Dell shares fell 8.4% to $465.14 on Thursday, the worst performance in the S&P 500 for the session, extending Wednesday's roughly 11% plunge for a two-day decline of about 19%. Dell tumbled more than 8% in afternoon trading, falling below its 50-day moving average in heavy volume and triggering a sell signal; shares had reached a profit zone from a 469.47 buy point but round-tripped that gain. Even after the two-day selloff, Dell remained up about 270% in 2026, down from a roughly 355% gain through Tuesday's close, and still on pace for its best year on record.
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Dell (DELL): direct — fell 8.4% to $465.14 on Thursday, worst-performing S&P 500 component that session, after an ~11% drop Wednesday; fell below its 50-day moving average in heavy volume, triggering a sell signal, and round-tripped the gain from a 469.47 buy point.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE): fell 6.5% to $58.99 Thursday, down more than 14% since Tuesday's close — its worst two-day performance since April 2025 — on the same Barclays downgrade.
NetApp (NTAP): same Barclays downgrade group; under pressure alongside Dell and HPE as the hardware-valuation thesis is questioned.
AI-hardware / AI-infrastructure peers: Vicor fell nearly 12% and Semtech fell more than 9% Thursday, both undercutting their 50-day averages and triggering sell signals, showing the rout spreading beyond the Barclays-downgraded names.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported commercial crude inventories (excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) fell 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million barrels in the week ended October 9, about 3% below the five-year average — versus analyst expectations of a roughly 100,000-barrel build. U.S. crude production fell 300,000 b/d to 13.7M b/d as Hurricane Isaias shut in Gulf of Mexico output, and crude imports fell 791,000 b/d to 6.0M b/d, while refinery utilization rose to 93.5%. Gasoline inventories rose 3.5M barrels (vs an expected draw), distillate stocks fell 2.5M barrels (a larger draw than expected), and Cushing stocks rose 1.9M barrels to 26.6M. WTI for December delivery rose 2.6-2.7% to about $96.40 in early-afternoon trading, while December Brent was little changed near $106.10.
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WTI crude (CL): direct — U.S. benchmark up 2.6-2.7% to ~$96.40 on the surprise draw
Brent crude: essentially flat near $106.10 — the Brent-WTI premium narrowed as U.S.-specific tightness and possible tanker-sanctions relief weighed relatively more on Brent
U.S. refiners: mixed — distillate draw (-2.5M bbl, larger than expected) supports diesel margins, but gasoline build (+3.5M bbl vs expected draw) and softer gasoline demand weigh
Tanker owners: potential negative if shadow-fleet sanctions relief materializes and cools record freight rates
Airlines/transport and consumer cyclicals: higher fuel costs feed through to operating costs and gasoline prices
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking to Bloomberg at an event in Stockholm on Thursday Oct 15, said CoreWeave does not need a financial backstop from Nvidia. 'CoreWeave's strength is improving every day,' Huang said. 'I'm optimistic. Their cost of capital is actually decreasing.' The remarks came a day after CoreWeave's stock plunged 15% and the yield on its 9.625% notes due 2032 spiked to 15% as credit markets repriced its debt risk, and after Jefferies argued Nvidia should provide financing backstops to the neocloud ecosystem. Huang's comments helped cool the AI selloff intraday: CoreWeave narrowed its Thursday decline, Oracle swung from a deep loss to a gain, and the major indexes recovered much of their early losses.
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U.S. retail sales rose 0.8% in September, beating the 0.3% consensus (Reuters) and the 0.4% WSJ consensus, after an upwardly revised 1.3% jump in August, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. Sales excluding autos rose 0.9%, but excluding autos and gas they rose just 0.2%. Rising gasoline prices accounted for most of the increase: gasoline prices soared 7.1% in September. Inflation-adjusted wages fell again in September, and the report noted the oil price shock is straining lower-income consumers in particular, with higher-income households doing the heavy lifting on spending.
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Consumer discretionary / retail (XRT, TJX, AMZN, WMT): headline beat flatters the sector; ex-gas, sales rose only 0.2%, signaling a softening consumer.
Energy / gasoline: gasoline prices up 7.1% in September drove most of the headline gain.
Rate-sensitive growth / tech: resilient nominal spending gives the Fed more room to keep rates elevated, a headwind already pressuring AI and growth names.
Intuit announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Sequence, a Series A revenue management company whose AI-native platform automates the end-to-end quote-to-revenue process — contract configuration, pricing, billing, invoicing, collections, and revenue recognition. The acquisition extends Intuit's financial system of intelligence and strengthens its mid-market offerings, including Intuit Enterprise Suite and QuickBooks Online Advanced, and opens new industries such as B2B software and professional services. Financial terms were not disclosed, and no expected closing date was announced.
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Intuit (INTU): adds AI-native quote-to-revenue automation to Enterprise Suite and QuickBooks Online Advanced, strengthening the mid-market push; terms undisclosed, so no immediate financial read-through.
ERP incumbents (SAP, Oracle/NetSuite, Workday): Sequence gives Intuit a modern alternative to legacy ERPs for B2B software and professional services firms with consumption-based billing.
Billing/revenue-management peers: validates the AI-native billing category; could pressure standalone vendors.
The U.S. producer-price index for final demand jumped 1.3% in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday morning — the largest monthly advance since March 2022 and more than double the ~0.5-0.6% rise economists expected, following a 0.4% gain in August. On a 12-month basis, wholesale inflation accelerated to 6.3%, up from a revised 5.6% in August. The core PPI measure excluding food, energy and trade margins rose 0.5%, above the 0.3% forecast, indicating the heat was not just energy.
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US toy prices are surging just as holiday shopping begins, hit by the combined impact of tariffs and high energy costs from the Iran war. Toy prices rose 6.6% over the last year and 4.2% from August (seasonally adjusted) in the September CPI data — a bigger gain than other consumer categories. The toy industry makes most US-sold products in China, leaving it exposed to shifting tariff policy, and toys are largely fossil-fuel-based plastics, so higher oil prices add to the sticker shock. Fitch Ratings' David Silverman said the dual tariff and energy pressures are now showing up in pricing and that the Iran conflict's impact on commodity and shipping costs 'will certainly persist for the next several quarters.'
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Mattel (MAT) and Hasbro (HAS) — the two big US toy makers, both already reporting tariff-driven margin squeeze and higher input costs; big-box and online retailers heading into holiday season (Walmart, Target, Amazon) — face a choice between passing higher prices to cash-strapped shoppers or absorbing margin; consumer-discretionary sector broadly — toy prices are an early, visible read on tariff + energy pass-through into holiday spending. A Reuters/Ipsos poll through Oct 5 showed only 21% of voters approve of Trump's handling of cost-of-living issues.
Reuters reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official, that the Trump administration is considering easing sanctions on some vessels in the so-called shadow fleet — tankers used to transport oil and fuels from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran — in a bid to ease a deepening tanker crunch and bring down record freight rates. Shippers wanting to use a sanctioned tanker would have to apply to the U.S. Treasury Department. Oil prices fell on the news: Brent slid to about $104.39/bbl (from above $106 earlier in the week) and WTI to about $94, with Thursday's decline also reflecting signs of recovering Gulf supplies and a weaker IEA demand outlook.
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Oil majors and refiners: lower crude and freight costs would ease input and logistics costs; a lower war premium pressures upstream realizations.
Tanker/shipping owners (e.g., Frontline, International Seaways, Euronav-type VLCC operators): easing sanctions would add vessel supply and could deflate record freight rates — negative for tanker earnings.
U.S. crude exporters: record freight rates have dampened demand for U.S. crude, so cheaper shipping could help U.S. barrels compete.
Jefferies initiated coverage of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) with a Buy rating and an $85 price target, implying more than 20% upside from the last close near $70.57. Analyst John Colantuoni argued Netflix can sustain earnings growth through higher subscription prices, advertising expansion, and improving operating margins, projecting annual EPS growth above 14% over the next decade and per-member revenue growth of roughly 6%. He also expects Netflix's standard subscription — currently about 60% cheaper per viewing hour than competing U.S. services — to narrow that gap to 50% by 2029 via ~7% annual price increases, and forecasts advertising revenue growing ~35% annually.
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Netflix (NFLX): direct beneficiary of the bullish initiation; shares ticked up ~0.6% in premarket trading after the call.
Streaming peers (e.g., Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount): a credible bull case on Netflix pricing power and ads could modestly support sentiment across streaming.
Asian equities tumbled sharply on Thursday as the AI-driven selloff spread from Wall Street. South Korea's Kospi plunged 7.7% to 5,548.78, with Samsung Electronics down 9.5% and SK Hynix down 11.4%. The drop triggered sell-side trading curbs (sidecars) on both the Kospi and the Kosdaq — the first time both were halted on the same day in about 11 weeks — and foreign investors sold a net $1.4 billion of Korean shares. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 4.8%, with SoftBank down 9.4%, Tokyo Electron down 7.3% and Kioxia down 11.2%, while Taiwan's Taiex shed 3% and the MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index dropped 3.4%, its fourth straight losing session.
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TSMC reported a sixth consecutive quarter of record earnings. Q3 net profit rose about 69% year over year to NT$763.1 billion ($23.59 billion), beating the LSEG SmartEstimate of NT$746.3 billion. Revenue rose about 51% to NT$1.49 trillion ($46.72 billion). Gross margin hit 66.4%, operating margin 58.7%, and net margin 51.1%. Management guided Q4 revenue to $52.3–$54.3 billion, implying 55–61% year-over-year growth. The 2nm node contributed 8% of wafer revenue, up from 3% in Q2, and advanced nodes (7nm and below) made up 79% of wafer revenue. TSMC kept 2026 capex guidance at $60–$64 billion.
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