Good Afternoon. On October 29, 1969, UCLA sent the first ARPANET message to the Stanford Research Institute. The link helped build the network that grew into the internet we use today. They meant to type “login,” but the system crashed after just “lo” got through.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

In this edition

Supplied by StockTwits. ONEQ tracks the Nasdaq Composite; IEF holds U.S. Treasury bonds; GLD tracks gold. These three references are ETFs.

The read: Alphabet’s earnings miss weighed on U.S. stocks during Thursday’s trading. The Nasdaq fell roughly 1.7%, compared with about 0.6% for the S&P 500. Strong GDP data couldn’t erase questions about whether the AI spending boom will turn into enough cash.

🔥 What’s Hot:

🥶 What’s Not:

HubSpot's CRM is so smart, it now updates itself. Calls get logged and summarized the moment they end. New leads get researched and a first outreach drafted, automatically. Deals move forward on their own, with next steps flagged before you have to ask. 

Even the one repetitive task you've been meaning to fix can now run itself, no code required. Customers using it are already seeing the difference. 

This isn't the CRM you have to work hard to figure out. It's the one already working before you log in.

Get a Demo

America’s economy picked up speed, even with trade pulling the other way.

Output grew at a 3.4% annual pace in the third quarter, up from 2.2% in the second. The first estimate covers July through September. GDP adds up the goods and services made in the country, after removing price changes.

That number needs one translation: it wasn’t a 3.4% gain in three months. Growth from the second quarter was about 0.8%. The annual rate shows what that pace would look like over a full year.

Consumer spending rose, as did investment in equipment and goods kept in stock. Computers helped drive equipment growth. The wider gain in investment did most to speed up growth from the spring.

Private demand gives a clearer view under the hood. Consumer spending plus private spending on long-term assets grew at a 4.9% annual pace. That measure leaves out trade, government and changes in stocks of goods.

Trade leaned the other way: exports fell and imports rose. This is an early estimate, built with some data still missing. The next reading is due November 25, when the government will revise the picture.

AI isn’t a tech trend – it’s a full-blown, multi-trillion dollar race, and 10 companies are already pulling ahead.

These are the innovators driving real revenue, attracting institutional attention, and positioning for massive growth.

Get all 10 tickers in The 10 Best AI Stocks to Own in 2026, free today.

Download Now

☁️ The cloud does the heavy lifting

Microsoft’s cloud business is making its consumer side look sleepy. Revenue rose 19% to $92.3 billion in its first fiscal quarter, which ended September 30. Azure, its cloud service, grew 48% from a year earlier. The wider cloud business brought in $63.9 billion.

Hardware told a different story. Sales tied to Windows PC makers and devices fell 22%. Overall net income rose 32% to $36.6 billion, including the impact of its OpenAI investments. One strong business can cover a weaker one; this quarter shows how far apart they are.

💳 The checkout keeps paying off

People kept tapping, swiping and checking out online. Mastercard’s third-quarter revenue rose 14% to $9.8 billion, while profit rose 18% to $4.6 billion. Purchase volume grew 9% in local currencies. That tracks the value of purchases on its network, not a count of cards.

The lift came from more than payments. Sales from its extra services grew 19%, faster than the payments network’s 11%. Revenue growth also reflected pricing. More spending helped, but higher prices and added services were part of the result, too.

🧰 Jobless claims edge down again

New claims for U.S. jobless aid edged down again. Seasonally adjusted first-time claims fell 1,000 to 194,000 in the week ended October 24. The prior week was revised up from 194,000 to 195,000. Without that revision, the latest tally would have been unchanged.

The four-week average fell to 196,750, smoothing out weekly moves. Continued claims, which track people already receiving aid, fell 21,000 to 1.701 million for the week ended October 17. That series runs a week behind the new-claims tally.

Alphabet’s sales raced ahead, but its cash flow went the other way.

Third-quarter revenue jumped 25% to $127.6 billion. Google Cloud more than doubled to $30.7 billion. Yet net profit fell to $26.2 billion from $35 billion a year earlier. A loss on stock investments helped explain that drop, even though Google’s main business kept making money.

Operating profit rose 30%, measuring business earnings before taxes and certain other items. The cash math was harder: Alphabet brought in $42.3 billion from operations and spent $51.4 billion on property and equipment.

That left negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion. Free cash flow is what remains after those equipment and property costs. Alphabet’s results helped drag Wall Street lower during Thursday’s trading. More revenue hasn’t yet covered its much larger building bill.

TLDR AI is a free daily email curated by Anthropic and ex-Google engineers: the new tools worth trying and the research worth understanding, summarized for 1.1M+ readers.

Subscribe for free

The European Central Bank kept its rate still. Its president won’t be staying.

Christine Lagarde said she will step down on February 7, 2027. The European Council will choose her successor through its formal appointment process. The change is coming in months, rather than taking effect today.

On policy, the bank left its deposit rate at 2.5%. That’s the rate it pays banks to park money overnight, and a key signal for wider borrowing costs.

The hold doesn’t mean energy costs have stopped being a worry. The ECB says rising energy prices could push inflation up and growth down. Underlying price pressure has stayed broadly stable so far. Wages haven’t shown a major response to the energy shock.

The bank says it will decide rates meeting by meeting. It has promised no set path. A leadership change is now on the calendar; the next rate move is still an open question.

🇰🇷 Samsung’s chip boom leaves phones behind

Samsung’s AI chip boom isn’t lifting every part of the company. Third-quarter operating profit hit a record 107.4 trillion won. The chip division provided almost all of it, while the phones and devices division lost 800 billion won. Demand for memory used in servers stayed strong. That doesn’t make every Samsung business a winner.

🇩🇪 Volkswagen’s profit nearly vanishes

Volkswagen’s nine-month operating profit shrank to €100 million from €5.4 billion a year earlier. A €6.4 billion cut to Porsche’s recorded value was a big part of the hit. That’s an accounting loss, rather than an equal cash payment. The car business faces real pressure too: U.S. tariffs and weaker demand in China.

💵 Earn up to $400. Switching checking accounts? You could earn $50–$400 when you meet the offer requirements. See the Checking Bonus →

🎯 Save $1,000 in 12 weeks. Take the $1,000 Savings Challenge and give your savings a dedicated place to grow. Start the $1,000 Challenge →

📈 Get rewarded for investing. New to investing or thinking about moving an existing brokerage account? See the Investing Offer →

🥸 Dad Joke of the Day

Q: What do you call a sleeping bull?

A: A bulldozer.

📖 Vocab Word of the Day · Annualized rate

Annualized rate: A change stated as if the same pace lasted a full year. It makes periods easier to compare, but it is not a forecast.

In a sentence: The third quarter’s 3.4% annualized growth rate was about a 0.8% gain from the second quarter.

📬 Need more smart reads? See newsletters we recommend →
You can choose one, a few, or none. Completely up to you.