Stocks rose Friday morning after a softer session the day before, with all four main indices higher. Crude oil futures slipped and the 10-year Treasury yield ticked up.
Third-quarter earnings season
Q3 earnings start next week and are expected to come in 25% to 30% higher. FedEx (FDX) reports Monday. The big banks follow Tuesday morning: Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C). Bank shares have been hit over the past few weeks, so these reports matter; the consumer is still very strong. CPI and PPI inflation data also come next week.
At the open, the E-Minis were up about a third of a percent and the NASDAQ up about 7/10 of a percent.
Jason Stevens of Everturn Wealth said he still likes AI beneficiaries and now adds industrials and financials. He expects strong earnings and more positive forecasts, driven in part by AI, and is positive on the banks reporting next week.
OpenAI revenue report shakes tech
Tech sold off the prior day on a Financial Times report about how OpenAI reports its revenue. Because OpenAI is not public, its figures carry a lot of nuance. The story: OpenAI was expected to reach $70 billion in revenue as of September 2026, but a capital-raising letter listed $50 billion, which is $20 billion less. Wall Street saw the $50 billion figure, and tech sold off. Later reports say the real number is closer to $70 billion. The gap partly came from comparing OpenAI to Anthropic on the same basis, when the metrics are not the same and cannot be calculated the same way. So the figure looked $20 billion below expectations. $20 billion is not a small amount, and it remains unclear which number is accurate.
Names tied to OpenAI fell: Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), CoreWeave (CRWV), and Cerebras among them. The lesson: OpenAI headlines now move these stocks - good news may lift them, bad news may drag them down. Watch that link going forward.
Crude oil stays elevated
The president said he has no interest in attacking Iran before the November 3rd elections. About 15 minutes before the segment, Iran's IRGC warned that anyone violating the Strait of Hormuz will be punished in the future. The tone is not clear escalation, but there is no de-escalation either. Crude ticked higher briefly about a half hour earlier, then fell back about 6/10 of a percent to just below $91. Oil has been the market's main driver for weeks and months, and prices above $90 are very important because they feed into rates.
Oil pushing rates higher
Ben Emmons, who roughly two weeks ago called for rates to hit 6%, put out a note arguing that oil is what is pushing rates up, not capex spending or AI. The cause is the supply chain and shipping costs: ships now have to go around, which costs more, use smaller vessels, and move oil through extra legs from point to point, all raising the cost of moving oil. Until this is settled, rates could keep rising, possibly to 6% or even 7%.
Consumer sentiment
University of Michigan consumer sentiment arrives at 10 a.m. This is the first early look of the month; the survey runs twice a month. The reading is near historic lows, with a figure expected around 47.12 to 48. Year-ahead inflation expectations are around 4.6%, very high. The data tends to skew political - higher under Democratic administrations, lower under Republican ones - and I am skeptical of it for that reason. It counts as soft data, but the market still moves on it.
