> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.sharespective.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Fission and Chips - URL: https://www.sharespective.com/sharespective-2026-10-07/ - Published: 2026-10-06T21:15:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T21:14:59.000Z - Description: McKesson is buying half of Option Care now, with the right to buy the rest later. - Author: Shaun Botha - Tags: Daily | ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/mark-light-3.png) | SharespectiveWall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletterWed 7 Oct 2026 | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | | ![Today's edition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/kicker-1.png)Fission and Chips**Plus:** McKesson is buying half of Option Care now, with the right to buy the rest later. | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | **Good morning.** The S&P 500 closed at a record on Tuesday, its first since August, after rising 0.58% to 7,818.93\. The NASDAQ Composite added 0.45% for a second straight record, and the Dow gained 0.49%. Bonds gave stocks some room. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 5.27% from 5.31%, which had been its highest close in 24 years. The day's biggest moves came from a nuclear power contract and a US$5.8 billion takeover. In company news, Marvell Technology rose 5.81% to US$287.01 after lifting its fiscal 2028 revenue target to about US$20 billion. Elsewhere, Seagate fell 9.18% because rival Toshiba plans to double its hard-drive output by fiscal 2027\. Finally, Novavax dropped 9.87% after the World Health Organization called the risk from a suspected plague death in Russia low. Fries with that? ### Market snapshot | S&P 5007,818.93**▲ 0.58%** | ​ | NASDAQ27,599.79**▲ 0.45%** | ​ | NZX 5013,700.12**▲ 0.01%** | | -------------------------- | - | ------------------------------- | - | ---------------------------------- | | ​ | | | | | | ASX 2008,735.70**▲ 0.57%** | ​ | Option CareUS$31.00**▲ 32.65%** | ​ | ConstellationUS$300.40**▲ 12.25%** | The US levels are Tuesday 6 October's closes in New York. The NZX 50 and ASX 200 are Tuesday's local closes. The Option Care Health and Constellation Energy rows are Tuesday's closing price and move. | ​ | ENERGY | | - | ------ | ## Google signed up for nuclear power that doesn't exist yet, and Constellation Energy rose 12.25% Constellation Energy, America's largest nuclear power operator, rose 12.25% to US$300.40 on Tuesday. It signed a 20-year deal to sell Google 890 megawatts of new nuclear capacity, all of it squeezed out of reactors it already runs. **So what is an uprate?** It is an upgrade that lets an existing reactor make more electricity, using new turbines, steam generators and control systems. Constellation will do it at 11 units on six sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and will spend US$4.3 billion on the work. The first uprate is due online in 2028\. A second agreement covers 2,700 megawatts of existing supply for 15 years, taking the two deals to about 3.6 gigawatts. All of it feeds PJM, the eastern grid that serves 67 million people. This is Constellation's second tech contract in a week. Amazon signed up last week for a 190-megawatt uprate at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. Microsoft's 2024 deal restarts a reactor at Three Mile Island. Vistra and Talen Energy, which also own nuclear plants, rose on Tuesday too. | Our readConstellation now has 20 years of revenue lined up for megawatts it still has to build. That is a strong position, and it rests on engineering. The first uprate is due in 2028, and that date is what Tuesday's 12% assumed. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | HEALTH CARE | | - | ----------- | ## McKesson is buying half of Option Care now, with the right to buy the rest later Option Care Health rose 32.65% to US$31.00 on Tuesday. Private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice and drug distributor McKesson agreed to buy it for US$32.05 a share in cash, 37.1% above Monday's close. With debt, the deal is worth about US$5.8 billion. **Option Care gives patients their drips at home.** It is America's largest independent infusion provider, delivering drugs straight into a vein at home or in its own clinics rather than in a hospital. It treats more than 308,000 patients a year from over 197 locations. The ownership is the unusual part. CD&R takes 51%, and McKesson puts in about US$1.4 billion for the other 49%. McKesson also gets the right to buy CD&R's stake later, subject to conditions and the regulators. JPMorgan analyst Lisa Gill said the deal suits McKesson's focus on specialty drugs and care outside hospitals. Chief executive John Rademacher called it "a great outcome" for shareholders. The deal is due to close in the first half of 2027. | The tellwhether McKesson takes up that option. Owning half a business shows a buyer how it really runs before it pays for the rest. A buyout of CD&R within a few years would be McKesson's verdict on the business. | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | FOOD | | - | ---- | ## Lamb Weston is selling more fries in America for less money each, and the shares rose 7.49% Lamb Weston, which supplies frozen fries to chains such as McDonald's, rose 7.49% to US$47.91 on Tuesday. Its adjusted profit for the quarter to August was 75 US cents a share, against the 59 cents Wall Street expected. **America did the heavy lifting.** North American sales rose 5% to US$1.14 billion on 7% more volume. International sales fell 8% to US$529 million, and adjusted EBITDA there, a profit measure before interest, tax and depreciation, fell 54%. Across the company, volume rose 2% while price and mix fell 2%. Lamb Weston is selling more fries for less each, and its gross margin dropped to 16% of sales from 20.6% a year earlier. The company says fries are holding up at fast-food chains because customers on tight budgets are sticking with cheap staples. The full-year forecast for adjusted EBITDA went up to between US$1.125 billion and US$1.215 billion. Input and freight costs, it warned, are rising faster than expected. | The catchthe outlook rose while the margin fell. I'd want to see prices stop slipping and the international business stop shrinking before reading this as a recovery. For now it is one good quarter in America. | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ### Newsworthy numbers | ​ | ​ | ​ | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | - | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 40%the net share of New Zealand firms expecting the economy to improve, in NZIER's September-quarter survey. It was 14% in June. | ​ | 67.2consumer sentiment among Australians Westpac surveyed after the Reserve Bank's rate rise. Those asked before it scored 86.9, and the October index fell to 80.4. | | ​ | | | | ​ | ​ | ​ | | A$7.1 billionwhat AI data centre operator Firmus is raising in Australia's biggest float since Telstra in 1997\. It began in 2019 as a bitcoin miner, so it has always been in the business of very hot computers. | ​ | US$9.9 billionAdobe's forecast for American online spending during Amazon's two-day Prime Big Deal Days, which finish on Wednesday in New York. That would be 9.2% more than last year's event. | ### Worth a read | ​ | | | -- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 01 | **[Rising rates could 'bite' into Australia's $4.5 trillion superannuation sector, Bank of America warns](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-05/bank-of-america-expert-has-warning-for-australian-super-funds/107221740?ref=sharespective.com)** — David Taylor on Mark Cabana, Bank of America's head of US rates strategy, who came to Sydney to tell super funds when American rates start to hurt. A lot of Australian retirement money sits on Wall Street. | | ​ | | | 02 | **[Why barcodes are about to go extinct](https://thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct?ref=sharespective.com)** — Katherine Laidlaw on the switch to QR codes on packaging. A QR code holds about 200 times the data, and Unilever is changing 45,000 products. | | ​ | | | 03 | **[The secret Cold War history of Tetris](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-cold-war-history-of-tetris/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Julien Mailland on how a puzzle written in a Soviet lab ended up owned by a company claiming the shapes themselves. A mathematician described them at Harvard in 1953. | | ​ | | | 04 | **[Scientists discover a human brain gene that can jump through DNA](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261002080013.htm?ref=sharespective.com)** — Cedric Feschotte's Cornell team found that BC200 works in brain cells and can still copy itself around the genome. Two copies turned up inside a wart-causing virus. | | ​ | | | 05 | **['The Eels Were Climbing Out of the Water to Die': Why Did Every Fish in This Idyllic Lake Perish Overnight?](https://longreads.com/2026/10/06/pollution-water-fish-england/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Steve Rose's Guardian investigation into an East Sussex fishing lake that died in a night, and the nearby farm its neighbours suspected. | ### Wrapping up America sells US$22 billion of 30-year bonds at 6​am Friday in Auckland and 4​am in Sydney. The 30-year yield closed Tuesday at 5.64%, near its highest since 2002, so demand at that auction will be watched closely. Results season starts properly next week. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup report on Tuesday 13 October in New York, early Wednesday here; net interest income, what banks earn on loans after paying depositors, is the line to watch. New Zealand's next rate decision is 28 October, ten days before the election. The kiwi firmed and USD/NZD eased to 1.78\. USD/AUD slipped to 1.43. Sydney's clocks went forward on Sunday, so it's two hours again. See you tomorrow. ​ General information and commentary only, not financial advice. It does not take account of your objectives, financial situation or needs, and reflects the author's own reading of public information at the time of writing, which may be wrong. Sharespective, its people and its clients may hold positions in the companies covered. Do your own research and talk to a licensed adviser.