Apple’s revenue rose 12%. Palantir’s rose 96%. Both stocks fell after hours.
The results were strong. Investors still had questions about costs, spending and what comes next.
Strong Sales Did Not Lift Tech Stocks
Apple reported revenue of $114.5 billion, above the $113.39 billion expected. Earnings per share were $2.10, versus $1.99 expected. iPhone revenue rose 17% to $57.58 billion, and Services reached $31.57 billion, up 10%.
Apple also returned approximately $28 billion to shareholders. But its holiday-quarter outlook called for a 45% to 46% gross margin, down from the 47.9% it reported, because of rising memory-chip costs. Shares fell after hours. Sales had beaten expectations; the concern was what higher costs could do to margins next quarter.
Palantir’s quarterly revenue rose 96% to $2.31 billion. U.S. commercial revenue rose 148% to $984 million, and its adjusted operating margin reached 62%. The company raised its full-year revenue guidance to $8.53 billion. One market recap said its shares still fell about 3% after hours.
A comparison in the script puts Tesla’s third-quarter revenue growth at 0% and Palantir’s at 96%. One reply argues that Tesla’s valuation rests on a future story rather than that quarter’s sales. The latest sales figure and the story behind a stock can be different things.
The wider market showed the same split between results and share prices. The Nasdaq fell 1.07%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.51%. One commentator says money has been moving out of AI stocks and into healthcare, industrials and consumer defensives.
That commentator puts the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio at 18.7, down from 22 at the start of the year. In his figures, companies that had reported third-quarter results showed 30.2% earnings growth. He puts growth at 22% for the Magnificent 7 and 32% for the other S&P 500 companies. Reported earnings growth reached beyond the biggest tech names, but the Nasdaq still fell.
Grab reported revenue growth of 27% and raised its full-year outlook. Intel shares fell 29% on Friday, their biggest decline since 1971.
AI Plans Put Funding in Focus
Meta is reportedly seeking at least $20 billion through a bond offering. Oracle is reportedly preparing nearly $10 billion in equity alongside bonds. Fitch estimates Oracle’s combined raise at approximately $20 billion. Oracle shares fell 8.8% after it filed to raise money for its AI buildout.
Those plans put a separate question beside revenue growth: how much debt and how many new shares will companies use to fund AI? One commentator warns that stocks could come under pressure if new share supply grows faster than demand.
A separate commentator claims OpenAI raised more than $10 billion, rather than the expected $40 billion. He speculates that earlier investors added money to support its valuation and warns that unmet spending promises could hurt the wider market. The funding account and the proposed motive are his claims.
The expansion plans continue. Marvell agreed to buy data-center optics maker Lumentum in a $115 billion all-stock deal. The companies estimate a $550 billion market for the combined business. That is their estimate of the market it could address, not sales already booked.
Meta introduced Muse, a personal AI agent app with a free tier and $20 or $100 monthly plans. Meta says it can book appointments, fill out forms and monitor home security feeds. Users must opt out if they do not want their interactions used to train Meta’s AI models; Meta says Muse will ask before sensitive actions.
The Wall Street Journal reported pressure from institutional investors to value Anthropic’s planned November IPO at $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion, below earlier expectations approaching $2 trillion. Its final valuation, offering size and share price remain unsettled.
Bloomberg says TSMC’s $265 billion Arizona buildout is sparking a real estate boom in Phoenix suburbs. One commentator reports 41% revenue growth, a 66.4% gross margin and 68.7% earnings-per-share growth for TSMC’s recent quarter. He says management expects spending from 2026 through 2028 to be significantly higher than in the preceding three years. He sees tension around Taiwan as its biggest risk and expects U.S. production to reduce gross margin by about 2% to 4%.
Elsewhere, Bloom Energy and California Resources Corporation signed a nonbinding agreement to explore more than 1 GW of power generation capacity in California. AST SpaceMobile and AT&T announced a successful handoff of an active phone connection between a terrestrial network and a satellite using an unmodified smartphone.
Oil Fell, but the Talks Remain Unsettled
WTI crude fell 7.4% to $96.46, and Brent fell 7.6% to $104.77 on hopes for U.S. and Iran talks. Reuters reported that Qatari mediators were traveling to Tehran. Fars News cited a source saying there had been no meaningful progress and that Iran would not proceed until Washington met its seven conditions.
Cheaper oil could ease energy-driven inflation. The hopes behind this drop are still uncertain.
The Fed held rates at 3.75% to 4% last week, with two dissenters favoring a hike. An ISM reading of 55.5 showed U.S. manufacturing expanded for a tenth straight month in October, while input prices remained elevated. Investors are also watching Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections.
In other cross-border developments, Bloomberg reported trades that made billions for Indonesian tycoons before MSCI triggered a crackdown. Reuters reported that India’s investigation into bulk Scotch whisky imports has shaken up a $65 billion market. People who attended September discussions told The Wall Street Journal that U.S. envoys raised a proposal to sell Russian gas through a U.S. intermediary to circumvent European sanctions.
Costs and Savings Elsewhere
Bloomberg reported that Disney is moving toward thousands of job cuts. People familiar with the matter said some managers were asked to target 20% in annual cost savings.
Fidelity says average 401(k) balances rose 10.5% from March through June. Participants saved an average of 14.4% of pay, including employer contributions.
One tax tutorial says selling a losing stock turns a paper loss into a realized loss. Buying the same stock again within 30 days can prevent the loss from being claimed. It says excess realized losses can be carried forward, with $3,000 usable each year against other income.
The AI funding question remains. One commentator puts combined U.S. corporate debt and equity issuance over the past 12 months at $3 trillion. He speculates that equity issuance could rise from around $200 billion to $1 trillion or more over the next 12 months. His warning is that stocks could come under pressure if new share supply grows faster than demand.