecting full-year sales growth of 38% to $14.65 billion, up from $14.2 billion previously. Shares jumped about 15% in Wednesday morning trading to around $240. CEO Giordano Albertazzi said: 'We are in the middle of the largest infrastructure build out and it's accelerating.'
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Apple announced on Tue Oct 27, 2026 a new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 (12-core CPU/GPU, Wi-Fi 7, up to 24 hours battery life), starting at $1,999 with 16GB memory and 1TB storage standard, and an M6 iMac (24-inch 4.5K Retina display, up to 12-core CPU/GPU, Wi-Fi 7), starting at $1,499 for the 10-core model and $1,699 for the 12-core model, both with 16GB memory and 256GB storage. Pre-orders open Wed Oct 28 at 10:10 a.m. PT (1:10 p.m. ET), with availability starting Fri Nov 6.
Why it matters
The bigger picture behind this move, what it means for the company and the sector, and how it fits the trend we have been tracking for weeks.
What’s next
The dates, numbers and signals to watch from here, and what would change the story.
Why it matters & what’s next are part of Pro, along with the audio summary.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they hit Saudi Arabia's biggest oil refinery, Ras Tanura, with a ballistic missile, intensifying their strikes against the world's largest crude exporter. Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the strike on the 550,000-barrel-per-day facility, so the claim remains unverified. Brent crude futures rose about 1.3% to $115.36 a barrel in Wednesday Asia trading and U.S. West Texas Intermediate rose 1.2% to $101.12, reversing much of Tuesday's nearly $2-a-barrel decline, when Middle East talks had briefly eased supply worries.
Why it matters
The bigger picture behind this move, what it means for the company and the sector, and how it fits the trend we have been tracking for weeks.
What’s next
The dates, numbers and signals to watch from here, and what would change the story.
Why it matters & what’s next are part of Pro, along with the audio summary.
Energy producers (XOM, CVX, COP, international majors) — benefit from higher realized crude prices. U.S. refiners (VLO, PSX, MPC) — mixed: higher crude input costs, but a strike on a major Saudi refinery tightens global refined-product supply. Airlines, shippers and trucking (DAL, UAL, AAL, freight carriers) — higher fuel costs squeeze margins. Consumer/retail — higher fuel and logistics costs feed into inflation pressure. Defense stocks — elevated on Middle East escalation risk.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening that the United States has quietly warned several Gulf Arab states to prepare for a possible short, intense military campaign against Iran after the November 3 midterm elections. President Trump has not made a final decision but is leaning toward a large post-election attack that could target Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, according to people familiar with his thinking; Trump has said he will not attack before the midterms. Military preparations are under way: the U.S. is moving a Patriot missile-defense system from Texas to the region, moving troops off vulnerable bases, restocking munitions, and preparing bomber and fighter aircraft, with an additional carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit poised to join roughly 20 warships already in the Middle East next month. Israel has also prepared plans and targets. The White House declined to comment on sensitive military plans, saying all options remain on the table to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Why it matters
The bigger picture behind this move, what it means for the company and the sector, and how it fits the trend we have been tracking for weeks.
What’s next
The dates, numbers and signals to watch from here, and what would change the story.
Why it matters & what’s next are part of Pro, along with the audio summary.
