>>> US After Hours Summary: RDDT +21.9%, SNAP +8.2%, CAKE +5.9%, GOOG +5.7%, EA

After Hours Summary: RDDT +21.9%, SNAP +8.2%, CAKE +5.9%, GOOG +5.7%, EA +2% higher on earnings; QRVO -15.8%, AMD -7.9%, FSLR -5.8%, CMG -4.8% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: NRDS +26.3% (also authorizes new $25 mln share repurchase program), RDDT +21.9%, ATRC +14.6%, UIS +9.8%, SNAP +8.2% (also authorizes new $500 mln share repurchase program), MCY +7.5%, PRO +7.4% (also CEO to retire), ENVX +7.1% (also signs development agreement with smartphone OEM for mass production in 2025), CAKE +5.9%, GOOG +5.7%, UDMY +5.4%, TRTX +5.1%, FMC +4.3%, NGD +4%, EXEL +3.3%, ALHC +2.5%, SYK +2.4%, EA +2%, STAG +1.8%, V +1.8% (also increases dividend), EXE +1.5%, ATGE +1.4%, CB +1.2%, WPC +1.2%, UNM +1.1%, IEX +0.7%, MDLZ +0.5%, ALSN +0.4%, LFUS +0.4%, FCF +0.1%, NGVT +0.1%, ZWS +0.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: IMKTA +8.1% (announces post-hurricane improvements), DK +3.9% (Ion Asset Mgmt increases passive stake to 5.05%), LFVN +3.2% (reports trial performed on new MindBody GLP-1 System; also reports earnings), MX +3.1% (successful syndication of acquisition financing), FHN +0.8% (authorizes new $1 bln share repurchase program), USAC +0.2% (names new CFO), NXDT +0.2% (authorizes new $20 mln share repurchase program)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: QRVO -15.8% (also taking actions, including factory consolidation and OpEx reductions), OI -15.4%, SAGE -15.1%, AMD -7.9%, TXG -7.9%, FSLR -5.8%, DVA -5.4%, MIR -5% (also awarded two significant contracts), CMG -4.8% (also authorizes new $900 mln share repurchase program), CZR -4.7% (also to sell the LINQ Promenade), VRNS -4.4%, WERN -3.4%, MOD -2.5%, BXC -2.5%, CHE -1%, EQT -0.6% (also announces divestiture), MTH -0.5%, PK -0.4%, ESS -0.1%, KAI -0.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: THRY -9.6% (to acquire Infusion Software, also $75 mln stock offering; also guides Q3 revs in-line), CLW -4% (to be removed from S&P SmallCap 600), CTRE -2.8% (announces updated investments pipeline of $700 mln, including deal to acquire $500 mln portfolio in Southeast; also reports earnings), PRVA -2.6% (reports 2023 performance results in Medicare savings program), HMST -2.1% (FSUN and HMST asked to withdraw merger), CHWY -2% (Keith Gill liquidates stake), HRMY -1.9% (stock offering by selling shareholders), GRBK -1.2% (GRBK and MTH expand into Hutto), CBRL -1.1% (posts investor presentation), TV -1% (comments on unusual movements in share price; confirms it did not operate its repurchase program), BAC -0.6% (discloses CFPB inquiry update), GPRO -0.6% (updates restructuring plan; workforce reduction increased to 26% of employees from 15%), MTH -0.5% (GRBK and MTH expand into Hutto), MASI -0.2% (terminates employment of CEO Joe Kiani, reiterates guidance; continues to evaluate strategic alternatives for its consumer segment), PACS -0.1% (to acquire 12 skilled nursing facilities), NVRO -0.1% (presents new data), OII -0.1% (acquires Global Design)

FT : Google and peers weigh an AI prisoner’s dilemma

Google and peers weigh an AI prisoner’s dilemma
Heavy investment is generating real revenue, but as returns rise, so does rivalry

In the prisoner’s dilemma, individuals who would do best by co-operating instead turn on one another, with less than optimal results. Something like that is playing out on a grand scale as giant technology companies such as Google parent Alphabet and Meta Platforms, both reporting earnings this week, duke it out for supremacy in artificial intelligence.

These so-called hyperscalers, part of a group that also includes Microsoft and Amazon, have gone all-in on servers and data centres used for cloud computing and large language models. By 2026 the foursome will have amassed nearly $1tn in capital expenditure over five years, based on consensus estimates from Visible Alpha.


Alphabet on Tuesday gave hints that the spending is tentatively paying off. Revenue grew by a forecast-beating 15 per cent year on year, and its cloud business expanded by 35 per cent. Alphabet chief Sundar Pichai says a quarter of Google’s new code is now written by AI.

But while this technological shift is lifting revenue, it’s also raising tensions. New technologies tend to be winner-takes-most: look no further than Google’s 90 per cent share of online search. There’s no reason to think generative AI will be different. 

That makes peaceful cohabitation increasingly difficult. Facebook owner Meta, for example, is cooking up its own search engine to be less reliant on Google, The Information has reported. Mark Zuckerberg’s company is also giving away some large language models for free, in a challenge to rivals such as OpenAI. As billions of dollars of funding pour into upstarts like Elon Musk’s xAI or Google challenger Perplexity, the industry’s cortisol levels go ever higher.

AI is also breathing new life into old rivalries. Microsoft on Monday accused Google of using “shadowy” lobbying tactics to gain an advantage for its cloud business, which runs a distant third to Microsoft’s and Amazon’s, and distract from broader threats to its search and digital advertising businesses. Such disputes are familiar — a decade ago Microsoft ran privacy-themed ads warning Gmail users were being “Scroogled” — but the stakes are higher.

Supremacy is worth fighting for. The rents from creating an omnipotent AI, often called “artificial general intelligence”, are limitless. Even at more modest levels of achievement, the spoils are great. McKinsey reckons that cloud computing could create $3tn of extra pre-tax profit for companies worldwide.

Money will be incinerated in pursuit of this goal. Executives admit as much: Zuckerberg and Pichai concede they’d rather spend too much than too little. That makes sense if the victor will indeed grind all others into the dirt, making past investment seem like a trifle. Alphabet hasn’t yet proved it’s that winner, but its AI-enhanced growth shows it’s not yet a loser.

TechCrunch : OpenAI reportedly planning to build its first AI chip in 2026

OpenAI reportedly planning to build its first AI chip in 2026

OpenAI is reportedly working with TSMC and Broadcom to build an in-house AI chip — and beginning to use AMD chips alongside Nvidia’s to train its AI.

Reuters reports that OpenAI has — at least for now — abandoned plans to establish a network of factories for chip manufacturing. Instead, the company will focus on in-house chip design. OpenAI has for months been working with Broadcom to create an AI chip for running models, which could arrive as soon as 2026, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile, OpenAI plans to use AMD chips through Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform for model training. Previously, the company relied almost entirely on Nvidia GPUs for training, but chip shortages and delays — and the high cost of training — have spurred OpenAI to explore alternatives, according to Reuters.

The Information : Microsoft Strikes Deals With OpenAI’s Top Rivals For AI Coding

Microsoft Strikes Deals With OpenAI’s Top Rivals For AI Coding Assistant

Microsoft is turning up the heat on OpenAI. Microsoft’s developer platform GitHub announced on Tuesday that its wildly popular GitHub Copilot tool—which previously relied entirely on OpenAI models—will now also incorporate AI models from Anthropic and Google.

GitHub Copilot will be able to toggle between Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1-preview, and o1-mini, the company said. The new development is striking given Microsoft’s long record of relying primarily on OpenAI models for its AI products.

Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI grant it the rights to reuse the startup’s models in its own software, and GitHub Copilot became the earliest Microsoft product built on OpenAI models when it first launched widely in June 2022, months before OpenAI shipped ChatGPT.

That partnership helped OpenAI grab early mindshare with software developers, and was also a boon to Microsoft, which consistently pointed to GitHub Copilot as an early example of revenue coming from a generative AI product (the company implied in July that GitHub Copilot is on track to generate $300 million annually from subscriptions). And because Microsoft already had the rights to use OpenAI’s models, it didn’t have to pay sticker price for the AI underlying the tool, which theoretically helped GitHub’s margins on selling the $10-per-seat software.

Today’s announcement shows just how much the AI landscape has changed since GitHub Copilot’s launch. When I spoke to GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke about GitHub’s decision to start paying Anthropic and Google to include their models in its software, he said the move stemmed from developer demand for those models.

“Developers may have personal preference, or they may have seen a benchmark or an article on The Information about a new model that they want to use instead,” Dohmke said. “We’re not saying one model is better than the other. We believe that’s for developers to decide.”

Software developers and founders that I’ve spoken to see the move as a no-brainer given Anthropic’s recent advances in the code-writing space. As my colleagues Erin, Steph and Amir reported earlier this month, Anthropic has taken the lead over OpenAI in the race to develop artificial intelligence that can automatically write code or help developers improve their software.

Models made by Anthropic are beating OpenAI at some code-writing tasks, including in internal tests that OpenAI has been conducting.

“Claude 3.5 has been out for two quarters now and it’s just measurably, meaningfully better at reasoning and coding than [OpenAI’s] GPT-4o,” said Siqi Chen, founder and CEO of the enterprise software startup Runway. Chen said his company’s developers use GitHub Copilot but have simultaneously kept subscriptions to Anthropic and to other code-writing AI tools like Cursor and Augment to test which one performs best.

GitHub Copilot’s pricing will remain the same for now, at $10 per seat for individuals and enterprise tiers at $19 and $39, depending on how many features companies want to pay for. When I asked Dohmke whether paying for Google or Anthropic models will affect GitHub’s margins, he wouldn’t comment directly, but said GitHub has a “cost model for each individual model” and aims to “set the right price to achieve the best possible outcome for our customers.”

Meanwhile, GitHub also announced today that it’s rolling out another product that will compete more directly with OpenAI: a new application called Spark, which will use generative AI to create entire applications based on short prompts that users write in natural language.

For instance, a user could write, “make a budgeting tool to track my travel expenses” or “build an online store for my pottery business” or something similar, and Spark would automatically code the applications and host them online (GitHub is initially releasing Spark in a limited preview and will announce pricing details later).

My colleagues reported this month that OpenAI is working on a similar product that could use AI to automate such coding tasks. GitHub’s Spark, like Copilot, won’t rely entirely on OpenAI’s models: users will be able to decide between OpenAI or Anthropic models when they use the tool.

>>> Advanced Micro Devices reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in

Advanced Micro Devices reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q4 revs in-line (166.25 +6.33)
  • Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.92 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the FactSet Consensus of $0.92; revenues rose 17.6% year/year to $6.82 bln vs the $6.71 bln FactSet Consensus.
    • Data Center segment revenue of $3.5 billion was up 122% year-over-year and 25% sequentially primarily driven by the strong ramp of AMD Instinct GPU shipments and growth in AMD EPYC CPU sales.
    • Client segment revenue was $1.9 billion, up 29% year-over-year and 26% sequentially primarily driven by strong demand for Zen 5 AMD Ryzen processors.
    • Gaming segment revenue was $462 million, down 69% year-over-year and 29% sequentially primarily due to a decrease in semi-custom revenue.
    • Embedded segment revenue was $927 million, down 25% year-over-year as customers normalized their inventory levels. On a sequential basis, revenue increased 8% as demand improved in several end markets.
  • Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees Q4 revs of $7.2-7.8 bln vs. $7.55 bln FactSet Consensus.
    • Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 54%.

>>> US Close Dow -0.36% S&P +0.16% Nasdaq +0.78% Russell -0.27%

Closing Stock Market Summary
The Nasdaq Composite reached a record close, settling 0.8% higher than yesterday. The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, or about ten points. Mega caps and chipmakers contributed to the upside moves. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) closed 2.3% higher and the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) settled 0.9% higher.

Alphabet (GOOG 171.14, +2.80, +1.7%) was an influential winner ahead of its earnings report after today's close.

Market internals reflect an underlying negative bias in today's trade. Decliners led advancers by a 2-to-1 margin at the NYSE and by a 4-to-3 margin at the Nasdaq. Also, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%) closed lower.

The price action in Treasuries kept buying in check in the equity market. Yields moved higher following a strong Consumer Confidence report for October, but ultimately settled little changed from yesterday after a strong $44 billion 7-yr note sale that made for a welcome respite from recent all-around weakness in auction demand and intraday trade. The 10-yr yield settled unchanged at 4.27% and the 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 4.12%.

Market participants were also digesting a mixed slate of earnings news. D.R. Horton (DHI 167.32, -13.06, -7.2%), Ford (F 10.41, -0.96, -8.4%), and Pfizer (PFE 28.46, -0.40, -1.4%) are some of the names that closed lower after reporting results, along with Dow component McDonald's (MCD 295.00, -1.79, -0.6%),
V.F. Corp (VFC 21.63, +4.60, +27.0%) and Royal Caribbean (RCL 210.10, +6.58, +3.2%) were some of the earnings-related winners today.

  • Nasdaq Composite: +24.7% YTD
  • S&P 500: +22.3% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: +12.1% YTD
  • S&P Midcap 400: +13.0% YTD
  • Russell 2000: +10.4% YTD

Reviewing today's economic data:
  • August FHFA Housing Price Index 0.3%; Prior was revised to 0.2% from 0.1%
  • August S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index 5.2% ( consensus 5.1%); Prior 5.9%
  • October Consumer Confidence 108.7 (consensus 99.0); Prior was revised to 99.2 from 98.7
    • The key takeaway from the report is that the increase in confidence in October was broad-based across all age groups and most income groups, and featured a substantially more optimistic view about future business conditions than the prior month. That sets up to be a supportive component for consumer spending.
  • September JOLTS - Job Openings 7.443 mln; Prior was revised to 7.861 mln from 8.040 mln
  • September Adv. Intl. Trade in Goods -$108.2 bln; Prior was revised to -$94.2 bln from -$94.3 bln
  • September Adv. Retail Inventories 0.8%; Prior was revised to 0.7% from 0.5%
  • September Adv. Wholesale Inventories -0.1%; Prior 0.2%

ednesday's economic calendar features:
  • 7:00 ET: Weekly MBA Mortgage Index (prior -6.7%
  • 8:15 ET: October ADP Employment Change (consensus 105,000; prior 143,000)
  • 8:30 ET: Advance Q3 GDP (consensus 3.0%; prior 3.0%) and advance Q3 GDP Chain Deflator consensus 2.3%; prior 2.5%)
  • 10:00 ET: September Pending Home Sales (consensus 2.5%; prior 0.6%)
  • 10:30 ET: Weekly crude oil inventories (prior +5.47 mln)

>>> US Notable earnings/guidance movers: NRDS +24.8%, ENVX +21.8%, RDDT +17.4%,

Notable earnings/guidance movers: NRDS +24.8%, ENVX +21.8%, RDDT +17.4%, UIS +15.9%, SNAP +5.5%, GOOG +4.2%, SYK +4%, CAKE +3.8% on upside; OI -22%, QRVO -14.5%, AMD -7.2%, CMG -4.1% on downside
  • Earnings/guidance gainers: NRDS +24.8%, ENVX +21.8%, RDDT +17.4%, UIS +15.9%, EXLS +6.1%, ATRC +6%, SNAP +5.5%, UDMY +5%, ALSN +4.2%, GOOG +4.2%, ATGE +4%, SYK +4%, CAKE +3.8%, PRO +3.3%, FMC +3.1%, EXE +2.4%, EXEL +2.3%, IEX +1.9%, STAG +1.8%, SKWD +1.4%, CB +1.3%, EA +1.3%, V +1.3%, WPC +1.3%
  • Earnings/guidance losers: OI -22%, QRVO -14.5%, AMD -7.2%, TXG -7.2%, SAGE -5.8%, VRNS -5.5%, DVA -5.3%, ALHC -4.4%, CMG -4.1%, WERN -3.4%, FSLR -3.3%, EQT -3.2%, CZR -3.1%, MOD -2.9%, MTH -1.8%, RSG -1.4%

WWD : Annabel’s Gets Halloween Ready With the Ghosts of Versailles

Annabel’s Gets Halloween Ready With the Ghosts of Versailles
Guests channeled the ghosts of Versailles for the private club's annual fete.


LONDON — Members club Annabel’s has dressed up its facade for its annual Halloween party, looking to doomed 18th-century French aristocrats for costume inspiration.

A sculpture of a towering stone lady straight from Louis XIV’s court decorated the building’s exterior, creeping roses using her gown as a trestle.

A gilded carriage complete with faux-French royalty was stationed outside to welcome guests, conjuring up the spirit of the night.

Inside, the club’s interior was also transformed, recalling the Palace of Versailles. A ghostly mist crept through the halls, bedecked in gold, mirror and flowers.

White bouffant-wearing guests wearing poofy confectionary concoctions completed the scene. They sipped on Don Julio 1942 cocktails with names like Petit Trianon, Temple de l’Amour and Shadows of Versailles.

Annabel’s is known for frequently donning fabulous facades for celebratory occasions. Last Halloween, the facade took cues from Venetian carnivals with a masked installation with lit up red eyes and a feathered decoration hung above the famous black doors on Berkeley Square.

The club has previously celebrated All Hallows’ Eve with facades titled “Invasion Planet Earth,” “Circus of Horrors” and a “Game of Thrones” iteration based on the George R. R. Martin books.

More recently, Annabel’s showcased Wallace Chan’s work for Frieze, marking the club’s fifth year partnering with an artist during London’s annual art fair. Past artists include Damien Hirst, Joseph Klibansky, Es Devlin and Conrad Shawcross.

On Sept. 5, in honor of World Amazon Day, the club revealed an Indigenous headdress-inspired arch that paid homage to the Nukini community.

Made in collaboration with The Caring Family Foundation, one of the U.K.’s largest donors to Brazilian reforestation, the Nukini people are one of the communities that has received support from the TCFF.