October ends with a tech selloff; Apple reports first on Monday

October ends with a tech selloff; Apple reports first on Monday
US Stocks Morning Brief | Sunday, 1 November 2026 (Hong Kong time; cash-market closing prices are from Friday, 30 October, US Eastern time; US stock markets are closed on Sunday and stock-index futures have yet to open, so this edition is anchored to Friday’s close and weekend news)

On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 1.82% to 7580.07 points, the Dow fell 1.09% to 51770.31 points, the Nasdaq fell 2.86% to 25437.00 points, and the equal-weight S&P ETF (RSP) fell 0.79% to $218.31 (The Wall Street Journal). The 10-year US Treasury yield was about 4.93%, WTI crude about $104.12 a barrel, gold futures about $3885.70 an ounce, and the US dollar index was broadly flat at about 101.9 (The Wall Street Journal) (Reuters). No new cash or futures quotes were available for verification on Sunday; the next cash trading session is Monday evening Hong Kong time.

Market theme
There was no new market trading over the weekend to “disprove” Friday’s selloff, while weekend news pushed the same theme a step further: The market is no longer punishing growth for being too slow, but spending for being too high and payback too slow—the Nasdaq fell 2.86% on Friday and is down 7.8% from its 6 October closing high; the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.5% in one day, approaching correction territory, while the S&P 500 fell only 1.82% and the equal-weight index only 0.79%. That suggests this remains a reckoning concentrated within technology stocks, rather than capitulation across the whole market. Reuters notes that the four largest hyperscalers accounted for more than one-third of total S&P 500 constituent capital spending over the past 12 months, and their share may keep rising. Capital Economics argues that investor anxiety over “how much is spent and how” will increase as this capital-spending boom begins to rely partly on external financing (Reuters). Monday’s test is therefore clear: will Apple’s and Palantir’s after-hours earnings halt the selloff, or spread the “cash-flow reckoning” to the last names yet to report?

One. Weekend news: Nothing disproves the selloff; the test shifts to Monday

• China’s official manufacturing PMI fell to 49.3 in October from 50.1 in September, below the 50.0 expected in a Reuters poll and marking the third contraction in four months. The non-manufacturing PMI also fell to 49.7 from 50.2; the new orders and new export orders components both remained in contraction, while production and purchasing activity also shifted from expansion to contraction (Reuters, republished). But the components did not collapse across the board: production and new orders for railway, shipbuilding and aerospace equipment, as well as computer, communications and electronics manufacturing, were all at or above 53.0 (Reuters, republished). The data signal that demand is not cooperating, but advanced manufacturing remains resilient. They undermine the comforting explanation that Chinese demand will support the global technology supply chain, without presenting a picture of an across-the-board downturn.
• The US midterm elections entered their final weekend: early votes have reached nearly 50 million, a midterm record and more than the nearly 46 million cast before election day in 2022. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from late September to early October showed that 76% of voters believed their votes would be counted accurately (Reuters). Reuters also noted that Tuesday’s election will determine whether Democrats can wrest control of Congress from President Trump’s Republicans, with the outlook for AI regulation among the variables markets are watching (Reuters). Voting in the election itself is on Tuesday, but before Monday’s open the market must already price in at least another day of regulatory and policy uncertainty.
• There is also a meeting today with a direct bearing on oil prices: Saxo says core OPEC+ members will meet online on Sunday, 1 November, to review the oil market and output policy, with oil prices at a six-month high at the time (Saxo). Markets will digest the OPEC+ outcome before Monday’s open, meaning earnings are not the only variable for the opening; oil prices are another.

Two. Bonds, the dollar and commodities: Treasuries end the month with strong gains; oil and gold move in opposite directions

• Friday’s bond-market signal was clearer than the stock market’s: the 10-year Treasury yield fell 6 basis points to 4.928%, the 2-year yield fell 7.5 basis points to 4.579%, and the 10-year yield fell about 37 basis points over October. The Wall Street Journal reported that haven buying offset inflation concerns from oil’s return above $100; a Bloomberg market roundup said Treasuries were on course for their best month since February 2025 (The Wall Street Journal) (Bloomberg, republished). The dollar index was broadly flat for the week, as haven sentiment and repricing after the Federal Reserve held rates steady offset each other (The Wall Street Journal).
• Oil continued to rise: December Brent crude futures rose 2.4% to $117.64 a barrel, touching $118 intraday; WTI rose 2.08% to $104.12 a barrel. Brent gained 13.6% and WTI 15.2% in October, with both closing at their highest levels since late April (Reuters). Reuters reported Friday that a tanker continued sailing after being hit by a mine in the Strait of Hormuz and suffering an engine-room fire, the first successful mine attack since the US-Iran conflict began in February. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s navy said the same day that two tankers had been intercepted in waters south of the strait for ignoring radio warnings, while US Central Command said the main shipping channel had been cleared and vessels were free to pass; the two accounts currently coexist (Reuters). Oil is rising on supply risk, not demand—and that is what makes it hardest to handle: the higher oil goes, the harder it is to rule out a rate hike in December, and the more vulnerable haven buying in the bond market appears.
• Gold and silver both fell sharply on the same day: spot gold dropped 3.5% to about $3881 an ounce, its lowest since October 2025; silver fell about 6% and below $50 an ounce (Reuters). Gold and Treasuries fell on the same day, breaking the simple script of “buy gold for safety”: when inflation expectations and a selloff coincide, gold is sold first as a source of liquidity rather than treated as a haven.

Three. Stock and sector moves, including earnings: Chip stocks lead declines while energy stocks provide support against the trend

• Intel plunged 28.6% to $65.76, its biggest one-day decline since 1974, after its fourth-quarter revenue guidance came in far below market expectations; the company also pointed to continued weakness in the PC market. Reuters added that Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion, below analysts’ average estimate of $17.07 billion, and that its chief financial officer said it would not achieve positive cash flow this year (The Wall Street Journal) (Reuters). Intel’s decline best illustrates this week’s logic: the quarter’s figures were not bad, but weak guidance drew severe punishment. The market now pays only for a company’s willingness to make commitments about the next quarter.
• Chip stocks fell across the board: Nvidia declined 4.2%, AMD 10.9% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index 7.2%; Qualcomm fell 11.1% and SanDisk 13%. Reddit plunged 29.2% to $91.73, its biggest one-day drop since listing, because fourth-quarter revenue guidance was below Wall Street expectations. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet also each fell between 1% and 2% on Friday (The Wall Street Journal) (Reuters). Amazon closed down only 1.4% at $240.35, a substantial narrowing from its premarket loss of about 7% (The Wall Street Journal). Amazon’s narrowing loss alongside Intel’s plunge draws the dividing line: cloud growth still has believers, but no company can use a “growth story” to escape scrutiny of cash flow.
• On the other side, energy and value stocks continued to buck the trend: Exxon Mobil and Chevron both reported better-than-expected third-quarter profits and rose 2.2% and 2.8%, respectively. Financial stocks came under pressure, with Goldman Sachs down 4% and Jefferies down 6%. Cryptocurrencies were also hit: Coinbase fell 11% to $143.54, and Bitcoin fell 1.8% to $76353, following reports that hackers had stolen more than $6.3 billion from Binance (The Wall Street Journal). The combination of rising energy shares and falling financials is a reminder that Friday was not a simple risk-on/risk-off switch: money was repositioning among oil prices, interest rates and AI bills.
• Monday’s first test is already set: Saxo notes that Apple has risen 28% this year, leading the Magnificent Seven. The market expects earnings per share to rise about 8% year on year to $1.99, and revenue to rise 11% to about $113 billion; investors will closely watch iPhone demand and the high-margin services business (Saxo). Ahead of Palantir’s Monday after-hours earnings, a JPMorgan analyst initiated coverage with an overweight rating and a $262 price target for December 2027, and placed it on the “positive catalyst watch” list. Morgan Stanley maintained an equal-weight rating and a $205 target, saying third-quarter revenue should beat expectations (Barron’s). Two sharply different price targets for the same company capture Monday’s after-hours focus: the market wants to know not just whether growth is good, but whether it is worth the price.

Four. AI headlines: Funding is also beginning to cool, while Apple’s AI in China is a separate story

• The Financial Times reports that OpenAI has cut its latest fundraising target from $30 billion to $20 billion, with its valuation holding at $1.25 trillion, below the initially proposed $1.4 trillion. The report says the company set last Friday as the deadline for investor commitments, some investors reduced their subscriptions, the first close is expected to be below $20 billion, and a consortium of UAE investors including state-backed MGX is expected to be the largest participant (Financial Times, republished). The significance is not the 20 billion itself—it remains one of the largest private fundraising rounds in history—but the timing: it follows a 2.9% one-day Nasdaq decline, suggesting that even unlisted AI leaders are beginning to feel the pressure of public markets pricing the AI bill.
• A weekend Reuters Breakingviews column says Anthropic’s prospectus disclosed more than $500 billion in compute-related lease and purchase commitments. Although its second-quarter revenue rose 1368% year on year, assuming compute spending at 55% of revenue, it would need roughly $177 billion in revenue next year to maintain that spending intensity. The company still plans to list before Thanksgiving, despite growing investor unease and some peers postponing their listing plans until next year (Reuters) (Reuters). Anthropic’s arithmetic and listed companies’ earnings pose the same question: orders and revenue can be real, and so can the bills. The market is debating whether monetisation can outpace the rate at which those bills come due.
• Another weekend story, running counter to the AI-bill theme, came from Apple. Wallstreetcn reported that on 31 October Apple announced a partnership with Alibaba to integrate Qwen into Apple Intelligence in mainland China. The features will debut with the iOS 27.3 developer beta on 4 November and roll out broadly with the official release in December. Users in China will be able to access Qwen’s text and image understanding and content generation directly through Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, while the next-generation Siri AI unveiled at this year’s WWDC will not initially be available in mainland China (Wallstreetcn, republished). This story is about whether AI can help sell phones. In Apple’s Monday earnings, the strength of China demand and services will determine whether that story can offset pressure from the bill.

Five. Upcoming calendar (Hong Kong time)

• 1 November (Sunday): Core OPEC+ members meet online to review output policy; the outcome awaits market digestion before Monday’s open (Saxo).
• 2 November (Monday), 23:00: US ISM manufacturing PMI for October; after the close (early 3 November Hong Kong time): Apple and Palantir report earnings (Barron’s) (Saxo).
• 3 November (Tuesday): US midterm elections; AMD, Amgen and Pfizer report earnings after the close (Reuters) (Barron’s).
• 4 November (Wednesday): US ISM services PMI for October; McDonald’s and Qualcomm report earnings; the China version of Apple Intelligence opens for testing with the iOS developer beta the same day (Barron’s) (Wallstreetcn, republished).
• 5 November (Thursday): Airbnb reports earnings (Barron’s).
• 6 November (Friday): US nonfarm payrolls report for October from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the week’s key economic release; Moderna reports earnings (Barron’s).
• Note: The US has moved to standard time. Next week, regular US stock-market trading hours correspond to 22:30 to 05:00 the following day in Hong Kong, with the open one hour later than during daylight saving time.