4:10pm: Winning week
Markets ended higher on Friday, wrapping up a strong week and month as upbeat earnings from Amazon helped lift sentiment across Wall Street.
The Nasdaq led the way with a 0.6% gain, finishing at 23,725. The Dow Jones edged up 41 points, or 0.1%, to close at 47,563, while the S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 6,840 and the Russell 2000 climbed 0.7% to 2,483.
The rally capped a winning month for all three major indexes. The Nasdaq logged its seventh straight monthly advance, rising more than 4% for the second month in a row. The S&P 500 and Dow each recorded their sixth consecutive monthly gains, underscoring investors’ confidence heading into the year’s final stretch.
Looking ahead, earnings season rolls on next week, with results due from Palantir, Advanced Micro Devices, Uber, Pfizer, McDonald’s, Qualcomm, and Airbnb—a lineup that could keep markets buzzing.
2:30pm: Market movers
- Getty Images (NYSE:GETY) shares rose more than 6% after announcing a global multi-year licensing deal with AI search platform Perplexity to integrate its creative and editorial imagery into Perplexity’s workflows.
- Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) jumped nearly 11% after posting a strong third-quarter earnings beat, with analysts highlighting AWS and AI initiatives as key growth drivers and Oppenheimer raising its price target to $290.
- Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) gained attention after reporting third-quarter results that exceeded expectations, with revenue up 68% year-over-year and earnings per share of $0.80 topping forecasts.
- Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) climbed about 3.5% after beating Wall Street estimates for third-quarter earnings, driven by strong trading volumes and steady subscription and services growth.
- Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) reported third-quarter profit of $3.5 billion, surpassing analyst expectations despite lower oil prices, supported by higher production and solid operations.
- Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) announced a 10-for-1 forward stock split to make its shares more accessible to employees participating in its stock option program.
12:55pm: Volatility index rises
The VIX has risen this week, largely overlooked amid focus on central banks, a US-China deal, and tech earnings.
The spike, alongside more new lows on the NYSE, suggests short-term downside risk, notes IG's Chris Beauchamp.
"Of course," he writes, "the tale of the last six months has been rampant buying of any weakness; will this change as the calendar starts to empty of heavyweight earnings?”
11:50am: Big Oil reports
Exxon Mobil and Chevron reported mixed third-quarter results on Friday, as falling oil prices continued to pressure revenues while operational gains helped buoy earnings.
Exxon Mobil reported third-quarter 2025 revenue of $85.3 billion on Friday, missing the $87.7 billion analyst consensus, as lower oil prices weighed on results. U.S. crude has dropped roughly 16% this year amid OPEC+ production increases.
Meanwhile, Chevron posted adjusted earnings of $3.6 billion, or $1.85 per share, surpassing Wall Street’s $1.68 estimate, though down from $4.5 billion, or $2.51, a year earlier. Revenue came in at $48.17 billion, slightly below forecasts.
Chevron hit record production of 4.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 21% from a year ago, helping offset the impact of weaker prices. The results lifted Chevron shares 1.5% to around $156 in premarket trading, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s operational performance despite a challenging market.
11:10am: AWS 'gaining momentum'
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares surged almost 11% to about $246 after a third quarter earnings beat.
AWS revenue grew 20% year-over-year in Q3, up from 17% in Q2, which analysts described as “gaining momentum.”
Analysts now project Q4 AWS revenue growth of 22%, noting that this estimate is conservative given the scale of new capacity.
Looking ahead, Wedbush sees Amazon’s Q4 guidance of revenue growth in the range of 10% to 13% year-over-year, versus the Street estimate of 11%, as “encouraging.”
10:35am: Apple eventual AI winner?
Bank of America is raising its price target on Apple to $325, citing strong capital returns and calling the tech giant "the eventual winner on AI."
Analysts remain bullish on Apple heading into 2026, citing stronger-than-expected iPhone upgrades, improving gross margins, a March quarter boost from easing tariffs and higher-margin Services, the launch of an AI-enabled Siri in 2026, and the expected debut of a foldable iPhone in September 2026.
9:50am: Apple, Amazon lift sentiment
Stocks opened higher on Friday, led by a surge in tech shares after upbeat earnings from Amazon and Apple lifted investor sentiment.
The Dow Jones rose 71 points, or 0.2%, to 47,593, while the S&P 500 gained 0.5% and the Nasdaq jumped 1%, buoyed by a broad rebound in big tech. The Russell 2000 was little changed.
Amazon shares soared about 12% after the company’s third-quarter results handily beat forecasts, driven by a 20% jump in revenue from its cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, signaling renewed enterprise demand. Apple stock also climbed after stronger-than-expected earnings and upbeat guidance for the holiday quarter.
Elsewhere, Netflix shares were on the rise after announcing a 10-for-1 stock split, a move that could pave the way for its potential inclusion in the Dow.
Investors are also eyeing earnings from energy giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron, with Chevron already reporting results that topped expectations.
On the economic front, the Chicago Business Barometer for October is due later in the morning, while Fed officials Hammack and Bostic are scheduled to speak at a Dallas Fed conference at midday.
In corporate news, Palantir Technologies has filed a lawsuit against two former employees, accusing them of stealing trade secrets to help launch a rival firm.
8:00am: Futures in high spirits
US stock futures were mostly higher ahead of the open after earnings from Amazon lifted spirits after Thursday's losses due to uncertainty about the future policy of the Federal Reserve after its chair, Jerome Powell, suggested a cut in December, to follow this week’s, was not a foregone conclusion.
The Nasdaq was poised to take the lead, with futures suggesting a 1.3% gain. S&P 500 Futures rose 0.8%, while those for the Dow were 0.1%.
Amazon's shares jumped over 12% in pre-market trading after it reported earnings that were better than expected, driven by surging demand for its cloud computing services. Revenue at Amazon Web Services (AWS) jumped 20% to $33 billion in the third quarter, continuing an evident trend in Microsoft and Google's earnings reports.
“The e-commerce division may have by far the bigger public profile, but it’s the cloud services AWS division which is the real engine of Amazon’s growth, and it’s this which sparked the share price into life overnight," commented AJ Bell's Russ Mould.
“Demand for computing power linked to AI is showing no signs of letting up, and that is driving significant growth for AWS, with third-quarter numbers helping to ease fears that this business was losing ground to rival operators.
For other global markets, it's a mixed picture as the week and October draw to a close.
The FTSE 100 fell 0.3% in morning trading in London, while Frankfurt's Dax has fallen 0.2% and the Paris CAC 40 is 0.1% off the pace.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 bucked the trend in Asia, closing over 2% higher, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 1.4% and Shanghai's SSE Composite ended 0.8% lower. The BSE Sensex in Mumbai fell 0.6% and Sydney's ASX 200 retraced earlier losses to end just a few points down.
"European markets are on the back foot in early trade, with the FTSE 100 leading the declines as we close out a week that has seen major volatility from a plethora of key announcements," commented Scope Markets' Joshua Mahony. "Coming off the back of yesterday’s ECB rate pause, this morning saw the latest inflation release dominate as core CPI rose unexpectedly to 2.4%.