Market-moving news for Thursday, October 8, 2026

What happened

On Thursday, Oct 8, Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the indefinite suspension of Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini from the Department of Labor's PERM permanent-labor-certification program, accusing them of fraud and abuse. The government will accept no new PERM applications and will not process pending ones involving these companies — cutting off a key employer-sponsored route to green cards for skilled foreign workers. Vance singled out Microsoft, saying 'no company in the United States... has abused this system more than Microsoft,' and cited Microsoft laying off 6,000 U.S. workers while using 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Microsoft defended its visa use and said it looks forward to sharing more information with the administration. Separately, officials announced J-1 visa-program abuse probes into nine universities including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. MSFT shares fell more than 1.3% Thursday.

What happened

Amazon recently blocked Meta Platforms' Muse AI agent from making purchases on its site, saying it wasn't informed of Meta's plans to give it access to the platform. Entrepreneur and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham wrote in an X post overnight on Wednesday that 'Amazon banning agents is the first opportunity I've seen since Amazon was founded for a start-up to create an Amazon competitor,' arguing people will want agents to buy things for them and won't want to use an Amazon-supplied agent to do it. Amazon shares fell 1.9% to $255.05 Thursday afternoon. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What happened

President Trump said Thursday he will not attack Iran before the November 3 midterm elections, reflecting the same Atlantic reporting that had driven the escalation bid — a direct de-escalation signal after late Wednesday's 'not interested in an Iran deal' comment and the reported Pentagon strike-option planning. Crude came off its intraday highs: WTI settled around $91.49 (up 3.6% on the day but well off the $93.20 peak) and Brent around $104.28. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 5-6 basis points to 5.23% after touching 5.35-5.37% earlier in the week — helped by cooling oil, strong demand at Thursday's 30-year auction, and the risk-off bid from the AI selloff. The Dow managed a 0.1% gain while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on the separate OpenAI news.

What happened

SpaceX announced a definitive agreement late Thursday to acquire 100% of Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio — up to 14 megahertz of paired low-band spectrum — subject to FCC approval. SpaceX said the 'prime low-band spectrum addresses one of the key remaining technical gaps that will pave the way for Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile carrier in the U.S.' The low-band airwaves provide the indoor-penetrating coverage layer that complements Starlink Mobile's existing global 2 GHz mid-band capacity; most existing phones already support the 800 MHz band. Starlink Mobile plans a hybrid architecture combining the satellite-to-mobile constellation with a terrestrial network, and the FCC has separately approved its Gen2 plan authorizing 15,000 satellites optimized for 2 GHz. The market read it as a credible carrier-competition threat: Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile all fell about 7% in after-hours trading, with AST SpaceMobile down 3%.

What happened

A new staff study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Staff Report No. 1201, published October 6 on the Liberty Street Economics blog by Mary Amiti, Sebastian Heise, and Columbia's David E. Weinstein) concludes that Trump-era tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026 - and that without the levies, prices for the 67 non-oil goods categories studied would have fallen slightly rather than risen. Researchers found that each percentage point increase in tariffs lifts consumer goods prices by about 0.25% after one year, with roughly two-thirds of the impact coming directly from the levies and the rest from indirect knock-on costs to U.S. businesses (higher input costs, domestic producers raising prices as foreign competition got pricier, and distribution-channel pass-through).

What happened

Argenx plunged more than 11% Thursday after the biotech company said a study of its chief drug Vyvgart in patients with Sjogren's disease had failed. Sjogren's is an autoimmune condition that damages moisture-producing glands; Vyvgart is currently approved for generalized myasthenia gravis, a condition that causes weakening muscles. The decline was the stock's largest percentage drop since December 20, 2023, when it fell 25.12%, according to Dow Jones Market Data, and shares fell below their 200-day moving average.

What happened

The Financial Times reported Thursday that OpenAI's annualized revenue is on track to reach $50 billion, roughly $20 billion below earlier reported figures, based on financial documents shared with investors. The lower run-rate suggested the pace of growth for AI leaders is moderating rather than accelerating. Tech stocks fell in afternoon trading: the Nasdaq composite dropped 1.3%, the S&P 500 fell 0.6%, and AI-exposed names sold off hard - CoreWeave and Constellation Energy each fell about 6%, while Astera Labs and Arm Holdings each plunged roughly 8%. Futurum strategist Shay Boloor noted the $20B gap between OpenAI's real run-rate and reported number reflects sales flowing through AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure rather than disappearing revenue.

What happened

GlobalFoundries announced on Oct 8, 2026 that it has signed a $2 billion, five-year manufacturing agreement with TSMC to produce silicon interposers at its Malta, New York facility. A silicon interposer is the thin, high-speed connector substrate that sits beneath processors and memory chips inside advanced AI packages (notably TSMC's CoWoS ecosystem), letting them communicate at high speeds. GF will expand capacity at Malta to make interposers tailored for TSMC's CoWoS packaging — including embedded deep trench capacitor components — and expects to become the first U.S.-based source of silicon interposers for advanced packaging. Volume production is expected to begin ramping in the first half of 2028, and the agreement provides a framework for future capacity expansion. GFS shares jumped ~6% Thursday morning to about $51, bucking a broader market selloff, while TSMC reported record Q3 revenue of $46.71B (+50% y/y) the same day.

What happened

Morgan Stanley lowered its price target on Netflix to $80 from $83 in a research report issued Thursday, while maintaining an Overweight rating. The new target implies about 15% upside from the current price. This adds to a crowded and split analyst picture on Netflix, where targets range from Wells Fargo's $57 Underweight to a ~$95 consensus, with the stock down roughly 27% in 2026 on slowing revenue growth.

What happened

The Financial Times reported Thursday that Starbucks has worked with advisers in recent months on a takeover offer for Chipotle Mexican Grill, citing people familiar with the matter. The status of the plans and whether Starbucks has submitted a formal offer could not be determined, and the people cautioned that a deal of this size may never materialize. Chipotle shares surged about 6% while Starbucks declined roughly 3% on the news.

What happened

Paramount Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery this week — reported at about $110 billion including debt — and the combined company, named Skydance, began trading on the NYSE under ticker SKYD. David Ellison is chairman and CEO with former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO; David Zaslav, who led WBD since 2022, stepped down, while CNN chief Mark Thompson was asked to stay. The combination unites Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. as two film studios, CBS and CNN as news networks, and Paramount+ and HBO Max under one roof, with a committed slate of at least 30 theatrical films and more than 180 TV shows and series per year. Netflix, which lost the bidding war in February, collected a $2.8 billion termination fee funded by Paramount.

What happened

Initial weekly jobless claims fell to 197,000, down from a revised 199,000 the prior week and below economists' expectations of 200,000, marking a fifth consecutive weekly decline. The continued 'low-fire' labor-market reading keeps pressure on the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates: CME FedWatch now shows a 22% likelihood of a hike at the late-October meeting and an 86% likelihood of at least a quarter-point hike in December, up from 18% and 80% respectively the day before. The 10-year Treasury yield held at 5.30%, up a basis point from Wednesday's close, after touching 5.37% earlier in the week.

What happened

ESPN announced Wednesday that Super Bowl LXI (February 14, 2027, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood) will simulcast on Disney+ alongside ESPN, ABC and ESPN Deportes, in both English and Spanish and across 55 international markets including Brazil, Latin America, South Africa and Australia. It will be the first Super Bowl on Disney+ and the first ever produced by ESPN (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman calling, with ESPN's first Super Bowl since ABC last aired it in 2006). Disney+ will also carry two Monday Night Football games this season, starting with Cowboys-Eagles on October 26, as a trial run. Separately, the Television Academy and Amazon announced the Emmys will move to Prime Video starting in 2027 under a six-year exclusive global streaming deal, free to all viewers in 240+ countries, reportedly worth $20-25 million per year. Disney said Super Bowl ad inventory sold out in August — the earliest sellout by any network in history, with 58 brands across 34 categories.

What happened

Securitize said Thursday it is rolling out tokenized stock trading for U.S. investors, letting eligible investors trade 12 stocks — including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta and Amazon — through its regulated broker-dealer platform on the Solana blockchain. The tokens represent direct ownership of the underlying shares and are structured to preserve investor rights and economic benefits. Securitize said the tokens will initially trade during extended hours, with 24/7 availability planned, and expects them to also trade on the NYSE's forthcoming 24/7 tokenized securities venue and the tokenized venue from OKXICE, the ICE/OKX joint venture. The products are available to eligible investors in the U.S., EU and other permitted jurisdictions.

What happened

Goldman Sachs upgraded Palantir to Buy from Neutral with a $230 price target on Thursday, saying Palantir's total addressable market is poised to grow. The target implies roughly 18% upside from Wednesday's closing price of $194.12, and shares rose 2.5% in Thursday morning trading following the upgrade.

What happened

TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, reported record third-quarter revenue of T$1.49 trillion (~$46.7 billion) on Thursday, up 50% year over year and above the LSEG SmartEstimate of T$1.46 trillion drawn from 19 analysts. September revenue alone rose 54.6% to T$511.86 billion, near August's all-time monthly high. The quarter also beat TSMC's own July guidance of $44.6-45.8 billion. The company gave no forward guidance in the brief sales statement; full Q3 earnings land next Thursday (Oct 15).

What happened

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Thursday, October 8, that additional interest rate hikes will likely be needed to bring inflation down to the Fed's 2% target, though he added there was 'flexibility' about the pace, according to Reuters. The remarks reinforce the message from the September FOMC minutes released October 7, which showed most policymakers in September saw more interest rate rises ahead, with markets now pricing three more hikes over the coming year starting in December. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has downplayed the bond moves as global rather than US-specific, but the 10-year term premium — the extra compensation investors demand beyond expected Fed rates — has risen to its highest in 12 years.

What happened

Dell expanded its Windows computing portfolio with new NVIDIA-powered systems developed with NVIDIA and Microsoft. The XPS 16 Creator Edition is Dell's first XPS laptop built around NVIDIA RTX Spark hardware, pairing a Blackwell GPU with a Grace CPU and up to 128GB of unified memory, with a 3.2K tandem OLED display; U.S. Best Buy pre-orders opened October 7. Dell also introduced the Creator Edition Desktop (up to one petaflop of FP4 compute, able to run up to 200-billion-parameter models, availability to follow soon) and renamed its Dell Pro Max workstation range to Dell Pro Precision, including GB300-based systems for Windows delivering up to 20 petaflops of FP4 and 748GB of coherent memory, capable of running up-to-1-trillion-parameter models locally. Shares rose 1.3% to $581.47 on the announcement.

What happened

The Wall Street Journal reported that Broadcom has spent recent weeks working to arrange more than $50 billion in financing for the custom AI chip it is developing with OpenAI, with Apollo and Blackstone among the lenders approached. Separately, Oracle is in talks with Apollo and Goldman Sachs to fund a large chip purchase, likely through a separate entity that would buy the chips and lease them to Oracle. SpaceX has also spoken with lenders in recent days about a roughly $40 billion financing tied to Nvidia chips, first reported by the FT. Talks are at an early stage and deal sizes could change, but Broadcom and Oracle aim to close before year-end. Reuters' Thursday 'Open Interest' market piece highlighted these reports as the latest turn in the 'circular financing' wave in AI.

What happened

Wolfspeed surged 16% in premarket trading after landing a financing deal with the Pentagon. The Defense Department will provide the company with $1.5 billion in long-term, 30-year financing, contingent on Wolfspeed producing silicon carbide materials and other power devices in the United States. The deal was reported by Barron's in its Thursday stock-movers roundup as AI-related chip names (Intel, Marvell, Coherent, Corning, Dell, Micron) slid on rising bond yields and oil prices.

What happened

PepsiCo reported fiscal Q3 profit of $3.05 billion ($2.23/share), up from $2.6 billion ($1.90/share) a year earlier. Adjusted EPS came in at $2.34, beating the FactSet consensus of $2.29. Net revenue rose 5.6% to $25.27 billion, ahead of the $24.95 billion Wall Street estimate, with organic revenue up 3.1%. However, management cut the full-year adjusted EPS outlook to growth of 1-2%, down sharply from the prior forecast of 4-6%, and narrowed the organic revenue outlook to roughly +3% from a previous range of +2-4%. CEO Ramon Laguarta said North America trends improved sequentially as lower net pricing spurred volume and market-share gains, and flagged more structural cost-reduction actions to be implemented in the coming months.

What happened

Samsung reported preliminary Q3 results with a ninefold jump in operating profit, yet the print fell below market expectations, per the WSJ, sending the stock down 2.4% and dragging Asian tech lower. U.S. chip makers fell premarket as the market treated the miss as a read-through on the red-hot memory cycle. Fellow memory plays Micron, Sandisk and SK Hynix were flagged by IBD as the names to watch Thursday; Micron had jumped 4.1% Wednesday on D.A. Davidson's $3,000 price target. TSMC reports sales early Thursday, keeping the sector news flow dense.

What happened

Brent crude jumped about 4% Thursday morning to top $104 a barrel and WTI rose above $91.50, per the WSJ, as the White House asked the Pentagon to develop options for strikes against Iran ahead of the midterm elections next month, according to a report in The Atlantic. Separately, a tanker was struck off the coast of Qatar according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, Houthi militants escalated attacks on Saudi Arabia, and Shell and Chevron halted production at several Gulf of Mexico sites as a tropical storm approached. U.S. stock futures slid (Dow -0.7%, S&P -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.5%) and the 30-year Treasury yield rose 5 bps to top 5.710% as oil-driven inflation fears compounded an already hawkish rate backdrop.