Mid-Morning Look

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

U.S. stocks open lower as the S&P 500 index is on track for its longest losing streak since August at 4-days ahead of NVDA earnings tomorrow, key economic data (jobs data this week) and earnings from WMT, TGT and LOW. This morning, an earnings and comp sales miss along with lower guidance is weighing on Dow component Home Depot (HD). Technology/AI is really pressuring the Nasdaq and S&P 500 in recent days on valuation concerns, hitting semis again this morning (SOX). JPMorgan COO Daniel Pinto said at a Bloomberg conference earlier that Ai valuations are due for a reassessment, one that could send shockwaves across the entire market. Google CEO Sundar Pinchai told BBC that no company will be immune if the Ai bubble were to burst. I don’t think anyone is talking about how the expense makes sense, though. These comments ahead of NVDA results tomorrow is putting a hurting on stocks early. After hitting record highs in early October, Bitcoin prices have been in free-fall, dropping more than 27% from their highs and to their lowest level since the tariff-tantrum in April (dropped sub $90K this morning). Small caps were weak yesterday with the IWM falling another 2% and closing below its 100-day moving average but outperforms slightly today, while the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow all closed below their respective 50dma levels for the first time since April – and extending those losses this morning.

• U.S. shed an average of -2,500 private-sector roles in the four weeks ended Nov. 1, payroll processor ADP said. For the four-week period ending a week earlier, weekly job losses averaged -14,250 positions, ADP said, in an update to earlier figures. ADP recently started issuing these estimates, which give a four-week moving average of changes in U.S. employment. They are published with a two-week time lag – WSJ.
• November NAHB housing market index 38, consensus 37; index of current single-family home sales 41 versus revised 39 in October (previous 38); index of home sales over next six months 51 versus 54 in October (previous 54); index of prospective buyers 26 versus 25 in October (previous 25).

• In Multi Industry: HON was double downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Bank America and cut tgt to $205 from $265 saying the industrial conglomerate is reorganizing its portfolio and separating into Honeywell Aerospace and Honeywell Automation, saying the catalyst path is challenging and the Solstice spin and Aerospace CEO have not matched the firm’s and investor expectations. Bank America also upgraded ITW to Neutral from Underperform (tgt to $255 from $220) as expects y/y margin expansion to be strong in 2026 which should drive EPS growth to be relatively in line with peers in 2026-2027.
• In Crypto: more weakness with Bitcoin falling below $90,000 overnight for the first time in 7 months (low $89,286), pushing shares of COIN, HOOD, MSTR and miners CIFR, CLSK, MARA, RIOT, IREN lower this morning. CAN said it sees Q4 revs $175M-$205M, above analysts’ avg. estimate of $160.3M after reporting Q3 revs rose +104.4% y/y to $150.M, above consensus estimates of $132.3M, driven by demand in both mining machine sales and self-operated mining.
• In AI Sector: MSFT, NVDA and Anthropic announce strategic partnerships. Anthropic has committed to purchase $30B of Azure compute capacity and to contract additional compute capacity up to 1 gigawatt; Microsoft and Anthropic are also expanding their existing partnership to provide broader access to Claude for businesses. NVDA/MSFT are committing to invest up to $10B and up to $5B respectively in Anthropic.
• In US listed China stocks: BIDU Q3 revs 31.174B yuan vs. est. 30.7B yuan; Q3 adj earnings per ads RMB 11.12; in Q3, revs from ai-powered businesses grew over 50% year-over-year to roughly RMB 10B; Q3 non-marketing revenue, which includes cloud, rose by 21% to 9.3 billion yuan. PDD Q3 revs rose 9% y/y to 108.28B yuan ($15.23B) vs avg analysts’ estimate of 108.41B yuan; Q3 adj net income 31.38B yuan, vs 27.46B yuan in the same quarter last year; notes revenue growth moderation due to competitive pressures; expect results to fluctuate due to ecosystem investments.

• B +2%; shares rise after the Financial Times reported that Elliott Management has built a “large” stake in the gold miner, now among top 10 largest investors.
• FCX +4%; said it plans to restore large-scale production at its Grasberg mine in Indonesia from Q2 2026, following a fatal incident that forced operations to halt earlier this year. FCX expects PT Freeport Indonesia’s combined copper and gold production in 2026 to be roughly in line with 2025 levels.
• INTU +1%; after announces multi-year $100 million partnership with OpenAI saying the partnership aims to allow ChatGPT users to take secure financial actions through Intuit-powered apps. Intuit says the deal will merge its financial data and AI tools with OpenAI’s models to deliver personalized insights.
• MDT +4%; posted a Q2 beat on top led by Cardio + Diabetes; Operating Margin 20 bps light, EPS $1.36 tops est. $1.32 saying overall procedure volumes and end markets remained robust; guidance raised, expecting organic rev growth to 5.5% (from +5%) and EPS to $5.62 to $5.66 (vs. $5.60 to $5.66)
• MRK +4%; said its lung-disease drug Winrevair met the main goal of a mid-stage study in adults with pulmonary hypertension due to heart failure; said drug showed a significant reduction in pulmonary vascular resistance at 24 weeks compared to placebo.
• VNDA +16%; said its experimental drug Tradipitant significantly reduces nausea and vomiting in people taking the popular weight-loss drug Wegovy, according to results from a new clinical trial; the study met main goal, 29.3% on Tradipitant vomited vs 58.6% on placebo; also reduced severe nausea.

• ENR -20%; shares fell after Q3 adj EPS/gross margin missed Street expectations and sees Q1 EPS guidance below the consensus estimate, while annual profit projections also miss.
• HD -3%; shares slumped as Q3 adj EPS $3.74 missed the $3.85 consensus; Q3 sales $41.35B tops est. $40.91B; Q3 comp sales +0.2% vs. est. +1.36% and U.S. comparable sales +0.1% vs. est. +1.25%; cuts FY25 EPS view to down -5% from $15.24 from down -2%.
• HON -2%; was double downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Bank America and cut tgt to $205 from $265 saying the industrial conglomerate is reorganizing its portfolio and separating into Honeywell Aerospace and Honeywell Automation, saying the catalyst path is challenging.
• HP -2%; shares declined after reporting Q4 adj EPS ($0.01) vs est $0.25 on revs $1.01B vs est $973.68Mm, adj EBITDA $225Mm vs est $926.99Mm; sees FY CAPEX $280-320Mm.
• IIIV -11%; shares fell after reported solid FQ4 results as revenue and adj. EBITDA were above the Street, but guidance for FY26 weighed on shares as Street revenue and adj. EBITDA are near the top end of initial ranges but implied margin expansion at the midpoint of the range is at the low end of expectations.
• LFMD -24%; shares fell after Q3 EPS ($0.10) vs est ($0.05), adj EBITDA $5.1Mm vs est $6.06Mm on revs $60.2Mm vs est $62.06Mm all miss and cuts FY25 revenue view to $192M-$193M from $250M-$255M
• NET -3%; shares fell after its network outage knocked out many websites this morning, including ChatGPT, X and Spotify among others (down for over 3 hours)