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👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
🇰🇷 SK Hynix opens the vault: SK Hynix earned an 80% operating margin, pledged about 100 trillion won to shareholders, and the Kospi jumped 6.63%.
📉 Records, then selling: Seagate, Robinhood and NXP each fell 6% to 8% late yesterday on record or better-than-expected quarters.
🇮🇱 Israel votes, nobody wins: With 76% counted, Netanyahu’s bloc had 54 seats to Eisenkot’s 47, short of 61, and the TA-125 fell 2.1%.
✈️ Boeing drops 10.75%: Boeing posted a wider loss than expected yesterday and cut its full-year delivery target.
🏦 London’s results morning: Standard Chartered rose 4.4% on a 27% profit rise, while GSK fell 3.5% as restructuring cut its pre-tax profit.
🪙 Ripple signs up Robinhood: Ripple’s dollar stablecoin went live on Robinhood’s own blockchain at Swell, and BNY’s custody platform now supports XRP.
💳 SoFi jumps 13.42%: SoFi posted record quarterly revenue of $1.4 billion and raised its 2026 guidance to about $5.04 billion.
🇬🇧 Budget Day Cheat Sheet: Healey speaks at 12:30pm UK / 8:30am ET with his buffer down from £23.6 billion and gilts keeping score.
🏛️ Fed Day Cheat Sheet: A hold is about 90% priced for 6pm UK / 2pm ET, so the dissent count is the news.
☁️ Microsoft Earnings Cheat Sheet: Azure needs about 45% growth to carry more than $50 billion of quarterly spending, reporting after the US close.
🔎 Alphabet Earnings Cheat Sheet: Google Cloud is forecast at $29.6 billion, against a 2026 spending plan of $195 billion to $205 billion.
📦 Amazon Earnings Cheat Sheet: Consensus sits at the top of Amazon’s sales guide before tomorrow’s results, with about $220 billion of 2026 spending.
📈 Zoom stays above its band: Chart of the Day covers $107.25 and $123.98 above, and the $94.54 to $94.77 band below.
🧠 One Big Thing
Today has 3 big tests for markets, and the cheat sheets below cover each one. Healey’s Budget lands at 12:30pm UK, 8:30am in New York. The Fed decides at 6pm UK, which is 2pm in New York, and Microsoft and Alphabet report after the US close. The good news came first. SK Hynix showed the AI boom is producing real cash, with an 80% operating margin and about 100 trillion won going back to shareholders. Tonight tests the other side. Are the companies spending the money getting paid for it?
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
80%
SK Hynix kept 80% of its third-quarter revenue as operating profit: 83.33 trillion won on sales of 104.62 trillion. A year earlier, its operating profit was 11.38 trillion won.
✅ 5 Things to Know
🇰🇷 SK Hynix answers the payout question: 100 trillion won
20,000 won. That is SK Hynix’s dividend per share for the third quarter, up from 375 won the quarter before, the Seoul Economic Daily reported. Half of it is a one-off special, paid from gains on the company’s stake in Japanese memory maker Kioxia. The dividend sits inside a 2026 return plan of about 100 trillion won. At least 30 trillion is cash dividends and at least 60 trillion is buybacks and share cancellations, including a 40 trillion won buyback the company has already completed. Operating profit hit a record 83.33 trillion won, up 632% on a year earlier. Consensus was 76.96 trillion, according to FnGuide data cited by Aju Press. Seoul Economic Daily
Seoul took it well. The Kospi rose 374.10 points, or 6.63%, to 6,012.44. SK Hynix gained 10.89% to 1.49 million won and Samsung Electronics 9.01% to 242,000 won. SK Hynix also said HBM4, its newest AI memory chip, should overtake the older HBM3E in shipments and revenue in the fourth quarter. Samsung reports its full results tomorrow. Its preliminary figures showed operating profit of 107.4 trillion won. Korea JoongAng Daily
Sensei’s Insight: Yesterday’s issue asked whether SK Hynix would hand cash back. It did, about 100 trillion won of it, on an 80% operating margin. What I am watching is Samsung tomorrow. Its preliminary margin was 55.1%, so the gap between the 2 memory giants is the next number.
📉 Seagate and Robinhood post records, and their shares fall
Seagate posted a record quarter yesterday, and its shares fell about 6% after hours. Revenue rose 61% to a record $4.23 billion. It guided to $4.8 billion for this quarter, against $4.53 billion expected, TIKR reported. The worry was supply. Toshiba has started shipping hard drives from an expanded production line. NXP Semiconductors beat on revenue, at $3.79 billion and up 19%, then fell about 7% after hours. Its revenue guide for the fourth quarter came in a touch below forecasts. Visa beat as well and slipped 2.3% after hours, after guiding to slower earnings growth next year. TIKR
Robinhood showed where the crypto slowdown lands. Its revenue reached a record $1.42 billion, up 12%, while crypto revenue fell 55% from a year earlier to $120 million, Bitcoin.com reported. Crypto trading volume fell 38% to $50 billion. Prediction markets, a newer line, brought in $173 million, more than crypto did. Revenue also came in under the $1.43 billion analysts expected. The shares fell 7.36% after hours to $87.60 and were down about 8% before the open today. Bitcoin.com
Sensei’s Insight: Every one of these 4 companies posted a record or a beat somewhere, and every share price fell. The market was pricing next quarter. What I am watching is whether a beat on its own is still enough for anyone this week, starting with Microsoft and Alphabet tonight.
🇮🇱 No majority in Israel, and Tel Aviv falls
“The prime minister is now a caretaker prime minister,” Gadi Eisenkot said after yesterday’s vote, the Jerusalem Post reported. The count has not settled it either. With more than 76% of votes counted this morning, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc was on course for 54 of the Knesset’s 120 seats and Eisenkot’s bloc for 47, Al Jazeera reported. A government needs 61. Turnout was 77.7%, the highest since 1999. Final results are expected by Friday and will be published officially on 4 November. Al Jazeera
Tel Aviv took it badly. The TA-35 was down 1.7% and the TA-125 down 2.1% this morning, with the banking index off 2.92%, Ynet reported. The dollar bought about 3.09 shekels, up from a low of 3.02 yesterday. The result matters for oil too. “If Netanyahu loses, it makes it difficult for Trump to go it alone,” Mizuho’s Robert Yawger said yesterday of the Iran talks. Brent rose 1.36% to $115.43 early today, after the Houthis claimed a strike on a Saudi refinery that Saudi authorities had not confirmed. Ynet
Sensei’s Insight: Neither bloc has 61 seats, so coalition talks come next. What I am watching is oil. A long count leaves the Iran talks without a settled Israeli government, and Brent is already back above $115.
✈️ Boeing falls 10.75% after cutting its delivery target
10.75%. That is how far Boeing shares fell yesterday, closing at $168.07, 24/7 Wall St reported. The plane maker lost 34 cents a share excluding items in the third quarter, against an expected loss of 21 cents. Revenue rose 4% to $24.19 billion and the net loss was $116 million. Boeing also cut its full-year delivery target. “But we are not done,” chief executive Kelly Ortberg said. TheStreet
Why do deliveries matter so much? A plane maker collects most of the price of a jet when it hands it to the airline. A lower delivery target pushes that cash further out. Forecasters disagreed on whether revenue was a beat: TheStreet had a $23.84 billion estimate and InvesTrade $24.37 billion. The fall came on a day when the Nasdaq rose 1.18% and the S&P 500 rose 0.60%. 24/7 Wall St
Sensei’s Insight: Boeing missed on profit and cut deliveries in the same report, and lost 10.75% in a rising market. What I am watching is the next monthly delivery count. Deliveries are where Boeing’s cash comes from.
🏦 Standard Chartered jumps and GSK slides on Budget morning
London’s results came in a few hours before the Budget. The FTSE 100 opened 22.99 points lower at 10,663.55, Alliance News reported. Standard Chartered led the index, up 4.4%, after its third-quarter pre-tax profit rose 27% to $2.25 billion and it raised its guidance. GSK was the biggest faller, down 3.5%. Its revenue rose 4% to £8.89 billion. Pre-tax profit fell 21% on £328 million of restructuring charges. Unilever fell 2.6% even after raising its volume growth outlook to at least 3%. MarketScreener
The UK banks were watching Westminster. Barclays and Lloyds were up 0.3% each and HSBC was down 0.6%, ahead of an expected rise in the bank surcharge. In Zurich, UBS net profit rose 8% to $2.69 billion, just under the $2.71 billion forecast. It bought back $1.8 billion of shares in the quarter and now aims to finish its $3 billion programme by February. Its shares fell 1.4%. Deutsche Bank rose 3.6% after its pre-tax profit rose 7.7% to €2.63 billion. Investing.com
Sensei’s Insight: Standard Chartered earns most of its money in Asia, and it was the bank that rose. The UK lenders waiting on Healey barely moved. What I am watching is Lloyds and NatWest after the speech. Both fell about 2% when the 8% surcharge was first reported.
Stories You Might Have Missed
🪙 Ripple brings Robinhood into its stablecoin plans
Ripple opened its Swell conference in New York yesterday by announcing a partnership with Robinhood. RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar stablecoin, is now live on Robinhood Chain, Robinhood’s own blockchain, and on the Bitstamp exchange. It is due in the main Robinhood app later this year. BNY’s custody platform now supports XRP and RLUSD. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent opened the conference. XRP was at $1.32, up 1.99% over 24 hours, at 7:29am UK, which is 3:29am in New York, TokenPost reported. Bitcoin was near $80,900, below the average price of about $81,500 paid by holders of US spot bitcoin ETFs, according to Glassnode data. CryptoPotato TokenPost
💳 SoFi jumps 13.42% on a record quarter
SoFi shares rose 13.42% yesterday after record third-quarter results, Cappnotes reported. Adjusted net revenue rose 44% to $1.4 billion and net income was $241 million, or 18 cents a share. Members rose 35% to 17.1 million. SoFi raised its 2026 revenue guidance to about $5.04 billion and gave a first 2027 outlook of about $6.4 billion of revenue and 90 cents a share. “We are adding more members, who are using more products, and generating more revenue per product,” chief executive Anthony Noto said. SoFi Cappnotes