• A choppy market despite a Friday close in the green. Market volatility reared its head ahead of the U.S. Presidential election. Stocks fell on Thursday as pressure mounted ahead of Trump and Harris facing off on Tuesday. Friday each index had a positive close, but the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ ended with weekly declines of more than 1%. The Dow’s decline was fractional. 
• Haven assets dropped. Gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies all pulled back from their weekly highs on Thursday. 
• U.S. labor market staggered. The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday revealed that employment gains for August and September were revised down by 112,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. The labor market weakened in October, as the 12,000 jobs that were added was far short of the previous month’s strong result and marked the smallest increase since December 2020. 
• GDP saw a solid gain. The latest quarter’s annual GDP growth figure was 2.8%, which was slightly below the second quarter’s 3.0% reading. It was however well above the 1.6% first-quarter rate.
• Most of the Magnificent 7 reported. 6 of the big tech companies reported so far. Of the six members of ‘The Magnificent 7’ group of stocks that have reported September-quarter results already, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta came in lackluster. Tesla, Alphabet and Amazon saw impressive moves. 
• Earnings are on a positive foot. As of Friday, analysts were forecasting that third-quarter earnings for all companies in the S&P 500 would rise by an average of 5.1%, based on results already reported and forecasts for earnings numbers that are still pending, according to FactSet.
• Yields on government bonds continued to rise. Amid inflation concerns, yields of U.S. government bonds rose for the sixth week out of the past seven, but at a somewhat slower pace. The yield of the 10-year note closed at 4.37% on Friday—up from 4.24% at the end of the previous week and well above a recent low of 3.62% on September 16. 
• Inflation is moderate. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, rose at an annual rate of 2.1% in September, down from 2.3% in August and the lowest figure since February 2021. Excluding energy and food prices, the core PCE Index rose 2.7% in September.
• Crude oil rebounded from Monday's selloff. The price of crude oil rose on Friday in anticipation of a Tehran response to Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran, the Telegraph reported. The price of Brent crude had risen to $74.64 by mid-Friday morning, up from $72.31 on Thursday and $70.90 on Tuesday.

• Globalstar, Inc. (GSAT)
• Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)
• Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)
• Super Micro Computers (SMCI)
• Intel (INTC)

Biggest Gainers

• Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (MDGL) +23.23%
• Waters Corp. (WAT) +19.84%
• Mobileeye Global (MBLY) +14.40%
• Air Canada (ACDVF) +14.04%
• Atlassian Corp. (TEAM) +18.99%

Biggest Losers

• Peloton Interactive (PTON) -14.71%
• Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) -13.53%
• Onto Innovation (ONTO) -11.21%
• DigitalBridge Group (DBRG) - 14.53%
• Radian Group (RDN) -9.28%

Weekly Notables

TGI Fridays Has Filed for Bankruptcy

Popular restaurant chain TGI Fridays has filed for bankruptcy protection. The Dallas-based company says it is looking for ways to “ensure the long-term viability” of the casual dining brand after closing many of its branches this year. TGI Fridays counts 163 restaurants in the U.S., down from 269 last year. It closed 36 in January and dozens more in the past week.

Warren Buffett Continues to Sell Off Apple Shares

Warren Buffett sold another sizable amount of Apple shares according to Berkshire Hathaway's third quarter earnings report. The Omaha-based conglomerate held $69.9 billion worth of Apple shares at the end of September, according to its third-quarter earnings report released Saturday morning. The firm's stake is down 67.2% from the end of the third quarter last year.

Weekly Notables

• Potential market moving catalysts this week: Added to Tuesday’s U.S. election, there will be a two-day U.S. Federal Reserve meeting this week that’s scheduled to conclude on Thursday—a departure from the Fed’s typical Tuesday-Wednesday cycle for policy meetings. Many are waiting to see if the Feds will approve an interest-rate cut of a quarter percentage point as a follow-up to the half-point cut that it made in September.
• Earnings on deck this week: Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Palantir Technologies, Marriott International, Ferrari N.V., Thomson Reuters Corp., Gartner Inc., Qualcomm Inc., CVS Health Corp., Gilead Sciences, Duke Energy Corp., Airbnb Inc., Motorola, and Paramount Global.

Earnings Spotlight: Qualcomm

 Qualcomm will report its Q4 earnings on Tuesday. Wall Street analysts forecast that Qualcomm (QCOM) will report quarterly earnings of $2.56 per share in its upcoming release, pointing to a year-over-year increase of 26.7%. It is anticipated that revenues will amount to $9.9 billion, exhibiting an increase of 14.7% compared to the year-ago quarter.