Stocks close higher as excitement over Anthropic IPO filing propels tech sector: Live updates

Instacart could soon be acquired by rival DoorDash, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar. Such a deal could be completed this week, the people told the Journal.

Shares of Instacart surged 7%, while DoorDash slid 5%. The Journal’s article comes after The Information reported Friday that Instacart has had early stage talks with DoorDash and Uber about a sale.

Instacart, 1-day

In an aerial view, oil storage tanks are seen at the Sunoco LP Fuel Supply Terminal on June 15, 2026 in Austin, Texas.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve stood at 282.6 million barrels last week, the lowest level since 1982 as stocks are drawn down to ease the supply disruption in the Middle East.

Global inventories have fallen sharply in the eight months since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Oil prices have risen about 12% this month as investors fear fighting will sharply escalate in the region and disrupt oil supplies at a time when the world’s buffers have been exhausted.

— Spencer Kimball

Neocloud stocks CoreWeave and Nebius Group rose, after starting the session in negative territory. The bounce comes even after remarks from Elon Musk who said more than 200 companies in the space face “guppy-level death.”

CoreWeave jumped 4%, though it remains 60% off its recent high. Shares of Nebius Group gained nearly 2%, though it’s still off its high by more than 45%.

CoreWeave, 1-day

JetBlue Airways Airbus A320-232 airplane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States, on Aug. 31, 2026.

Creative Touch Imaging Ltd. | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Check out some of the companies making the biggest moves midday.

Lockheed Martin — The prime defense contractor gained 3%. The future is bright following a deal to continue producing F-35 fighter jets for the Defense Department, Morgan Stanley said in an upgrade to overweight from equal weight while raising its 12-month price target to $835 from $690, suggesting 38% upside from Friday’s close.

CACI International — The defense contractor surged 6% after Jefferies upgraded CACI to buy from hold and raised its price target to $725, implying nearly 17% upside from Friday’s close.

JetBlue Airways —The New York-based airline tumbled 12% following a Wall Street Journal report that senior creditors for JetBlue are working with a restructuring advisor. The company’s bond prices sank late last week, while its stock is down roughly 50% year to date.

Read the full list here.

— Scott Schnipper

JetBlue shares are flashing an extreme technical signal ahead of the airline’s earnings report.

The stock’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) has fallen to 13.3, its lowest level on record, according to LSEG data and below the prior low of 13.5 reached in March 2020. RSI is a momentum indicator showing how far and how fast a stock has moved and a reading below 30 is considered oversold.

On Monday, JBLU shares are down more than 13% in midday trading, on pace for their worst day since April 10, 2025. The move comes as concerns intensify around the company’s balance sheet and cash burn. A group of creditors is working with financial and legal advisors, according to the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

—Nick Wells

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

There could be a 5% to 10% pullback in the S&P 500 in the near term, bringing the index down to the 7,000 and 7,400 range, according to Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. She noted the broader index was down 2% from its peak on Oct. 22. The broader index was last down around 7,680.  

RBC maintained its 12-month S&P 500 price target of 8,150. The firm remains overweight for the financials and health care sector, while remaining on the sidelines in technology, Calvasina added. 

— Ananya Chetia

Thomas Fuller | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Jefferies upgraded CACI International to buy from hold, raising its price target to $725, implying nearly 17% upside from Friday’s close.

 “CACI continues to deliver to customers & investors alike after a decade of setting the foundation, manifesting in +HSD organic growth & margins breaking out from the 10-12% range-bound primes & IT peers,” Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu said in a note.

CACI Stock price

CACI’s shift toward technology-focused national-security programs is delivering faster growth and stronger margins than many traditional defense contractors and government IT-services companies. The analyst said. The aerospace and defense company raised its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook to between $10.7 billion and $10.9 billion and now expects organic growth of roughly 7% to 9%. CACI’s growing mix of technology and outcome-based contracts should support further margin expansion, according to the analyst.

 “CACI’s carved out its own niche beyond the Prime or IT Service categories, manifested in above-peer growth (~8% org 3-yr CAGR vs peer avg 7%) & among the best margin expansion (+210 bps 3-yrs vs peer avg +145 bps),” Kahyaoglu said in a note.

— Deena Zaidi

XLC, 1-day

Many parts of the market were participating in the rise Monday, after Anthropic’s IPO filing lifted investor sentiment. Shortly before the 11 o’clock hour, there were 332 advancers in the S&P 500, with nine out of 11 sectors in the index higher.

The consumer discretionary and information technology sectors led the broader index, up 1.7% and 1.1%, respectively. Communication services and energy were down, falling 0.1%, each.

— Sarah Min

A man passes by a Micron Technology kiosk at the Semicon India Expo 2026 in New Delhi, India, on September 19, 2026.

Kabir Jhangiani | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Shares of Micron Technology advanced 2.5% Monday after a bullish research note from Bank of America on the stock.

Analyst Vivek Arya is “incrementally more positive” on the memory industry after a series of meetings with Micron’s management team that confirmed memory supply is expected to be tighter in 2027 and 2028.

The analysis is in sync with recent comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang who said a surplus of memory supply is unlikely by 2029, at the company’s GTC Berlin conference last week.

Micron fell roughly 3% last week amid market concerns about oversupply and weak demand, resulting in a broader sell-off in memory stocks.

Yet Bank of America called memory “the most critical architectural pillar” in artificial intelligence, given it enables AI performance and efficiency.

The bank maintained its buy rating on Micron and price objective of $1,550 per share.

Micron Technology, 1-day

Torsten Slok, chief economist of Apollo Management, during the Market Forum: FX in Focus event in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023.

Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The massive investment in artificial intelligence has delivered “zero financial payoff” to corporate America outside of tech companies, according to Torston Slok, chief economist at Apollo.

Revenue per worker and profit margins are both rising for the Magnificent 7, but are flat for the rest of the S&P 500, he said in an analysis Saturday. There are also no signs that AI is boosting productivity growth, he said.
Therefore, corporate America is pulling back and starting to view spending on AI tokens as a cost that weighs on margins, Slok wrote. The question ahead is whether non-tech companies can turn increasingly cheaper AI into higher revenue growth and profit margins, he said.

“The bottom line is that the AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7, and so far, there is no evidence that revenue growth or margins are improving outside the tech sector,” Slok said.

— Michelle Fox

Stocks opened higher Monday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 212 points, or 0.4%. The S&P 500 gained 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.4%.

— Sarah Min

D3sign | Moment | Getty Images

Bitcoin ETFs on Friday posted their largest collective daily outflow since June, with $635.49 million exiting the funds as the cryptocurrency’s spot price fell closer to the key psychological level of $80,000 amid a broader market sell-off.

For the week, the funds still posted $442.67 million in inflows, while bitcoin itself logged its first three-week slide since June.

A Thursday report from DWF Labs shows bitcoin ETF flows tend to follow bitcoin’s prior five-day performance more closely than its performance over the next five days – suggesting investors reacting to weakness, rather than the fund flows signaling where bitcoin’s price goes next.

— Tanaya Macheel

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The tech sell-off that began in mid-October is not yet finished, analysts for Deutsche Bank said Friday, noting the possibility of “sharp V-turns” depending upon market sentiment.

“Tech relative performance is now well into the lower half of its long-run trend channel but has not yet hit the bottom,” Parag Thatte at Deutsche Bank wrote to clients on Friday.

Despite inflows into tech over the last two weeks, notably into leveraged ETFs, Thursday’s rout saw net outflows of $1.5 billion, Thatte said.

“If the recent inflows into Tech continue to get unwound, it could prolong the selloff, but it also speaks to the underlying risk appetite and potential for sharp V-turns in the other direction if sentiment shifts,” he added.

– Tobias Burns

Wolfe Rearch’s Rob Ginsberg noted that the market action beneath the surface last week was healthier than indicated in the headline indexes, following a tech-fueled selloff.

“If there’s one thing to take solace in of late it’s the improvement in the ‘average stock,'” he wrote over the weekend. “The Equal Weight S&P is back above its 50D with positive momentums still at its back. Holding $215 now becomes the goal.”

The 50-day moving average is a popular technical indicator to spot short-term trends. The RSP was last at 216.54.

— Sarah Min

Check out the companies making the biggest moves premarket:

Tesla — The electric vehicle company was higher by 2% after Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight. Analysts at the bank said a merger and acquisition opportunity with SpaceX, growth in the company’s Robotaxi business and core business strength are making them more bullish on Tesla’s outlook.

Range Resources — The natural gas company rose 15% after EQT Corp announced it would buy the company in a deal that values Range Resources at more than $50 billion. Shares of EQT fell 4%. The all-stock deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

Moderna — Shares were down 8% as the company’s sell-off following the leak of results from a closely followed cancer vaccine study on Thursday continued. The stock tumbled more than 18% over Thursday and Friday last week.

Read the full list here.

— Davis Giangiulio

A Verizon store in New York, US, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Telecom giant Verizon reported third quarter earnings Monday before the market open.

The company delivered an earnings per share (EPS) beat of $1.31 versus consensus of $1.27 but slightly missed on revenue, reporting a 1.5% year over year increase to $34.3 billion, compared to the $34.8 billion consensus.

Management also raised its EPS guidance for fiscal 2026 and said it returned $12.8 billion of capital to shareholders in the first nine months of this year.

Shares of Verizon are roughly flat at $44 apiece.

— Paulina Likos

Shares in Genmab soared 13.2% in morning trade, sending the Danish biotech company to the top of Stoxx 600 index, after JP Morgan upgraded its rating to overweight from neutral.

The move comes after Genmab reported “encouraging” signs in ongoing cancer drug trials.

Genmab.

The drugmaker said its experimental treatment petosemtamab, given with chemotherapy, shrank tumors in 75% of patients receiving first-line treatment and 67% receiving second-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer, in a phase 2 trial.

The company said the results support its ongoing phase 3 trials, which are testing the drug in larger groups of patients.

JPM raised its price target to 3,500 Danish kroner ($525). Barclays and Jefferies also raised their price targets.

— Hugh Leask

European stock markets were broadly higher at Monday’s open, with France’s CAC 40 index up 0.5%, Germany’s DAX up 0.37% and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 up 0.2%.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 gained 0.1% after a 1.39% decline last week.

Stoxx 600 index.

Euro/U.S. dollar.

Wednesday will see the Federal Reserve announce its latest monetary policy decision while the U.K. government will unveil its first budget under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Third-quarter growth figures for the U.S. are due Thursday followed by the euro zone on Friday.

French borrowing costs eased slightly, with the 10-year yield down 5 basis points at 8:40 a.m. in Paris, after Moody’s held its credit rating on France at Aa3 on Friday. It also maintained its negative outlook on the country, which is grappling with a mounting debt crisis as it struggles to convince investors of its fiscal credibility.

— Jenni Reid

Asia-Pacific markets started the week on a mixed note.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.80% lower at 62,189.65, while the Topix gained 0.18% to 3,972.98.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.46% to 5,469.47 and the tech-focused Kosdaq Index lost 3.26%, ending at 727.21.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 ended flat at 4,103.54, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 0.5% higher in its last hour of trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.17% to 8,809.9.

— Lee Ying Shan

Indonesia’s benchmark Jakarta Composite Index fell 1% Monday as traders looked past fresh measures announced by the country’s authorities for strengthening market oversight.

The steps, including expanding a committee responsible for identifying stocks with concentrated ownership, follow a warning from MSCI earlier this month.

The index-provider had said that Indonesia could be downgraded to a standalone market status over concerns about trading transparency, a more severe outcome than the frontier-market downgrade it had flagged in January.

The Indonesian rupiah weakened about 0.39% against the greenback to 18,110 per dollar.

—Lee Ying Shan

Oil prices fell on Wednesday after an unexpected build in U.S. crude inventories, while investors assessed supply risks after Saudi Arabia suspended oil loadings at its Yanbu port following an attack on its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

U.S. crude oil fell over 2% on Monday as investors weighed the threat of further attacks on Saudi Arabian energy infrastructure against concerns that elevated prices could eventually erode demand.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures slid 2.19% to $101 a barrel, while Brent crude futures declined 1.89% to $114.51 a barrel.

The pullback followed a sharp rally on Friday after attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants on Saudi Arabia reignited fears of disruptions to global energy supplies.

Tensions remained elevated over the weekend as the Iran-backed Houthis said they had targeted Saudi Arabia’s main airport in Riyadh and oil facilities on Saturday. Saudi authorities said Sunday that they had intercepted additional missiles and drones.

—Lee Ying Shan

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, speaks during National Design Studio’s launch event for America.gov, a new AI-powered government website, at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, Sept. 29, 2026.

Kylie Cooper | Reuters

Elon Musk said SpaceX has closed $40 billion in debt financing to purchase graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to power artificial intelligence systems.

In a post on X on Sunday, Musk said SpaceX had closed the financing, adding that the company was investment grade and generated revenue from its Starlink satellite internet and rocket launch businesses.

In a follow-up post, he added that the financing, primarily consisted of callable debt — which allows a borrower to pay off debt before maturity — is expected to arrive in the first and second quarters of 2027.

Bloomberg reported earlier, citing people familiar with the matter, that SpaceX was in talks with banks and investors to raise $40 billion to purchase Nvidia chips.

The proposed financing would use a special purpose vehicle to keep the debt off SpaceX’s balance sheet and preserve its investment-grade credit ratings, according to Bloomberg. 

—Jenny Lee

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, holds a Brazilian national flag while casting a ballot at a polling station during the runoff election in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026.

Maira Erlich | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won an unprecedented fourth term as Brazil’s president, overturning a first-round deficit to beat Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in a runoff that split the country almost evenly.

Lula secured 51.8% votes to Bolsonaro’s 48.2%, according to the Superior Electoral Court, with nearly all ballots counted on Sunday.

The results are also historic as it’s the first time since Brazil returned to direct elections in 1989 that a candidate has won the final runoff after losing in the first round.

Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat, saying he would seek the annulment of the outcome, Reuters reported. He also said a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin to extend voting for two hours was “unacceptable,” according to the report.

The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) plunged nearly 20% in overnight trading following Lula’s win, before paring losses to 18%.

—Anniek Bao

Asia markets were mixed across the board on Monday, with Japan’s Topix gaining in early Asia trade as other gauges retreated.

The broad based Topix was up 0.37%, but the benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.3%, while the the small-cap Kosdaq saw a larger loss, dropping 1.18%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.26% lower.

— Lim Hui Jie

Thu, Oct 22 20267:32 PM EDT

Asia-Pacific markets face a mixed start to the week as investor focus on key central bank decisions and the Fifth Plenum meeting out of China.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan will all announce their rate decisions this week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, respectively.

Futures for Japan’s Nikkei 225 in Chicago were at 63,030, while in Osaka they were last at 62,640 compared with the index’s previous close of 62,693.16.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index last traded at 23,110, compared with the index’s last close of 23,093.37.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.79% in early trading.

— Lim Hui Jie

A slate of companies that could sway the market are set to deliver their quarterly reports this week.

Alphabet and Microsoft are due to report on Wednesday after the closing bell. Traders will be paying close attention to what’s ahead on the artificial intelligence front with both companies as the AI trade undergoes turbulence.

With respect to Microsoft, Piper Sandler analyst Billy Fitzsimmons said, “Our 3Q partner checks were strong, with MSFT’s net results inflecting higher and demand for prepackaged AI solutions leading the list.”

Amazon, the e-commerce and cloud giant, is poised to report Thursday afternoon. In the prior quarter, the company lifted its capital expenditures forecast, forecasting they would hit $220 billion this year.

Read more from CNBC’s Caleigh Keating on what to expect from companies reporting this week.

—Darla Mercado

Smoke and flames rise from King Khalid Airport, after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked the airport, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, October 8, 2026, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.

Social Media/via Reuters

Oil prices cooled slightly on Sunday evening, lending support to U.S. equity futures.

Brent futures fell 1.1 % to trade at around $115 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate slid 1.2% to roughly $102 per barrel. This comes after Brent crude settled at its highest level since April last Friday amid news reports that the U.S. and Israel could be planning to launch strikes on Iran after the midterm elections. 

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia said it intercepted drones and missiles from the Iran-backed Houthis. Fighting between Riyadh and the Yemen-based Houthis, along with speculation of upcoming strikes against Iran after the midterms, have pushed oil prices higher.

— Ananya Chetia