CLOSING BELL
Amazon's Hosting Hits A Firewall
The market climbed Monday, on the back of an Apple all-time high after results from iPhone 17 sales in China looked good.
Speaking of China, trade talks further de-escalated. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said meetings with China were continuing this week in Malaysia.
The government shutdown is still going after the 11th and most recent vote failed, with BLS CPI inflation numbers finally expected Friday the 24th after a delay in data from last week’s scheduled post.
Amazon’s AWS service went down Monday morning, pulling with it major company networks like United, social media like Reddit, but also retail trading infrastructure like Robinhood, Coinbase, and crypto projects.
Today’s RIP: Apple rips on Chinese demand, AWS was down, and stocks were up, and more.
9 of 11 sectors closed green, with materials $XLB ( ▲ 1.2% ) leading and staples $XLP ( ▼ 0.09% ) lagging.
$SPY ( ▲ 1.04% ) $QQQ ( ▲ 1.26% ) $IWM ( ▲ 1.95% ) $DIA ( ▲ 1.14% )
STOCKS
iPhone 17 Selling For iPhone 16 Prices Boosts Apple In China
iPhone sales were doing great, outselling the iPhone 16 by 14% in the first 10 days it launched, according to market research firm Counterpoint. The research report was enoughto send $AAPL ( ▲ 3.94% )climbing, the highest reaching Mag 7 name.
The stock hit its first new record for 2025. Loop Capital Markets raised the stock, and Analyst Amanda Baruah said it’s finally a sign that demand for the new batch of phones is climbing. Last year, investors were disappointed after a distinct lack of sales bump following the iPhone 16 drop.
Their sales data showed customers were eating up the ‘more for the same’ pricing structure of the new “Base” iPhone 17 model. Customers see the new chip and camera at the same price as last year’s phone, according to Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang at Counterpoint.
MACRO NEWS
The Great AWS Is Down Again-ing-ing
You can find anything from A to Z on Amazon, and there’s a good chance that anything else you're looking for you can’t find on Amazon is also hosted on Amazon… Web Services.
That’s great when you're Jeff Bezos and own 8% of a $2.31T company, but not great when your site goes down. Monday, sites from A to Z went down after a mis-engineered update went live at 3 am ET. Facebook, McDonald’s, Roblox, Reddit, and even financial services like Venmo, Fidelity, Robinhood, and Coinbase had trouble loading, especially on the East Coast. Even Stocktwits was feeling the pain, with rolling blackouts, including when our lowly newsletter writer was typing this.
Stocktwits users lit up overnight, facing trades that would not go through on and unresolved webpages. In the face of this calamity, the stocks mentioned all seemed to cllimb. $HOOD ( ▲ 4.53% ) $COIN ( ▲ 2.31% ) and even $AMZN ( ▲ 1.62% ) were up to end the day, despite retail investor fears.
As Cryptotwtis’ Jonathan Moragan can write better than I, crypto is as decentralized as Russia’s economy is.
According to Cryptoslate, AWS outages affect nearly 40% of the Eth ecosystem. For a promised goal of 'decentralization, it is a jarring reality that much of the crypto world still runs on ‘legacy’ hardware, as crypto natives call “Web 2” tech, or as the rest of the world calls the normal internet.
Just like normal companies, crypto startups find it easier to pay for hosting space on the world’s largest provider than to run nodes in-house.
POPS & DROPS
Top Stocks News Stories
- Zions Bancorp climbed as retail traders speculated on credit risk reversal.
- Evernorth announced Nasdaq debut to build $1B XRP treasury.
- Solana joined Gemini’s crypto credit card lineup.
- Adobe rose after launching its new AI Foundry platform.
- SEALSQ falls after unveiling its first chip with built-in post-quantum encryption.
- 10x Genomics partnered with Anthropic to bring Claude AI tools to researchers.
- Celcuity surged 35% after completing Phase 3 breast cancer trial enrollment.
- GRAIL climbed 17% after announcing $325M private placement to fund expansion.
- Replimune surged 98% after FDA accepted RP1 resubmission for melanoma treatment.
- Trump signed critical minerals deal with Australia to boost U.S. supply chain security.
- Goldman Sachs said the bar for rate cuts will rise after October inflation data.
No links today, as the news site is down, but check in when Amazon figures out its issues and comes back online.
EARNINGS
Cleaveland Cliffs Climbs After Report, Zions Climbs After Hours, Netflix On The Way
Even with a third of the internet down, prices jumped on earnings reactions. This week is the beginning of the major tech reports, with Netflix expected on Tuesday, Tesla on Wednesday, and Intel on Thursday.
Cleveland-Cliffs climbed $CLF ( ▲ 21.47% ) Monday, after the steel company announced a major shift into rare-earth development.
"Beyond steelmaking, the renewed importance of rare earths has driven us to re-focus on this potential opportunity at our upstream mining assets," Chief Lourenco Goncalves said.
$ZION ( ▲ 4.65% ) Zions Bancorp was up after the bell. The recently in trouble regional bank beat estimates for earnings per share of $1.48, and quarterly revenue rose 8.7%. The bank formally recognized a $50m charge off from two corporate loans, and fronting $10M in cash, but said it was beginning a lengthy legal process to make up for losses. The stock recovered after credit losses looked more manageable, after losing $1B in market cap last week.
What to Watch:
Netflix $NFLX ( ▲ 3.27% ) reports Q3 earnings after Tuesday’s close, with analysts expecting $6.97 EPS on strong ad-tier growth, new content, and price hikes. With subscriber counts no longer disclosed, investor focus will be on revenue momentum, operating margins, and the scalability of its monetization strategy.
Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 1.85% ) reports Q3 earnings Wednesday after the close, with analysts expecting EPS around $0.55, down 24% year-over-year but likely to beat on recent record deliveries and energy deployments. Revenue is expected to rise 4.3% to $26.33B, according to Investors’ Business Daily.
Intel $INTC ( ▲ 2.95% ) reports Q3 earnings on October 23, with analysts expecting break-even EPS of $0.01 and revenue near $13.11B. Forecast downgrades and cautious “Hold” ratings reflect concerns over margin pressure and muted growth outlooks for 2025 and 2026.
WHAT’S ON DECK
Tomorrow’s Top Things
Economic data: Fed Waller Speaks (9:00 AM), API Weekly Crude Oil Stock (4:30 PM)
Pre-Market Earnings: JPMorgan Chase ($JPM), Wells Fargo ($WFC), Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), Citigroup ($C), Goldman Sachs Gr ($GS), BlackRock ($BLK), Domino’s Pizza ($DPZ).
After-Market Earnings: Netflix ($NFLX), Intuitive Surgical ($ISRG), and Texas Instruments ($TXN).