Tesla, IBM and Lam beat and fell late; Meta up; Asia dumps chips

Five large companies beat estimates after Wednesday’s close, and three of them, Tesla, IBM and Lam Research, fell after hours anyway, while Meta and Texas Instruments rose. Asia sold its chipmakers overnight, Nasdaq-100 futures were down 1.4% early Thursday, per Newsquawk, Brent crude is above $110 on attacks around the Gulf, and France’s 10-year yield closed above 5% for the first time in 24 years. Jobless claims land at 8:30 a.m. ET, and Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, Honeywell and Blackstone report before the open.

Wednesday: a third day up, led by software and chips

The S&P 500 rose 0.58% to 7,757.17, its third straight gain, the Dow 360.21 points or 0.69% to 52,856.09 and the Nasdaq Composite 1.05% to 26,702.86, per CNBC and Yahoo Finance. 63 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ rose 1.05% to $725.20, the technology fund XLK 1.67% to $188.54, the S&P 500 fund SPY 0.53% to $773.09 and the small-cap fund IWM 0.25% to $276.48; the healthcare fund XLV gave back 0.49% to $178.94 a day after its record, with Eli Lilly (LLY) down 1.01% to $1,270.75 and UnitedHealth (UNH) 0.54%. Abbott (ABT) fell 1.89% to $100.51 on the day of its report, after a $106.35 high and a $97.67 low, the widest range in our 100; we have not verified its figures. The VIX fell 3.64% to 16.68 and the 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.12%, per Saxo.

Software did the heavy lifting for a second day. MongoDB (MDB) rose 6.71% to $390.75 from $366.18, the largest gain in our 100, Datadog (DDOG) 6.50% to $273.09, Cloudflare (NET) 5.32% to $307.22, CrowdStrike (CRWD) 5.26% to $239.34, Palantir (PLTR) 4.74% to $201.72, ServiceNow (NOW) 2.39% to $153.12 and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) 2.05% to $347.25. The chips followed: AMD (AMD) rose 3.36% to $552.72, Nvidia (NVDA) 2.54% to $221.97 on 86.6 million shares, Arm (ARM) 2.50%, Texas Instruments (TXN) 2.47% to $284.65 ahead of its report, Micron (MU) 1.96% to $913.67, Intel (INTC) 1.39% and Applied Materials (AMAT) 0.98%. Super Micro Computer, not in our 100, rose 9.52% to $35.55 on 82.0 million shares in the movers feed, a day after it raised its revenue guidance, and SpaceX rose nearly 8% on its first quarterly report as a public company, per Yahoo Finance. Tesla (TSLA) rose 3.41% to $386.47 from $373.71 on 47.7 million shares and IBM (IBM) 3.94% to $251.46 from $241.92, both ahead of their reports. The brokers and banks rose with the tape: Morgan Stanley (MS) 3.66% to $187.01, Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.25% to $904.72, Robinhood (HOOD) 3.79% to $101.93, Coinbase (COIN) 3.65% to $177.08, and Caterpillar (CAT) 2.06% to $740.21.

The losers were concentrated in two groups covered below, telecom and streaming, plus a few names without a confirmed story: Alibaba (BABA) fell 3.87% to $104.41 as Chinese shares extended a rout that CNBC says has taken the CSI 300 into a bear market, American Tower (AMT) 3.23% to $177.64 and Alphabet (GOOGL) 1.62% to $334.76; we found no company news for the last two, so they stay as data. Procter & Gamble (PG) fell 1.56% to $156.84 ahead of its report this morning.

After the close: Tesla, IBM and Lam beat and fell; Meta and TI rose

Tesla (TSLA) reported revenue of $28.05 billion against $27.92 billion expected and adjusted earnings of $0.48 a share against $0.45, per Investing.com, but GAAP net income fell 43% to $787 million and operating income 56% to $718 million as AI and Optimus spending rose, per Electrek and CNBC. Automotive gross margin excluding credits improved to 18.1% from 16.3% the prior quarter, free cash flow was above $1.5 billion, and the company now puts this year’s capital spending near $20 billion, with up to $30 billion of borrowing capacity it does not plan to draw this year. The quarter also carried a $142 million mark-to-market loss on its SpaceX stake and a gain of about $290 million on bitcoin. Elon Musk said external Optimus deliveries are expected around the end of 2027, Cybercab deliveries to customers by the end of 2026 and the first customer activation of unsupervised FSD in the second quarter of 2027. The stock was quoted at $373.63 after hours, down 3.3% from the $386.47 close, on 2.4 million shares in the extended-hours feed; after-hours reports ranged from a 2.2% fall to CNBC’s “more than 3%”.

IBM (IBM) beat with adjusted earnings of $2.95 a share on $17.1 billion of revenue against $2.86 and $16.82 billion expected, per CNBC, and said full-year free cash flow would grow by more than $1 billion. It kept its full-year revenue growth forecast at 4% to 5% excluding currency, and IBM Z mainframe revenue fell 20%. The Motley Fool reports the stock went from a gain to a loss during the 5 p.m. ET call, on a blunt assessment from CEO Arvind Krishna of enterprise software budgets. The extended-hours feed had it at $239.80, down 4.6% from the $251.46 close, on 1.0 million shares; press figures for the after-hours drop ranged from 3.7% to 5.1%.

Lam Research (LRCX), not in our 100, reported record revenue of $8.22 billion, up 54% from a year earlier and above the $8.13 billion consensus, and adjusted earnings of $2.20 a share against $2.19, per Investing.com. The December-quarter guide of $8.6 billion plus or minus $400 million and $2.33 a share plus or minus $0.15 sat close to the $2.32 consensus, and management said supply constraints limited the outlook; it also said 2027 wafer-fab equipment spending is likely above $200 billion, led by DRAM. The extended-hours feed had the stock at $241.48, down 7.4% from its $260.81 close, on 321,770 shares; reports ranged from 6.25% to 6.8%. Texas Instruments (TXN) went the other way on a similar shape of report: revenue of $6.06 billion, up 28%, and earnings of $2.62 a share against $5.92 billion and $2.41 expected, with data-center revenue up about 95% and fourth-quarter guidance of $5.80 billion to $6.30 billion of revenue and $2.45 to $2.79 a share, per Benzinga; the feed had it at $288.39 after hours, up 1.3% from $284.65, on 8.8 million shares.

Meta (META) was the night’s clear winner, quoted at $712.31 after hours, up 2.1% from the $697.52 close, on 1.7 million shares in the extended-hours feed. Revenue rose 26% to $64.6 billion against about $63.3 billion expected, adjusted earnings were $7.40 a share excluding a $9.89 billion charge for a settlement with state attorneys general, reported earnings were $3.83, and fourth-quarter revenue was guided to $73 billion to $76 billion, per Investing.com and CNBC. Free cash flow was negative, about $2.12 billion, and the company raised its capital-spending plan again; reports put the new range at $135 billion to $145 billion and one also cites a two-for-one stock split, neither of which we have confirmed from the filing. Press figures for the after-hours gain ran from 2.2% to 5.1%, captured at different times.

The read-across was negative for the chips. Nvidia (NVDA) was quoted at $219.26 after hours, down 1.2% from $221.97, and AMD (AMD) at $540.50, down 2.2% from $552.72. The data and the narrative disagree here: Texas Instruments’ data-center growth, Lam’s 2027 spending view and Super Micro’s guidance all say AI capital spending is intact, and Lam still lost 7% after hours. The price being charged for a beat has gone up, which is the same pattern GM, GE Aerospace and Netflix showed on Tuesday.

Telecom and streaming: AT&T’s worst day, Netflix at a two-year low

AT&T (T) fell 6.45% to $21.91 from $23.42 on 84.4 million shares, the largest loss in our 100, after third-quarter postpaid phone net additions missed the average analyst estimate, per Bloomberg; Finimize notes the fall came even though the company raised its full-year earnings view. The rest of the group went with it: T-Mobile (TMUS) fell 2.54% to $153.75, Verizon (VZ) 2.20% to $43.56 on 29.9 million shares, and tower owner American Tower (AMT) 3.23%, which may be the same story even though we found no report tying it there.

Netflix (NFLX) fell 5.31% to $65.04 from $68.69 on 101.2 million shares, its lowest close in two years, per Variety, on Tuesday night’s guidance: fourth-quarter revenue of $13.44 billion against $13.51 billion expected and a 2026 advertising outlook cut to $2.7 billion from about $3 billion, per Yahoo Finance. The stock had been down 7% premarket and recovered part of that in the session; it was flat after hours at $65.06.

Overnight: Asia dumped the chipmakers, French yields above 5%, Brent above $110

Asia took the Lam and Tesla reactions and sold its own AI names. The Hang Seng fell 3.1%, the Nikkei 225 2.2% and the Shanghai Composite 1.5%, per Newsquawk, and the Kospi was down more than 3%, per Saxo, with Reuters calling it a three-month low for the region. SK Hynix fell nearly 6%, Samsung Electronics more than 4%, Tokyo Electron 5.9% and SoftBank 5.6%, per Saxo. That is a full reversal of Wednesday’s session, when the Kospi rose 3.29% and SK Hynix 6.5%. CNBC reports the CSI 300 has extended a 10-week rout into a bear market.

Europe has its own problem. France’s 10-year yield rose 8 basis points to close at 5.013% on Wednesday, its first close above 5% in more than 24 years, and the gap over German 10-year yields passed 159 basis points, the widest daily close since 2012, per Saxo, after ECB council member Kazaks said more tightening might be needed if inflation stays above target. Euro Stoxx 50 futures were down 0.6% and DAX futures 0.5% early Thursday, per Newsquawk, after the Stoxx 600 had risen 0.9% to 644.49 on Wednesday; one early report had the Stoxx 600 down 0.89% and the CAC 40 down 1.14% in the first trades, which we have not verified against a cash close. US futures: S&P 500 futures down 0.7% and Nasdaq-100 futures down 1.4% at 6:25 a.m. London time, per Newsquawk. The US 10-year yield eased to 5.09% from 5.12% and the 2-year fell below 4.78% after peaking at 4.83% on Wednesday, per Saxo and Newsquawk.

Oil is the macro number that moved. Brent rose 1.71% to $110.67 a barrel and WTI 1.42% to $98.53 on Thursday morning, per CNBC, after the New York Times reported that the US and Israel have drawn up plans for renewed strikes on Iran after next month’s US elections, and the State Department ordered non-emergency staff and families out of Saudi Arabia as Houthi attacks on the kingdom increase; the Houthis claimed Wednesday’s attacks on Saudi Aramco’s Yanbu site, the Shaybah oilfield and the Riyadh and Abha airports, per CNBC. Newsquawk carried unverified reports from Iran’s IRGC that four vessels transferring oil were struck in the Gulf and three others hit mines west of Hormuz; Aramco said Shaybah operations were unaffected. Kpler data via CNBC put Hormuz transit at 11.62 million barrels a day over the seven days to October 13, about 68% of the 17.15 million baseline. Spot gold fell 1.3% to about $4,090 an ounce and silver 3% to $56.20, per Saxo. The euro was near $1.1245 and the dollar near 157.75 yen early Thursday, per Saxo.

What to watch today

Before the open: Procter & Gamble (PG) after its 1.56% fall on Wednesday; Union Pacific (UNP), consensus $3.48 a share; Honeywell (HON), consensus $2.17; Blackstone (BX), consensus $1.29; Dow (DOW), consensus $0.61, per Kiplinger and Yahoo Finance; plus Lockheed Martin (LMT), Comcast (CMCSA), American Airlines (AAL) and Valero (VLO), per Newsquawk. Saxo also lists Gilead, Western Digital, Newmont and Spotify for today.
After the close: Intel (INTC) is listed by Yahoo Finance and MarketBeat for today at 4:00 p.m. ET, consensus $0.39 a share on $16.40 billion, with a 5:00 p.m. call; Investing.com shows October 29 instead, so the date is contested and worth checking against the company’s investor site.
Data: Initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET for the week ended October 17, consensus 200,000 against 199,000 prior, with continuing claims seen at 1,720,000 against 1,710,000, per Investing.com; natural gas storage at 10:30 a.m.; a 5-year TIPS auction at 1:00 p.m. ET, per Macrobullseye. The Fed remains in blackout ahead of October 27–28. Eurozone October flash consumer confidence is also due.
The opens: Tesla after its $373.63 after-hours quote, IBM after $239.80, Lam Research after $241.48, Meta after $712.31 and Texas Instruments after $288.39; Nvidia and AMD after their after-hours dips and Asia’s chip selloff; AT&T and Netflix for follow-through after their Wednesday falls.
Oil and the Gulf: Brent at $110.67 with the Saudi departure order and the Iran strike reports as the live headlines; French 10-year yields after the 5.013% close, with Moody’s review of France’s rating due Friday.
Friday: American Express, SLB and ExxonMobil before the open; flash PMIs at 9:45 a.m. and Michigan inflation expectations at 10:00 a.m. ET, per Saxo and Investing.com.

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.