Daily Market Brief: Strong Earnings Ease AI Fears Despite Infrastructure Challenges

Wednesday, October 21, 2026 | Daily briefing on strong tech earnings, AI infrastructure bottlenecks, soaring freight costs, and Bitcoin’s macro outlook.

Daily Summary

Our View: The earnings season is going better than expected so far, which has temporarily suppressed the AI concerns of the past two weeks: 86% of reporting companies beat estimates, and SpaceX increased its revenue by 161%. However, the same-day loss of 40% of Australian NextDC’s value shows that the issue lies not in demand, but in project execution; today, with Meta and Tesla, it will become clear which side of this distinction outweighs the other. Brent crude is above $110, and news that mines have been laid in the Strait of Hormuz is pushing the risk premium higher; freight costs multiplying sevenfold in a year now directly threaten refinery margins and end-fuel prices. Bitcoin is hovering around 83,000 and needs to break above 84,000 ahead of next week’s Fed meeting. The 3.2% relief rally in the BIST 100 is a technical rebound; we do not yet consider it a trend reversal as MSCI uncertainty persists.

• SpaceX revenue surges 161%, Musk floats Tesla merger: Q3 revenue hit $14.58 billion (vs. $12.72 billion consensus), net profit reached $4.4 billion; special committees have been formed by both companies to discuss a merger. If completed, the combined entity would be valued at roughly $3.5 trillion,making it the fifth-largest company in the world.
• Strong earnings season: 86% of reporters have beaten estimates, with 13% of the S&P 500 having delivered results. The Dow rose 530 points yesterday, with 3M gaining 5% after raising its full-year profit outlook.
• First concrete project cancellation in AI infrastructure: Australian data center operator NextDC slashed its revenue guidance by a third due to power supply delays at its Melbourne facility, sending its shares down 40%.
• Brent hits a five-month high at $110.41: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it detonated mines and set two tankers on fire in Hormuz. According to Goldman Sachs, the global crude freight rate has exceeded $20 per barrel, up from $3 a year ago.
• JPMorgan issues Bitcoin return forecast: 10% annualized for the baseline 10-year scenario; bear scenario -9.7%, bull scenario 17%. Expectations for US stocks stand at 7.5%-7.7%, bonds at 5.6%-6.6%,and gold at 5.5%.
• Bitcoin trades around 83,000, ZEC jumps 11%: Zcash developers set the mainnet date for the NU7 upgrade, which will slash block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. According to Hashdex, Bitcoin’s bear phase lasted 359 days; the previous three lasted 361, 377, and 411 days.
• Solana’s largest upgrade since 2020 goes live today: Alpenglow will reduce transaction finality from about six seconds to 150 milliseconds. Validator votes are moving off-chain, causing transaction counts to drop sharply—this is not an issue.
• Today’s calendar: Earnings from Meta, Tesla, IBM, Lam Research, SAP, and Philip Morris; UK CPI and PPI; Bank of Indonesia rate decision. Next week features consecutive decisions from the Fed, ECB, and BOJ.

Story of the Day

Earnings eclipse AI anxiety, but a warning emerges

The first earnings reports of the week have temporarily eased the AI anxiety that the market has carried for the past two weeks. According to LSEG data, 13% of S&P 500 companies have reported, with 86% beating earnings estimates. SpaceX stood out: third-quarter revenue surged 161% year-over-year to $14.58 billion,compared to the $12.72 billion estimate; operating profit reached $2.8 billion, net profit hit $4.4 billion, and adjusted earnings per share came in at 45 cents, crushing the 13-cent consensus. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen guided for $33-$37 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2027, well above the $22.2 billion analyst average. Super Micro Computer also rallied 16% after hours. Asia reacted strongly: South Korea’s KOSPI surged 2.7%-4.6% to hit a weekly high, with SK Hynix gaining 6.38% and Samsung 5.03%. Kospi 200 futures jumped 5%, triggering a five-minute program trading halt. Elice Group, which plummeted 30% below its IPO price on Tuesday, rebounded 29.92% to recover almost all its losses. Dan Ives, technology analyst at Wedbush Securities (referred to as Yorkville Ives in original text), summarizes the tone: the SpaceX quarter and what it signals for cloud infrastructure companies is globally very positive, and Korean stocks are, in his view, heavily oversold.

However, very concrete news in the opposite direction arrived on the same day, highlighting the core dividing line. Australian data center operator NextDC slashed its fiscal 2027 revenue guidance from A$615–$640 million down to A$475–$500 million due to power supply delays at its Melbourne facility, cut EBITDA expectations from A$385–$410 million to A$245–$265 million, suspended future developments, and saw its stock plunge 40%. The delay is driven by local community and stakeholder opposition. This introduces a third dimension to the debate we have discussed in recent weeks: the bottleneck in AI infrastructure is not merely about demand or financing, but the physical execution of projects. Power supply, land permits, and local opposition are now variables directly impacting earnings forecasts. Christian Mueller-Glissmann, head of asset allocation at Goldman Sachs, balances the picture: near-term volatility may persist due to AI concerns, Middle East tensions, and midterms, but earnings support combined with light positioning and falling valuations should help equities toward year-end.

On the Musk front, the agenda is centered on a merger. During the SpaceX earnings call, Musk stated that merging with Tesla would be “a good idea” and announced that the boards of both companies have formed special committees to discuss it; he will recuse himself from discussions as an “interested party.” If completed,the merger would create the world’s fifth-largest company, valued around $3.5 trillion, sitting between Microsoft and Amazon. Regulatory risks are substantial, led by the decision to throttle the military-grade Starlink service used by Ukraine in combat; the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk gave this directive last week, while Musk has maintained that restrictions are ultimately decided by the US military and the president. Meanwhile,Netflix shares dropped 5% despite beating earnings; the company lowered its advertising outlook and projected lower-than-expected revenue for the fourth quarter.

In oil, freight is now the real issue

Brent crude climbed 1.2%–1.65% on Wednesday to test a five-month high in the $110.13–$110.59 band, while WTI traded at $98.92–$99.26. On the geopolitical front, a new threshold has been crossed: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Tuesday that two tankers were set on fire and detained after mines—laid by mariners at an “illegal crossing point” in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz—detonated, adding that three other tankers were blocked from using routes unauthorized by Tehran. On Monday, the Houthis announced they had targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu, the Shaybah oil field, and airports in Riyadh and Abha.

The core issue, however, is not the commodity price itself, but transportation costs, which a Tuesday Goldman Sachs report laid out in numbers. The global average crude oil freight rate has exceeded $20 per barrel; a year ago, this figure was only $3—representing a roughly sevenfold increase—and it remains stubbornly high despite a slight recent pullback. Goldman breaks down the composition of the surge: of the $20 yearly increase, about $7 stems from war risk premiums associated with Hormuz transits, and $4 from ship-to-ship transfers conducted outside the Persian Gulf. The bank warns of downstream consequences: high shipping costs can widen price differentials between various crude types, squeeze refinery profit margins, and ultimately drive up refined fuel prices. Goldman specifically highlights Asian refiners: elevated freight costs have heavily pressured their net margins and threaten refined product output, which could lift global refined product prices.Consequently, the rise in oil prices can no longer be read in isolation; the pressure on diesel and gasoline is increasingly driven by logistics rather than crude itself. US industry data points to a fresh draw in inventories,providing underlying price support.

JPMorgan issues first-ever Bitcoin return forecast

In its 2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report published Tuesday, JPMorgan Asset Management released a return range for Bitcoin for the first time, and the figures are striking: a 10% annualized return in the baseline scenario for the next decade, -9.7% in the bear scenario, and 17% in the bull scenario. A comparative table places Bitcoin in the lead: expected returns are 5.6%–6.6% for US bonds, 7.5% for large-cap US equities, 7.7% for small caps, and 5.5% for gold. In other words, the bank expects Bitcoin to outperform stocks, bonds, and gold combined over a ten-year horizon. This carries extra weight coming from an institution whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, famously called Bitcoin a “fraud” in 2017 and has maintained a skeptical stance,albeit slightly softened in recent years.

However, the tone of the report is cautious rather than celebratory. The bank writes that Bitcoin’s “volatility and unstable correlation with other asset classes continue to prevent widespread adoption in portfolios,” declining to view Bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier; instead, it defines it as a “speculative asset and a hedge against monetary easing.” Portfolio manager Sheena Shah and Head of Digital Asset Strategy Dennis Cristallo put it clearly: aside from acting as a bet on fiat currency expansion or the future tokenization of assets on blockchains, Bitcoin has no strategic role in portfolios; it trades mostly like a high-beta risk asset tracking global money supply growth, even if it is occasionally treated as “digital gold.” The modeling challenge they add is also important: forecasting an asset with no cash-flow fundamentals whose economics are driven more by adoption, regulation, and liquidity than technology presents a unique difficulty. For investors in Turkey, the takeaway is twofold: a major institution has attached a numerical long-term expectation to Bitcoin for the first time, but classified it as a directional macro bet rather than portfolio diversification. Both points must be read together.

Market Tour

Equities

Wall Street rallied on earnings Tuesday: the Dow jumped nearly 530 points (or 1.02%) to 52,496, the S&P 500 rose 0.28% to 7,713, and the Russell 2000 advanced 1.65% to 2,773; the Nasdaq 100 slipped 0.13% to 29,490, and the Nasdaq Composite edged down marginally. The VIX fell 6.13% to 17.31. 3M carried the Dow,gaining over 5% after raising its annual profit outlook. Stock-wise, Tesla rose 1.54% to $374, TSM gained 1.16% to $425, and Chevron added 0.6% to $226; conversely, Meta fell 1.59% to $694, Alphabet dropped 1.13% to $340, Apple lost 1% to $340, and ASML slipped 0.99% to $1,631. CoreWeave rose 1.65% above $62 and topped $64 after hours, though it remains down 51% over 12 months. Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner noted last week that he exited the stock, but added that CoreWeave’s management team is “one of the best in the industry” and that today likely presents an opportunity. Meta, Tesla, IBM, Lam Research, SAP,and Philip Morris report today; US futures are up 0.29%–0.7%.

Asia rebounded strongly on Wednesday: the MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index rose 1.2%–1.5%. The KOSPI surged 2.7% to 5,703 to hit a one-week high, the Nikkei gained 1.02%–1.3% to 64,731, Taiwan added 1.28% to 46,888, and Australia rose 0.16% to 8,831. China diverged: the Hang Seng and Shanghai composite were down 0.5% and 0.51% respectively, with CATL tumbling 9.1% in Hong Kong and 9.2% in China following Q3 results; the company’s net profit rose 14.5% year-over-year to 21.25 billion yuan and revenue climbed 58.6%,but Citi noted that weak gross margins, high expenses, and impairment losses caused earnings to miss expectations, prompting cuts of 9%–15% to 2026–2028 earnings estimates. In Japan, September exports grew 16.7% year-over-year but widely missed the 20.1% consensus, though semiconductor shipments rose 49.4% in value to support growth. European markets closed soft on Tuesday, led by France: the CAC 40 fell 0.38% to 7,838, as Prime Minister Lecornu announced “massive” police and military reinforcements to suppress planned Saturday protests. European futures are up 0.21%–0.45% today. The BIST 100 jumped 3.22% to 11,798 in one of its sharpest daily rallies of the recent period; this is a technical relief bounce, and we do not yet count it as a trend reversal given ongoing MSCI uncertainty.

Foreign Exchange

The Dollar Index sits near a three-week low at 101.79, having dropped 0.2% on Tuesday to touch 101.50 for the first time since October 1. Commonwealth Bank of Australia economist and FX strategist Carol Kong makes two observations. First, correlation: because stock market sentiment and the growth outlook are tightly bound to the performance of mega-cap tech companies, their earnings reports can have a massive impact on the dollar. Second, outlook: traditional safe-haven assets experienced mixed performance this year, with the dollar standing out as the clear winner; safe-haven demand for the dollar is likely to fade once the Middle East conflict ends and energy prices recede, though they expect a moderate upward trend for the dollar in coming months as foreign capital inflows to US markets increase. The Euro trades at 1.1225, with traders cautious due to French protests and a deteriorating fiscal picture; the French 10-year yield rose 2.7 bps to 4.94%, widening the spread with Germany to 1,53 bps (1.53 percentage points / 153 bps). Sterling rose 0.49% to 1.3374. The Yen stands at 158.18, weighed down by weak Japanese export data; according to a Reuters poll, a majority of economists expect the BOJ to refrain from hiking rates on October 30, shifting to a 25 bps hike in December followed by quarterly increases. The Australian Dollar was the day’s outperformer, climbing 0.45% to 0.7014 and hitting 0.70289 intraday for the first time since September 29, after Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Andrew Hauser said the inflation outlook looks “materially worse.” The New Zealand Dollar trades at 0.5675 and the Canadian Dollar at 1.4064. USD/TRY hit a new peak at 49.60.

Commodities

Oil is rising amid the freight and geopolitical backdrop detailed above: Brent is up 1.22%–1.65% at $110.13–$110.59, and WTI is at $98.92–$99.26. Gold edged down slightly to $4,139 (down 0.09% on the day) as rising oil keeps inflation fears alive, maintaining its narrow recent band. Silver trades down 0.31% at $57.53,platinum is flat at $1,645, and palladium fell 0.87% to $1,090, continuing its weak trajectory. Copper rose 0.55% to $6.60. Natural gas sits at $2.97, well off its recent highs. In grains, wheat fell 0.51% to $640,extending its weakness; cocoa is flat at $5,799, and coffee is steady at $310.

Crypto

Bitcoin traded in the $82,700–$83,000 band on Wednesday morning, up 0.3%–1.3% and benefiting from the positive sentiment generated by tech earnings. ZEC led the majors, surging 11% to $1,260. The catalyst was concrete calendar news: Zcash developers set the mainnet activation height—the block number where every node switches to new rules—for the network’s next upgrade, NU7. NU7 reduces block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, speeding up payment confirmations threefold, while 60% of transaction fees will be directed to a reserve distributed over time; the upgrade has been running on the testnet since early October. Among other majors, HYPE and Dogecoin gained over 3%, XRP rose 2.39% to $1.3339, and Ether climbed 1.7% to $2,439; APT (+6.86%) and ENA (+6.23%) stood out, while Monero decoupled downward, dropping 3.56%.

On the technical and positioning front, two opposing signals are at play. On the positive side, Hashdex’s cycle analysis is noteworthy: Bitcoin’s bear phase had lasted 359 days as of September 30, while the previous three bear phases since 2011 lasted 361, 377, and 411 days respectively, meaning the current drawdown is approaching historical averages. More importantly, on the supply side, short-term holders—the group most likely to sell during a downturn—now own only 16% of the Bitcoin supply, the lowest share since January 2023.In other words, held amounts capable of generating selling pressure are historically low. Flow-side dynamics were also strong: US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $526.6 million on Monday, marking the largest single-day inflow in about a month. On the negative side, the options market is buying downside protection: on Deribit, put options traded at more than double call options over a 24-hour period, with the most heavily traded contract being the October 30 $80,000 put; furthermore, out-of-the-money puts are 2.5 to 4 volatility points more expensive than equivalent calls across all maturities. This shows that while open interest leans toward October 30 call options in the $90,000–$100,000 range, traders are paying up to protect against the downside. Bitcoin open interest declined to $27.4 billion, the funding rate is roughly 8.8% annualized, and long positions account for 55% of the total. The key threshold to watch ahead of next week’s Fed meeting is $84,000: a break above this level would confirm that the tech recovery is pulling crypto along with it.

On the infrastructure front, today is a major day: Solana’s biggest network upgrade since 2020, Alpenglow,goes live. The upgrade alters how validators—who process transactions and vote on their validity—reach consensus. Until now, each validator wrote its vote directly to the blockchain like any other transaction,meaning a payment took about six seconds to achieve finality until enough votes accumulated. Alpenglow moves this voting off-chain, aggregating votes into certificates that can finalize transactions in one or two rounds; the target is roughly 150 milliseconds, faster than a blink. For comparison, Ethereum takes about 13 minutes for absolute finality. Costs for validators also drop: they currently pay about 2 SOL per day in voting fees—a cost that doubled when Solana cut block times to 200 milliseconds—and Alpenglow removes these fees, replacing them with a flat entry fee of 0.8 SOL per epoch (about 60% cheaper). The transition was painful: the testnet was wiped and restarted from scratch six times since early May, and a test migration failed network-wide and had to be rolled back. There is an important, easily misread warning: as Raiku CEO Robin Nordnes noted, Solana’s transaction count will look much lower this week, prompting people to ask if something is wrong—nothing is wrong; most previously counted items were validator votes, which are now off-chain, while actual transaction volume remains intact.

Second Story: Issuer resistance to tokenized stock trading grows

The tokenized stock trading framework unveiled by the SEC last month has hit its first serious hurdle as companies object to the trading of tokenized versions of their own shares. In the updated public filing dated October 19 by OKXICE—the joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange—seven new objecting companies appeared, including Microsoft, Alphabet,and Goldman Sachs; Qualcomm, Caterpillar, McDonald’s, and Western Digital were also added to the list. This brings the total disclosed objectors to 16, up from nine the previous week. OKXICE’s original filing featured 63 symbols representing 62 companies, of which 15 objected, with no objection disclosed for 47 companies. The document does not disclose companies’ rationales or when they submitted their objections.

The framework itself operates under the SEC’s five-year “Innovation Exemption,” allowing qualified platforms to open tokenized US stocks to trading via automated market makers and liquidity pools while granting issuers the right to object. The heavy utilization of this right demonstrates that the obstacle to tokenization is not technical or regulatory, but issuer consent. A second dimension of this topic is playing out at Ripple. Ripple, via its brokerage arm Ripple Prime, has opened around-the-clock trading of clearing contracts tied to more than 100 stock, commodity, and FX markets for institutional clients, using its dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD as collateral. Daragh Maher, head of digital asset research at HSBC, described this to clients as an “evolutionary,not revolutionary” step, drawing a clear boundary: this is a fast-growing market, but not a massive one compared to traditional financial markets; the stronger rationale for the product will emerge once enough depth builds for investors to express views and adjust risk while traditional markets are closed. Maher believes that until that depth develops, activity will remain concentrated among market makers, proprietary traders, and arbitrageurs seeking price discrepancies rather than institutions seeking strategic hedging. A concrete example of the risk occurred on Saturday: roughly $52 million in leveraged chip stock positions were forcibly liquidated within 10 minutes, with selling spilling over from Binance to Hyperliquid; because the underlying shares themselves were not trading, the contracts lacked a current exchange price to track.

Levels to Watch

• Meta and Tesla earnings (Today): SpaceX’s strong results raised expectations. Capital expenditure guidance will show whether the NextDC case is an anomaly or a trend.
• Bitcoin ($84,000): The threshold to clear ahead of the Fed meeting. The short-term holder share sitting at a multi-year low of 16% limits supply pressure, but the options market is paying up for downside protection.
• Brent ($110): A five-month high. According to Goldman, the real risk is freight, not price: $20 transport costs squeeze refinery margins and could push refined product prices higher.
• France-Germany spread (153 bps): Continuing to widen. Saturday’s planned protests and the government’s military reinforcement decision will keep political risk actively priced this week.
• Solana transaction count (Today): Will drop sharply post-Alpenglow, which is normal and results from moving validator votes off-chain. The data must not be misread.
• BIST 100 (11,798): The 3.22% relief rally is technical; it is premature to call a trend reversal before MSCI’s index freeze decision and downgrade warning are resolved.

Weekly Calendar

Date	Day	Development
October 21	Wednesday	Earnings from Meta, Tesla, IBM, Lam Research, SAP, Philip Morris, and Southwest Airlines; UK September CPI, PPI, and public borrowing; Bank of Indonesia rate decision; Solana Alpenglow upgrade goes live
October 22–23	Thursday–Friday	Earnings season continues; roughly 70 S&P 500 companies report this week
October 26–29	Monday–Thursday	Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia (discussions over postponement or virtual format)
October 27–28	Tuesday–Wednesday	FOMC (83% probability of a pause); central bank rate decisions in New Zealand and Canada on the same days, with quarter-point hikes expected for both
October 29–30	Thursday–Friday	ECB and BOJ decisions; BOJ expected to keep rates steady on October 30 and hike in December
October 30	Friday	Deribit monthly crypto options expiry (148,855 Bitcoin in open contracts); 5.58 million TIA token unlock on Celestia
November 3	Tuesday	US midterm elections; December 9 FOMC