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S&P 500 closes at record as tech heavyweights flex (besides Apple)

The Magnificent 7 did the heavy lifting, performing better than any S&P 500 sector ETF on Tuesday.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to post a fresh record close thanks to most of the leading tech companies that have been key to its rally in recent years.

The Magnificent 7 did more than twice as well as the benchmark US stock index today, with Alphabet up more than 2% and Meta, Nvidia, and Amazon all up at least 1%. The sore thumb that stuck out: Apple shares fell 1.5% after the tech giant debuted an extra slim iPhone Air, iPhone Pro with longer battery life, updated AirPods Pro 3 with live language translation, and refreshed Apple Watch line at its annual event. It usually falls during these announcements.

The Nasdaq 100 also rose 0.3%, while the Russell 2000 fell 0.5%.

Materials were far and away the worst-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, while communications services and healthcare posted the biggest gains.

Gains on the day were led by UnitedHealth, which popped 8.7% after the health insurance giant said it expects most of its Medicare Advantage enrollees to be on more lucrative plans next year. Declines were led by Albemarle, which dropped 11.5% after reports that Chinese EV battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology will restart its Yichun lithium mine.

Robinhood hit an all-time high as the brokerage company continues to rise after being tapped for inclusion in the blue-chip S&P 500 on Friday.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Nebius surged nearly 50% after the artificial intelligence infrastructure group announced a major deal to supply computing power for Microsoft’s AI operations.

CoreWeave also leapt 7.1% as the news highlighted the immense value and continued demand across the AI data center ecosystem.

Planet Labs fell 6.6%, giving back some of Monday’s pop after the satellite operator (and retail favorite) posted better-than-expected quarterly numbers.

Fox and News Corp dropped 6.7% and 1.7%, respectively, after Rupert Murdoch’s heirs agreed to a $3.3 billion settlement to resolve a long-running succession drama.

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Luke Kawa

Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

Intel Earnings Researchers

Wall Street analysts see some issues with Intel’s earnings

Even with the US government as a partial owner, Intel’s turnaround has a long way to go.

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Luke Kawa

Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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