Amazon -7%, Intel -23% after hours; Alphabet -12.6%; ECI at 8:30
Amazon fell about 7% after hours on capex and a $1.89 EPS miss, Intel about 23% on a weak Q4 guide. Alphabet lost 12.64% Thursday. Employment cost index 8:30.
Amazon fell about 7.3% after hours on Thursday after a quarter in which AWS grew 39% but earnings per share missed, capex stayed near $220 billion for the year and the holiday guide landed in line, and Intel fell about 23% after beating the quarter and then guiding fourth-quarter revenue to $15 billion to $16 billion against the roughly $17 billion analysts expected. That puts Nasdaq-100 futures down about 2% this morning, a second day of selling in the AI-capex names after Alphabet’s 12.64% fall and ServiceNow’s 26.95% on Thursday, while the rest of the market keeps rising: 62 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose on Thursday, small caps gained 0.97% and the health-care fund 2.40%. The third-quarter employment cost index is at 8:30 a.m. ET, Exxon and Chevron report before the open, and it is the last trading day of October.
Amazon: AWS at its fastest in five years, and the market sold the cash line
Per Benzinga, Investing.com and Deadline, revenue rose 12% to $201.9 billion against a consensus of about $202.25 billion, and diluted EPS was $1.89 against $1.97 expected, down from $1.95 a year earlier. AWS revenue was $45.98 billion, up 39.3%, the fastest growth in nearly five years and ahead of the 37.8% FactSet had modeled. The fourth-quarter revenue guide is $240 billion to $247 billion, with the $244.3 billion consensus sitting in the middle of it. Management kept its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast at about $220 billion, and Saxo puts free cash flow over the past 12 months at a negative $42.4 billion.
So the quarter has the same shape as Alphabet’s on Wednesday: the cloud number is the best in years, and the stock fell anyway because the spending runs ahead of it and the bottom line missed. The extended-hours feed had Amazon (AMZN) at $225.99, down about 7.3% from its $243.79 close, on 586,000 after-hours shares; Bloomberg’s reading was 7.3%, Benzinga’s 6.95% and Investing.com’s ranged from about 5% to about 7% depending on the hour. In the regular session the stock had already fallen 4.25% to $243.79 from $254.60 on 83.6 million shares, into the report. A caveat on the EPS comparison: one source notes that last year’s quarter carried a $9.5 billion pre-tax gain on AI-startup investments, so the year-on-year decline overstates the operating change.
Intel: a beat, then a guide one to two billion light
The quarter itself was fine. Per TipRanks, Quartz and Shacknews, adjusted EPS was $0.52 against $0.41 expected on revenue of about $16.5 billion, up about 21% and in line, with data center and AI revenue up 78% to $7.3 billion. The fourth-quarter guide is what the stock is trading on: revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion against about $17 billion expected per Bloomberg, and adjusted EPS of about $0.25 against about $0.43. Management cited weak PC demand and memory cost pressure, and an October explosion at its Kiryat Gat fab in Israel, which sources put at between $300 million and $600 million of lost fourth-quarter revenue; the figure is contested, so treat it as a range.
The extended-hours feed had Intel (INTC) at $70.89, down about 23% from its $92.07 close, on 126,000 after-hours shares; press readings ran from 18% at Saxo’s cut-off to 21% at Quartz and 23% at Bloomberg and TradingKey, so the earlier a report was filed the smaller the number. The stock had fallen 3.62% to $92.07 from $95.53 in the session on 125.5 million shares, after three gains in a row. The memory-cost line matters beyond Intel: it is the other side of the shortage Micron and SK hynix have been describing, and Micron (MU) fell 4.98% to $934.27 from $983.23 on Thursday after Samsung’s shareholder-return plan disappointed, per GuruFocus and JKN, giving back most of Wednesday’s 5.86% gain.
Thursday: Alphabet’s record drop, ServiceNow’s worst day, and a market that rose anyway
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% to 7,720, the Nasdaq-100 1.4% to 29,402 and the Dow about 0.3% to 52,343, per Saxo; Investing.com’s ticker had the Nasdaq Composite down 1.38% at 26,184.72. In our 100, the S&P 500 fund SPY fell 0.38% to $769.36 from $772.31, the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ 1.42% to $715.34 from $725.61 and the Dow fund DIA 0.37% to $522.73, while the small-cap fund IWM rose 0.97% to $284.01, the long-bond fund TLT 0.62% to $81.49 and the gold fund GLD fell 1.32% to $368.57. 62 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. 38 fell. The health-care fund XLV rose 2.40%, the financials fund XLF 1.44%, the consumer-discretionary fund XLY 0.75% and the energy fund XLE 0.38%, while the technology fund XLK fell 1.18%. MarketWatch’s headline put it plainly: the three indexes closed lower for the first time in four days, but most stocks rose.
The index losses came from three names. Alphabet (GOOGL) fell 12.64% to $283.82 from $324.89 on 405.9 million shares, which Yahoo Finance put at $482 billion of market value, the largest one-day loss in the company’s history; the extended-hours feed had it a further 1.1% lower at $280.66. ServiceNow (NOW) fell 26.95% to $109.67 from $150.13 on 131.7 million shares, its worst day on record per CNBC, on a one-cent EPS miss, in-line revenue of $4.11 billion and a guide that did nothing to answer the question of whether AI erodes the software model; the software names around it followed, with Salesforce (CRM) down 4.63%, Datadog (DDOG) 4.51%, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) 3.53%, Oracle (ORCL) 3.45% to $139.56 from $144.54, Snowflake (SNOW) 2.84%, Cloudflare (NET) 2.64% and MongoDB (MDB) 2.16%. Caterpillar (CAT) fell 9.25% to $647.39 from $713.38 despite record revenue of $20.68 billion, adjusted EPS of $7.20 and a record $72 billion backlog, because of $2.2 billion of tariff costs and cautious guidance, per TipRanks and Startup Fortune. Microsoft (MSFT) opened at $540.22 on its after-hours gain, traded as low as $519.56 and closed down 0.16% at $530.14 from $531.01, so the whole Azure premium was given back inside the session. Meta (META) rose 1.96% to $624.52 and Nvidia (NVDA) fell 0.80% to $213.66.
The other side of the tape was health care and the names that reported before the open. Eli Lilly (LLY) rose 6.63% to $1,373.70 from $1,288.30 after revenue of $24.4 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $7.48 that included $4.57 of acquired-IPR&D charges, and a full-year revenue guide raised to $91 billion to $92 billion from $85 billion to $87 billion, per CNBC and the company’s 8-K; oral GLP-1 Foundayo brought in $184 million, up from $98 million in the prior quarter. Merck (MRK) rose 3.83% to $146.33 from $140.93 after adjusted EPS of $2.49 against $2.08 expected on $18.09 billion of revenue, with its full-year EPS guide raised to $2.77 to $2.82, per CNBC. Mastercard (MA) rose 4.16% to $635.70 from $610.31, and Visa (V) 2.48%, on Mastercard’s report day. Altria (MO) rose 5.15%, GE Aerospace (GE) 3.96%, Home Depot (HD) 3.60%, Spotify (SPOT) 3.50%, Nike (NKE) 3.42%, Boeing (BA) 3.30% to $172.65 from $167.14, McDonald’s (MCD) 2.75% and the banks all rose, with JPMorgan (JPM) up 1.26%, BlackRock (BLK) 1.59% and American Express (AXP) 1.81%. In the movers feed, ADT (ADT) rose 33.18% to $9.875 on 163.9 million shares, Crocs (CROX) 25.64% to $150.25, Teladoc (TDOC) 26.74%, Carvana (CVNA) 15.58% to $68.25, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) 13.14% to $18.205 on 67.9 million shares, Huntington Ingalls (HII) 13.29% and Builders FirstSource (BLDR) 12.87%, none with a story we confirmed, so they stay as data.
The data: GDP 3.4%, PCE 3.6%, an ECB hold and Lagarde’s exit
Third-quarter GDP grew at a 3.4% annualized rate in the advance estimate, against a 3.2% consensus and 2.2% in the second quarter, per Investing Live and Advisor Perspectives, with investment, consumer spending and government spending up and exports down; initial jobless claims for the week to October 24 were 194,000 against 200,000 expected, per NBC News. The September PCE price index rose 0.5% on the month and 3.6% on the year, with core at 0.3% and 3.1%, per Trading Economics; that is a single source, and it is the first inflation print since the Fed’s statement on Wednesday called inflation elevated and held the range at 3.75% to 4.00% in a 10-2 vote. Bonds rallied anyway: Saxo has the 2-year yield at 4.60%, down about 10 basis points, the 10-year at 4.94% from just above 5% on Wednesday, and the 30-year at 5.30%, with Bloomberg describing a haven bid as Asia sold off. Gold fell about 1.3% to about $4,022 on Thursday and was at $4,012.47 this morning, per Saxo.
The ECB held its deposit rate at 2.50%, as the Reuters poll expected, and Christine Lagarde said she will step down as president in February 2027, nine months before her term ends, per the Irish Times; she said the council debated a hike before voting to hold, and markets still price one in December. Europe rose on Thursday: the Stoxx 600 0.8% to 649.11, the DAX 1.3% to 26,040, the CAC 40 1.1% to 7,970 and the FTSE 100 0.3% to 10,722, per Saxo.
Overnight: Kospi -3.48%, Nikkei -2.12%, futures down
Asia sold the chips. Per CNBC, the Kospi fell 3.48% to 5,730.74 and the Nikkei 225 2.12% to 63,290.11, with SK hynix down 6.36%, Samsung Electronics 3.45%, SoftBank Group 4.66% and Tokyo Electron 3.93%; mainland China’s CSI 300 fell 1.39% and Australia’s ASX 200 rose 0.18%. Hong Kong was the exception, with the Hang Seng up about 2% near 23,350. The Bank of Japan left policy unchanged. Europe was set for a mixed open per Il Sole 24 Ore, with Bloomberg’s FTSE 100 live blog expecting UK stocks to hold up better than tech.
US futures: Nasdaq-100 futures were down 2% at 28,972 and S&P 500 futures down 0.9% at 7,681.75 by 2:22 a.m. ET, per Investing.com, with CNBC’s 3:30 a.m. reading still at 2% for the Nasdaq-100 and Dow futures flat. WTI crude was $102.00, down $0.78, and Brent $114.88, down $0.44, per Saxo; the dollar was at 157.88 yen and the euro at $1.1181. The extended-hours feed had Apple (AAPL) at $352.05 against a $348.91 close, but on only 6,800 shares, and Apple reports on Monday, November 2, after the close, per MacRumors; it was not Thursday’s report.
What to watch today
- 8:30 a.m. ET, employment cost index, third quarter: consensus 0.8% on the quarter against 0.9% in the second, per Trading Economics and the BLS schedule. With PCE at 3.6% and two Fed dissents for a hike, it is the wage reading the December 9 meeting is priced on.
- 9:45 a.m. ET, Chicago PMI for October: prior 58.8; one source has a 54.8 consensus.
- Before the open: Exxon Mobil (XOM), consensus $4.03 a share on about $106 billion of revenue, at 8 a.m. per Yahoo Finance; Chevron (CVX), consensus about $4.86 on about $61.3 billion, call at 11 a.m. per MarketBeat. Both report with WTI above $100.
- Month end: it is the last trading day of October. Apple reports Monday after the close.
- The opens: Amazon on its 7.3% after-hours fall and Intel on its 23%; Alphabet after its 12.64% day and a further 1.1% after hours; ServiceNow after its 26.95%; Microsoft after giving back its gain; the memory names after Samsung’s second day and SK hynix’s 6.36% fall in Seoul; the health-care and financial names that carried Thursday.
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.