Stock markets were mixed globally this morning. Asia had a good day with the exception of China’s CSI 300, which fell more than a full point. Europe, which is heavily dependent on energy imports, declined in early trading after the price of Brent crude oil rose to $117 per barrel and settled later at $116.
In the U.S., futures in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up marginally after the main index rose yesterday. Tech stocks were largely buoyed by the appearance of Anthropic’s IPO filing, which largely calmed fears that AI frontier labs—and the ecosystem they have created around them—might be unable to operate sustainably.
Meta was the major exception: Its stock declined nearly 2% after it announced it would offer $95 billion in new, dilutive stock to fund its AI buildout plans.
- S&P 500 futures were up marginally to 0.07% this morning. The index rose 0.7% on Friday.
- In Europe, the Stoxx 600 fell 0.18% in early trading, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 fell 0.77% before lunch.
- Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI was up 3.09%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.73%. India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.08%. China’s CSI 300 was down 1.32%.
- Brent crude hit $117 per barrel over the last 24 hours and was just under $116 at press time.
- Bitcoin declined to $79,585.
Traders are ignoring the good news in Q3 earnings in favor of their (thus far) unfounded fears
30% of the S&P 500 has now reported earnings and the results so far are good: “78% beat EPS expectations, just shy of the 80% beat rate after Week 2 last quarter and well above the historical post-Week 2 average (65%),” Bank of America’s Savita Subramanian and Victoria Roloff told clients.
But despite the evidence, investors are worried a crash is around the corner: “Fears that today’s AI boom is paving the way for tomorrow’s bust have put the sector on pace for its worst month vs. the S&P 500 since DeepSeek in January 2025,” they said in an email.
42% of traders are bearish right now, according to a survey of 953 investors by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. “There’s no shortage of market and economic headwinds to make investors cautious as we approach year-end,” said Chris Larkin, head of trading at E*TRADE/Morgan Stanley.
Read the full digital edition of today’s Fortune 500 Digest here.