Today is a classic “watch and wait” day — not panic, not euphoria — just a good chance to pick up quality stocks at a discount if you’re long-term.

1. The major U.S. indices had one of the worst days in a month, with the S&P 500 down around 1.7 %, the Dow Jones Industrial Average off about 1.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropping ~2.3%. 2. Big loss in tech/AI/darling growth stocks — eg. Nvidia fell ~3.6 %, Palantir Technologies ~6.5 %, Broadcom ~4.3 %. 3. Two main macro themes: A sudden drop in expectations for a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in December: markets now view the odds of a cut as just around ~50%. The recent long U.S. government shutdown (43 days) ending, but leaving behind delayed economic data, which increases uncertainty about inflation, growth and the Fed’s next move. 4. Rising bond yields add fuel: When yields go up, future earnings (which tech stocks rely on) get discounted more heavily. 

SoftBank’s move looks more like profit-taking than a red flag. I wouldn’t see it as a signal of trouble, but I’d still be cautious adding new shares right before earnings, unless you’re investing for the long term and can handle short-term swings.

 Year-to-date, highlighted in blue, the Technology (29.7%), Communication Services (26.2%), Utilities (18.4%), and Industrial (17.3%) sectors continue to outperform and lead the S&P 500’s sector performance.

With data up to Friday’s market close, Amazon, Apple, and Tesla have posted the lowest year-to-date returns among the Magnificent 7. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes continue to show gains above the 10% annual average.

In the last four times the Fed cut interest rates while the S&P 500 was at record highs, the index posted gains in the following months. Yesterday, this scenario repeated for the fifth time.

General Overview Alphabet ($GOOGL) rose about 5% in after-hours trading after exceeding expectations with its first fiscal quarter topping $100 billion — earnings per share (EPS) reached $2.87 and revenue totaled $102.3 billion. Alphabet outperformed expectations for the third quarter. Microsoft ($MSFT) moved in the opposite direction, falling approximately 3% after the market closed, even though its first fiscal quarter EPS of $4.13 and revenue of $77.7 billion beat forecasts. Investors were concerned about the slower pace of Azure’s growth and a previous outage in its cloud service. Nvidia ($NVDA) climbed 2.9% during regular trading and briefly surpassed the $5 trillion market capitalization mark, driven by news that it had already logged $500 billion in AI chip orders. --- Market Sentim

General Overview Alphabet ($GOOGL) rose about 5% in after-hours trading after exceeding expectations with its first fiscal quarter topping $100 billion — earnings per share (EPS) reached $2.87 and revenue totaled $102.3 billion. Alphabet outperformed expectations for the third quarter. Microsoft ($MSFT) moved in the opposite direction, falling approximately 3% after the market closed, even though its first fiscal quarter EPS of $4.13 and revenue of $77.7 billion beat forecasts. Investors were concerned about the slower pace of Azure’s growth and a previous outage in its cloud service. Nvidia ($NVDA) climbed 2.9% during regular trading and briefly surpassed the $5 trillion market capitalization mark, driven by news that it had already logged $500 billion in AI chip orders. Market Sentiment

$iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT)$  

$Amazon.com(AMZN)$  

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$  

$Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$  

$ARK Innovation ETF(ARKK)$  

$Nu Holdings Ltd.(NU)$  

$Nu Holdings Ltd.(NU)$