October 30th Pre-Market Brief

Good Morning

Halloween weekend! Tech is getting hit again this morning after Amazon and Intel, while the Dow holds steady as money moves into Walmart and Coca-Cola. I’m not reaching for the panic button, yet as we see serious rotation.

Amazon’s cloud business just grew at its fastest pace in nearly five years, and that tells me the demand is there.

Let's dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Amazon Is Borrowing To Pay For AI
Amazon’s long-term debt went from about $66 billion at the start of the year to about $173 billion in September. The price of insurance against Amazon not paying that debt back is up about half since August. When AI spending runs on borrowed money, interest rates start to matter for AI stocks.

2. Crypto Stocks Are Falling Harder Than Crypto
Binance says it will cover every customer loss from the $6.3 billion hack, the biggest in crypto history. That has kept bitcoin’s drop modest, but Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy are falling far harder. The next test is this weekend, when Binance reopens withdrawals and customers decide whether to pull their money.

3. Big Oil’s Profits Depend On Damaged Refineries Overseas
Exxon’s profit doubled to $15.4 billion and Chevron’s nearly tripled to $9.9 billion, even though both are pumping less oil than a year ago. Their U.S. refineries ran flat out making diesel. The world is short on it after Ukraine and Iran bombed refineries in Russia and the Middle East. The White House is pressing Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries, and a real pause would shrink that profit.

Market Overview

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Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Intel $INTC ( ▼ 3.62% )  
down hard and on track for its worst day ever after forecasting fourth-quarter sales of $15 billion to $16 billion, short of the roughly $17 billion expected. The chipmaker blamed a PC slump, as AI data centers soak up memory chips and make laptops pricier, plus a factory accident in Israel that will cost about $300 million in sales.

Dell $DELL ( ▼ 3.7% )  
sharply lower premarket after Intel warned PC shipments will shrink this year and again in 2027. PCs are a core business for Dell, and HP $HPQ ( ▼ 1.91% ) is falling on the same warning.

Reddit $RDDT ( ▼ 3.79% )  
sharply lower premarket after forecasting fourth quarter revenue of $1 billion to $1.03 billion, below the $1.04 billion expected. U.S. daily users fell from a year ago, and the CEO warned daily visitors could drop by double digits this quarter, overshadowing a third-quarter beat.

Roblox $RBLX ( ▼ 1.54% )  
sharply lower premarket after the online game platform forecast fourth-quarter bookings, the money players spend in its games, to fall from a year ago. It blamed a tough comparison and the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI, and daily users fell to 138 million.

Rivian $RIVN ( ▼ 1.89% )  
higher premarket after the electric vehicle maker lost 48 cents a share, less than the 62 cents expected, on revenue of $2.16 billion. Its new R2 SUV helped the quarter, and Rivian raised its delivery forecast.

Regeneron $REGN ( ▲ 0.68% )  
higher premarket after earning $20.07 a share, well above the roughly $16 expected, on revenue of $5.12 billion. The biotech’s share of profits from Dupixent, the eczema and asthma drug it sells with Sanofi, drove the beat.

What to Watch

Fed’s Daly And Musalem Speak (12:00 PM And 12:30 PM ET)
Money leaving tech pushed the 2-year Treasury yield, which tracks Fed expectations, to its lowest since early September. If Daly or Musalem say a December hike is still on, yields would climb back. That hits the heaviest AI borrowers first, like CoreWeave, already down nearly a third this month.

Sandisk And Micron (All Session)
The memory shortage behind Intel’s PC slump helped Sandisk beat and raise its forecast last night. Sandisk and Micron are still down premarket. If they recover by the close, investors are separating Intel’s PC problem from AI demand. If they keep falling, investors are selling anything tied to AI, whatever the results.

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