OpenAI revenue report hits chips; oil, Pepsi and the Dow rise

Thursday’s selling was narrow and had one cause: a Financial Times report that OpenAI’s annualized revenue is about $20 billion below earlier figures took the Nasdaq down 1.25% and the chipmakers down 3.4%, while the Dow rose and 53 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. Oil jumped 4%, PepsiCo beat and rose 3.73%, and overnight Firmus withdrew the biggest Australian IPO since Telstra. Today brings Delta before the open and consumer sentiment at 10:00 a.m. ET, and futures are higher.

One report about OpenAI did the damage

The Financial Times reported that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September, against figures of about $68 billion to $70 billion in earlier press reports, per CNN and SiliconANGLE. A source told the FT the two numbers are not like for like: the earlier figure included gross revenue from OpenAI’s partners, to compare with Anthropic’s reporting, and the new one is net revenue. Yahoo Finance made the same point, that the gap reflects how revenue is counted, not $20 billion of lost sales. The market sold first and sorted that out later.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25% to 27,193.34, its worst session since mid-August, the S&P 500 0.47% to 7,765.36, and the Dow rose 0.10% to 51,231.64, per the AP. Chipmakers, up more than 80% this year, fell 3.4% as a group, per Reuters. In our feed the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ fell 1.34%, the technology fund XLK 1.79%, the S&P 500 fund SPY 0.42%, the Dow fund DIA rose 0.12%, and the small-cap fund IWM was flat at a 0.05% decline.

Oracle (ORCL) fell 5.48% to $135.69 from $143.56 on 42.2 million shares. Its five-year, $300 billion cloud agreement with OpenAI is roughly 45% of Oracle’s $664 billion backlog of contracted future revenue, per Yahoo Finance, which is why a question about OpenAI’s revenue lands on Oracle first. Arm (ARM) fell 6.48% to $275.29 from $294.37, the largest decline among the 100 names in our feed; besides the chip selloff, a jury trial that began on October 5 has Qualcomm seeking to stop paying royalties to Arm for up to five years, per Investing.com. Intel (INTC) fell 5.34% to $107.08 on 119.6 million shares, with no company-specific news we could find. Micron (MU) gave back Wednesday’s gain, down 4.79% to $1,035.84; Broadcom (AVGO) fell 4.35%, AMD (AMD) 3.90%, Nvidia (NVDA) 2.94% to $230.48 from $237.47 on 118.3 million shares, Applied Materials (AMAT) 2.13% and Cisco (CSCO) 2.13%. Among the hyperscalers, Amazon (AMZN) fell 2.25% and Microsoft (MSFT) 1.35%. After hours there was little follow-through: Nvidia was quoted at $230.74 and Oracle at $136.16.

Baird’s Ross Mayfield told CNBC the market “has become a much narrower market that’s dependent on the AI names to keep it afloat.” Our breadth count says the same thing from the other side: the index fell on a day when more of our 100 names rose than fell. D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria took the opposite view of the report itself, telling CNBC he is “not concerned about OpenAI just tripling its revenue this year.”

The second AI-valuation story came overnight. Firmus, the Nvidia-backed data-centre company, withdrew its application to list on the ASX on Friday, a day after closing its book, per ABC News and the BBC. It had offered shares at A$11 to raise about A$7 billion, about US$5 billion, at a valuation near A$44 billion, which would have been the biggest Australian float since Telstra; the board said the terms on which the offer could proceed would not reflect the strength of the business, and the company says it now intends to raise private capital. Maas Group, which holds a 3.2% stake, halted its shares pending an announcement.

Where the money went: oil, staples and the Dow

Energy led. Brent crude settled up 4.1% at $104.28 and WTI up 3.6%, per Reuters and NBC, after a spate of attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and a cut to US output from hurricane activity. President Trump’s pledge that the US would not resume strikes on Iran before the midterms did not calm the market on Thursday, per NBC, though early Friday Brent is down 1% at $103.28 and WTI down 0.8% at $90.75, per the AP. The energy fund XLE rose 2.97% in our feed on 51.3 million shares; Chevron (CVX) gained 3.12% to $211.55 from $205.15 and Exxon Mobil (XOM) 2.71% to $168.50. Among the movers, refiner PBF Energy (PBF) rose 6.78% and tanker owner Okeanis Eco Tankers (ECO) 7.25%.

PepsiCo (PEP) rose 3.73% to $128.34 from $123.73 on 24.0 million shares after third-quarter core earnings of $2.34 a share beat the $2.29 LSEG consensus on revenue of $25.27 billion, up 5.6%, per Quartz and GuruFocus. The company also cut its full-year outlook, to core EPS growth of 2.5% to 3.5% from the low end of a 5% to 7% range, while nudging its revenue-growth guidance up to about 6%, and said it would take additional structural cost actions to offset input-cost inflation. A beat paired with a guidance cut usually costs a stock; here the shares had already fallen 1.58% on Wednesday, and the market treated the cut as smaller than feared. The rest of the staples group followed: Coca-Cola (KO) rose 2.27%, Altria (MO) 2.94%, Procter & Gamble (PG) 1.87%, Walmart (WMT) 2.22% and McDonald’s (MCD) 2.61%.

The Dow’s gain came from the same rotation. IBM (IBM) rose 2.77%, RTX (RTX) 2.25%, Disney (DIS) 2.17%, UPS (UPS) 1.99%, Apple (AAPL) 1.11% to $340.42, the one megacap that held up, and the telecoms T-Mobile (TMUS) 2.18%, Verizon (VZ) 1.27% and AT&T (T) 1.63%. The financial fund XLF rose 0.89%; Wells Fargo (WFC) gained 2.21% and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) 0.95%. Coinbase (COIN) fell 3.61% and Robinhood (HOOD) 2.28%, extending Wednesday’s losses.

Yields eased after the 30-year auction cleared

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.35% early Thursday, back at Wednesday’s 24-year high, then fell to 5.23% by the close, per the AP. The afternoon’s $22 billion 30-year reopening stopped at 5.618%, the highest auction yield since August 2000, but demand was firm: the bid-to-cover was 2.54 against a 2.41 average and indirect bidders took 72.3%, per TFTC and The Vault Report. The long-dated Treasury fund TLT rose 0.93% in our feed and the gold fund GLD 0.73%. Weekly jobless claims fell 2,000 to 197,000 against a 200,000 consensus, with the prior week revised up to 199,000 and continuing claims up 17,000 to 1.716 million, per Reuters and the Labor Department.

The rate-sensitive names moved with yields. Home Depot (HD) rose 3.39% to $295.47 from $285.77 on 8.9 million shares; TradingKey tied it to the company reaffirming its full-year outlook, which we could not confirm from a primary source, and the stock remains down about 17% this year, per TIKR. Prologis (PLD) rose 1.56%, Duke Energy (DUK) 1.16% and NextEra (NEE) 0.40%. In the movers feed, CoStar (CSGP) rose 8.03% to $29.81 and both Zillow classes about 6.9%, with no company news; AlphaStreet and Quiver Quant both described a sector-wide real-estate rally. Adobe (ADBE) rose 3.56% to $241.05 on what Yahoo Finance called technical buying rather than news; the stock is down about 31% in 2026, per GuruFocus. Snowflake (SNOW) rose 3.17%.

Movers: a Pacira takeover and a wider CSL deal for Haemonetics

Pacira BioSciences (PCRX) rose 44.44% to $36.40 from $25.20 on 28.9 million shares, the top gainer in our movers feed, after Viatris agreed to acquire it for $36.50 a share in cash, an equity value of $1.65 billion, per the Viatris release. The deal is a tender offer followed by a merger, carries a $62 million termination fee payable by Pacira if it accepts a superior offer, and is expected to close by the end of 2026; Pacira’s products are EXPAREL, a non-opioid post-surgical pain treatment, and ZILRETTA, a knee-osteoarthritis injection, and it generated about $746 million of revenue in the twelve months to June 30.

Haemonetics (HAE) rose 17.43% to $119.53 from $101.79 to a 52-week high after CSL Plasma said it plans to deploy Haemonetics’ NexSys PCS collection technology across all of its existing US centres by the end of 2027, per GuruFocus. The August supply agreement between the two had contemplated only part of CSL’s network, so this is the same deal, made larger. Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) rose 7.68% to $81.64 and Cable One (CABO) 15.62% to $15.29; we could not confirm a reason for either before publication.

Overnight: Asia steadier, Europe and US futures higher

Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed nearly unchanged at 69,030.92, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 1.6% at 24,152.44 late in its session, the Shanghai Composite added 0.1% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6% to 8,716.60, per the AP; South Korea and Taiwan were closed for holidays, which thinned trading. Investing.com noted the recovery in Asian tech as the OpenAI worry faded through the session.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 closed Thursday down 0.8% at 625.51, its lowest since June 11, per Saxo; early Friday Germany’s DAX is up 0.7% at 24,975.62, France’s CAC 40 0.8% at 7,789.91 and Britain’s FTSE 100 0.7% at 10,515.43, per the AP. S&P 500 futures are up 0.4% and Dow futures 0.1%, per the AP, and Nasdaq-100 futures 0.49%, per CNBC.

What to watch today

Delta Air Lines (DAL) reports third-quarter results before the open. Consensus estimates differ by source, from $1.94 a share at Kiplinger to $2.03 at Earnings Whispers, on about $17.6 billion of revenue, per Yahoo Finance; Delta’s own July guidance was $2.00 to $2.50 and mid-teens revenue growth, per Reuters. With Brent above $100, fuel is the line to read first.
University of Michigan preliminary October consumer sentiment at 10:00 a.m. ET. Consensus is about 47.6 against 48.1 in September’s final reading, per Trading Economics; year-ahead inflation expectations were 4.6% in September, and the index’s record low is 44.8, set in May 2026.
The USDA’s monthly WASDE crop report at noon ET and the Baker Hughes rig count at 1:00 p.m. ET, with the prior count at 456, per Investing.com and The Rio Times.
Oil, after Thursday’s 4.1% jump in Brent to $104.28 and this morning’s pullback to $103.28.
The 10-year yield, at 5.23% after Thursday’s swing from 5.35%.
Any follow-up to the Firmus withdrawal, including the resumption of trading in Maas Group on the ASX.
Monday: US stock exchanges are open, but the bond market is closed for Columbus Day, as SIFMA advises, and the Toronto Stock Exchange is closed for Canadian Thanksgiving. September CPI follows on October 14, and the next FOMC meeting is October 27–28.

Not financial advice. iTrading Buddy summarizes publicly available market data and news; every figure above is sourced from the reporting available before the US open on the date shown. Verify anything you act on.