Intel Pulled Chips Down | Oil Majors Hit Records | Senate Odds Topped 70%

Stocks Fell and Bonds Rallied. A Fed Official Still Wants a Hike.

The S&P 500 fell about 2.1% on Friday, the Nasdaq Composite about 2.9% and the Dow about 1.1%. Technology stocks fell about 4.9%, while energy, health care and utilities rose.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to about 4.93%, its lowest in seven weeks. St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said more tightening "will be necessary, and soon." Kalshi's contract on a December hike traded at 73 cents in early afternoon.

Gold fell more than 3% to about $3,890 an ounce, a 52-week low, even as yields and the dollar fell. Labor costs rose 0.8% last quarter, matching forecasts.

Investor Signal

Bonds are trading on slower growth, while the Fed is still talking about inflation. The two-year yield is the tell. It fell again on Friday, and a lasting drop there would mean traders doubt the December hike itself. Monday's manufacturing survey and next Friday's jobs report are the next tests.

Intel's Warning Spread to PC and Memory Stocks. Amazon Won Back Most of Its Drop.

Intel (INTC) fell further in regular trading and closed down about 29% at $65.76. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan said customers "began signaling a PC slowdown based on memory prices and availability."

Dell (DELL), Qualcomm (QCOM) and AMD (AMD) each fell about 11%, and HP (HPQ) about 10%. Memory and storage companies fell too. Sandisk (SNDK) lost about 13%, Seagate (STX) 8% and Micron (MU) 5%.

Nvidia (NVDA) fell about 4%. Amazon (AMZN) pared a premarket drop of about 7% and closed down about 1.4%.

Investor Signal

Investors treated Intel's warning as a problem for the whole PC supply chain. Memory makers fell even though higher memory prices lift their revenue, which suggests the fear is lost volume. Amazon's recovery suggests buyers were willing to look past its cash outflow. Whether PC makers repeat Intel's memory warning in their own outlooks will show how far the slowdown reaches.

Exxon and Chevron Hit Records on Refining. Valero Is Buying a Shut Refinery to Restart It.

ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) both beat forecasts and touched record highs. Exxon earned an adjusted $4.23 a share against $4.08 expected. Its refining and fuels business earned about $9.1 billion, more than the $7.3 billion it made producing oil and gas.

Chevron earned an adjusted $5.28 a share against $4.89. Exxon set a $20 billion buyback for 2027, and both stocks closed up about 2%.

Valero (VLO) agreed to pay $320.5 million for the Houston refinery LyondellBasell (LYB) shut in 2025. It expects to restart 165,000 barrels a day there by the end of 2027. That is close to the 145,000 barrels a day its own Benicia, Calif., plant no longer processes. Valero rose about 4%.

Investor Signal

Refining, not crude, drove the beats. Chevron said Brent averaged $97 a barrel in the third quarter, down from $104. Refining profits rose at both companies as oil and gas earnings fell, which lifted Exxon's adjusted profit from the second quarter but not Chevron's. Those margins rest on supply disruptions that can reverse. Valero's release put no figure on the restart cost or the pension and environmental bills it is taking on.

A Buyout Report Lifted Global Payments. A Lending Stress Gauge Hit a Record.

Global Payments (GPN) rose as much as 18% after the Financial Times reported that CD&R has teamed up with GTCR, its largest shareholder, on a joint bid. The report put the company's enterprise value at roughly $40 billion and said a deal may not happen. No price was reported, and the stock closed up about 13%.

GTCR received about 15% of Global Payments in January, when it sold Worldpay to the company. Under that deal's shareholder agreement, any takeover GTCR helps arrange needs the board's public recommendation.

Fitch Ratings said its U.S. private credit default rate was a record 6.3% for the year through September, up from 6.0% in June. Most of those default events were deferred interest or stretched maturities. Only 4% were bankruptcies, liquidations or out-of-court restructurings.

Investor Signal

Buyout money is still bidding for businesses with steady cash flow. A deal near $40 billion would need a large debt package from a lending market where Fitch's default gauge has risen every quarter for a year. A company statement, or Global Payments' results on Nov. 5, would show whether talks are under way.

Binance Set Aside $6.34 Billion to Repay Users. Crypto Stocks Fell Harder Than Bitcoin.

Binance said it has set aside more than $6.34 billion to repay users, $5 billion of it already held in the same tokens that were taken. It is buying the rest and aims to reopen withdrawals by Sunday and publish proof of reserves by Monday. CertiK, a security firm, said it needs more information to verify the $5 billion.

Crypto stocks fell roughly twice as far as the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which lost about 5%. Coinbase (COIN) touched a 52-week low and closed down about 11%, and Circle (CRCL) about 9%.

Coinbase's quarterly filing showed its chief executive, president and a co-founder set up plans to sell up to 13.6 million shares, worth about $1.9 billion at Friday's close. No shares have been sold under the plans. Its revenue fell 35% from a year earlier.

Investor Signal

Bitcoin funds took in money for a fourth straight day on Thursday, while crypto stocks were sold. Coinbase's revenue drop points to weaker trading activity, not a weaker asset. Binance's reopening and Monday's proof of reserves will show whether exchange risk keeps widening that gap.

Both Big Prediction Markets Put Democratic Senate Odds Above 70%

Four days before the Nov. 3 midterms, Polymarket's contract on Democratic control of the Senate rose to 72.5 cents from 68.5 cents by early afternoon. Kalshi's rose to 71 cents from 67. A single trade of 50,000 Kalshi contracts printed at 71 cents.

Polymarket's contract on Democratic control of the House traded around 93 cents.

Investor Signal

Two venues moved the same distance at the same time on heavy volume, which makes the shift harder to dismiss as one platform's quirk. The House is priced as close to settled, so the Senate is where the remaining uncertainty sits. Tuesday's results will show how well these prices read the race.

Friday's market paid for cash arriving now and sold earnings that depend on what customers do next. Intel's warning hit almost every company tied to the PC. The oil majors and a refiner were rewarded for fuel margins already in hand, and buyout money kept bidding for steady cash flow. Money kept flowing into bitcoin funds while the companies that earn from trading it were sold.

Next week brings the midterms, the Treasury's borrowing plans and the jobs report. Each will test whether bonds or the Fed has the better read on growth.