Ghosts of past profits appear in markets this Halloween

As Halloween approaches, Wall Street is balancing tricks and candy.

All three major indexes fell on Thursday as investors spooked by the capital spending plans of some big technology companies. Meta shares suffered their biggest one-day loss since October 2022, and Microsoft fell 3%, as skepticism over AI spending plans overshadowed strong results.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Amazon shares rose more than 13% in after-hours trading after the company beat market expectations and showed strong growth in its cloud computing unit. When Netflix announced a 10-for-1 stock split to make its stock more accessible to investors, it handed out perks to large and small investors alike.

On the trade front, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Busan, and the deal was sketchy, including lower tariffs, a promise to buy soybeans and a one-year suspension of rare earth regulations. Is this a strategy by the two major economic powers?

As markets assess the Fed’s interest rate stance, technology boom, and diplomatic drama, some may wonder: Is this the beginning of a holiday miracle or a pre-Christmas nightmare?

Disney has withdrawn from YouTube TV. The Walt Disney Company’s content, including channels like ABC and ESPN, was removed from Google’s YouTube TV on Thursday after the two companies failed to renew their streaming agreement.

President Xi gives a speech at APEC. “The more turbulent times become, the more we must cooperate,” Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Asia-Pacific countries to support free trade and maintain supply chain stability in a readout on Chinese state media on Friday (translated by CNBC).

The recession in China’s manufacturing industry is becoming more serious. China’s manufacturing activity contracted more than expected in October, shrinking to its lowest level in six months. The Purchasing Managers Index came in at 49.0, lower than the 49.6 expected by economists polled by Reuters.

Nikkei Average sets a new record. Japanese stocks led gains in Asian markets on Friday as investors saw a easing in U.S.-China trade tensions. But U.S. markets fell, with the S&P 500 down 0.99% and the Nasdaq Composite down 1.57%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.23%.

(PRO) Sectors to watch after the meeting between President Trump and Mr. Xi. Gold, defense stocks and semiconductor stocks are just some of the sectors that experts say investors should pay attention to in their portfolios after a meeting between President Trump and President Xi in South Korea ended in a number of agreements.

The biggest lessons learned from the Trump-Xi meeting — the scope of the ceasefire agreement and what’s still unclear

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a trade truce in a high-stakes meeting in South Korea on Thursday, calming a dispute over rare earth elements that had threatened to push the world’s two largest economies into a full-blown trade war.

But that doesn’t mean the deal is comprehensive, warns Nicholas Burns, a former ambassador to China during the Biden administration.

“What we have here is an uneasy truce in a long-smoldering trade war,” Burns said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

— Spencer Kimball