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IBM's Software Revenue Grew 8 Per Cent While Consulting Was Flat. GAAP Earnings Rose 26 Per Cent, Against a Year-Earlier Quarter Cut by a $309 Million Tax Charge.
Texas Instruments' Revenue Rose 28 Per Cent and Its Guide Is Flat at the Midpoint. Federal Chip Grants Supplied $1.1 Billion of Its $8.4 Billion Free Cash Flow.
Tesla Spent $4.73 Billion on Capital Projects Against a Forecast of $7.94 Billion. It Has Cut This Year's Budget to $20 Billion From More Than $25 Billion.
Housing Starts Fell 5.2 Per Cent to 1.221 Million, Inside the Census Margin of Error. Signed Contracts Fell 7.3 Per Cent, and in Every Region.
Northrop Grumman's Backlog Hit a Record $109.6 Billion. Its Cash Forecast Needs at Least $2.1 Billion in the Fourth Quarter, Less Than Last Year's $3.2 Billion.
3M Gave Amazon a Warrant for 3.16 Million Shares at $164.89. Most of It Vests Only After Amazon Pays 3M $6 Billion for Data Center Gear.
SpaceX Earned $4.4 Billion in the Third Quarter, $1.6 Billion of It Outside Operations. Musk Says SpaceX and Tesla Have Each Formed a Merger Committee.
EQT Agreed to Buy Cleanaway for A$3.095 a Share, a A$9.3 Billion Deal. Three Days Earlier, the Stock Fell 7.6 Per Cent and the ASX Asked Why.
Tradeweb Will Pay $1.97 Billion for Trumid, and $220 Million of That Is for Tax Assets. It Has Not Said What Trumid Earns.
Salesforce Will Pay $47.50 a Share in Cash for Braze, an Enterprise Value of About $5.66 Billion. It Has Agreed to a $300 Million Reverse Termination Fee.
The Big Read
MediaComcast Lost 144,000 Broadband Customers in a Quarter and Has Stopped Buying Back Its Shares. Its Parks Profit Fell 17 Per Cent.
The cable business that built Comcast is shrinking by a few hundred thousand customers a year, and the media business is covering for it. The company has chosen to split the two rather than keep funding both from one balance sheet.
An Xfinity store, Comcast's consumer brand, in Eagan, Minnesota, in January 2018. Domestic broadband revenue fell 4.7 per cent in the third quarter. File photograph.
Comcast lost 144,000 domestic broadband customers in the third quarter of 2026, up from a loss of 91,000 a year earlier, the company said in its third-quarter earnings release on Thursday. It has also paused share repurchases, a decision that has little to do with this quarter and a great deal to do with the next two years.
The headline numbers are mixed rather than bad. Revenue was $29.298 billion, down 6.1 per cent, but Comcast attributes the fall to the Versant separation, completed on 2 January, and the sale of its Sky operations in Germany, completed on 31 May. On a pro forma basis, revenue rose 0.5 per cent. Adjusted earnings per share fell 4.0 per cent to $1.07. The more telling detail sits beneath those totals.
Comcast's domestic broadband base fell to 28.343 million customers from 28.897 million a year earlier, a loss of about 554,000 customers, or roughly 1.9 per cent, by this publication's arithmetic. Domestic video lost another 274,000 customers in the quarter. Wireless went the other way: Comcast added 368,000 lines and now has 10.555 million, which it says is nearly 18 per cent penetration of its domestic residential broadband customers.
Business
P&G Raised Prices Just 0.4 Per Cent and Sold 2.4 Per Cent More Volume. It Expects a $1.4 Billion Commodity Hit, Most of It Still to Come.
The world's largest household-goods maker has not yet passed higher oil costs on to shoppers.
Business
American Airlines Made $115 Million Flying Passengers Last Quarter and Paid $435 Million in Interest. Fuel Will Cost It More Than $7 Billion Extra This Year.
Fares rose almost as fast as fuel, and the airline still made money from flying.
Weather
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Infrastructure Everybody Depends On Should Not Be Owned by a Competitor
Coverage Should Follow the Approval, Not the Advice
You Cannot Delegate the Thing You Have Never Done
World
Argentina's 1995 Immunity Law Lists 8 Ways to Sue a Foreign State. Two Courts Say Juan Carlos Ruffier's Case Against the U.S. Fits None of Them.
Argentina's Law 24.488 lets foreign states be sued at home for wrongs committed on Argentine territory.
Meta Spent $34.9 Billion on Capital Projects in One Quarter and Burned $2.1 Billion of Free Cash. Its Commitments Now Total $454.5 Billion.
Revenue rose 26 per cent and the company calls the core business strong.
The Richest Fifth of U.S. Households Spends $1,861 a Year on Its Pets. Cinnante Canine Is Building a Business Around Them.
The pet economy is splitting.
Union Pacific's Revenue Rose 15 Per Cent, and 6 Per Cent Without Fuel Surcharges. At CSX, Surcharges Supplied More Than Half of a $430 Million Gain.
Two of the largest U.S. freight railroads posted double-digit revenue growth in the same week.
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Anthropic Told Investors Quarterly Revenue Hit $16.8 Billion, Reuters and the FT Report. The Dollar Gain Was Smaller Than the Quarter Before.
Technology
China Has Proposed Export Curbs on 40 Technologies, 23 of Them in AI. Fourteen Would Be Banned Outright.
Markets
Schwab Reported Record Revenue of $7.17 Billion and Its Stock Fell Anyway. Margin Loans Have Nearly Doubled in a Year to $187.9 Billion.
Markets
Warsh Would Not Say Whether the Fed Will Hike Again on 28 October. His Last Words Before the Quiet Period Were About AI.
Business
Truist Is Selling $7.7 Billion of LightStream Loans to Carlyle, Weeks After Shedding $5.5 Billion of Auto Loans. It Also Took a $1.45 Billion Securities Loss.
Editor's Choice
EU Leaders Pressed Brussels for Quotas on Chinese Chemicals and Machinery. The Hybrid-Car Deal Covers €15 Billion of a €360 Billion Deficit.
Six days after the hybrid-car deal, governments are already arguing about the next sector.
Latest News
Everything we have published, newest firstChina Grew 4.5 Per Cent in the Third Quarter. Investment Is Down 7.2 Per Cent This Year, and Private Investment 10.4.
China's economy grew 4.5 per cent from a year earlier in the third quarter, up from 4.3 per cent in the second, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Growth over the first nine months was 4.6 per cent. Fixed-asset investment fell 7.2 per cent over the same period and retail sales of consumer goods rose 1.1 per cent.
Pentagon Contractors Lose Their Critical-Minerals Waivers on 1 January. The Aerospace Industry Says Replacement Supply Is Not Expected Until 2028 or Later.
An executive order signed on 20 July tells the Pentagon to stop issuing routine waivers for Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean magnets, tungsten, tantalum and molybdenum on 1 January 2027. An Army Materiel Command official said on Wednesday the service will "see some impact come January." Industry says it still does not know what an acceptable mitigation plan looks like.
Business
McKesson Is Paying $1.4 Billion for Half of Option Care. The Deal Sets Up a Framework for It to Buy the Rest.
Clayton Dubilier & Rice and McKesson agreed on Monday to take Option Care Health, the largest independent home infusion company in the United States, private for $32.05 a share. McKesson is putting in about $1.4 billion for 49 per cent, and the agreement sets out a framework for it to buy the private equity firm's majority later. Lenders have committed more money to the deal than the two buyers have.
The Navy Lent Six Pearl Harbor Welders to Electric Boat and 95.5 Per Cent of Their Weld Tests Passed. About 130 More Public-Yard Workers Are Coming.
The submarine builders hold new awards put at $76.6 billion, and a workforce problem. The cheapest capacity in the system may be the government's own repair yards.
A $4.5 Million Shore-Power Hookup in Jacksonville Is Meant to Switch Off Ship Generators That Can Burn 4,000 Gallons of Fuel a Day
Ships at the pier still run their own generators for lights, air conditioning and refrigeration. With diesel near a record, the case for plugging them in is a fuel bill, not a slogan.
The Numbers
The First Russian Diesel Cargo Since Washington's Licence Was 40,000 Tons, Bound for Morocco. U.S. Pump Diesel Is 9 Cents Higher Than on the Day the Licence Was Signed.
Russia resumed diesel export loadings at the Baltic port of Primorsk this week, and the first reported cargo, about 40,000 metric tons, is heading to Morocco, not the United States. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said U.S. deliveries need a contract, a vessel and two to three weeks. AAA put U.S. diesel at $6.32 a gallon on Sunday, against $6.23 when the Treasury licensed Russian diesel on 9 October.
Tesla Reports on Wednesday With Capital Spending Forecast at $7.94 Billion, Up 253 Per Cent. Analysts Expect Free Cash Flow of Negative $4.09 Billion.
Tesla reports third-quarter results after the close on Wednesday 21 October, with a webcast at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. S&P Global Market Intelligence's consensus has capital spending at $7.94 billion and free cash flow at negative $4.09 billion, against roughly positive $4 billion a year earlier. Those are forecasts, not results.
Falling sales and rising profit usually mean pricing and cost are doing the work.
Markets
The Chip Index Has Fallen Eight Sessions in a Row, a Run Last Seen in October 2008. The Semiconductor ETF Is Down 16 Per Cent Since 6 October and Still Up 64 Per Cent for the Year.
The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 3.8 per cent on Friday 16 October, its eighth straight losing session, a streak it last matched in October 2008. The iShares Semiconductor ETF has lost 16 per cent since 6 October but is still up about 64 per cent in 2026.
What We’re Following
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Thoma Bravo's Proofpoint Will Pay $6.3 Billion in Cash for Varonis at $49.75 a Share. The Premium Is 52 Per Cent Against June and 17 Per Cent Against September.
AT&T Will Sell Its Mexican Wireless Business for $2 Billion, About 0.4 Times Its 2025 Revenue. The Buyers Plan to Borrow Up to $1.4 Billion of the Price.
A GTCR-Led Group With Elliott Will Take CCC Private at $7.75 a Share, a $6.1 Billion Enterprise Value. Its Chief Executive and President Are Rolling Over Part of Their Stakes.
Industrial Production Rose 0.7 Per Cent in September, and Utilities Supplied More of It Than Factories. Manufacturing Rose 0.3 Per Cent and Is Up 1.1 Per Cent in a Year.
Moody's Zandi Puts the Iran War's Cost at Almost $2,000 a Household. Only $1,100 Is Energy, and Diesel Is Still 74 Per Cent Above Last Year.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimates the war with Iran has cost the average U.S. household almost $2,000: $1,100 in energy, $540 in interest rates and $360 in military costs. AAA put regular gasoline at $4.30 and diesel at $6.32 a gallon on Sunday 18 October.
France's Assembly Votes on Its Revenue Budget on Tuesday. The Finance Committee Rejected It 31 to 3, and Paris Pays About 137 Basis Points Over Berlin.
The European Central Bank's backstop for disorderly spreads generally requires a budget to be adopted, so no early rescue is on offer. A lost vote on Tuesday would not end the process.
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Argument and analysis from our columnists
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Cory Chamberlain
Senior Writer
JPMorgan Reports Tuesday After a Quarter With $5.6 Billion of One-Off Gains. Analysts Expect Revenue of About $51 Billion.
Devon Is Selling 4 Per Cent of Its Production for $4.2 Billion. The Buyer Has Now Made 10 Eagle Ford Deals Since 2023.
A Trade Judge Has Certified a Class of Every Importer That Paid the Struck-Down Tariffs and Did Not Sue. The Court Says About $30 Billion Is at Stake.
Alison Acosta
Technology Correspondent
Meta Spent $34.9 Billion on Capital Projects in One Quarter and Burned $2.1 Billion of Free Cash. Its Commitments Now Total $454.5 Billion.
IBM's Software Revenue Grew 8 Per Cent While Consulting Was Flat. GAAP Earnings Rose 26 Per Cent, Against a Year-Earlier Quarter Cut by a $309 Million Tax Charge.
Tesla Spent $4.73 Billion on Capital Projects Against a Forecast of $7.94 Billion. It Has Cut This Year's Budget to $20 Billion From More Than $25 Billion.
Daniel Okafor
Markets Editor
P&G Raised Prices Just 0.4 Per Cent and Sold 2.4 Per Cent More Volume. It Expects a $1.4 Billion Commodity Hit, Most of It Still to Come.
American Airlines Made $115 Million Flying Passengers Last Quarter and Paid $435 Million in Interest. Fuel Will Cost It More Than $7 Billion Extra This Year.
Union Pacific's Revenue Rose 15 Per Cent, and 6 Per Cent Without Fuel Surcharges. At CSX, Surcharges Supplied More Than Half of a $430 Million Gain.
Margaret Holloway
Editor-at-Large
The Richest Fifth of U.S. Households Spends $1,861 a Year on Its Pets. Cinnante Canine Is Building a Business Around Them.
Northrop Grumman's Backlog Hit a Record $109.6 Billion. Its Cash Forecast Needs at Least $2.1 Billion in the Fourth Quarter, Less Than Last Year's $3.2 Billion.
RTX Raised Its Forecast on a $340 Billion Backlog. 25 Cents of Its Quarter Came From a Cost Recovery It Did Not Explain.
Thomas Gutierrez
Staff Writer
Comcast Lost 144,000 Broadband Customers in a Quarter and Has Stopped Buying Back Its Shares. Its Parks Profit Fell 17 Per Cent.
AT&T Took a $2.6 Billion Charge on the Mexican Business It Agreed to Sell for $2 Billion. GAAP Earnings Fell to $0.13 a Share; Adjusted Earnings Rose to $0.65.
Merck KGaA Will Pay $20 an ADS in Cash for Silence Therapeutics, a 130 Per Cent Premium. The Price Is Built on One Drug, Not Yet in Phase 3.
The Story So Far
The Hormuz Closure28 stories
- 10 Oct Oil Fell on Trump's Pledge of No Iran Strike, Then Closed Higher on a Hurricane. Tanker Attacks Are Running at a Wartime High.
- 3 Oct Oil Is Up 61 Per Cent Since February. American Natural Gas Costs What It Did a Year Ago.
- 3 Oct The Trucking Companies Going Bankrupt Are Small. Diesel Is Paid in Days, Freight in Months.
- 3 Oct The G-7 Will Release 100 Million Barrels. Some May Already Have Been Promised in March.
- 29 Sept LNG Canada Will Double to 28 Million Tonnes. The Announcement Has a Date in the 2030s and No Price.
- 28 Sept The 30-Year Treasury Closed at Its Highest Since the Bond Came Back in 2006. Households Had Already Marked Up Their Inflation Forecast.
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Editors’ Picks
America Imported a Record $421 Billion in August. Without Computers, Chips and Telecom Gear, Imports Are Down This Year.
Schneider Is Paying a 42% Premium for PTC. The Price Is Still Below Where PTC Traded a Year Ago.
Customs Took In $333 Billion in Fiscal 2026. Refunds Sent About $147 Billion Back Out.
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