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👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
🏦 Fed holds, 2 want a rise: The vote was 10-2 and Warsh refused to promise December. Futures price a rise at more than 81%.
📉 Alphabet down 10%, Microsoft up: Google Cloud grew 103% and Search slowed to 12%. Azure grew 48% and guided higher still.
🇬🇧 Budget: banks up, builders down: Healey raises taxes £4.3 billion a year, keeps the £20,000 cash ISA, and gilt yields edge lower.
🇰🇷 Samsung’s record, shares fall: Samsung made 107.4 trillion won of operating profit, and its shares fell 4.13% as the buyback came without a number.
🛡️ Fortinet drags cyber down: Fortinet fell about 26% after hours on a service forecast cut, and Palo Alto, CrowdStrike and Zscaler lost 6% to 7%.
🛢️ Shell’s $5 billion buyback: Shell beat with $10.81 billion of profit and lifted its buyback, while Haleon fell 13.3% on a growth warning.
🤝 Marvell eyes Lumentum: Marvell is in advanced talks to buy Lumentum, worth about $83 billion, and fell 9.7% before the open.
🇮🇱 Arab parties hold the balance: With 89.8% counted, Netanyahu’s bloc had 53 seats, Eisenkot’s 48 and Arab-led parties 19.
🪙 Bitcoin below $80,000: Bitcoin slipped to $79,848 this morning even as US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $137 million yesterday.
🇺🇸 PCE Day Cheat Sheet: Core PCE lands at 12:30pm UK / 8:30am ET, expected at 3.1%, with Q3 GDP alongside.
📈 Google’s next support is $273: Chart of the Day covers the $273 floor, resistance at $296 and $315, and the falling trend line.
🧠 One Big Thing
Today the market marks 2 pieces of homework at once. At 12:30pm UK, 8:30am in New York, the Fed’s own inflation gauge lands. That comes a day after 2 officials voted for a rise and Kevin Warsh refused to promise one in December. Core PCE is forecast at 3.1%. Then Amazon reports after the US close. Yesterday showed how the AI bill gets judged. Microsoft’s cloud sped up and its shares rose. Alphabet’s Search slowed and its shares fell 10%. Amazon’s turn comes tonight, with AWS growth expected in the mid to high 30s.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
12%
Google Search grew 12% to $63.35 billion in the third quarter, down from 17% in the second. Google Cloud grew 103%, and Alphabet’s shares still fell about 10% after hours.
✅ 5 Things to Know
🏦 Fed holds, and 2 officials wanted a rise
10 votes to 2. That is how the Fed held its rate at 3.75% to 4.00% yesterday. Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack voted for a quarter-point rise, after a 12-0 vote in September. The statement changed its tone as well, dropping September’s firmer line on getting inflation back to 2%. In its place: “The accumulation of more information will help the Committee determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation to the Committee’s 2 percent goal.” The urgency went. The destination stayed. The Fed also upgraded the economy from a “solid” pace to a “strong” one. Federal Reserve
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the committee had “just come out of a family fight, a serious, sober discussion”. He said the “monetary medicine is starting to work some”, with no firm conclusions yet. He refused to point at December, saying he does not believe in forward guidance outside a crisis. He pushed back on the idea the Fed has gone soft too. “There is no soft inflation, no implicit inflation target,” he said. The target is 2%, measured by PCE. Markets read him as patient. The 2-year yield fell to about 4.70% as he spoke and was still near 4.70% this morning. The 10-year touched about 5.04% yesterday and was near 5.00% this morning. The S&P 500 finished up 0.3%.
December is still the base case. CME FedWatch put the chance of a rise at the 9 December meeting at more than 81% this morning, Reuters reported. All 100 economists in a Reuters poll before the meeting expected one. Christopher Hodge of Natixis called a December hike “now likely a foregone conclusion”. Karl Schamotta of Corpay read it the other way, calling 2 dissents, against the 3 or 4 many had expected, “a dovish surprise at the margin”. The first test lands today. September PCE inflation, the Fed’s own gauge, comes at 12:30pm UK, 8:30am ET, with core forecast at 3.1% on the year. Reuters via Investing.com
Sensei’s Insight: The vote was hawkish and Warsh was patient, and December odds eased while he spoke. What I am watching is core PCE at 12:30pm UK, 8:30am ET. A +0.3% print keeps December live. Anything lower starts the case for waiting.
📉 Alphabet sinks 10% on Search, Microsoft climbs on Azure
Google Cloud doubled, and Alphabet’s shares still fell. Revenue rose 25% to $127.58 billion in the third quarter, short of the $128.22 billion LSEG consensus, Reuters reported. Google Cloud grew 103% to $30.71 billion, against about $29.1 billion expected, and its profit more than tripled to $11.12 billion. Search grew 12% to $63.35 billion, down from 17% in the second quarter. Capital spending was $51.36 billion in the quarter and free cash flow was minus $9.07 billion. Earnings per share fell to $2.12 from $2.87. An $8.7 billion loss on investments cut $0.55 a share, mostly a paper loss on Alphabet’s SpaceX stake, the company said on its call. The shares were down 10.2% before the open this morning, Reuters reported. Reuters via AOL
Microsoft went the other way, up 3.6% before the open this morning. Revenue rose 19% to $92.28 billion against $90.69 billion expected, and adjusted earnings were $4.89 a share against $4.73. Azure grew 48%, up from 43% the quarter before, and Microsoft put a dollar figure on it for the first time: $33.17 billion. It guided to Azure growth of 49% to 50% this quarter in constant currency. Capital spending, including finance leases, was $45.2 billion, below Microsoft’s own outlook of more than $50 billion. “We still have demand that exceeds supply,” finance chief Amy Hood said. Microsoft
Why did the market treat them so differently? The bill was similar, $45 billion to $51 billion each in 3 months, and both companies say demand outruns supply. The difference was the core business. Microsoft’s cloud sped up. Alphabet’s Search slowed. Google blamed currency moves most, and said the fast growth of AI Mode searches, which make less money so far, played a part. Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1.01% at 9:18am UK this morning. Amazon reports after the close today, with the call at 9:00pm UK, 5:00pm ET, and AWS growth expected in the mid to high 30s. “Cloud is carrying the story, but until search shows AI is additive, the stock’s probably going to trade lower,” said Dave Wagner of Aptus Capital Advisors.
Sensei’s Insight: Same bill, opposite reaction. Microsoft’s cloud sped up and the stock rose. Alphabet’s Search slowed and the stock fell 10%, even with Cloud doubling. What I am watching is AWS tonight. Growth in the high 30s with capex rising shows which one the market pays for.
🇬🇧 Healey’s Budget: banks up, builders down, cash ISA saved
“Is that it?” Kemi Badenoch’s reply caught the mood. John Healey’s first Budget raises net taxes by about £4.3 billion a year by 2029-30, roughly a sixth of the £26 billion Rachel Reeves raised in November 2025. The bank surcharge goes from 3% to 6% for 15 months from January 2027, after lenders had feared a return to the old 8% rate.
Tax on savings interest and property income rises by a further 2 percentage points from April 2027, on top of the 2 points Reeves had already set for that date. The rates go from 20%, 40% and 45% today to 24%, 44% and 49%. The cut to the cash ISA limit, due in April 2027, was scrapped. “I will not go ahead with the cut to the tax-free amount that people can put into a cash ISA,” Healey said. It stays at £20,000. gov.uk
The numbers underneath were worse. The OBR cut its growth forecast for 2027 to 1.0% from 1.6%. Borrowing this year is now about £133 billion, almost £18 billion more than the £115.5 billion it expected in March. Healey’s buffer against his own borrowing rule fell to £14.5 billion from £23.6 billion, with higher debt interest doing most of the damage. “That is what a buffer is for, use it when you need it, rebuild it when you can,” he said. The Debt Management Office raised this year’s gilt sales to £250.6 billion from £246.2 billion.
The gilt market took it quietly. The 10-year yield closed at about 5.33%, a few basis points lower, after hitting a 19-year high of 5.53% in early October. Sterling ended at $1.33. The FTSE 100 closed up 0.1% at 10,694.50 and the banks rallied on the smaller-than-feared surcharge: NatWest rose 2.0%, Lloyds 1.7% and Barclays 1.6%. Housebuilders were the losers, even with a new £4.7 billion Your First Home equity-loan scheme due from next spring: Taylor Wimpey fell 7.3%, Persimmon 6.9% and Barratt Redrow 6.6%. PA via Share Talk
The rest is detail, and some of it is useful for savers. Capital gains tax rates, the dividend tax and the 25% tax-free pension lump sum are all unchanged, though the lifetime limit for Business Asset Disposal Relief halves to £500,000 from April 2027. The Lifetime ISA penalty for buying a home above the £450,000 cap drops from 25% to 20% from today. A First Time Buyer ISA replaces the LISA for new savers from April 2029. The state pension rises 3.9% to £250.70 a week in April 2027.
The 5p fuel duty cut runs to July 2027, and up to 20 million households in England, in council tax bands A to D, get a £100 energy payment from January 2027. Next up for sterling: the Bank of England on 5 November, where a rise to 4.00% is priced.
Sensei’s Insight: The bond market got the quiet Budget it wanted and the banks a smaller tax than they feared. What I am watching is the savings tax. From April 2027, 4 extra points make the £20,000 cash ISA worth more to anyone with cash outside it.
🇰🇷 Samsung’s record 107 trillion won profit, and shares fall
Can a record quarter disappoint? In Seoul today it did. Samsung Electronics made 107.4 trillion won of operating profit in the third quarter, and says it is the first tech company to pass 100 trillion won in a single quarter. Revenue hit a record 195.3 trillion won. The chip division did nearly all the work, earning 106.5 trillion won on sales of 147.1 trillion. Phones and appliances lost 0.8 trillion. HBM4, its newest AI memory chip, more than tripled its revenue on the quarter. “Negotiations for next year’s HBM supply have been completed at our target prices,” Samsung said. Samsung
The shares still fell 4.13% to 232,000 won, and the Kospi dropped 1.24% to 5,937.66, Korea JoongAng Daily reported. Investors wanted a number for the buyback and got a range. Samsung will pay a dividend of 4,601 won a share, about 30 trillion won in total, on 27 November. Its 2026 return plan runs to 90 to 110 trillion won. The rest, 55 to 75 trillion, includes “a substantial share repurchase and cancellation program”, with the amounts set at a board meeting in late January 2027. “Investor sentiment weakened as the company did not present a detailed shareholder-return plan,” said Lee Kyung-min of Daishin Securities. SK Hynix, which named its numbers yesterday, rose 2.62% to 1.5 million won. Korea JoongAng Daily
Sensei’s Insight: Yesterday’s issue named the margin gap between the 2 memory giants as the next number. The gap held, and Samsung’s shares fell on the payout instead. What I am watching is the late-January board meeting, where the 55 to 75 trillion won gets its number.
🛡️ Fortinet’s warning drags cybersecurity down with it
Fortinet beat on profit and sales last night, and its shares fell about 26% after hours. Adjusted earnings were 91 cents a share against 86 cents expected, and revenue rose 20% to $2.08 billion. Investors looked at 2 other lines. Growth slowed from 26% in the second quarter. Fortinet also cut its full-year forecast for service revenue to $5.15 billion to $5.17 billion, from $5.18 billion to $5.22 billion, even as it raised its total revenue range. The stock had more than doubled this year before the report. SiliconANGLE
The fall did not stay with Fortinet. Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Zscaler each lost 6% to 7% after hours, and Tenable more than 5%. Why would one company’s forecast move its rivals? Investors read a slowdown at one seller as a sign of what customers are spending across the whole category, so the peers get repriced before they report. ServiceNow added to the selling. Its profit missed by 2 cents a share, and its revenue forecast for this quarter, $4.25 billion to $4.26 billion, sat below the $4.36 billion expected. Before the open, Fortinet was down 25% and ServiceNow 18.2%. Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1.01% at 9:18am UK, 5:18am in New York, Reuters reported. Reuters via Yahoo Finance
Sensei’s Insight: One forecast cut took a whole sector lower in an evening, and ServiceNow’s miss landed on top of it. What I am watching is Palo Alto and CrowdStrike when they report. Their numbers decide whether last night’s selling was about Fortinet or about the category.
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🛢️ Shell’s $5 billion buyback leads a busy London morning
Shell made $10.81 billion in the third quarter, its highest since 2022, against $10.33 billion expected, Reuters reported. It raised its quarterly buyback to $5 billion from $3 billion. Only the $6 billion of the second quarter of 2022 was bigger. Refining margins were $42 a barrel, up from $11.6 a year earlier, and the shares rose about 3%. Lloyds fell 3.5% by 9am after an in-line £2.3 billion pre-tax profit, the day after the Budget doubled the bank surcharge. Haleon fell 13.3% after cutting its organic growth forecast to about 2.5%, from 3% to 5%. The FTSE 100 was up 0.5% at 10,746. Reuters via 93.3 The Drive City AM
🤝 Marvell in talks to buy $83 billion Lumentum
Marvell Technology is in advanced talks to buy Lumentum, Bloomberg News reported last night, with a deal possible as soon as next week. No price was given. Lumentum, a maker of optical networking parts, is worth about $83 billion. Marvell had about $3.92 billion of cash, and Bernstein said a deal would likely need extra financing. Neither company commented. Lumentum rose 9% after hours and Marvell fell more than 8%. Before the open, Marvell was down 9.7% and Lumentum up 4.2%. MarketScreener Reuters via Yahoo Finance
🇮🇱 Israel’s Arab parties hold the balance, and oil eases
With 89.8% of votes counted, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc had 53 seats and Gadi Eisenkot’s 48, the Times of Israel reported. Both are short of the 61 needed to govern. Arab-led parties had 19 seats, up from 10. Around 430,000 to 480,000 soldier and other ballots are being counted today, and official results come on 4 November. Oil eased on a diplomatic report. Brent fell 0.7% to $114.50 early today, after the Wall Street Journal reported that US Vice President JD Vance had written to Iran’s Mohsen Rezaei to revive talks. Times of Israel Business Recorder
🪙 Bitcoin slips below $80,000 as ETF money keeps coming
Bitcoin was at $79,848 at 7:32am UK, 3:32am in New York, down about 1% over 24 hours, Cointelegraph reported. US spot bitcoin ETFs still took in $137 million yesterday. That made a third straight day of inflows, worth about $424 million in total, and left October with net inflows of about $111 million. Ether ETFs lost about $21 million. Ether was at $2,317.78, down 2.12%, at 10:12am UK, crypto.news reported. Coinbase and Strategy both report after the US close tonight. Cointelegraph crypto.news