Last week, we opened the Morning Brief newsletter by saying the first week of Big Tech earnings looked promising — until Thursday. This time, we’re here to say the second week of Big Tech earnings looked promising — until Tuesday.
Lackluster earnings from Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Intel (INTC) sent the tech complex into a steep sell-off, ending a wild week that began with Anthropic’s S-1 filing.
Coming into this week, all eyes will be on potential sparks to relight the fire under the tech sector. Fire, to be clear, in a bad way.
Kicking off the week on Monday are earnings from Apple (AAPL) and Palantir (PLTR), alongside Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) and Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) in the chips sector.
On Tuesday, our focus shifts to politics, as US midterms are set to influence everything from control of Congress and the Iran war to the data center boom. On top of that, AMD (AMD) and Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) both report earnings, and the US government will report JOLTS data in the first major labor market update of the week.
Wednesday and Thursday bring earnings from Toyota Motor (TM), ConocoPhillips (COP), Eaton Corporation (ETN), Arm Holdings (ARM), McDonald’s (MCD), and a range of other corporate market heavyweights, alongside a smattering of economic data.
And all of that excitement sets up Friday’s October nonfarm payrolls report, the banner data release of the week.
Big Tech’s sell-off wasn’t about the actual fundamentals
It was a deeply red week for the tech sector after a slew of earnings failed to give investors the signs of strength they were looking (and hoping) for.
At Alphabet, a miss on both revenue and profit sent shares falling 13% as Sundar Pichai said that while the company’s search division had grown, the money wasn’t keeping up as AI cuts into search monetization.
Down the street at Amazon, a double miss on both earnings and revenue triggered a sell-off that couldn’t be stopped by strong cloud growth in AWS.
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And we can’t forget Intel, where a beat on earnings and in-line revenue were overshadowed by weakness in PC sales, attributed to heightened memory costs. That company lost a quarter of its value after the report, falling over 28%.
But there’s a conundrum for investors in these earnings reports. As Barron’s associate editor Al Root said to Yahoo Finance, the numbers weren’t all bad; it’s more like investors have gotten more demanding.
“It’s not that the earnings were awful, it’s just that it wasn’t enough to support the market,” Root said on “The 8:30.” He added, “The level of nerves going into earnings season was so high, like everybody was waiting for the shoe to drop.”
At Amazon, the company’s AWS unit — effectively, its data center and AI beating heart — reported revenue of $45.9 billion, representing growth of 40% and healthily exceeding estimates. Alphabet’s cloud unit brought in $30.7 billion where analysts had only seen $29.1 billion.
Intel’s data center and AI segment pulled down $7.318 billion against estimates of $6.675 billion expected, marking 78% growth year on year, while Sandisk (SNDK) beat on both the top and bottom lines yet still got pulled into a sell-off.
To quote Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney, writing about Amazon, “This was an expectations correction and not a fundamentals correction.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai arrives to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on September 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. President Trump invited AI executives and tech CEOs for a luncheon at the White House. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images) · Finn Gomez via Getty Images The crypto fallout from the Binance heist
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was hit late Thursday by what investigators say is the biggest crypto hack in history. with $6.3 billion in digital assets affected. It might just be the biggest heist of all time.
In the immediate aftermath, Binance said it has temporarily suspended customer withdrawals. Binance added it “will cover all losses” using its Secure Asset Fund for users and company reserves. “User funds are safe,” the exchange said, adding that it temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks are completed.
But that didn’t stop other major crypto assets from tumbling, led by ether (ETH-USD), which dropped 4% to around $2,200. Binance’s native token, BNB (BND-USD), also plunged by more than 5%.
The question for the crypto industry writ large will be: What comes next, after a multibillion-dollar heist off the largest cryptocurrency exchange on the market?
“The industry has to wake up to the point that they have to protect the customer funds,” Owen Lau, managing director at Clear Street, told Yahoo Finance on “The 8:30,” adding, “They have to have a pretty good cybersecurity system to give more confidence to people.”
After the news initially broke, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X that his platform had reached out to Binance to offer assistance, and that his team would do “everything we can to support in the current situation.” He added that “moments like this call for the industry to work together.” (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance has a partnership with Coinbase.)
With the industry pursuing legislation in Washington that would meaningfully shift its regulatory landscape toward the banking world, how does it adapt after such an attack, and how does it earn trust?
“We need a good regulatory framework to really protect the industry and also give confidence to investors,” Lau said. “Right now, we don’t have it.”
Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao arrives at federal court in Seattle, Washington, on April 30, 2024. (JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images) · JASON REDMOND via Getty Images A wild week in Washington awaits with a pivotal midterm election
It’s a busy week in Washington, to say the least.
Not only will there be 470 active elections — all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats — for the country to pore over, but Friday will bring the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly nonfarm payrolls report, a key check on the labor market.
There’s an argument to be made that the jobs report is downstream of the midterms in multiple ways. Two of the banner issues in these races — the cost of living and the trajectory of AI — are set to play key roles in determining how the labor market shifts over the next few years.
A particularly big focus for investors is the key races set to make big determinations on the direction of states’ data center development pipelines. Races to watch include the Ohio Senate election between Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted, and the Texas gubernatorial election between incumbent Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Gina Hinojosa.
Keep a close eye on California, too, as voters take to the polls to determine the fate of Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire wealth tax that saw Meta issue new shares to protect CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s voting power in case he has to sell shares to pay it.
All that said, strategists caution that companies make decisions on a longer-term basis than one single election cycle.
“The historic investment hyperscalers make in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure today is done so with the aim of growing earnings over the next decade and even longer,” Seth Meyer, global head of client portfolio management at JanusHenderson Investors, wrote. “When allocating capital over such horizons, management teams factor in potential changes in the macroeconomic cycle and regulatory environment.”
On the labor data front, economists are looking for Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report to show 55,000 jobs added, coming after a report well below estimates that showed 29,000 jobs added last month. Zooming in, that entire +55,000 balance is expected to be made up in the private sector, and manufacturing is expected to see zero jobs added or lost even given the data center construction boom.
One of the key arguments for the Federal Reserve’s ability to raise rates in September — and its potential to do so again in December — is strength in the labor market. Any perceived weakness could complicate that outlook.
Attendees respond to U.S. President Donald Trump as he leaves the stage after delivering remarks at a campaign rally at Lubbock Memorial Civic Center on October 27, 2026 in Lubbock, Texas. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) · Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images Economic and earnings calendar Monday
Economic data: S&P Global US manufacturing index, October final reading (56 prior); ISM manufacturing, October (54.7 expected, 54.5 prior); ISM prices paid, October (77.5 expected, 77.9 prior); ISM new orders, October (54.9 expected, 55.3 prior); ISM employment, October (52 expected, 52.7 prior); Construction spending, month-on-month, September (+0.5% expected, +0.9% prior)
Earnings calendar: Apple (AAPL), Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Marriott (MAR), The Williams Companies (WMB), Diamondback Energy (FANG), Realty Income Corporation (O), Entergy (ETR), ON Semiconductor (ON), Ryanair Holdings (RYAAY), Fox Corp. (FOX), Roku (ROKU), Loews (L), Tower Semiconductor (TSEM), Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (LSCC)
Tuesday
Economic data: JOLTS job openings, September (7.1 million expected, 7.09 million prior); JOLTS quits level, September (3.09 million expected, 3.06 million prior); JOLTS layoffs level, September (1.66 million expected, 1.64 million prior); Factory orders, September (+1.1% expected, +0.1% prior)
Earnings calendar: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Amgen (AMGN), Arista Networks (ANET), Shopify (SHOP), Pfizer (PFE), Eaton Corporation (ETN), Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC), Suncor Energy (SU), Energy Transfer (ET), Ferrari N.V. (RACE), Apollo Global Management (APO), Thomson Reuters (TRI), Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP), Block (XYZ), Yum! Brands (YUM), Sysco (SYY)
Wednesday
Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Oct. 30 (+3.4% prior); ADP employment change, October (+70,000 expected, +90,000 prior); S&P Global US services PMI, October final reading (57.9 prior); S&P Global US composite PMI, October final reading (57.6 prior); ISM services index, October (54.7 expected, 54.9 prior); ISM services new orders, October (75 expected, 74 prior); ISM services new orders, October (58.8 expected, 59.8 prior); ISM services employment, October (50 expected, 50.1 prior)
Earnings calendar: Arm Holdings (ARM), McDonald’s (MCD), QUALCOMM (QCOM), Novo Nordisk (NVO), Uber Technologies (UBER), McKesson Corporation (MCK), CVS Health (CVS), Emerson Electric (EMR), Datadog (DDOG), MercadoLibre (MELI), Motorola Solutions (MSI), Manulife Financial Corporation (MFC), The Allstate Corporation (ALL), MetLife (MET), Kraft Heinz (KHC)
Thursday
Economic data: Challenger job cuts, year-on-year, October (-19.9% prior); Nonfarm productivity, third quarter preliminary reading (+3% expected, +1.4% prior); Initial jobless claims, week ended Oct. 31 (194,000 prior); Continuing claims, week ended Oct. 24 (1.701 million prior)
Earnings calendar: Toyota Motor Corporation (TM), ConocoPhillips (COP), Sony Group (SONY), Parker-Hannifin (PH), The Southern Company (SO), Cloudflare (NET), Duke Energy (DUK), Airbnb (ABNB), Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST), EOG Resources (EOG), National Grid (NGG), Cigna (CI), Lumentum (LITE), Simon Property Group (SPG)
Friday
Economic data: Change in nonfarm payrolls, October (+55,000 expected, +29,000 prior); Change in private payrolls, October (+55,000 expected, +46,000 prior); Change in manufacturing payrolls, October (0 expected, +9,000 prior); Average hourly earnings, month-on-month, October (+0.3% expected, +0.1% prior); Average hourly earnings, year-on-year, October (+2.9% expected, +3% prior); Unemployment rate, October (4.2% expected, 4.2% prior); Labor force participation rate, October (+61.8% prior); U. Mich. sentiment, November preliminary reading (47.3 expected, 48 prior); U. Mich. current conditions, November preliminary reading (46.7 prior); U. Mich. expectations, November preliminary reading (48.8 prior); U. Mich. 1-year inflation expectation, November preliminary reading (4.7% prior); U. Mich. 5-10 year inflation expectation, November preliminary reading (3.5% prior)
Earnings calendar: Enbridge (ENB), Moderna (MRNA), Brookfield Asset Management (BAM), Humana (HUM), Vistra Corp. (VST), Ubiquiti (UI), Franklin Templeton (BEN), Charter Communications (CHTR)
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