Good Morning BullBuzzers!
“Bulls make money, Bears make money, but Pigs get slaughtered”
⚡TODAY IN 10 SECONDS
A hot CPI and a 4.3% chip rout sent the S&P 500 down 1.1% and the Nasdaq down 1.9% Wednesday, while health care and staples led, and Nasdaq futures are down about 1.3% again this morning.
Today's idea is Merck ($MRK), a defensive drugmaker, with PPI and retail sales at 8:30 AM.
FOCUS OF THE DAY
Secret #10: Think Like A Risk Manager
Wednesday was a risk lesson. September CPI beat by only 0.1 point, yet the S&P 500 fell 1.1%, and the semiconductor index fell 4.3%, because a 10-year yield above 5% makes every leveraged bet more expensive.
CoreWeave fell 15.5% as its bonds yielded about 15%, a reminder that borrowed money breaks first. A risk manager asks what a day like this would cost, then sizes so it never decides the account. Set the stop before you buy, not after the gap.
Find all 10 Secrets to Success at the bottom of today's issue.
📰 HEADLINES
Hot CPI lifts rate-hike odds. September CPI rose 3.7% from a year ago, above the 3.6% expected, and core hit 2.6% vs. 2.5%. CME futures now show a 32.7% chance of an October hike, up from 22.1%. (Yahoo Finance, Schwab, Seoul Economic Daily)
Chips crash, defensives win. The semiconductor index fell 4.3%, and the S&P 500 fell 1.1%, while health care and staples each rose more than 2%. Asian chip stocks slid again overnight, with Korea's KOSPI down about 8% and Japan's Nikkei about 5%. (TheStreet, TradingKey, Invezz, Investrade)
AI debt gets a price tag. CoreWeave fell 15.5% as its 2032 bonds yielded about 15%, and Oracle fell 8.8%. Investors are asking whether today's rates can finance AI buildouts. (Forbes, Yahoo Finance, GuruFocus, TradingKey)
Oil slips on sanctions talk. Brent is near $104, down about 1.5% from Wednesday's $106.06 settlement, as Washington weighs easing sanctions on shadow-fleet tankers. Ship strikes near Hormuz keep the supply risk alive. (Financefeeds, Grafa, Invezz)
TSMC posts a record quarter. Net income rose 68.7% to NT$763.1 billion, and fourth-quarter revenue guidance is $52.3 billion to $54.3 billion. UnitedHealth also beat expectations and rose 4.7%. (TSMC filing, Invezz, Yahoo Finance)
🎯 IDEA OF THE DAY
Merck is a drugmaker whose cancer drug Keytruda is over half of its pharmaceutical sales, alongside vaccines such as Gardasil.
On a day tech fell 3%, health care rose 2.5% and $MRK rose 3.8% to $147.37. Its earnings do not depend on AI spending or cheap credit, and new Phase 3 cancer data at an upcoming oncology conference could show life after Keytruda, the stock's biggest worry.
The honest risk is that earnings are Oct 29 before the open, inside the window, so exit or size down before then. The zone sits below the $149 pre-market price and may not fill, and Keytruda faces biosimilars from 2028.
🔔 HEADING INTO THE OPEN
Bird's-Eye: Nasdaq futures are down about 1.3% after Asian chip stocks sold off again [confirm at send], so do not assume Wednesday's low is in. Do not buy the first chip bounce before PPI and retail sales at 8:30; wait for the first 30 minutes to show whether dip-buyers appear.
Ground Level: Walmart and Merck are indicated higher, while Micron and CoreWeave are down another 4% to 5%. Do not chase a second leg lower in names that already fell 15%; if you own AI-credit stocks, cut to a size you can hold through a 10% gap.
Under The Hood: A hot PPI after Wednesday's CPI would push October hike odds past the 33% futures show. TSMC's record quarter says AI demand is intact, so the fear is financing cost, not demand. If hike odds rise, favor defensives over credit-sensitive growth.
In partnership with
Elon Musk. Jensen Huang. Washington. What’s the Connection?
They’re all looking at the same massive opportunity: AI moving into the physical economy.
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s CEO, put it bluntly: “If I were a farmer, I would absolutely use AI.”
Washington is putting more than $1 billion behind farm modernization and food-supply resilience, while pushing precision agriculture and private-sector innovation.
It’s about making the real world work smarter.
And DIT AgTech is already putting Physical AI to work in livestock. Their infrastructure automatically delivers the right nutrition through livestock drinking water, helping ranchers produce more with less.
500+ units deployed. 370,000 head on the platform.
Now DIT AgTech is taking it to the U.S.
Most investors will discover DIT AgTech too late.
Do you want to discover the story when everyone is talking about it? Or be one of the people who saw it coming?
At $1 a share, probably not worth missing.
𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘋𝘐𝘛 𝘈𝘨𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘊 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦: https://bit.ly/4bzuWCi
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