What Moved The Markets This Week 📈
Netflix Adds 9 Million New Subs, Bank of America's $130B Of Unrealized Losses, Okta Gets Hacked, Layoffs From LinkedIn & Nokia, Real Estate Volume Continues To Plummet, and TSLA + NFLX Earnings
Sunday Morning Markets
Trading Week 42, covering Monday, Oct 16 through Friday, Oct 20. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.
The Week In Review ⏪
Home sales volume drops to lowest level since GFC
Retail sales surged in September
Bank of America’s unrealized losses total $132B
Layoffs from LinkedIn, Nokia, Product Hunt
Netflix adds a staggering 9M subscribers during Q3
Binance.US halts all USD withdrawals
Lucid Q3 deliveries miss estimates by 25%
X to launch two new premium tiers
Earnings from Tesla and Netflix — see breakdown below
US Markets 🇺🇸
Retail sales surged 0.7% in September, coming in well above estimates as the consumer continues to show strength. Online sales climbed 1.1%, while the biggest gain was at retailers which saw a 3% jump.
Home sales drop to the lowest level since 2010 when the market was in the midst of a foreclosure crisis. Sales volume fell another 2% during the month and a staggering 15.4% from the previous year.
New unemployment claims fell to nine-month low as weekly claims came in below estimates at 198K. Continuing claims hit 1.73M, an increase of 29K from the previous week and 2% higher than expected.
Bank of America's unrealized losses rose to $131.6B for their securities portfolio during Q3. Since the bank plans to hold the bonds until maturity, they don’t expect to realize any losses. $BAC shares are down 22% YTD.
Elon Musk warns about a weakening economy during Tesla’s Q3 earnings call. Tesla’s sales rose just 9% during the quarter, widely missing estimates as the CEO said he was worried about the high interest-rate environment.
LinkedIn lays off nearly 700 employees as revenue growth has slowed over the past two years. Most of the cuts are hitting the business social network’s core engineering group. LinkedIn is now reportedly ramping up hiring in India.
Global Markets 🌏
China’s third-quarter growth exceeds forecasts as strong consumer spending and industrial production overcome headwinds. China’s GDP grew 4.9% versus the year prior, above the median forecast of 4.6%.
Biden cuts off China from Nvidia’s AI chips as the administration seeks to stop Beijing from developing advanced military applications. The new restrictions go into place in the next 30 days and will also impact Iran and Russia.
Canada's inflation rate unexpectedly slowed to 3.8% in September, prompting markets to trim bets for another interest rate hike next week. CPI-median edged down to 3.8% from 4.1% in August.
U.K. inflation held steady at 6.7% in September, slightly ahead of expectations and unchanged from the previous month. Core-CPI came in at 6.1% for the year, down from 6.2% in August, but slightly above a consensus projection of 6%.
Retail sales in Britain fell 0.9% during the month which the ONS attributed to ongoing cost of living pressures. Clothing and household goods stores led the way lower, with sales volumes dropping 1.6% and 2.3%, respectively.
Nokia to cut up to 14K jobs as part of a cost-cutting plan following its third-quarter earnings report that showed profits plunged 69% from the year prior. Nokia’s sales declined 20% year-on-year to 4.98B euros.
Tech ⚡
Netflix adds nearly 9 million new subscribers during Q3, the largest quarterly increase since the start of Covid-19 lockdowns. NFLX 0.00%↑ shares surged 13% this week as their subscriber count now exceeds 247 million.
X begins charging new users $1 per year to send tweets as part of its new “Not a Bot” program that will start in New Zealand and the Philippines. Those who don’t pay will only be able to use X in a “read-only” mode.
Lucid third-quarter deliveries miss estimates by 25%, causing LCID 0.00%↑ shares to plunge 17% this week. The EV manufacturer delivered only 1,457 vehicles between July and September, up just 4% from the year prior.
Israel looks to roll out SpaceX Starlink internet, especially near the conflict zone, amid the war with Hamas. Starlink currently isn’t available in Israel, so this would be the first time the service is introduced in any capacity.
Binance.US halts all USD withdrawals and says funds are no longer eligible for FDIC protection. The terms page says to withdraw any USD in your account, convert the funds into stablecoins, and then withdraw to another wallet.
Product Hunt cleans house, cutting 60% of staff from design, product, sales, and other roles. Product Hunt’s CEO said, “It wasn’t for financial or company performance reasons… it was for strategic reasons.”
Musk confirms X is launching two new premium tiers with one that will be cheaper than the $8 existing plan and will have all the features, but no reduction in ads. The other plan will be more expensive and will have zero ads.
Okta says hackers stole customer access tokens that can be used to break into the networks of Okta’s customers. A company spokesperson said that roughly 1% of customers were affected by the breach.
Earnings Reports 💰
See other breakdowns on our Twitter page.
Weekly Poll 🗳️
Week Ahead 📅
Monday
Tuesday
US - S&P Services PMI (OCT)🇺🇸
UK - Employment Report (SEP)🇬🇧
EU - HCOB Composite PMI (OCT)🇪🇺
Earnings Reports: Microsoft, Alphabet, Visa, Coca-Cola, Verizon, GE💰
Wednesday
US - New Homes Sales (SEP)🇺🇸
CA - BoC Interest Rate Decision 🇨🇦
Earnings Reports: Meta, ServiceNow, T-Mobile, Boeing💰
Thursday
US - Jobless Claims 🇺🇸
US - Durable Goods (SEP)🇺🇸
US - Pending Home Sales (SEP)🇺🇸
US - GDP (Q3)🇺🇸
EU - ECB Interest Rate Decision 🇪🇺
Earnings Reports: Amazon, Mastercard, Intel, Merck, Comcast, Caterpillar, UPS, Chipotle, Ford💰
Friday
US - PCE Inflation (SEP)🇺🇸
US - UMich Consumer Sentiment (OCT)🇺🇸
Earnings Reports: Exxon, Chevron💰
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