Meta -7%, chips -8%, Dow flat: a rotation, not a rout; Brent $113

Thursday was the Nasdaq’s worst day since June, down 2.60%, and the S&P 500 fell 1.21%, yet 52 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. Meta’s spending plan and Lam Research’s supply warning took 7% to 12% out of the AI names while consumer staples, utilities, telecoms and Treasuries caught the money, and Brent settled at $113.17, its highest since May, on attacks around the Gulf. Asia recovered from its lows overnight, US futures are flat, flash PMIs land at 9:45 a.m. ET and American Express and SLB report before the open.

Thursday: the Nasdaq’s worst day since June, and half our list rose

The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.60% to 26,008.86, its steepest fall since June, the S&P 500 1.21% to 7,663.43, and the Dow closed up 0.02% at 52,867.98 with the Russell 2000 up 0.11% at 2,784.03, per CappNotes’ closing figures; FXStreet cites Deutsche Bank for a 6.72% fall in the Philadelphia semiconductor index, its worst day since June. In our 100, the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ fell 2.86% to $704.47 from $725.20, the technology fund XLK 3.29% to $182.34, the S&P 500 fund SPY 1.18% to $763.96, and the Dow fund DIA rose 0.04% to $527.89 with the small-cap fund IWM up 0.07% to $276.67. 52 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. The VIX rose 14.09% to 19.03 and the 10-year Treasury yield fell 17 basis points to 4.96%, its first close below 5% since September 23, per CappNotes and Benzinga; the long-bond fund TLT rose 1.87% to $81.74 and the gold fund GLD fell 2.63% to $369.00, with December gold down about 2.7% near $4,038 an ounce.

Where the money went is the story. The healthcare fund XLV rose 1.32% to $181.30 and the financial fund XLF 1.09% to $56.65. Procter & Gamble (PG) rose 5.58% to $165.59 from $156.84 on 22.0 million shares on its report, covered below, NextEra (NEE) 4.62% to $81.90, Duke Energy (DUK) 3.92% to $125.40, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 3.81% to $267.61, PepsiCo (PEP) 3.07%, Altria (MO) 3.03%, Coca-Cola (KO) 2.87%, Eli Lilly (LLY) 2.83% to $1,306.69, Walmart (WMT) 2.82% to $121.12, Costco (COST) 1.99% and UnitedHealth (UNH) 1.91%. Wednesday’s telecom losers bounced: AT&T (T) rose 3.79% to $22.74 after its 6.45% fall, Verizon (VZ) 3.76% to $45.20 and T-Mobile (TMUS) 3.28%, and Netflix (NFLX) recovered 3.09% to $67.05 from its two-year low. Home Depot (HD) rose 4.33% to $327.73 and Apple (AAPL) 1.23% to $348.22, with its $348.36 high a 52-week high in the feed; we found no company news for Home Depot. The banks held, JPMorgan (JPM) up 0.40%, Bank of America (BAC) 0.59% and Wells Fargo (WFC) 0.72%, while the trading houses fell with the tape, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.48% and Morgan Stanley (MS) 1.63%, and the brokers fell more: Robinhood (HOOD) 5.25% to $96.58 and Coinbase (COIN) 4.51% to $169.09.

Meta’s bill and Lam’s bottleneck: how the AI trade lost 7% to 12%

Meta (META) fell 6.98% to $648.85 from $697.52 on 40.5 million shares, after trading as low as $639.69, a reversal from the 2.1% after-hours gain it showed on Wednesday night on the same numbers. What changed was the reading, not the quarter: revenue rose 26% to $64.6 billion, but free cash flow was negative $2.12 billion, the first cash outflow in more than a decade per CappNotes, the 2026 capital-spending range went to $135 billion to $145 billion from a $130 billion floor, and the company’s estimate of future lease and contract commitments rose to about $825 billion from about $700 billion in July, per Business Today, Benzinga and Mitrade. Tesla (TSLA) went the other way on spending, cutting its 2026 plan to about $20 billion from more than $25 billion, and still fell 3.08% to $374.58 from $386.47 on 51.5 million shares, per GuruFocus and Investrade. Amazon (AMZN) fell 4.57% to $250.38, Alphabet (GOOGL) 3.15% to $324.22 and Microsoft (MSFT) 2.23% to $521.08, none with news of their own; they are the other three large buyers of the chips.

Lam Research (LRCX), not in our 100, fell 11.76% after saying on Wednesday’s call that clean-room space and component supply would limit chipmakers into 2027, per CappNotes and 24/7 Wall St., and the equipment and chip names went with it: Applied Materials (AMAT) fell 8.16% to $375.58 from $408.94, AMD (AMD) 8.10% to $507.93 from $552.72, Intel (INTC) 8.04% to $85.49 on 133.4 million shares, Arm (ARM) 7.28% to $210.10, Micron (MU) 6.26% to $856.49, Nvidia (NVDA) 4.40% to $212.21 from $221.97 on 124.8 million shares, Broadcom (AVGO) 4.31% to $323.24, Qualcomm (QCOM) 2.88% and Texas Instruments (TXN) 1.81% to $279.50, giving back the after-hours gain on its own beat. Intel’s fall came with no report of its own: the company confirmed on October 6 that it reports on October 29 after the close, which settles the date we flagged as contested yesterday.

Two things in the data cut against the “AI selloff” headline. Nvidia, the stock the trade is named for, fell about half as much as Intel, AMD or Applied Materials, and the losses were heaviest in the companies that make the tools and the memory rather than the one that sells the accelerators. And Treasuries rallied hard on a day oil settled at a five-month high: a 17 basis point fall in the 10-year yield with Brent up 4% is a bond market pricing slower growth and less AI borrowing, not more inflation. Software split the same way as Wednesday, in reverse: MongoDB (MDB) fell 7.30% to $362.24, Datadog (DDOG) 5.62% to $257.75, Palantir (PLTR) 2.74% and Snowflake (SNOW) 2.72%, giving back most of Wednesday’s gains, while Adobe (ADBE) rose 6.07% to $270.55 from $255.06, Salesforce (CRM) 3.52% to $250.29 and ServiceNow (NOW) 2.53% to $157.00; 24/7 Wall St. called it buying of beaten-down software, and we found no company news for Adobe, which is still down about 23% this year per GuruFocus.

The beats that worked: P&G, Spotify and IBM’s reversal

Procter & Gamble (PG) reported adjusted earnings of $2.00 a share against $1.88 expected on revenue of $23.3 billion against $22.8 billion, with organic sales up 4% and volume up 2%, per CNBC; core gross margin fell 150 basis points and the company now puts this year’s after-tax commodity cost at about $1.4 billion, up from about $1 billion, but it lifted its all-in sales growth range to 2% to 4% from 1% to 3% and kept fiscal 2027 core earnings at $6.89 to $7.11 a share. The stock’s 5.58% gain was the third-largest in our 100.

Spotify (SPOT) rose 11.10% to $583.66 from $525.34, the largest gain in our 100, on a quarter that missed on earnings and beat where investors looked: earnings of €2.48 a share against €2.80 expected and revenue of €5 billion in line, but 6 million premium subscriber additions against 5 million guided, 788 million monthly users, a fourth-quarter guide of 10 million net additions and an operating-profit forecast above consensus, per Deadline, Seeking Alpha and CappNotes.

IBM (IBM) closed up 0.26% at $252.11 after opening at $241.25, about 4.1% below Wednesday’s close, and touching $240.00: Wednesday night’s 4.6% after-hours drop on CEO Arvind Krishna’s comments about enterprise software budgets was bought back in full during the session. Honeywell (HON) rose 1.67% to $218.31 on the day of its report after a $205.20 low; we have not verified its figures. Caterpillar (CAT) fell 4.89% to $704.05 from $740.21 a week before its October 29 report, with analyst target cuts but no single event we can point to, per Google Finance and StockAnalysis. The movers feed’s gainers list was otherwise mid-caps: Biohaven (BHVN) +25.34% to $14.73, Pool (POOL) +14.39% to $197.32, Kohl’s (KSS) +11.73% to $24.77, Allegion (ALLE) +11.08%, Ryder (R) +10.60%, Roper (ROP) +9.83% and Waste Connections (WCN) +9.68%; we have not confirmed what drove them, so they stay as data.

Overnight: Asia off its lows, Taiwan shut, Brent $113, yields back near 5%

Oil first, because it is what the bond and equity moves are reacting to alongside Meta. December Brent settled up 4.00% at $113.17, its highest settlement since May 4, and WTI up 2.39% at $99.47, per CappNotes, after Iran’s state TV said seven tankers were damaged or set on fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi targets including an Aramco facility, and two people were killed at Dammam airport; President Trump accused Iran of staging “fake hits” to lift prices before the midterms. Thursday morning’s report of US and Israeli plans for renewed strikes on Iran after the November 3 election is the backdrop. Saxo puts spot gold near $4,017 an ounce early Friday after Thursday’s 2.8% fall, the dollar near 156.25 yen and the euro near $1.1223.

Asia sold on the open and then recovered part of it. The Nikkei 225 fell as much as 2.3% before closing 0.34% lower at 62,693, down 4% for the week, as selling in technology and AI stocks eased through the session, per Trading Economics, which also notes Japan’s September inflation accelerated above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target. The Kospi was down 2.14% at 5,415.18 at 01:38 GMT, with Samsung Electronics down 2.80% and SK Hynix 0.57%, per Reuters via Business Recorder; Trading Economics’ later figures for the session range from 1.1% to nearly 2% lower, so we are not quoting a close. Taiwan’s exchange, home to TSMC, was shut on Friday as Typhoon Champi approached, per Bloomberg, so the chip reaction there waits. The ASX 200 was down 0.4% early, per Saxo, and CNBC and Saxo both note the CSI 300 entered a bear market on Thursday. Europe on Thursday: the Stoxx 600 fell 1.0%, its worst session since October 1, with ASML the biggest drag, per Saxo.

US futures at 3:45 a.m. ET: S&P 500 futures down 0.07% near 7,700, Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.16% near 29,190, Dow futures down 0.37% near 52,870, and the 10-year yield back near 4.98%, per FXStreet. The after-hours feed had none of Thursday’s big movers extending: Meta at $645.89, Tesla $373.35, Intel $84.76, AMD $505.74, Nvidia $212.38 and Spotify $581.01, each within 1% of its close.

What to watch today

Data: S&P Global flash PMIs for October at 9:45 a.m. ET, services consensus about 58.0 against 58.8 prior and manufacturing about 55.5 against 55.9; the final October University of Michigan survey at 10:00 a.m., sentiment seen near 46.3 against 48.1 and one-year inflation expectations at 4.7% in the preliminary reading, per Investing.com and Kiplinger. The Fed is in blackout ahead of October 27–28.
Before the open: American Express (AXP), consensus $4.53 a share, and SLB, consensus $0.62, per Finnhub via MarketAlleys; also Infosys, Booz Allen, Autoliv, Gentex and First Citizens, per Earnings Whispers and Market Chameleon, which counts 28 reports before the open and one after the close.
Europe: Moody’s scheduled review of France’s Aa3 rating, which carries a negative outlook, two days after the French 10-year closed above 5%, per AFT and Investing.com.
The opens: Meta after Thursday’s 6.98% fall and flat after-hours quote; the chipmakers after the Philadelphia index’s 6.72% day, with Taiwan shut; Procter & Gamble and Spotify for follow-through; Home Depot and Adobe, which rose without a confirmed story.
Oil and the Gulf: Brent at $113.17 with the Hormuz and Saudi attack claims as the live headlines; the 10-year near 4.98% after its first close below 5% in a month.
Next week: the FOMC decision on October 28; Intel on October 29 after the close, confirmed by the company; Caterpillar also October 29.

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.