Signing you in

After a busy first proper week of earnings that saw a relatively mixed picture out of the big banks, attention turns to the tech trade, where Meta (META), SpaceX (SPCX), and Tesla (TSLA) will all report results. With little economic data coming ahead of the Federal Reserve's late October meeting, the first batch of tech results will have our undivided attention.

After a relatively quiet Monday, the week's major earnings get properly underway on Tuesday with SpaceX and Netflix (NFLX), where co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters are likely to face questions (scrutiny or praise, we'll see) over recent layoff announcements. Wednesday will see results from Tesla and Meta, set to provide an early read on the state of the Magnificent Seven and the AI trade writ large.

Several of the so-called "prime" defense contractors — Northrop Grumman (NOC), Lockheed Martin (LMT), and RTX Corp. (RTX) — will also post their quarterly results, joined throughout the week by industrial heavyweight Honeywell (HON) and energy giant NextEra (NEE).

The quiet economic calendar will feature a smattering of housing and labor market data ahead of Friday's consumer sentiment readings from the University of Michigan, which are likely to capture the most attention.

When Meta reports third quarter earnings on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg and the company's other executives are likely to take myriad questions around one topic: the company's growing push into AI.

The focus for Meta recently has, of course, been the launch of Muse Spark, a personal AI agent product that set off waves of bulls claiming agentic workflows will revolutionize whole industries and of bears claiming, basically, "No one wants this."

The product immediately racked up millions of downloads, reaching the 5 million mark faster than OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) ChatGPT, Anthropic's (ANTH.PVT) Claude, and SpaceX's Grok.

The product launch — one of Meta's largest announcements in years — has put the company "back on offense with AI," argue Bank of America analysts Justin Post and Nitin Bansal, who have a Buy rating on the stock with an $810 price target.

"We think Muse and Model traction can drive multiple expansion with stock at 22x 2027 EPS," the analysts wrote.

Go deeper with AlphaSpace 694.72 -10.72 (-1.52%) As of 11:11:48 AM EDT. Market Open. There are some risks for Meta, Post and Bansal said. Muse downloads and activity could slow down, and Google could release a competitor consumer agent product that would take market share away from Meta.

Comments from executives on the upcoming earnings call could stoke fears around a potential capex slowdown — or speed-up, with growing expenses — as market watchers look for any crack in hyperscaler growth projections.

Even so, the BofA analysts are expecting good things. For the third quarter, consensus estimates put Meta's adjusted earnings for the quarter at $6.76 per share with revenue of $63.35 billion, within the company's guided range of $61 billion to $64 billion. Post and Bansal are more bullish, estimating revenue of $63.8 billion.

If nothing else, Wednesday's earnings report is set to be a check on a quote from Mark Zuckerberg that was published by Meta alongside the company's second quarter report:

"AI is accelerating our core business today, powering our next generation of products, and opening the door to entirely new enterprise opportunities. The results are already showing, and I'm optimistic about the potential ahead."

After a two-week delay, the Tesla (TSLA) Roadster event went off with a massive bang — a flying one.

As our colleague Pras Subramanian reported, Tesla's new Roadster EV on Thursday night cruised halfway up an inverted half roller-coaster ramp erected at SpaceX's facility in Waco, Texas, launched off the ramp upside down, and performed flips in the air, using air thrusters to right itself and land on the tarmac. It also jumped over a row of other Tesla vehicles.

"There were hints that the Tesla Roadster might do something extraordinary, but I think what happened in Texas on Thursday evening far exceeded everyone's expectations," said Henry Catchpole, host of Hagerty's "The Driver's Seat," who was in attendance at the event.

Go deeper with AlphaSpace 376.38 +8.32 (+2.26%) As of 11:11:47 AM EDT. Market Open. All that said, even as the event gave Tesla stock a boost, the new Roadster probably won't be the deciding factor in the company beating on earnings. Still, the high-profile reveal on Thursday night did achieve two things.

"Two takeaways from tonight's Roadster event. 1. It was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers. 2. Elon can't wait to bring $TSLA and $SPCX together," veteran tech analyst Gene Munster said in an X post.

As Munster points out, the event immediately sparked renewed conversations around a potential tie-up between SpaceX and Tesla, which would bring Musk's two public companies under one umbrella — and give him just about full control of the combined entity, considering he's the dominant shareholder in SpaceX.

Musk and his team have been careful not to make any leading statements on the matter, even though it's been publicly documented Musk indeed wants to merge the companies. Regardless, the demonstration is certain to spark questions about a tie-up when Musk speaks with analysts and investors after SpaceX and Tesla each report earnings.

Oh, and we'll also be watching for robot news and Robotaxi updates.

It was a bloody week for the semiconductor trade, triggered by a chart posted to X and a one-word reply from Elon Musk: "Yikes."

The chart in question showed spiking yields on bonds issued by the neocloud provider CoreWeave, prompting a renewed wave of concerns about the company's debt-heavy balance sheet and whether it can scale its business quickly enough to cover rising interest expenses.

The debate over CoreWeave gets at a broader point that's been coursing through discourse around the AI trade recently. Buying semiconductors, renting compute capacity, training and operating LLMs — all of those activities are extraordinarily expensive. Increasingly, the financing for that capex has come not from cash stores, but from the debt market.

That's prompted fears that if there were to be a rerating of the AI trade, investors could get stuck holding the bag. In every successful technological revolution, there are always winners and losers.

CoreWeave's (CRWV) credit risk reached an all-time high on Thursday, per data from the Intercontinental Exchange, reflecting investors' rising concerns over the feasibility of the debt profile at the leading neocloud provider.

The price of CoreWeave credit default swaps, essentially a form of insurance against default risk, rose by 74.5 basis points to price in 60% odds that the company will default on its debt within the next five years, per Bloomberg.

At the same time, some of CoreWeave's bonds continued to slide further, as 9% notes fell to trade at 80.75 cents on the dollar with a yield of 15.3% as investors demand a premium to hold the debt.

CoreWeave has defended its financing model, arguing in a statement to Yahoo Finance, "When you are building a new type of technology company there will be periods of time when the market misunderstands and acts irrationally."

The stock also staged a recovery through the week, prompted by a statement of confidence in the company from Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang. That said, Nvidia holds a sizable stake in CoreWeave. For bearish investors, that's part of the problem.

Economic data: NABH housing market index, October (31 expected, 32 prior)

Earnings calendar: Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Steel Dynamics (STLD), W.R. Berkley Corporation (WRB), Crown Holdings (CCK), Summit Therapeutics (SMMT), Wintrust Financial Corporation (WTFC), VinFast Auto (VFS), Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF)

Economic data: ADP weekly employment change, week ended Oct. 3 (+24,750 prior); Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing index, October (-22 prior); Housing starts, month-on-month, September (+2.3% expected, -2.6% prior); Building permits, month-on-month, September preliminary reading (-1.7% expected, -2.1% prior); Pending home sales, month-on-month, September (+0.5% expected, +0.3% prior)

Earnings calendar: GE Aerospace (GE), Netflix (NFLX), RTX Corporation (RTX), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Chubb (CB), Capital One Financial (COF), 3M Company (MMM), General Motors (GM), Northrop Grumman (NOC), MSCI (MSCI), United Airlines (UAL), Halliburton (HAL), Synchrony Financial (SYF), Equifax (EFX), East West Bancorp (EWBC), Hasbro (HAS), Ally Financial (ALLY)

Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Oct. 16 (-2.7% prior)

Earnings calendar: Meta Platforms (META), Tesla (TSLA), Lam Research (LRCX), Philip Morris International (PM), SAP SE (SAP), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), Texas Instruments (TXN), IBM (IBM), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), NextEra Energy (NEE), AT&T (T), CME Group (CME), Elevance Health (ELV), CSX Corporation (CSX), Moody's Corporation (MCO), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (WAB), Waste Connections (WCN), Reliance (RS), Southwest Airlines (LUV), Medpace Holdings (MEDP), Molina Healthcare (MOH)

Economic data: Initial jobless claims, week ended Oct. 17 (199,000 prior); Continuing claims, week ended Oct. 10 (1.71 million prior); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, October (14 prior)

Earnings calendar: Procter & Gamble (PG), Union Pacific (UNP), Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO), Western Digital (WDC), Valero Energy (VLO), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Newmont Corporation (NEM), Spotify (SPOT), Blackstone (BX), Comcast (CMCSA), Barclays (BCS), Norfolk Southern (NSC), Bloom Energy (BE), Honeywell International (HON), Comfort Systems USA (FIX), PG&E (PCG), CBRE Group (CBRE), Roper Technologies (ROP), Deckers Outdoor Corporation (DECK)

Economic data: S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, October preliminary reading (55.5 expected, 55.9 prior); S&P Global US services PMI, October preliminary reading (57.7 expected, 58.8 prior); S&P Global US composite PMI, October preliminary reading (58.4 prior); Kansas City Fed services activity, October (0 prior); U. Mich. sentiment, October final reading (46.3 expected, 46.3 prior); U. Mich. current conditions, October final reading (44.7 prior); U. Mich. expectations, October final reading (47.3 prior); U. Mich. 1-year inflation, October final reading (+4.7% prior); U. Mich. 5-10 year inflation, October final reading (+3.5% prior)

Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance