Nasdaq Falls This Week After Meta Raises AI Spending

The Nasdaq fell this week after Meta raised AI spending as chip stocks sold off. Thursday's 2.60 percent drop was the index's steepest session since June 5, and Friday's close at 25,955.34 left the Nasdaq down 0.7 percent on the week (Associated Press). The S&P 500 closed 7,623.68, down 0.5 percent; the Dow finished 52,215.16, up 0.4 percent. The week in markets ran from October 18 to October 24, 2026. Meta's first cash outflow in more than a decade, Tesla's profit drop, SpaceX's AI beat, Houthi strikes on Saudi energy sites, and a Federal Reserve meeting next week sat on the same calendar. Friday's morning analysis and Thursday's evening review covered the session prints; this note covers why those stories matter.

Top Stock Stories of the Week

Meta beats on ads, then funds AI with a new share class

Meta reported third-quarter revenue of 64.6 billion dollars, up 26 percent and above the 63.4 billion-dollar consensus. Capital spending, including finance-lease principal, hit 34.91 billion dollars, and free cash flow printed negative 2.12 billion dollars, the first quarterly shortfall since the 2012 listing (company 8-K). Full-year 2026 capex was narrowed to 135 to 145 billion dollars by lifting the floor from 130 billion. The board approved a non-voting Class C stock, effective January 2027, distributed one-for-one as a stock dividend that Meta said would price like a two-for-one split. Shares fell about 7 percent on Thursday. Why it matters: the ad engine is still growing. The print asked whether hyperscaler cash can fund the AI build without new equity, and it pulled semiconductor names with it. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index dropped 6.7 percent on Thursday, its largest daily decline since June 23 (Reuters).

Tesla profit falls as the company cuts 2026 spending

Tesla posted revenue of 28.05 billion dollars, roughly flat, and GAAP net income of 787 million dollars, down 43 percent. Non-GAAP earnings were 48 cents a share against about 45 cents expected. Free cash flow returned to 1.53 billion dollars, and management cut 2026 capital spending to about 20 billion dollars from more than 25 billion. Shares still fell about 3 percent on Thursday, as covered in Thursday's morning analysis. Why it matters: Tesla is spending on autonomy while the car business is no longer growing. The capex cut flattered cash flow this quarter and told the market that 2026 will not be the 25 billion-dollar infrastructure year some had modeled, a different signal from Meta's raised floor.

SpaceX's AI unit overtakes Starlink

SpaceX reported Tuesday after the close. Revenue rose 161 percent to 14.58 billion dollars, above a 12.7 billion-dollar consensus, and net income swung to 4.4 billion dollars from a year-earlier loss. The Super Intelligence segment brought in 7.56 billion dollars, more than Starlink at 5.25 billion and launch at 1.77 billion combined. Capital expenditure was 19.59 billion dollars, mostly for compute. Shares jumped in Wednesday's cash session and helped the Nasdaq close up 1.05 percent, as Wednesday's evening review laid out. Why it matters: SpaceX is the rare large AI spender that showed the new segment already covering more than half of sales. That split is what traders will carry into Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon next week.

Netflix slows while Lam Research still gets sold

Netflix reported revenue of 12.87 billion dollars, in line, then cut its 2026 advertising outlook to 2.7 billion dollars from 3 billion. Shares dropped about 6 percent after hours on Tuesday. Lam Research posted a fifth straight record quarter, with September-quarter revenue of 8.22 billion dollars, then traded lower into Thursday's chip dump. IBM printed 17.1 billion dollars of revenue, up 6 percent. Procter & Gamble and Spotify gained after their reports (Reuters). Why it matters: earnings season is not a single AI verdict. Consumer prints held up while the Nasdaq's Thursday slide stayed concentrated in semiconductors and the hyperscalers that fund them.

Top Crypto Stories of the Week

Bitcoin ETFs reverse after a 635 million-dollar outflow

US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in about 1.08 billion dollars over three sessions, then posted 635.49 million dollars of net outflows on October 22, the largest daily withdrawal since June 25 (SoSoValue, via crypto.news). October's cumulative Bitcoin ETF flows turned negative by about 174.5 million dollars. Bitcoin spent the week between roughly 80,400 and 85,000 dollars and last printed about 80,600 dollars on Saturday. Ether last printed about 2,370 dollars. Ether funds have been net sellers for most of October; XRP products have been the relative bright spot on a 30-day basis. Why it matters: the ETF bid that cushioned September is no longer one-way. One large outflow day was enough to send Bitcoin back to the 80,000-dollar area that has capped the range since mid-month.

Solana switches on Alpenglow

Solana activated the Alpenglow consensus upgrade on October 21 at slot 459,653,000, about 14:00 UTC, retiring TowerBFT, the voting system it had run since March 2020 (Anza, The Block). Finality is designed to fall from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds. Fees and program behavior are unchanged. Solana last printed about 102 dollars. J.P. Morgan Asset Management also brought two tokenized funds, MONY and JLTXX, onto Solana for qualified US investors. Why it matters: this is a live-network consensus swap, not a price story. Faster finality is the feature exchanges and payment firms said they needed. ETF flows into Solana products were still negative on the week, so the upgrade and ETF flows are not moving together yet.

OCC finalizes GENIUS Act rules; Switzerland clears a Bitcoin ETF

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued its final GENIUS Act rule on October 21, covering reserves, redemption, custody, and supervision for permitted payment-stablecoin issuers. The rule takes effect on January 18, 2027. FINMA approved Switzerland's first retail exchange-traded fund that holds Bitcoin directly. BIT Asset Management later identified the product as BBIT, with a planned SIX listing in November. Ethereum developers postponed the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi testnet, previously set for October 26, after ChainSecurity flagged how EIP-8037 could change the way existing contracts handle failed calls. No replacement date was set (Ethereum Foundation). Why it matters: the US now has a dated federal stablecoin rulebook, Europe added a fund wrapper, and Ethereum slipped a scaling rehearsal. None of those prints moved weekend prices much. All three change the 2027 product calendar.

M&A, Partnerships, Deals

Merck KGaA agreed on Monday to buy UK-based Silence Therapeutics for about 1.3 billion dollars in cash, adding the Phase 3-ready siRNA candidate divesiran (company release, October 19). Gilead agreed to buy an oral IL-23R inhibitor from PepStar for 1.275 billion dollars. Standard Chartered signed agreements to take full ownership of Zodia Custody, subject to approvals. Tether joined Tenstorrent's 1.5 billion-dollar Series E. Fireblocks denied an Axios report that Visa was in talks to buy the firm for about 2.5 billion dollars. Why it matters: the week's cash deals sat in rare disease, custody, and chips, not in mega-cap tech. The denied Visa headline is a reminder that crypto-infrastructure rumours are running ahead of signed paperwork.

Regulatory & Macro

Oil was the macro shock. Yemen's Houthis claimed strikes on Saudi energy and airport sites, including an Aramco facility at Yanbu. Saudi Aramco evacuated its Dhahran headquarters, Reuters reported. Brent settled Friday at 116.72 dollars, up 3.14 percent and the highest close since April 29, up 6 percent on the week. West Texas Intermediate settled at 103.27 dollars, up 3.8 percent on Friday and 2.3 percent on the week (Reuters). The US Energy Department authorized an emergency exchange of up to 400,000 barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Friday's evening review had crude through 100 dollars while cash was still open; the settlement confirmed the move.

S&P Global's flash US composite PMI eased to 57.6 from 58.4. Manufacturing printed 56.0 against 55.5 expected. The output-price gauge rose to 59.8, the highest since August 2022, as oil and metals passed through. UK CPI rose to 3.5 percent in the year to September from 3.1 percent, above the 3.4 percent consensus (ONS), a print flagged in Wednesday's morning analysis. China said third-quarter GDP grew 4.5 percent from a year earlier, above a 4.4 percent forecast, on export strength while retail sales lagged (Monday's morning analysis). Gold last printed about 3,996 dollars on Saturday. The Fed is in blackout through October 29 ahead of the October 27-28 meeting. Futures late Thursday assigned about a 5 percent chance of an October hike (Reuters).

Week Ahead: What to Watch

• Wednesday, October 28: FOMC decision at 18:00 UTC (14:00 New York), with Chair Warsh at 18:30 UTC. Microsoft and Alphabet report after the US close the same day.
• Thursday, October 29: US Q3 GDP (advance) and September PCE at 12:30 UTC, then Amazon and Intel after the close.
• Friday, October 30: Exxon Mobil and Chevron report before the open, with Brent already at a five-month high.
• Monday, November 2: Apple reports after the close. Midterm elections follow on November 3.

The docket is on the ThriveInMarkets calendar. The question the week leaves hanging is whether the next hyperscaler prints show AI revenue catching the spend, or whether Thursday's Nasdaq session becomes the template into the Fed.