News Recap • Week 44 2025

Check the news below and make sure to visit my latest Market Recap as well.

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Macro

• Mon China’s industrial profits surged 21.6% in September, its biggest year-over-year jump in two years. (CNBC)
• Mon Javier Milei’s party won a decisive victory in Argentina’s midterm election and got a surprising mandate to keep pushing through its radical overhaul of the economy. Argentina’s Merval stock index soared almost 22% on the day and another 5.5% both Tuesday and Wednesday. (Reuters)
• Tue US consumer confidence fell from 95.6 in September to 94.6 in October and hit a six-month low. Trump’s trade policy and jobs being replaced by AI may be part of the reason, but consumer confidence has actually been trending down since late 2018 where it peaked at 138. (Reuters)
• Wed The Fed delivered its second straight 25 bps interest rate cut, lowering the overnight borrowing rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%. The cut was fully expected but the following presser by Chairman Jerome Powell was more hawkish than anticipated. He repeatedly said that a cut in December is far from guaranteed, surprising the market which had assigned a +90% probability of a 25 bps reduction at the next meeting. The likelihood is now down to 63% based on the 30-day Fed Funds futures prices. Investors reacted as you’d expect. Stocks and crypto fell while the dollar and US bond yields went higher. The reaction was rather muted though. (CNBC)
• Thu Presidents Trump and Xi reached a trade truce during a meeting on Thursday. Among other things, China will pause its plan for tighter export controls on rare earth metals for one year and buy 25 million metric tons of US soybeans annually, while the US in return lowers fentanyl-related tariffs on China from 20% to 10%. (CNBC)
• Thu The euro zone economy grew by 0.2% in the third quarter, outpacing the 0.1% forecast. Spain and France provided a GDP boost by growing 0.6% and 0.5% respectively while Germany and Italy dragged down the total growth rate. Although the growth rate is rather pathetic compared to the US and much of Asia and other emerging markets, the ECB will likely see the Q3 performance as a sign of resiliency and feel no need for further economic stimulus in the near future. (CNBC)
• Thu The European Central Bank kept interest rates steady at 2% for the third straight meeting, exactly as expected. With the euro zone inflation rate steady right around 2%, interest rates are currently neutral. Sluggish economic growth may be the driver for further rate cuts although the ECB doesn’t see the need at this point in time. (CNBC)
• Thu China’s manufacturing activity contracted from 49.8 in September to 49.0 in October, hitting a 6-month low and missing expectations for 49.6. Manufacturing activity in China has been in contraction, i.e., an index below 50, since April. (CNBC)

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Other

• Mon Qualcomm announced that it will release new AI accelerator chips to compete with Nvidia and AMD. The stock popped 11% on the news. (CNBC)
• Mon Indians purchased more than 40 tons of gold during the first two days of Diwali and preferred coins and bars over jewelry as the investment case outweighed consumption. (CNBC)
• Tue Amazon said it will cut around 14,000 jobs from its global corporate workforce, or around 5%. The stock was up both Monday when the rumor first got out and again on Tuesday. Investors seem to like the focus on efficiency. (Reuters)
• Tue Apple’s market cap surpassed $4 trillion for the first time on the back of strong iPhone sales. (Reuters)
• Tue Nvidia announced a $1 billion stake in Nokia which soared 22% on the news. Nokia’s main business in recent years has been supplying 5G cellular equipment to telecom providers. (CNBC)
• Tue PayPal signed an agreement with OpenAI to become the first payments wallet in ChatGPT. PayPall rallied on the news but quickly gave it all up. (CNBC)
• Wed Nvidia became the first company in history to surpass a $5 trillion market cap in the same week as Apple topped $4 trillion for the first time. (CNBC)
• Thu Netflix announced an upcoming 10-for-1 stock split to take effect on November 14. Shares will begin trading at the new price on Monday, November 17. While a split doesn’t fundamentally change the value of the stock, a lower share price does help in options trading and for Netflix opens up for potential inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (CNBC)
• Thu OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a $1 trillion IPO in late 2026 or early 2027. (Reuters)
• Fri Pfizer filed a lawsuit against Novo Nordisk and Metsera, claiming the latter breached its merger agreement obligation in declaring Novo’s $8.5 billion bid to be a superior offer. (CNBC)

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Earnings

• Wed Microsoft reported quarterly revenue of $77.67 billion, beating estimates for $75.33 billion. Earnings per share came in at $3.72, also ahead of expectations. Revenue from its Azure cloud business soared 40% from a year ago with overall revenue up 18%. The stock fell 2.92% on Thursday after the report and another 1.51% on Friday but is still up 22.85% year-to-date. (CNBC)
• Wed Alphabet’s quarterly revenue beat expectations and topped $100 billion for the first time. Earnings per share blew away the forecast, coming in at $3.10 adjusted vs $2.33 estimated. The company also raised its CapEx target for 2025 from $85 billion to a range of $91 to $93 billion. Investors liked what they heard and sent the stock higher by 2.45%, even though it had already rallied into the report. It’s now up 48% year-to-date. (CNBC)
• Wed Meta delivered a solid beat on both the top and bottom lines with sales growing at the fastest pace since Q1 of 2024. The company’s Q4 revenue guidance even came in above expectations. And yet, shares plummeted 11.33% the day after the report and another 2.72% on Friday. (CNBC)
• Wed Starbucks missed on earnings, making 52 cents per share vs 56 cents expected. Revenue came in slightly ahead of forecast though, and same-store sales growth for the first time in two years was another bright spot. Shares fell 1.2% on Thursday after a volatile session and extended losses by 2.74% on Friday. (CNBC)
• Wed Chipotle reported earnings in line with expectations but a slight revenue miss and now expects full-year same-store sales to fall by a low single digit percentage. After plummeting 23% this week, the stock is now down 54% from its June 2024 peak and more than 47% in 2025 alone. (CNBC)
• Thu Apple delivered earnings of $1.85 per share, beating expectations for $1.77. Revenue came in slightly ahead of forecast even though iPhone sales missed. The company also delivered upbeat guidance and strong early sales of the new iPhone lineup, which didn’t really factor into the fiscal Q4 report. Shares initially rose on Friday after the report but closed 0.38% lower, ending the week with a 2.87% gain at a new all-time high. (CNBC)
• Thu Amazon reported revenue of $180.17 billion and $1.95 in earnings per share, beating expectations for $177.8 billion and $1.57 respectively. The important cloud unit grew 20.2% during the quarter, beating expectations and easing some investor concerns during intensifying competition. The stock surged 9.58% after the report and closed at a new all-time high. (CNBC)
• Thu Eli Lilly reported revenue and earnings that beat expectations while also hiking its full-year guidance. Shares popped 3.81% on Thursday after the report and added 2.17% on Friday to close at their highest level since April. (CNBC)
• Fri The largest bank of Denmark, Danske Bank, delivered earnings above expectations despite a slight revenue miss. The stock popped 3.06% to a new all-time high on Friday. (Euroinvestor)
• Sat Berkshire Hathaway’s operating profit surged 34% year-over-year to $13.485 billion in Q3. Without any buybacks, the company’s cash pile grew to a record $381.6 billion. (CNBC)