Market news: gold, currencies, crypto and stocks

Crypto exchanges liquidated about $803 million in leveraged positions over 24 hours, 86% of them bullish bets, as bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000. SanDisk perpetual futures recorded $19.09 million in liquidations, more than XRP, showing how leverage on crypto venues is increasingly tied to chip stocks. About $595 million was wiped out in the final 12 hours, as South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 6%. Binance accounted for half of all liquidations, while Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell about 8%. The trend reversed as bitcoin recovered above $83,000, with shorts making up 79% of the $74 million liquidated over the following four hours.

Binance will discontinue Binance Pool and related services on Nov. 10, ending an operation that has run for over six years since its April 2020 launch. Affected products include Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, Transaction Accelerator and mining pool APIs, and they will stop generating rewards after the cutoff. Miners are urged to move their computing power to other pools, and users have until Nov. 24 to access historical mining records and payout information. Binance attributed the decision to an ongoing product review but did not give a specific reason.

Social media posts claim Russian bot traffic has fallen sharply after attacks on Yandex data centres, and some X users have run “bot tests” to show fewer automated replies. Cloudflare data does show bot traffic dropping, especially from Yandex, which fell to nearly zero on Sunday morning and has not fully recovered. However, the article argues this does not prove that automated accounts on social media have reduced their activity, since Cloudflare’s data measures all non-human traffic, including crawlers used by search engines and AI training. The widely shared charts therefore do not by themselves show less automated activity on social platforms.

The article compares Intel (INTC) and NVIDIA (NVDA) as AI stocks, weighing Intel’s turnaround effort against NVIDIA’s position as the leading GPU maker. Intel reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $52.9 billion, down 0.5%, a net loss of $267.0 million and negative free cash flow of $4.9 billion. NVIDIA’s fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2026 brought revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65.5%, net income of $120.1 billion and free cash flow of $96.7 billion. Intel’s risks include rival AI innovation and regulatory scrutiny, while NVIDIA’s include customer concentration, geopolitical exposure in Taiwan, export controls and legal challenges over its $20 billion Groq deal. The author says they would choose NVIDIA between the two.

The IMF warned that government bond yields could spike in a disorderly way as rising inflation, mounting debt and AI-related borrowing pressure sovereign bond markets. Yields in several advanced economies have reached multidecade highs, driven partly by higher energy costs from the Middle East conflict, and global public debt is near its highest level since World War II. Hyperscalers’ share of global investment-grade bond issuance has risen to 10% from less than 1% since 2024, while hedge funds’ share of U.S. Treasuries rose to about 9% in 2025 from about 4% in 2022, which the IMF says leaves the market susceptible to a disorderly unwind. The fund also flagged “circular” AI financing: 14 disclosed deals since 2023 channeled about $300 billion of equity and $650 billion of debt, in exchange for $1.4 trillion of future revenue commitments.

Michael Burry warned that stocks at new highs could be a “bull trap,” but is holding back on adding shorts; about 10% of his portfolio is in puts, with most of the rest in longs and LEAPS. He has moved his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac common shares into junior preferred stock, betting that a government resolution of Treasury’s roughly $388 billion senior preferred liquidation preference could lift returns four to five times from current levels. He expects a favorable resolution within two years, though he said the delay made him “antsy” given a deteriorating multifamily housing situation. FNMA and FMCC have fallen for seven straight weeks, down 68% and 69% year-to-date, respectively.

Heavy crude is piling up in the Americas because surging freight costs have hindered exports, while Asia and Europe struggle to secure supply even with Brent above $100 a barrel. Heavy crude is typically cheaper and suits many refineries, but US refineries can process only a fixed share of it, even though they have run at about 94% of capacity this year, the highest in 28 years. The surplus is also tied to higher Venezuelan exports after the US captured former president Nicolas Maduro earlier this year, a US release of more than 130 million barrels from its emergency reserve, and record Canadian output. Supertanker charter costs from the US Gulf to Asia have risen more than fivefold since February, to over $80 million or $40 a barrel, as ships are held longer by ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.

Blur will close its NFT marketplace website on Nov. 12 and stop arranging new loans through its Blend lending service, although its Ethereum smart contracts will remain operational. Monthly trading volume fell more than 99.5%, from about $1.43 billion in March 2023 to under $7 million in March 2026, and the platform recorded no protocol revenue over the past three years. The shutdown comes ten days after the closure announcement of sister project Blast, which was also created by Tieshun Roquerre, and BLUR fell more than 20% to around $0.015. Borrowers have until Nov. 12 to repay their loans, while BLUR holders keep control of the fee switch.

Syndax said its MAXPIRe Phase 2 trial of axatilimab in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis failed to meet its primary endpoint of slowing lung function decline, so it will halt further IPF development for the drug while other trials continue. Safety in IPF was comparable to placebo, and ongoing studies and the approved chronic GVHD use of Niktimvo are unaffected. The article views the setback as a narrowing of axatilimab's opportunity rather than a franchise-level issue, with Revuforj and Niktimvo still the core commercial pillars. However, Syndax remains loss-making and spends roughly US$400 million a year on R&D and SG&A, so revenue growth is the key factor to watch.

The Bank of Japan published results of its 107th Opinion Survey on the General Public's Views and Behavior, conducted in 2026 among 4,000 people aged 20 and over. Of the sample, 1,972 people (49.3%) provided valid responses, and the survey used stratified two-stage random sampling with responses collected by mail or internet. The article contains only the survey outline and contact details, without detailed findings.

Meta Platforms (META) slipped 0.5% in overnight trading after rising 3.4% in the regular session, its best day in about two weeks, amid a broader market selloff over AI durability fears. Jim Cramer called it a “monster long,” citing Sensor Tower data showing Meta's Muse AI assistant retained 73.3% of new users the day after installation, versus 41.3% for ChatGPT. Analyst Dan Ives said Meta remains a core AI name, while ARK Invest sold 4,520 META shares worth about $3.36 million on Monday. META is up 12.8% year to date.

SpaceX (SPCX) has seen its price-to-sales ratio fall from about 100 times trailing 12-month sales at its June public debut to 68 times now, after sales rose 92% in Q2 2026, its first report as a public company. Growth came from its rocket-launch, Starlink and xAI segments, which rose 55%, 32% and 213%, but only Starlink is profitable and the company posted a net loss of $541 million. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas calls the stock “Cheap and Getting Cheaper,” citing 30 times 2028 expected profit versus a median of 16 for big tech, and a growth-adjusted ratio of 0.3 versus a 0.5 median for large caps. He sets a $300 target against today’s $162 price, while Raymond James’ Brian Gesuale sees $800. The article cautions that expected growth is uncertain and that SpaceX remains expensive and risky on standard measures.

Bitcoin climbed back above $83,000 on Tuesday after dipping to just under $81,000 early in the day, decoupling from a sell-off in Asian chip stocks and U.S. tech futures. South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 6% intraday to below 6,000, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which each dropped roughly 8%, amid concerns over AI valuations and Chinese memory-chip competition. Nasdaq futures fell 0.6%, while WTI crude held near $92.67 and Brent around $106 on Middle East supply risks, which the article says raises inflation concerns and the prospect of Fed rate hikes, a headwind for crypto. The Dollar Index sat near 102.50, its highest since April last year. Traders are awaiting Thursday’s U.S. CPI report, and Paul Howard of Wincent expects institutions to hedge with derivatives rather than cut their crypto exposure.

From July 3 to October 9, 2026, PNJ matched 602.6 million shares, equal to 118% of its roughly 511.7 million shares outstanding, while the stock fell about 70% from the July 2 close. Domestic investors accounted for 71% of volume (425.6 million shares), and foreign investors for 29% (177 million shares). PNJ has proposed cutting its 2026 parent-company after-tax profit plan from a profit of VND 3,409 billion to a loss of VND 6,271 billion, mainly due to a VND 7,071 billion provision for future product buybacks; Vietcap says operations look weaker even before that provision, with the pre-provision profit plan down VND 2,608 billion to VND 801 billion. Eight-month after-tax profit attributable to shareholders was VND 668 billion, down 54%, including a VND 61 billion net loss in July–August. Vietcap warns forecast profit for 2026–2032 could fall about 24% before any additional provisions, and up to 39–54% if 50–100% of the provision is booked, though these are preliminary scenarios, not official forecast revisions.

GFI Software has built its Eloquens AI assistant directly into GFI KerioConnect, the mail and collaboration server used by more than 30,000 organizations, announced in Prague on October 13, 2026. The feature targets organizations that run their own mail to control data, meet regulations or keep costs down, rather than moving to cloud services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot or Gmail’s Gemini. Eloquens AI sorts incoming messages within minutes: newsletters and notifications go to a “No Reply Needed” folder, decisions stay labeled in the inbox, and routine questions receive draft replies in the user’s own voice, each with its reasoning. It stays off until an administrator enables it, keeps mail on the customer’s own server, can be applied to selected mailboxes and turned off at any time, and offers a 30-day free trial with one click, which managed service providers can also offer to their customers.

Cao su Tân Biên (RTB) reported Q3 2026 after-tax profit of nearly VND 121 billion, more than 6.5 times the VND 19 billion of the same period last year, on net revenue of over VND 184 billion, up nearly 13%. Financial income rose to nearly VND 108 billion, mainly from VND 104 billion in dividends from a subsidiary, while the average rubber selling price rose by more than VND 15 million per ton, outpacing a cost increase of more than VND 11 million per ton. For the first nine months, revenue reached nearly VND 436 billion, up about 28%, and after-tax profit topped VND 290 billion, up more than 33%, equal to about 83% of the 2026 target of roughly VND 349 billion. The stock rose more than 5% to VND 25,200 per share in the morning session on October 13, giving a market capitalization of about VND 2,200 billion.

Illumina (ILMN) shares have returned 118% over six months and more than 100% year to date, versus 14% for the S&P 500 ETF, as its core sequencing business shows signs of recovery. Clinical markets make up about 65% of sequencing consumables revenue and grew 15% outside China in Q2, while research demand remains cautious and is expected to decline in 2026. Q2 revenue rose 9.5% to $1.16 billion with a 22.5% non-GAAP operating margin, and management raised its 2026 revenue outlook to $4.60–$4.64 billion and adjusted EPS guidance to $5.30–$5.40. More than 95 NovaSeq X instruments were placed in Q2, and since customers take six to nine months to reach normal consumables usage, these could support revenue into 2027, while multi-omics and the Billion Cell Atlas are still early. At 46.17x trailing and 40.32x forward earnings, the article argues much of the recovery already appears reflected in the share price, with risks from research funding, China, and higher freight and memory costs.

Wendy's (WEN) shares traded at $6.31 on October 12, 2026, but the article argues that a low share price does not make the stock cheap. The stock has fallen 65.6% over three years, and its dividend yield has risen as the price dropped. It trades at 9.6 times trailing earnings and 4.6 times free cash flow, but with a $1.2 billion market cap and a $4.8 billion enterprise value, heavy debt is a major factor. The quarterly dividend was cut from $0.25 to $0.14 in May 2025 and again to $0.07 in August 2026, while U.S. same-restaurant sales fell 7% and traffic dropped 12.5% in Q2 2026. New CEO Bob Wright, the company's fourth since February 2024, faces a turnaround, and Q3 earnings are due November 5.

ACBS expects the market to trade sideways within 1,700-1,900 in the remaining months of the year, with valuations below the recent five-year average. Vietnam was upgraded to FTSE Russell's secondary emerging market status, yet foreign investors are still net sellers, given Vietnam's modest weight in the index and the Fed's 0.25% rate hike in September. High interest rates are weighing on profits across many sectors; banking, which accounts for over 30% of market capitalization, posted weaker Q3 2026 results than Q2, though still up year on year. Ms. Đỗ Minh Trang says banking, oil and gas, insurance, power generation and ports still offer potential if selected carefully, while the real estate outlook is not positive.

HVS Securities (CTCP Chứng khoán HVS Việt Nam) became the first securities firm to release its Q3 2026 financial statements. Q3 after-tax profit exceeded 2 billion VND, up 387% from 439 million VND a year earlier, while revenue topped 5 billion VND, up nearly 77%. Almost all income came from interest on held-to-maturity (HTM) investments, while brokerage contributed little. For the first nine months, after-tax profit reached nearly 4.7 billion VND, but the company still carries accumulated losses of about 34 billion VND as of September 30, 2026.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as investors weighed prospects of more Russian energy reaching global markets, with Brent down 1.48% to $105.05 a barrel and WTI down 1.57% to $92.27. President Donald Trump defended a temporary six-month easing of restrictions on Russian diesel supplies despite bipartisan criticism that it could undermine sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Goldman Sachs said an extra 800,000 metric tons of Russian diesel would lower wholesale diesel prices in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Europe by only $1 to $2 a barrel, as global diesel markets remain tight, with U.S. inventories down 14% and visible Chinese stocks down 11% year on year. Losses were limited by concerns over the Saudi-Houthi conflict, after a Houthi attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport on Saturday left 12 people dead and more than 300 injured.

Gold prices on Kitco eased about 0.6% in the October 12 session to $4,172 an ounce, after a sharp rally the previous week. In the same session, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold fund, bought a net 2.3 tonnes of gold and now holds about 1,055 tonnes. Markets price in roughly a 17% chance of a Fed rate hike in October and an 87.7% chance of at least one hike before December, so gold is focused on whether upcoming September CPI data revives the year-end tightening path. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield around 5.24% is also weighing on gold through real yields. Some analysts say gold may need to retest support near $4,000 an ounce, while another notes its rebound has lost momentum.

The article promotes the CFEI® certification from the U.S.-based National Financial Educators Council (NFEC), which BizUni implements in Vietnam, to help securities professionals not only give recommendations but explain them so clients understand and decide for themselves. It argues advisers need a broader view of personal finance and communication skills to check whether clients truly understand. CFEI® targets brokers, fund and asset managers, client relationship officers, insurance advisers and financial content creators. BizUni is the exclusive CFEI® partner in Vietnam for 2026–2036, and its training includes a Financial & Investment Fundamentals program alongside NFEC's CFEI® course.

More than $93 million was stolen from hundreds of Ledger hardware wallets sold through Southeast Asian retailer CryptoBilis, after the devices were allegedly implanted with malicious chips. Ledger confirmed at least one affected device had unauthorized hardware, and all confirmed cases up to October 11 involved devices sold through CryptoBilis, though its internal systems show no sign of intrusion. Researchers say the chip could capture screen content and button presses to obtain seed phrases, but this is an inference, and Ledger has not confirmed how or when the tampering occurred. Bitquery estimates $93.2 million was taken from 315 wallets, YFarmX puts the figure at $94.5 million from 521 addresses, and Tether froze $10 million. CryptoBilis has paused sales and shipments of hardware wallets, and Ledger advises not using unset-up devices bought from it in the past 90 days, while existing users should move funds to new devices with new recovery phrases.

Vietstock's Technical Analysis team reviews 10 hot stocks for short-term reference, namely ACV, BSR, BVH, DPM, HDB, NLG, SAB, VHM, VCB and VJC, based on the October 12, 2026 session. ACV and HDB are seen with improving short-term outlooks, with HDB trading on the Upper Band of its Bollinger Bands and breaking its May 2026 peak. BSR fell on lower volume, dropped below its Bollinger middle band and faces resistance at its May 2026 peak, while BVH formed a Hammer-like candle but saw volume fall and its Stochastic cross down, signaling a possible short-term correction. VHM is swinging sharply and retesting its June 2026 low, while VCB and VJC remain cautious, with volume below the 20-day average.

Gold-backed ETFs worldwide drew in 67.3 tonnes of gold, nearly $10 billion, in September, pushing third-quarter inflows to a record $31 billion, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). The unusual point is that money kept flowing in even as the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points and both Treasury yields and the dollar rose, factors that typically pressure gold. North America reversed after outflows in the first half, taking in $11.7 billion in the third quarter and bringing year-to-date flows back to about $4.1 billion, while Asia posted its third consecutive month of inflows, led by China. The WGC says the 10-year US Treasury yield staying above 5% remains the biggest variable for gold, and that demand may be more durable than a one-off reaction.

On the morning of October 13, SJC gold bars fell VND 800,000 from the previous day to VND 140.5-143.5 million per tael, bringing the two-day drop to VND 1.3 million across domestic brands. World spot gold closed the October 12 session down nearly $23 at $4,171 an ounce, equivalent to VND 132 million per tael, leaving the domestic price more than VND 11 million above the international level, compared with a gap of VND 1-3 million at the end of August. The market is weighed down by a stronger US dollar and higher oil prices, while investors await US inflation data for clues on the Fed's rate path. Kyle Rodda of Capital said that if inflation comes in above expectations and triggers another Fed rate hike, precious metals could fall sharply in the short term. Domestic silver bars also fell 0.7%.

Asian technology stocks fell on Tuesday as a U.S. chip sell-off spread to regional markets, with worries over AI financing and rising competition weighing on sentiment. South Korea's SK Hynix dropped more than 8% and Samsung Electronics fell 7.9%, both hitting their lowest intraday levels since August, while Japan's SoftBank Group sank 8.03%. Other Japanese chip and equipment stocks also declined after the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.44% on Monday. Micron Technology slid 3.9% as investors weighed competition from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), which reported progress on a new chip structure that boosts memory density. Analysts quoted in the article said the sell-off reflected broader anxiety over the AI trade rather than a fundamental shift, since CXMT has yet to reach large-scale production and still lags in HBM, while the Intel and Broadcom CEOs warned that access to capital could become a headwind for the AI boom.

TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG) closed at $1,107.99 on October 9 and returned -10.15% over six months, versus 24.3% for the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and 15.1% for the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The negative book value of about -$167.97 per share is a deliberate result of borrowing to fund buybacks and large special dividends, which pushed debt to $33.49 billion, and the company pays no regular dividend. Its proprietary aircraft components generate high aftermarket margins, with a 46.01% operating margin and 22.50% revenue growth in the latest quarter, and a current ratio above three means no immediate liquidity problem. The main risk is the installed base, since aftermarket demand depends on aircraft flying and retiring slowly, and a sustained fall in flight hours would hit the highest-margin revenue first. The article concludes that borrowing built this structure and is the factor most likely to unbuild it.

South Korea has approved measures to block domestic access to 27 websites run by unregistered crypto exchanges and other virtual asset providers, including KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex and Bitrue. The Financial Intelligence Unit announced the decision on Tuesday, following reviews by the Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission on Oct. 6 and 7. The blocks target platforms not registered under the country's anti-money laundering law, by terminating domestically hosted services or blocking overseas-operated sites. The FIU acknowledged that existing users may have difficulty withdrawing assets and said it will provide withdrawal guidance through DAXA with operator cooperation. The move follows earlier restrictions on 14 apps on Apple's App Store and 17 on Google Play.

The article compares Amazon.com (AMZN) and Alibaba Group (BABA), two e-commerce leaders in the US and China. For the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2025, Amazon reported revenue of nearly $716.9 billion, up 12.4%, net income of roughly $77.7 billion, and free cash flow of nearly $7.7 billion. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, Alibaba reported revenue of roughly $153.2 billion, up about 2.7%, net income of nearly $15.5 billion, and negative free cash flow of roughly $7.6 billion. The article notes Amazon faces intense competition, antitrust scrutiny including a lawsuit set for trial in 2027, and reliance on China-based suppliers, while Alibaba faces a complex domestic regulatory environment and geopolitical tensions. It concludes that Alibaba appears significantly more affordable than Amazon on both forward earnings and trailing revenue multiples.

Red Bull Racing is using AI to help staff make critical race-day decisions, while other F1 teams expand partnerships with Google, Microsoft and IBM. The system Red Bull built with Oracle started as a tool for searching F1 regulations and has evolved into an agent that recommends actions during races. At the 2025 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, after Max Verstappen cut a corner while defending, the AI recommended giving back the position to avoid a possible penalty; the team followed the advice and Verstappen later overtook his rival. Jack Harington of Oracle Red Bull Racing stressed that humans remain involved in decisions and that AI enhances engineers and strategists rather than replacing them. Verstappen also won the Singapore Grand Prix, taking his career win tally to 73.

Shares of Six Flags Entertainment fell more than 10% in after-hours trading Monday, reversing a 4.5% gain in the regular session, after reports of a deadly roller coaster incident at Six Flags Over Georgia in Cobb County. Citing local police, the report said one person died and several others were injured in an incident involving the 200-foot Goliath coaster shortly before 4 p.m. Witnesses said a man fell from the ride and struck it several times, and riders were later evacuated after the coaster stopped near the top. Six Flags said it was cooperating fully with the investigation, had temporarily closed similar attractions across its parks, and would not release further details out of respect for the family's privacy. The company's shares have fallen 22% year to date.

Nvidia reported second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year. In the first half of fiscal 2027, company-defined free cash flow was $69.895 billion, but after $35.163 billion of net equity-security purchases, $34.732 billion remained. Repurchases and dividends totaled $45.334 billion, and net equity purchases equaled 50.3% of free cash flow. The resulting $10.602 billion gap required other funding, including $24.896 billion of debt issuance. The article notes that the $99 billion equity-investment balance at July 26, $25 billion of equity-investment commitments, and a conditional $105 billion cap on data-center guarantees sit outside the current cash bridge.

Morningstar (MORN), with a market value of about $7.7b, plans to relocate its global headquarters to Chicago's Thompson Center alongside Google, becoming a co-anchor tenant in the renovated complex. Management describes the new base as a hub for collaboration, sustainability and a refreshed workplace, and the article suggests its design around collaboration space and transport links could support faster product development. It links the move to Morningstar's strategy of turning data, AI tools and indexes into products clients pay for, including Direct AI and PitchBook integrations. The article says the clearest early test is whether clients adopt Morningstar Direct AI and agents such as the Product Development Agent and Manager Research Agent over the next 12 to 24 months, as reflected in subscription trends and usage of Morningstar data in tools like Claude, Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT.

Gates Foundation Trust, the investment vehicle linked to Bill Gates, has continued reducing its holdings in Vietnamese stocks. On October 2, 2026, the fund sold 100,000 shares of TNG (HNX: TNG), leaving it with 250,000 shares, or 0.1942% of charter capital. In the same session, Norges Bank sold 100,000 shares, pushing the related foreign investor group below 5% and out of major shareholder status at TNG. The fund had held 750,000 TNG shares in early June, so it cut 500,000 shares in roughly four months. Earlier, on July 16, it sold all 112,893 PNJ shares. The article stresses that Gates Foundation Trust is a separate legal entity, and its trades should be distinguished from those of other members of the Dragon Capital-linked group.

Ventas (NYSE: VTR) closed at $82.04 on October 9 and has returned -2.8% over six months, trailing the 24.3% gain of the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and the 15.1% gain of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The article argues that the payout ratio above 370% is a distortion caused by large real estate depreciation, which is deducted before earnings, while free cash flow of about a billion dollars actually funds the dividend. Revenue grew 21.70% in the latest quarter, helped by senior housing occupancy that is still recovering. However, coverage is thin: the current ratio is 0.30 against $12.92 billion of debt, and ROE of 2.01% sits below ROA of 2.17%. The author says senior housing occupancy is the key swing factor in both directions.

Microsoft has announced Maia 300, its third-generation in-house AI chip, and plans to ramp up Maia from 2027 as the primary inference system for its own products. Microsoft estimates Maia 300 will generate 40% more tokens per megawatt than top GPU-based systems, though this is its own projection, and it still plans to deploy Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin systems. Nvidia's fiscal Q2 2027 revenue reached $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year, while spending by hyperscale customers more than doubled to $48.7 billion. The author argues that custom chips like Maia may take some work from Nvidia, but the stock, about 6% below its October 6 record close, does not appear priced as if Nvidia will keep all of it. It trades at roughly 14 times the average analyst earnings estimate for fiscal 2028, compared with about 23 times for Microsoft's fiscal 2028.

Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) closed at $103.38 on October 9 and has returned -54.3% over the last six months, compared with 24.3% for the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and 15.1% for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. One group views Charter as a near-monopoly cable infrastructure business with a 23.50% operating margin and operating cash flow more than three times reported profit, arguing that a multiple below three times earnings looks too cheap. The other sees a highly indebted borrower losing broadband customers to fibre and fixed wireless, and 41.52% of the float is sold short. The article argues that trailing earnings reflect deal accounting from the $34.5 billion Cox Communications acquisition and the Liberty Broadband transaction, and that revenue fell 1.70% in the latest quarter. It also cites debt of $96.71 billion against about half a billion dollars in cash and a current ratio of 0.36.

Meta has unveiled Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which it calls its most capable models to date and a step toward 'personal superintelligence.' The models add two features: Active Memory, which carries relevant information across conversations, and Active Focus, which helps the agent sustain work on difficult tasks. Artificial Analysis scored Wonder Full at 56 and the standard Wonder at 52 on its Intelligence Index, above Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra (53 each) but below Claude Opus 5.5 (58). Abacus.AI CEO Bindu Reddy disputed the claims, saying Muse Wonder was 'nowhere near Fable or Astra level.' The standard model costs $4 per million input tokens, matching Claude Opus 5.5 and undercutting GPT-6 Astra ($10) and Claude Fable 5.1 ($50), while Wonder Full is available only on Muse Code's $50 and $200 monthly tiers.

ServiceNow grew revenue 24% but earnings fell 22.60%, as the company deliberately spent on sales headcount and engineering payroll to win future customers. The article argues the company did not cut prices to win deals, since gross margin stays at 74.77%, and free cash flow came in at nearly three times reported net income. The stock closed at $140.86 on October 9 and has returned 58.1% over six months, outpacing the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index's 24.3% and the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust's 15.1%. According to the piece, the main risk is valuation: the stock trades at 28.14 times forward earnings, well below its trailing multiple, and a current ratio of 0.70 leaves little room for a bad year. The earnings recovery depends on spending stopping and growth holding up.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) shares fell 4.7% in the afternoon session after Phillip Securities downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy with a $346 price target, about 17% below the previous close of $418.78. Analyst Alif Fahmi called the shares stretched at 97 times earnings versus a historical average of 54 times, while keeping an 'overweight' view on software and naming Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir and Snowflake as preferred names. The stock had gained 5.1% in the prior session and more than 120% in 2026 so far. The article links the drop to profit-taking after the year-to-date rally, with shares closing at $403.81, down 3.6%.

DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan pitched Singapore at the DBS Asia Future Forward conference as a stable haven amid global turmoil from trade wars, El Niño weather, the Iran conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing that the city-state's predictability is a strength in volatile times. She cited Singapore's AAA-rated debt, political stability and central position in Asia, along with DBS's own top-tier credit rating, as reasons the bank can help clients diversify supply chains. Temasek, DBS's biggest shareholder, managed assets worth 518 billion Singapore dollars ($404 billion) as of March 31. On workforce strategy in the AI era, she said managers should hire for attitude, since it cannot be trained.

Meta Platforms (META) shares rose 3.6% in the afternoon session after Sensor Tower data showed its standalone AI assistant, Muse, posted a 73.3% Day-1 retention rate across 81 countries, versus 41.3% for ChatGPT. Retention fell over the full two weeks, with ChatGPT finishing at 26.8% against Muse's 22.5% at Day 14, though Muse stayed above 30% at Day 7. The assistant reportedly reached five million downloads within 22 days of its September launch. The data arrived ahead of Meta's October 27 earnings report, after the company raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $130 billion–$145 billion, amid market skepticism about that spending. The shares later eased to $739.68, up 3%.

Đoàn Nguyên Đức, Chairman of Hoàng Anh Gia Lai (HAG), marking Vietnam's Entrepreneurs' Day on October 13, said the company has overcome its darkest period after more than 10 years of carrying VND 36,000 billion in debt, completing its bond settlement with DATC on March 30. Once Vietnam's richest person on the stock market, he fell into debt along with HAG after the company lost liquidity, with accumulated losses of VND 7,000 billion. Rather than covering the debt with new projects, he disclosed the situation publicly and worked with banks to restructure, selling assets including a hospital, hotels and hydropower plants, and shifting to short-term crops such as chili and passion fruit. He stresses that credibility is an entrepreneur's last asset.

Kosy JSC (HOSE: KOS) kept hitting its daily floor price, with about 76 million shares in excess sell orders at the 13/10 morning session. As of the 12/10 session, foreign investors had extended net selling to seven consecutive sessions, with PNJ still among the most heavily sold stocks. The daughter of PNJ's chairman was forced to sell nearly 3 million shares through margin liquidation right after the chairman's brother completed a quick sale of 9 million shares. DRH Holdings (HOSE: DRH) hit the floor for five consecutive sessions from 05–09/10 and issued the required explanation, while SNZ does not meet public-company shareholder structure requirements because the Dong Nai People's Committee holds 99.54% of voting shares.

Vietcap, Mirae Asset, Yuanta and TCBS all view Masan Consumer's (HOSE: MCH) business platform positively, citing brand strength, distribution network, and profit and cash flow generation. According to TCBS, five of the company's brands each generate over USD 100 million in annual revenue, contributing about 70% of revenue and 80% of gross profit. Mirae Asset says active outlets rose from about 230,000 to 550,000 in Q2 2026, while Yuanta reports traditional-channel revenue up 10.6%. In H1 2026, revenue reached VND 15,637 billion (up 13.6%) and net profit after tax about VND 3,284 billion (up 10.9%), and Vietcap forecasts full-year 2026 revenue of about VND 34,593 billion. From 2017 to 2025, the company paid about VND 46,000 billion in cash dividends, and the key challenge is funding new products while maintaining payouts.

Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) closed at $397.28 on October 9 and has returned 13.4% over the past six months, trailing both the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index (24.3%) and the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (15.1%). The article argues that most of the reported net profit came from marking up a retained SanDisk stake after its February 2025 separation, while free cash flow came in well below net income. It calls the 43.80% revenue growth and 43.61% operating margin remarkable, but says they reflect a storage cycle at its peak, when demand outpaces drive manufacturing capacity. According to the article, a forward P/E of 12.40 looks cheap on peak earnings, while a price-to-book of 18.99 shows the stock is expensive relative to its assets. At the end of Q2 2026, 98 hedge funds held the stock with a combined value of about $9.94 billion, up from 83 funds and $6.57 billion the previous quarter.

Layer-1 blockchain Aptos has launched an optional Encrypted Mempool feature on its mainnet that keeps pending transactions hidden until their order is finalized, aiming to curb frontrunning and sandwich attacks. When users opt in, their wallet or app encrypts transaction details on the device, validators agree on order without seeing the contents, and they decrypt collectively once the order is locked. Sandwich attacks cost Ethereum traders about $60 million over the 12 months through October 2025, according to Cointelegraph's analysis, while Bitquery found they generated $29.7 million for Solana bots over 11 months. The protection has costs: encrypted transactions must pay a minimum gas price twice the network's base minimum, and add about 20 milliseconds per block in tests with 50 nodes.

State Street (NYSE: STT) closed at $174.96 on October 9 and has returned 25.5% over six months, ahead of BNY (11.9%) and Northern Trust (10.5%). The article stresses that custody banks earn very thin returns on assets, from 0.87% at State Street to 1.28% at Northern Trust, and that their profits depend on enormous balance sheets and clients who rarely switch custodians. Northern Trust stands out with a 42.50% operating margin, 36.40% revenue growth and 88.00% earnings growth in the latest quarter, though it spent more on investment than it generated in operating cash. On forward earnings, State Street trades at 11.30 times, below Northern Trust at 13.09 and BNY at 13.90, so the article calls State Street the cheapest and Northern Trust the one worth paying more for. The shared risk it identifies is falling interest rates, which would reduce income from interest and cash-balance fees.

Microsoft has sued brokerage JLL in New York County Supreme Court, seeking coverage for legal costs tied to a 2023 forklift accident during the build-out of its 150K SF office at 122 Fifth Ave. According to the complaint, JLL, the project manager, agreed to add Microsoft to its $10M liability insurance but did not, and refused to cover Microsoft after construction worker Anyello Frayind sued over permanent injuries from the forklift. JLL argued that the forklift operator's employer and Frayind were working on a separate project inside the building, but Microsoft says that claim is “factually incorrect, was made without investigation and was not in good faith.” The building is owned by The Bromley Cos., which redeveloped it at a cost of $100M in conjunction with Microsoft's arrival, according to the New York Post.

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong rejected the idea of weakening the Singapore dollar to boost competitiveness, saying the country must rely on its economic strengths. He argued that if the economy performs well, the currency will stay strong and stable, helping to keep imported inflation down. Speaking at DBS's Asia Future Forward Conference, Wong acknowledged that a stronger currency raises business costs and that Singapore is not the cheapest location in Southeast Asia. He said companies seek capabilities, stability and predictability rather than the lowest cost. The Singapore dollar has strengthened almost 0.4% against the greenback since the start of the year.

The article compares Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META) as investment options for 2026. In FY 2025, Alphabet reported revenue of nearly $402.8 billion (up about 15.1%), net income of roughly $132.2 billion and free cash flow of nearly $73.3 billion, while Meta reported revenue of approximately $201.0 billion (up 22.2%), net income of nearly $60.5 billion and free cash flow of nearly $46.1 billion. Alphabet faces a Department of Justice lawsuit over its search and advertising technology, while Meta reached a conditional $18 billion youth-safety settlement in August 2026. The article notes Meta trades at a higher forward earnings multiple while Alphabet is more affordable, and the author picks Alphabet, citing 24% year-over-year revenue growth and 82% growth at Google Cloud in the most recent quarter.

The article compares three drugmakers: Biogen (BIIB), Amgen (AMGN) and Gilead (GILD). Biogen closed at $225.71 on October 9 after returning 30.5% over six months, Amgen closed at $414.87 (up 18.6%), and Gilead closed at $151.17 (up 8.8%). Gilead posted a net loss of more than $3 billion over the past year yet generated the most cash in the group and the highest return on assets at 14.09%, which the author attributes to accounting charges. Revenue grew roughly 10% at Gilead and Amgen versus 3.40% at Biogen, whose earnings fell 84.60% in the latest quarter. Biogen has the lowest forward P/E at 13.65 times, versus 15.29 for Gilead and 16.94 for Amgen, and the author sees Gilead as worth its small premium.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the automaker remains on track to introduce 'eyes-off, hands-off' driving technology by 2028, starting with the electric Cadillac Escalade IQ before expanding to other models. Unlike the existing Super Cruise system, which requires drivers to stay attentive, the new system is designed to let drivers take their eyes off the road under certain conditions. Barra said she recently tested it and was impressed by its improvement since an earlier ride in March. GM exited its Cruise robotaxi business in December 2024 after spending more than $10 billion and redirected resources to autonomy for consumer-owned vehicles. Barra also argued that autonomous vehicles would not eliminate personal car ownership, as people still value having a vehicle they can use whenever they want.

The article compares Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald's (MCD) and Yum! Brands (YUM) over the past six months. SBUX closed at $90.75 (down 6.9%), MCD at $235.23 (down 22.8%) and YUM at $144.82 (down 10.3%), and none beat the two benchmarks. All three report negative book value, which the article attributes to years of buybacks and dividends funded with borrowing, while franchising explains much of the gap in returns. Yum Brands posted a 22.69% return on assets and 12.20% revenue growth, McDonald's had a 46.49% operating margin versus 12.92% at Starbucks, and Starbucks' revenue fell 1.40% with a payout above 140% of earnings. Starbucks trades at 29.04 times forward earnings, the highest of the three, and the author views McDonald's as the most defensible on the numbers.

Micron (MU) raised its stock repurchase authorization from approximately $2.16 billion remaining to $35.16 billion, its largest buyback ceiling ever, as CHIPS and Science Act restrictions on buybacks change on Dec. 9. In fiscal 2026, the company generated $133.2 billion in revenue (up 256%) and $99.3 billion in operating income, driven by surging memory prices from AI infrastructure demand, and fourth-quarter free cash flow reached $33.2 billion. At roughly $1,000 per share, the program could retire about 35 million shares, around 3.1% of outstanding shares. Applying a 17x forward P/E to projected fiscal 2027 earnings of $176 per share implies a price of $2,992, and the author argues buybacks alone won't push the stock to $3,000 but could act as a catalyst.

The Bank of Japan published results of its 107th Opinion Survey on the General Public's Views and Behavior, conducted in 2026 among 4,000 people aged 20 and over. Of the sample, 1,972 people (49.3%) provided valid responses, and the survey used stratified two-stage random sampling with responses collected by mail or internet. The article contains only the survey outline and contact details, without detailed findings.

Gold prices on Kitco eased about 0.6% in the October 12 session to $4,172 an ounce, after a sharp rally the previous week. In the same session, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold fund, bought a net 2.3 tonnes of gold and now holds about 1,055 tonnes. Markets price in roughly a 17% chance of a Fed rate hike in October and an 87.7% chance of at least one hike before December, so gold is focused on whether upcoming September CPI data revives the year-end tightening path. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield around 5.24% is also weighing on gold through real yields. Some analysts say gold may need to retest support near $4,000 an ounce, while another notes its rebound has lost momentum.

Gold-backed ETFs worldwide drew in 67.3 tonnes of gold, nearly $10 billion, in September, pushing third-quarter inflows to a record $31 billion, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). The unusual point is that money kept flowing in even as the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points and both Treasury yields and the dollar rose, factors that typically pressure gold. North America reversed after outflows in the first half, taking in $11.7 billion in the third quarter and bringing year-to-date flows back to about $4.1 billion, while Asia posted its third consecutive month of inflows, led by China. The WGC says the 10-year US Treasury yield staying above 5% remains the biggest variable for gold, and that demand may be more durable than a one-off reaction.

On the morning of October 13, SJC gold bars fell VND 800,000 from the previous day to VND 140.5-143.5 million per tael, bringing the two-day drop to VND 1.3 million across domestic brands. World spot gold closed the October 12 session down nearly $23 at $4,171 an ounce, equivalent to VND 132 million per tael, leaving the domestic price more than VND 11 million above the international level, compared with a gap of VND 1-3 million at the end of August. The market is weighed down by a stronger US dollar and higher oil prices, while investors await US inflation data for clues on the Fed's rate path. Kyle Rodda of Capital said that if inflation comes in above expectations and triggers another Fed rate hike, precious metals could fall sharply in the short term. Domestic silver bars also fell 0.7%.

Fed's Hammack says higher interest rates could be needed to prevent an 'inflationary mindset' from taking hold.

The Bank of Japan published results of its 107th Opinion Survey on the General Public's Views and Behavior, conducted in 2026 among 4,000 people aged 20 and over. Of the sample, 1,972 people (49.3%) provided valid responses, and the survey used stratified two-stage random sampling with responses collected by mail or internet. The article contains only the survey outline and contact details, without detailed findings.

Fed's Hammack says higher interest rates could be needed to prevent an 'inflationary mindset' from taking hold.

Crypto exchanges liquidated about $803 million in leveraged positions over 24 hours, 86% of them bullish bets, as bitcoin briefly fell below $81,000. SanDisk perpetual futures recorded $19.09 million in liquidations, more than XRP, showing how leverage on crypto venues is increasingly tied to chip stocks. About $595 million was wiped out in the final 12 hours, as South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 6%. Binance accounted for half of all liquidations, while Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell about 8%. The trend reversed as bitcoin recovered above $83,000, with shorts making up 79% of the $74 million liquidated over the following four hours.

Binance will discontinue Binance Pool and related services on Nov. 10, ending an operation that has run for over six years since its April 2020 launch. Affected products include Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, Transaction Accelerator and mining pool APIs, and they will stop generating rewards after the cutoff. Miners are urged to move their computing power to other pools, and users have until Nov. 24 to access historical mining records and payout information. Binance attributed the decision to an ongoing product review but did not give a specific reason.

Blur will close its NFT marketplace website on Nov. 12 and stop arranging new loans through its Blend lending service, although its Ethereum smart contracts will remain operational. Monthly trading volume fell more than 99.5%, from about $1.43 billion in March 2023 to under $7 million in March 2026, and the platform recorded no protocol revenue over the past three years. The shutdown comes ten days after the closure announcement of sister project Blast, which was also created by Tieshun Roquerre, and BLUR fell more than 20% to around $0.015. Borrowers have until Nov. 12 to repay their loans, while BLUR holders keep control of the fee switch.

Bitcoin climbed back above $83,000 on Tuesday after dipping to just under $81,000 early in the day, decoupling from a sell-off in Asian chip stocks and U.S. tech futures. South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 6% intraday to below 6,000, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which each dropped roughly 8%, amid concerns over AI valuations and Chinese memory-chip competition. Nasdaq futures fell 0.6%, while WTI crude held near $92.67 and Brent around $106 on Middle East supply risks, which the article says raises inflation concerns and the prospect of Fed rate hikes, a headwind for crypto. The Dollar Index sat near 102.50, its highest since April last year. Traders are awaiting Thursday’s U.S. CPI report, and Paul Howard of Wincent expects institutions to hedge with derivatives rather than cut their crypto exposure.

South Korea has approved measures to block domestic access to 27 websites run by unregistered crypto exchanges and other virtual asset providers, including KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex and Bitrue. The Financial Intelligence Unit announced the decision on Tuesday, following reviews by the Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission on Oct. 6 and 7. The blocks target platforms not registered under the country's anti-money laundering law, by terminating domestically hosted services or blocking overseas-operated sites. The FIU acknowledged that existing users may have difficulty withdrawing assets and said it will provide withdrawal guidance through DAXA with operator cooperation. The move follows earlier restrictions on 14 apps on Apple's App Store and 17 on Google Play.

Meta has unveiled Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which it calls its most capable models to date and a step toward 'personal superintelligence.' The models add two features: Active Memory, which carries relevant information across conversations, and Active Focus, which helps the agent sustain work on difficult tasks. Artificial Analysis scored Wonder Full at 56 and the standard Wonder at 52 on its Intelligence Index, above Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra (53 each) but below Claude Opus 5.5 (58). Abacus.AI CEO Bindu Reddy disputed the claims, saying Muse Wonder was 'nowhere near Fable or Astra level.' The standard model costs $4 per million input tokens, matching Claude Opus 5.5 and undercutting GPT-6 Astra ($10) and Claude Fable 5.1 ($50), while Wonder Full is available only on Muse Code's $50 and $200 monthly tiers.

Layer-1 blockchain Aptos has launched an optional Encrypted Mempool feature on its mainnet that keeps pending transactions hidden until their order is finalized, aiming to curb frontrunning and sandwich attacks. When users opt in, their wallet or app encrypts transaction details on the device, validators agree on order without seeing the contents, and they decrypt collectively once the order is locked. Sandwich attacks cost Ethereum traders about $60 million over the 12 months through October 2025, according to Cointelegraph's analysis, while Bitquery found they generated $29.7 million for Solana bots over 11 months. The protection has costs: encrypted transactions must pay a minimum gas price twice the network's base minimum, and add about 20 milliseconds per block in tests with 50 nodes.

Meta released Muse Wonder and the higher-tier Muse Wonder Full on Monday, its first frontier-class models from Meta Superintelligence Labs, both with a 1 million token context window. On Meta's own benchmarks, Wonder Full leads rivals including OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 in several tests, while the independent Artificial Analysis index ranks Opus 5.5 first at 58 and Wonder Full at 56. The API version, Muse Wonder, costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, matching Opus 5.5 and well below Astra's $10 and $50. The article also notes that the memory feature could hold a lot of users' private life data, and that Meta is not well regarded for handling private data.

REA, an open-source toolkit connecting AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex to reverse-engineering tools such as Ghidra, jumped from under 10,000 GitHub stars on October 6 to more than 100,000 by October 12. Fans have used it to create mashups like Spider-Man swinging through Arkham City, to port Fable 2, the only mainline Fable game never released on PC, to Windows, and to run GTA V on iOS. Developer Brandon Thomas used Claude Opus 5.5 to build ArtCraft, free Rust-based alternatives to Adobe apps, which he calls a clean-room rebuild that doesn't use Adobe's code. The article notes that AI able to read the code of any software on a device could weaken traditional copy protection, leading to cheaper clones but also easier piracy.

DeFi Development Corp (DFDV), a Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury company, added about 22,070 SOL and SOL equivalents last week, bringing its holdings to roughly 2,586,282 tokens worth about $287 million with SOL near $111. Weekly buys have shrunk from 101,381 SOL in mid-September to 26,202 most recently. Its CHAD perpetual preferred stock, which pays a 13% annual dividend on a $10 stated amount, hit record highs in the week ended October 9 and is approaching $10, despite an IPO priced at $8. DFDV common stock traded near $4.41 on Monday, a market value of about $140 million, roughly half the value of its SOL, while SOL is about 62% below its January 2025 peak of roughly $295. The release warns that staking rewards may not be enough to cover CHAD dividends.

With 22 days until the US midterm elections, two affiliates of Fairshake, a PAC funded largely by Cantor Fitzgerald, Coinbase and Ripple Labs, reported a combined $2.7 million in media spending to FEC on House races. The spending includes $512,000 for Pete Aguilar, $500,000 for Josh Gottheimer, more than $76,000 for Tom Emmer and $73,000 for Glenn Thompson, all of whom voted for the CLARITY Act in 2025. Fairshake also plans to endorse 32 more House candidates and had $122 million in cash as of August. The PAC intends to spend at least $30 million opposing Sherrod Brown, a former banking committee chair who voted against many crypto-favorable bills, in Ohio's Senate race. The CLARITY Act passed the House but failed a Senate procedural vote in September, and Stand With Crypto has warned that lawmakers who fail to advance such legislation could face consequences in the midterms.

A report from Tempo, a blockchain backed by Stripe, argues that a proposed FASB accounting update released in August could let qualifying stablecoins be classified as cash equivalents, removing a barrier to corporate adoption. Under current practice, stablecoin holdings may not count toward reported cash, affecting liquidity ratios and loan covenants even when tokens are fully backed by dollars. The proposal would require companies to hold direct redemption rights with the issuer, so buying USDC through an exchange would not automatically qualify, while Coinbase already classified USDC and other payment stablecoins as cash equivalents in its 2025 annual report. Public comments on the proposal are open until Nov. 19. It follows the GENIUS Act passed in July 2025, which sets the first comprehensive federal framework for US payment stablecoins and is scheduled to take effect in January 2027.

Evernorth, backed by Ripple, has listed on Nasdaq and holds 473 million XRP, currently worth far less than it paid for them.

Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum outlined a bold new strategy for 2030, and the article looks at its possible implications for the price of ETH.

Bitcoin miners are facing rising costs for AI financing as lenders take a closer look at deals.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has dropped to its August lows seen before the rally.

Heavy crude is piling up in the Americas because surging freight costs have hindered exports, while Asia and Europe struggle to secure supply even with Brent above $100 a barrel. Heavy crude is typically cheaper and suits many refineries, but US refineries can process only a fixed share of it, even though they have run at about 94% of capacity this year, the highest in 28 years. The surplus is also tied to higher Venezuelan exports after the US captured former president Nicolas Maduro earlier this year, a US release of more than 130 million barrels from its emergency reserve, and record Canadian output. Supertanker charter costs from the US Gulf to Asia have risen more than fivefold since February, to over $80 million or $40 a barrel, as ships are held longer by ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.

From July 3 to October 9, 2026, PNJ matched 602.6 million shares, equal to 118% of its roughly 511.7 million shares outstanding, while the stock fell about 70% from the July 2 close. Domestic investors accounted for 71% of volume (425.6 million shares), and foreign investors for 29% (177 million shares). PNJ has proposed cutting its 2026 parent-company after-tax profit plan from a profit of VND 3,409 billion to a loss of VND 6,271 billion, mainly due to a VND 7,071 billion provision for future product buybacks; Vietcap says operations look weaker even before that provision, with the pre-provision profit plan down VND 2,608 billion to VND 801 billion. Eight-month after-tax profit attributable to shareholders was VND 668 billion, down 54%, including a VND 61 billion net loss in July–August. Vietcap warns forecast profit for 2026–2032 could fall about 24% before any additional provisions, and up to 39–54% if 50–100% of the provision is booked, though these are preliminary scenarios, not official forecast revisions.

Cao su Tân Biên (RTB) reported Q3 2026 after-tax profit of nearly VND 121 billion, more than 6.5 times the VND 19 billion of the same period last year, on net revenue of over VND 184 billion, up nearly 13%. Financial income rose to nearly VND 108 billion, mainly from VND 104 billion in dividends from a subsidiary, while the average rubber selling price rose by more than VND 15 million per ton, outpacing a cost increase of more than VND 11 million per ton. For the first nine months, revenue reached nearly VND 436 billion, up about 28%, and after-tax profit topped VND 290 billion, up more than 33%, equal to about 83% of the 2026 target of roughly VND 349 billion. The stock rose more than 5% to VND 25,200 per share in the morning session on October 13, giving a market capitalization of about VND 2,200 billion.

ACBS expects the market to trade sideways within 1,700-1,900 in the remaining months of the year, with valuations below the recent five-year average. Vietnam was upgraded to FTSE Russell's secondary emerging market status, yet foreign investors are still net sellers, given Vietnam's modest weight in the index and the Fed's 0.25% rate hike in September. High interest rates are weighing on profits across many sectors; banking, which accounts for over 30% of market capitalization, posted weaker Q3 2026 results than Q2, though still up year on year. Ms. Đỗ Minh Trang says banking, oil and gas, insurance, power generation and ports still offer potential if selected carefully, while the real estate outlook is not positive.

HVS Securities (CTCP Chứng khoán HVS Việt Nam) became the first securities firm to release its Q3 2026 financial statements. Q3 after-tax profit exceeded 2 billion VND, up 387% from 439 million VND a year earlier, while revenue topped 5 billion VND, up nearly 77%. Almost all income came from interest on held-to-maturity (HTM) investments, while brokerage contributed little. For the first nine months, after-tax profit reached nearly 4.7 billion VND, but the company still carries accumulated losses of about 34 billion VND as of September 30, 2026.

Gold prices on Kitco eased about 0.6% in the October 12 session to $4,172 an ounce, after a sharp rally the previous week. In the same session, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold fund, bought a net 2.3 tonnes of gold and now holds about 1,055 tonnes. Markets price in roughly a 17% chance of a Fed rate hike in October and an 87.7% chance of at least one hike before December, so gold is focused on whether upcoming September CPI data revives the year-end tightening path. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield around 5.24% is also weighing on gold through real yields. Some analysts say gold may need to retest support near $4,000 an ounce, while another notes its rebound has lost momentum.

The article promotes the CFEI® certification from the U.S.-based National Financial Educators Council (NFEC), which BizUni implements in Vietnam, to help securities professionals not only give recommendations but explain them so clients understand and decide for themselves. It argues advisers need a broader view of personal finance and communication skills to check whether clients truly understand. CFEI® targets brokers, fund and asset managers, client relationship officers, insurance advisers and financial content creators. BizUni is the exclusive CFEI® partner in Vietnam for 2026–2036, and its training includes a Financial & Investment Fundamentals program alongside NFEC's CFEI® course.

More than $93 million was stolen from hundreds of Ledger hardware wallets sold through Southeast Asian retailer CryptoBilis, after the devices were allegedly implanted with malicious chips. Ledger confirmed at least one affected device had unauthorized hardware, and all confirmed cases up to October 11 involved devices sold through CryptoBilis, though its internal systems show no sign of intrusion. Researchers say the chip could capture screen content and button presses to obtain seed phrases, but this is an inference, and Ledger has not confirmed how or when the tampering occurred. Bitquery estimates $93.2 million was taken from 315 wallets, YFarmX puts the figure at $94.5 million from 521 addresses, and Tether froze $10 million. CryptoBilis has paused sales and shipments of hardware wallets, and Ledger advises not using unset-up devices bought from it in the past 90 days, while existing users should move funds to new devices with new recovery phrases.

Vietstock's Technical Analysis team reviews 10 hot stocks for short-term reference, namely ACV, BSR, BVH, DPM, HDB, NLG, SAB, VHM, VCB and VJC, based on the October 12, 2026 session. ACV and HDB are seen with improving short-term outlooks, with HDB trading on the Upper Band of its Bollinger Bands and breaking its May 2026 peak. BSR fell on lower volume, dropped below its Bollinger middle band and faces resistance at its May 2026 peak, while BVH formed a Hammer-like candle but saw volume fall and its Stochastic cross down, signaling a possible short-term correction. VHM is swinging sharply and retesting its June 2026 low, while VCB and VJC remain cautious, with volume below the 20-day average.

Gold-backed ETFs worldwide drew in 67.3 tonnes of gold, nearly $10 billion, in September, pushing third-quarter inflows to a record $31 billion, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). The unusual point is that money kept flowing in even as the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points and both Treasury yields and the dollar rose, factors that typically pressure gold. North America reversed after outflows in the first half, taking in $11.7 billion in the third quarter and bringing year-to-date flows back to about $4.1 billion, while Asia posted its third consecutive month of inflows, led by China. The WGC says the 10-year US Treasury yield staying above 5% remains the biggest variable for gold, and that demand may be more durable than a one-off reaction.

On the morning of October 13, SJC gold bars fell VND 800,000 from the previous day to VND 140.5-143.5 million per tael, bringing the two-day drop to VND 1.3 million across domestic brands. World spot gold closed the October 12 session down nearly $23 at $4,171 an ounce, equivalent to VND 132 million per tael, leaving the domestic price more than VND 11 million above the international level, compared with a gap of VND 1-3 million at the end of August. The market is weighed down by a stronger US dollar and higher oil prices, while investors await US inflation data for clues on the Fed's rate path. Kyle Rodda of Capital said that if inflation comes in above expectations and triggers another Fed rate hike, precious metals could fall sharply in the short term. Domestic silver bars also fell 0.7%.

Gates Foundation Trust, the investment vehicle linked to Bill Gates, has continued reducing its holdings in Vietnamese stocks. On October 2, 2026, the fund sold 100,000 shares of TNG (HNX: TNG), leaving it with 250,000 shares, or 0.1942% of charter capital. In the same session, Norges Bank sold 100,000 shares, pushing the related foreign investor group below 5% and out of major shareholder status at TNG. The fund had held 750,000 TNG shares in early June, so it cut 500,000 shares in roughly four months. Earlier, on July 16, it sold all 112,893 PNJ shares. The article stresses that Gates Foundation Trust is a separate legal entity, and its trades should be distinguished from those of other members of the Dragon Capital-linked group.

Đoàn Nguyên Đức, Chairman of Hoàng Anh Gia Lai (HAG), marking Vietnam's Entrepreneurs' Day on October 13, said the company has overcome its darkest period after more than 10 years of carrying VND 36,000 billion in debt, completing its bond settlement with DATC on March 30. Once Vietnam's richest person on the stock market, he fell into debt along with HAG after the company lost liquidity, with accumulated losses of VND 7,000 billion. Rather than covering the debt with new projects, he disclosed the situation publicly and worked with banks to restructure, selling assets including a hospital, hotels and hydropower plants, and shifting to short-term crops such as chili and passion fruit. He stresses that credibility is an entrepreneur's last asset.

Kosy JSC (HOSE: KOS) kept hitting its daily floor price, with about 76 million shares in excess sell orders at the 13/10 morning session. As of the 12/10 session, foreign investors had extended net selling to seven consecutive sessions, with PNJ still among the most heavily sold stocks. The daughter of PNJ's chairman was forced to sell nearly 3 million shares through margin liquidation right after the chairman's brother completed a quick sale of 9 million shares. DRH Holdings (HOSE: DRH) hit the floor for five consecutive sessions from 05–09/10 and issued the required explanation, while SNZ does not meet public-company shareholder structure requirements because the Dong Nai People's Committee holds 99.54% of voting shares.

Vietcap, Mirae Asset, Yuanta and TCBS all view Masan Consumer's (HOSE: MCH) business platform positively, citing brand strength, distribution network, and profit and cash flow generation. According to TCBS, five of the company's brands each generate over USD 100 million in annual revenue, contributing about 70% of revenue and 80% of gross profit. Mirae Asset says active outlets rose from about 230,000 to 550,000 in Q2 2026, while Yuanta reports traditional-channel revenue up 10.6%. In H1 2026, revenue reached VND 15,637 billion (up 13.6%) and net profit after tax about VND 3,284 billion (up 10.9%), and Vietcap forecasts full-year 2026 revenue of about VND 34,593 billion. From 2017 to 2025, the company paid about VND 46,000 billion in cash dividends, and the key challenge is funding new products while maintaining payouts.

The article reveals a notable timeline for the launch of Vietnam's first crypto asset exchange.

A wealthy businessman is recruiting people to sell vegetables, with potential income of up to 30 million VND.

A nuclear physics PhD is reported to be selling instant noodles and fish sauce, with assets in the billions of USD and ranking among Vietnam's richest.

Green SM, the company of Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong, has confirmed its IPO plan, with a venue outside Vietnam chosen.

SSI identified two sectors with favorable prospects as major construction projects start up simultaneously, which could create a 'wave' next year.

A well-known Vietnamese associate professor is reported to have lost 5,000 billion VND since the start of the year.

Vietnam has entered a period of the sharpest rise in capital demand in years, and an expert has pointed to key capital channels ahead.

Social media posts claim Russian bot traffic has fallen sharply after attacks on Yandex data centres, and some X users have run “bot tests” to show fewer automated replies. Cloudflare data does show bot traffic dropping, especially from Yandex, which fell to nearly zero on Sunday morning and has not fully recovered. However, the article argues this does not prove that automated accounts on social media have reduced their activity, since Cloudflare’s data measures all non-human traffic, including crawlers used by search engines and AI training. The widely shared charts therefore do not by themselves show less automated activity on social platforms.

The article compares Intel (INTC) and NVIDIA (NVDA) as AI stocks, weighing Intel’s turnaround effort against NVIDIA’s position as the leading GPU maker. Intel reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $52.9 billion, down 0.5%, a net loss of $267.0 million and negative free cash flow of $4.9 billion. NVIDIA’s fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2026 brought revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65.5%, net income of $120.1 billion and free cash flow of $96.7 billion. Intel’s risks include rival AI innovation and regulatory scrutiny, while NVIDIA’s include customer concentration, geopolitical exposure in Taiwan, export controls and legal challenges over its $20 billion Groq deal. The author says they would choose NVIDIA between the two.

The IMF warned that government bond yields could spike in a disorderly way as rising inflation, mounting debt and AI-related borrowing pressure sovereign bond markets. Yields in several advanced economies have reached multidecade highs, driven partly by higher energy costs from the Middle East conflict, and global public debt is near its highest level since World War II. Hyperscalers’ share of global investment-grade bond issuance has risen to 10% from less than 1% since 2024, while hedge funds’ share of U.S. Treasuries rose to about 9% in 2025 from about 4% in 2022, which the IMF says leaves the market susceptible to a disorderly unwind. The fund also flagged “circular” AI financing: 14 disclosed deals since 2023 channeled about $300 billion of equity and $650 billion of debt, in exchange for $1.4 trillion of future revenue commitments.

Michael Burry warned that stocks at new highs could be a “bull trap,” but is holding back on adding shorts; about 10% of his portfolio is in puts, with most of the rest in longs and LEAPS. He has moved his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac common shares into junior preferred stock, betting that a government resolution of Treasury’s roughly $388 billion senior preferred liquidation preference could lift returns four to five times from current levels. He expects a favorable resolution within two years, though he said the delay made him “antsy” given a deteriorating multifamily housing situation. FNMA and FMCC have fallen for seven straight weeks, down 68% and 69% year-to-date, respectively.

Syndax said its MAXPIRe Phase 2 trial of axatilimab in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis failed to meet its primary endpoint of slowing lung function decline, so it will halt further IPF development for the drug while other trials continue. Safety in IPF was comparable to placebo, and ongoing studies and the approved chronic GVHD use of Niktimvo are unaffected. The article views the setback as a narrowing of axatilimab's opportunity rather than a franchise-level issue, with Revuforj and Niktimvo still the core commercial pillars. However, Syndax remains loss-making and spends roughly US$400 million a year on R&D and SG&A, so revenue growth is the key factor to watch.

Meta Platforms (META) slipped 0.5% in overnight trading after rising 3.4% in the regular session, its best day in about two weeks, amid a broader market selloff over AI durability fears. Jim Cramer called it a “monster long,” citing Sensor Tower data showing Meta's Muse AI assistant retained 73.3% of new users the day after installation, versus 41.3% for ChatGPT. Analyst Dan Ives said Meta remains a core AI name, while ARK Invest sold 4,520 META shares worth about $3.36 million on Monday. META is up 12.8% year to date.

SpaceX (SPCX) has seen its price-to-sales ratio fall from about 100 times trailing 12-month sales at its June public debut to 68 times now, after sales rose 92% in Q2 2026, its first report as a public company. Growth came from its rocket-launch, Starlink and xAI segments, which rose 55%, 32% and 213%, but only Starlink is profitable and the company posted a net loss of $541 million. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas calls the stock “Cheap and Getting Cheaper,” citing 30 times 2028 expected profit versus a median of 16 for big tech, and a growth-adjusted ratio of 0.3 versus a 0.5 median for large caps. He sets a $300 target against today’s $162 price, while Raymond James’ Brian Gesuale sees $800. The article cautions that expected growth is uncertain and that SpaceX remains expensive and risky on standard measures.

Bitcoin climbed back above $83,000 on Tuesday after dipping to just under $81,000 early in the day, decoupling from a sell-off in Asian chip stocks and U.S. tech futures. South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 6% intraday to below 6,000, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which each dropped roughly 8%, amid concerns over AI valuations and Chinese memory-chip competition. Nasdaq futures fell 0.6%, while WTI crude held near $92.67 and Brent around $106 on Middle East supply risks, which the article says raises inflation concerns and the prospect of Fed rate hikes, a headwind for crypto. The Dollar Index sat near 102.50, its highest since April last year. Traders are awaiting Thursday’s U.S. CPI report, and Paul Howard of Wincent expects institutions to hedge with derivatives rather than cut their crypto exposure.

GFI Software has built its Eloquens AI assistant directly into GFI KerioConnect, the mail and collaboration server used by more than 30,000 organizations, announced in Prague on October 13, 2026. The feature targets organizations that run their own mail to control data, meet regulations or keep costs down, rather than moving to cloud services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot or Gmail’s Gemini. Eloquens AI sorts incoming messages within minutes: newsletters and notifications go to a “No Reply Needed” folder, decisions stay labeled in the inbox, and routine questions receive draft replies in the user’s own voice, each with its reasoning. It stays off until an administrator enables it, keeps mail on the customer’s own server, can be applied to selected mailboxes and turned off at any time, and offers a 30-day free trial with one click, which managed service providers can also offer to their customers.

Illumina (ILMN) shares have returned 118% over six months and more than 100% year to date, versus 14% for the S&P 500 ETF, as its core sequencing business shows signs of recovery. Clinical markets make up about 65% of sequencing consumables revenue and grew 15% outside China in Q2, while research demand remains cautious and is expected to decline in 2026. Q2 revenue rose 9.5% to $1.16 billion with a 22.5% non-GAAP operating margin, and management raised its 2026 revenue outlook to $4.60–$4.64 billion and adjusted EPS guidance to $5.30–$5.40. More than 95 NovaSeq X instruments were placed in Q2, and since customers take six to nine months to reach normal consumables usage, these could support revenue into 2027, while multi-omics and the Billion Cell Atlas are still early. At 46.17x trailing and 40.32x forward earnings, the article argues much of the recovery already appears reflected in the share price, with risks from research funding, China, and higher freight and memory costs.

Wendy's (WEN) shares traded at $6.31 on October 12, 2026, but the article argues that a low share price does not make the stock cheap. The stock has fallen 65.6% over three years, and its dividend yield has risen as the price dropped. It trades at 9.6 times trailing earnings and 4.6 times free cash flow, but with a $1.2 billion market cap and a $4.8 billion enterprise value, heavy debt is a major factor. The quarterly dividend was cut from $0.25 to $0.14 in May 2025 and again to $0.07 in August 2026, while U.S. same-restaurant sales fell 7% and traffic dropped 12.5% in Q2 2026. New CEO Bob Wright, the company's fourth since February 2024, faces a turnaround, and Q3 earnings are due November 5.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as investors weighed prospects of more Russian energy reaching global markets, with Brent down 1.48% to $105.05 a barrel and WTI down 1.57% to $92.27. President Donald Trump defended a temporary six-month easing of restrictions on Russian diesel supplies despite bipartisan criticism that it could undermine sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Goldman Sachs said an extra 800,000 metric tons of Russian diesel would lower wholesale diesel prices in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Europe by only $1 to $2 a barrel, as global diesel markets remain tight, with U.S. inventories down 14% and visible Chinese stocks down 11% year on year. Losses were limited by concerns over the Saudi-Houthi conflict, after a Houthi attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport on Saturday left 12 people dead and more than 300 injured.

Asian technology stocks fell on Tuesday as a U.S. chip sell-off spread to regional markets, with worries over AI financing and rising competition weighing on sentiment. South Korea's SK Hynix dropped more than 8% and Samsung Electronics fell 7.9%, both hitting their lowest intraday levels since August, while Japan's SoftBank Group sank 8.03%. Other Japanese chip and equipment stocks also declined after the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.44% on Monday. Micron Technology slid 3.9% as investors weighed competition from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), which reported progress on a new chip structure that boosts memory density. Analysts quoted in the article said the sell-off reflected broader anxiety over the AI trade rather than a fundamental shift, since CXMT has yet to reach large-scale production and still lags in HBM, while the Intel and Broadcom CEOs warned that access to capital could become a headwind for the AI boom.

TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG) closed at $1,107.99 on October 9 and returned -10.15% over six months, versus 24.3% for the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and 15.1% for the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The negative book value of about -$167.97 per share is a deliberate result of borrowing to fund buybacks and large special dividends, which pushed debt to $33.49 billion, and the company pays no regular dividend. Its proprietary aircraft components generate high aftermarket margins, with a 46.01% operating margin and 22.50% revenue growth in the latest quarter, and a current ratio above three means no immediate liquidity problem. The main risk is the installed base, since aftermarket demand depends on aircraft flying and retiring slowly, and a sustained fall in flight hours would hit the highest-margin revenue first. The article concludes that borrowing built this structure and is the factor most likely to unbuild it.

The article compares Amazon.com (AMZN) and Alibaba Group (BABA), two e-commerce leaders in the US and China. For the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2025, Amazon reported revenue of nearly $716.9 billion, up 12.4%, net income of roughly $77.7 billion, and free cash flow of nearly $7.7 billion. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, Alibaba reported revenue of roughly $153.2 billion, up about 2.7%, net income of nearly $15.5 billion, and negative free cash flow of roughly $7.6 billion. The article notes Amazon faces intense competition, antitrust scrutiny including a lawsuit set for trial in 2027, and reliance on China-based suppliers, while Alibaba faces a complex domestic regulatory environment and geopolitical tensions. It concludes that Alibaba appears significantly more affordable than Amazon on both forward earnings and trailing revenue multiples.

Red Bull Racing is using AI to help staff make critical race-day decisions, while other F1 teams expand partnerships with Google, Microsoft and IBM. The system Red Bull built with Oracle started as a tool for searching F1 regulations and has evolved into an agent that recommends actions during races. At the 2025 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, after Max Verstappen cut a corner while defending, the AI recommended giving back the position to avoid a possible penalty; the team followed the advice and Verstappen later overtook his rival. Jack Harington of Oracle Red Bull Racing stressed that humans remain involved in decisions and that AI enhances engineers and strategists rather than replacing them. Verstappen also won the Singapore Grand Prix, taking his career win tally to 73.

Shares of Six Flags Entertainment fell more than 10% in after-hours trading Monday, reversing a 4.5% gain in the regular session, after reports of a deadly roller coaster incident at Six Flags Over Georgia in Cobb County. Citing local police, the report said one person died and several others were injured in an incident involving the 200-foot Goliath coaster shortly before 4 p.m. Witnesses said a man fell from the ride and struck it several times, and riders were later evacuated after the coaster stopped near the top. Six Flags said it was cooperating fully with the investigation, had temporarily closed similar attractions across its parks, and would not release further details out of respect for the family's privacy. The company's shares have fallen 22% year to date.

Nvidia reported second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year. In the first half of fiscal 2027, company-defined free cash flow was $69.895 billion, but after $35.163 billion of net equity-security purchases, $34.732 billion remained. Repurchases and dividends totaled $45.334 billion, and net equity purchases equaled 50.3% of free cash flow. The resulting $10.602 billion gap required other funding, including $24.896 billion of debt issuance. The article notes that the $99 billion equity-investment balance at July 26, $25 billion of equity-investment commitments, and a conditional $105 billion cap on data-center guarantees sit outside the current cash bridge.

Morningstar (MORN), with a market value of about $7.7b, plans to relocate its global headquarters to Chicago's Thompson Center alongside Google, becoming a co-anchor tenant in the renovated complex. Management describes the new base as a hub for collaboration, sustainability and a refreshed workplace, and the article suggests its design around collaboration space and transport links could support faster product development. It links the move to Morningstar's strategy of turning data, AI tools and indexes into products clients pay for, including Direct AI and PitchBook integrations. The article says the clearest early test is whether clients adopt Morningstar Direct AI and agents such as the Product Development Agent and Manager Research Agent over the next 12 to 24 months, as reflected in subscription trends and usage of Morningstar data in tools like Claude, Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT.

Ventas (NYSE: VTR) closed at $82.04 on October 9 and has returned -2.8% over six months, trailing the 24.3% gain of the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and the 15.1% gain of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The article argues that the payout ratio above 370% is a distortion caused by large real estate depreciation, which is deducted before earnings, while free cash flow of about a billion dollars actually funds the dividend. Revenue grew 21.70% in the latest quarter, helped by senior housing occupancy that is still recovering. However, coverage is thin: the current ratio is 0.30 against $12.92 billion of debt, and ROE of 2.01% sits below ROA of 2.17%. The author says senior housing occupancy is the key swing factor in both directions.

Microsoft has announced Maia 300, its third-generation in-house AI chip, and plans to ramp up Maia from 2027 as the primary inference system for its own products. Microsoft estimates Maia 300 will generate 40% more tokens per megawatt than top GPU-based systems, though this is its own projection, and it still plans to deploy Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin systems. Nvidia's fiscal Q2 2027 revenue reached $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year, while spending by hyperscale customers more than doubled to $48.7 billion. The author argues that custom chips like Maia may take some work from Nvidia, but the stock, about 6% below its October 6 record close, does not appear priced as if Nvidia will keep all of it. It trades at roughly 14 times the average analyst earnings estimate for fiscal 2028, compared with about 23 times for Microsoft's fiscal 2028.

Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) closed at $103.38 on October 9 and has returned -54.3% over the last six months, compared with 24.3% for the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and 15.1% for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. One group views Charter as a near-monopoly cable infrastructure business with a 23.50% operating margin and operating cash flow more than three times reported profit, arguing that a multiple below three times earnings looks too cheap. The other sees a highly indebted borrower losing broadband customers to fibre and fixed wireless, and 41.52% of the float is sold short. The article argues that trailing earnings reflect deal accounting from the $34.5 billion Cox Communications acquisition and the Liberty Broadband transaction, and that revenue fell 1.70% in the latest quarter. It also cites debt of $96.71 billion against about half a billion dollars in cash and a current ratio of 0.36.

Meta has unveiled Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which it calls its most capable models to date and a step toward 'personal superintelligence.' The models add two features: Active Memory, which carries relevant information across conversations, and Active Focus, which helps the agent sustain work on difficult tasks. Artificial Analysis scored Wonder Full at 56 and the standard Wonder at 52 on its Intelligence Index, above Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra (53 each) but below Claude Opus 5.5 (58). Abacus.AI CEO Bindu Reddy disputed the claims, saying Muse Wonder was 'nowhere near Fable or Astra level.' The standard model costs $4 per million input tokens, matching Claude Opus 5.5 and undercutting GPT-6 Astra ($10) and Claude Fable 5.1 ($50), while Wonder Full is available only on Muse Code's $50 and $200 monthly tiers.

ServiceNow grew revenue 24% but earnings fell 22.60%, as the company deliberately spent on sales headcount and engineering payroll to win future customers. The article argues the company did not cut prices to win deals, since gross margin stays at 74.77%, and free cash flow came in at nearly three times reported net income. The stock closed at $140.86 on October 9 and has returned 58.1% over six months, outpacing the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index's 24.3% and the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust's 15.1%. According to the piece, the main risk is valuation: the stock trades at 28.14 times forward earnings, well below its trailing multiple, and a current ratio of 0.70 leaves little room for a bad year. The earnings recovery depends on spending stopping and growth holding up.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) shares fell 4.7% in the afternoon session after Phillip Securities downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy with a $346 price target, about 17% below the previous close of $418.78. Analyst Alif Fahmi called the shares stretched at 97 times earnings versus a historical average of 54 times, while keeping an 'overweight' view on software and naming Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir and Snowflake as preferred names. The stock had gained 5.1% in the prior session and more than 120% in 2026 so far. The article links the drop to profit-taking after the year-to-date rally, with shares closing at $403.81, down 3.6%.

DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan pitched Singapore at the DBS Asia Future Forward conference as a stable haven amid global turmoil from trade wars, El Niño weather, the Iran conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing that the city-state's predictability is a strength in volatile times. She cited Singapore's AAA-rated debt, political stability and central position in Asia, along with DBS's own top-tier credit rating, as reasons the bank can help clients diversify supply chains. Temasek, DBS's biggest shareholder, managed assets worth 518 billion Singapore dollars ($404 billion) as of March 31. On workforce strategy in the AI era, she said managers should hire for attitude, since it cannot be trained.

Meta Platforms (META) shares rose 3.6% in the afternoon session after Sensor Tower data showed its standalone AI assistant, Muse, posted a 73.3% Day-1 retention rate across 81 countries, versus 41.3% for ChatGPT. Retention fell over the full two weeks, with ChatGPT finishing at 26.8% against Muse's 22.5% at Day 14, though Muse stayed above 30% at Day 7. The assistant reportedly reached five million downloads within 22 days of its September launch. The data arrived ahead of Meta's October 27 earnings report, after the company raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $130 billion–$145 billion, amid market skepticism about that spending. The shares later eased to $739.68, up 3%.

Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) closed at $397.28 on October 9 and has returned 13.4% over the past six months, trailing both the Insider Monkey Billionaire Index (24.3%) and the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (15.1%). The article argues that most of the reported net profit came from marking up a retained SanDisk stake after its February 2025 separation, while free cash flow came in well below net income. It calls the 43.80% revenue growth and 43.61% operating margin remarkable, but says they reflect a storage cycle at its peak, when demand outpaces drive manufacturing capacity. According to the article, a forward P/E of 12.40 looks cheap on peak earnings, while a price-to-book of 18.99 shows the stock is expensive relative to its assets. At the end of Q2 2026, 98 hedge funds held the stock with a combined value of about $9.94 billion, up from 83 funds and $6.57 billion the previous quarter.

State Street (NYSE: STT) closed at $174.96 on October 9 and has returned 25.5% over six months, ahead of BNY (11.9%) and Northern Trust (10.5%). The article stresses that custody banks earn very thin returns on assets, from 0.87% at State Street to 1.28% at Northern Trust, and that their profits depend on enormous balance sheets and clients who rarely switch custodians. Northern Trust stands out with a 42.50% operating margin, 36.40% revenue growth and 88.00% earnings growth in the latest quarter, though it spent more on investment than it generated in operating cash. On forward earnings, State Street trades at 11.30 times, below Northern Trust at 13.09 and BNY at 13.90, so the article calls State Street the cheapest and Northern Trust the one worth paying more for. The shared risk it identifies is falling interest rates, which would reduce income from interest and cash-balance fees.

Microsoft has sued brokerage JLL in New York County Supreme Court, seeking coverage for legal costs tied to a 2023 forklift accident during the build-out of its 150K SF office at 122 Fifth Ave. According to the complaint, JLL, the project manager, agreed to add Microsoft to its $10M liability insurance but did not, and refused to cover Microsoft after construction worker Anyello Frayind sued over permanent injuries from the forklift. JLL argued that the forklift operator's employer and Frayind were working on a separate project inside the building, but Microsoft says that claim is “factually incorrect, was made without investigation and was not in good faith.” The building is owned by The Bromley Cos., which redeveloped it at a cost of $100M in conjunction with Microsoft's arrival, according to the New York Post.

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong rejected the idea of weakening the Singapore dollar to boost competitiveness, saying the country must rely on its economic strengths. He argued that if the economy performs well, the currency will stay strong and stable, helping to keep imported inflation down. Speaking at DBS's Asia Future Forward Conference, Wong acknowledged that a stronger currency raises business costs and that Singapore is not the cheapest location in Southeast Asia. He said companies seek capabilities, stability and predictability rather than the lowest cost. The Singapore dollar has strengthened almost 0.4% against the greenback since the start of the year.

The article compares Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META) as investment options for 2026. In FY 2025, Alphabet reported revenue of nearly $402.8 billion (up about 15.1%), net income of roughly $132.2 billion and free cash flow of nearly $73.3 billion, while Meta reported revenue of approximately $201.0 billion (up 22.2%), net income of nearly $60.5 billion and free cash flow of nearly $46.1 billion. Alphabet faces a Department of Justice lawsuit over its search and advertising technology, while Meta reached a conditional $18 billion youth-safety settlement in August 2026. The article notes Meta trades at a higher forward earnings multiple while Alphabet is more affordable, and the author picks Alphabet, citing 24% year-over-year revenue growth and 82% growth at Google Cloud in the most recent quarter.

The article compares three drugmakers: Biogen (BIIB), Amgen (AMGN) and Gilead (GILD). Biogen closed at $225.71 on October 9 after returning 30.5% over six months, Amgen closed at $414.87 (up 18.6%), and Gilead closed at $151.17 (up 8.8%). Gilead posted a net loss of more than $3 billion over the past year yet generated the most cash in the group and the highest return on assets at 14.09%, which the author attributes to accounting charges. Revenue grew roughly 10% at Gilead and Amgen versus 3.40% at Biogen, whose earnings fell 84.60% in the latest quarter. Biogen has the lowest forward P/E at 13.65 times, versus 15.29 for Gilead and 16.94 for Amgen, and the author sees Gilead as worth its small premium.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the automaker remains on track to introduce 'eyes-off, hands-off' driving technology by 2028, starting with the electric Cadillac Escalade IQ before expanding to other models. Unlike the existing Super Cruise system, which requires drivers to stay attentive, the new system is designed to let drivers take their eyes off the road under certain conditions. Barra said she recently tested it and was impressed by its improvement since an earlier ride in March. GM exited its Cruise robotaxi business in December 2024 after spending more than $10 billion and redirected resources to autonomy for consumer-owned vehicles. Barra also argued that autonomous vehicles would not eliminate personal car ownership, as people still value having a vehicle they can use whenever they want.

The article compares Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald's (MCD) and Yum! Brands (YUM) over the past six months. SBUX closed at $90.75 (down 6.9%), MCD at $235.23 (down 22.8%) and YUM at $144.82 (down 10.3%), and none beat the two benchmarks. All three report negative book value, which the article attributes to years of buybacks and dividends funded with borrowing, while franchising explains much of the gap in returns. Yum Brands posted a 22.69% return on assets and 12.20% revenue growth, McDonald's had a 46.49% operating margin versus 12.92% at Starbucks, and Starbucks' revenue fell 1.40% with a payout above 140% of earnings. Starbucks trades at 29.04 times forward earnings, the highest of the three, and the author views McDonald's as the most defensible on the numbers.

Micron (MU) raised its stock repurchase authorization from approximately $2.16 billion remaining to $35.16 billion, its largest buyback ceiling ever, as CHIPS and Science Act restrictions on buybacks change on Dec. 9. In fiscal 2026, the company generated $133.2 billion in revenue (up 256%) and $99.3 billion in operating income, driven by surging memory prices from AI infrastructure demand, and fourth-quarter free cash flow reached $33.2 billion. At roughly $1,000 per share, the program could retire about 35 million shares, around 3.1% of outstanding shares. Applying a 17x forward P/E to projected fiscal 2027 earnings of $176 per share implies a price of $2,992, and the author argues buybacks alone won't push the stock to $3,000 but could act as a catalyst.