Daily newsletter · Sat 10 Oct 2026
 | Sharespective Wall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletter Sat 10 Oct 2026 |
 Bad Reception Plus: a government scorecard sent Humana's shares up 11.56%. |
Good morning, and welcome to Saturday. Wall Street finished the week on a firm note. The S&P 500 rose 0.59% to 7,811.54 on Friday, the NASDAQ Composite added 0.64%, and the Dow gained 423 points, or 0.83%.
That left the S&P 500 up 1.15% for the week. Consumers are gloomier: the University of Michigan's sentiment index fell to 46.3 from 48.1, its second-lowest reading on record. The day's biggest moves came from a phone network that doesn't exist yet.
In company news, Cable One fell 27.57% after its lender, CoBank, sued to block its purchase of Mega Broadband. Elsewhere, Fastly jumped 15.86% because Oppenheimer upgraded the web-delivery company to outperform. Finally, Apple slipped 1.11% after Nikkei Asia reported that it has asked suppliers to cut parts orders for the iPhone 18 Pro.
Can you hear me now?
Market snapshot
S&P 500 7,811.54 ▲ 0.59% | | NASDAQ 27,366.17 ▲ 0.64% | | NZX 50 13,749.35 ▲ 0.42% |
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ASX 200 8,716.64 ▲ 0.64% | | T-Mobile US$148.58 ▼ 13.27% | | Humana US$431.87 ▲ 11.56% |
| TELECOM |
SpaceX bought the airwaves for a phone network, and T-Mobile fell 13.27%
T-Mobile fell 13.27% to US$148.58 on Friday. AT&T lost 9.81% to US$22.18, and Verizon dropped 8.75% to US$41.65.
So what did SpaceX actually buy? After Thursday's close it agreed to buy up to 14 megahertz of paired 800 MHz spectrum from Grain Management, an infrastructure investor. Grain bought the licences from T-Mobile in August. SpaceX did not say what it paid.
Low-band airwaves travel further and get through walls better than the 2 GHz band Starlink's phone service already uses. SpaceX says most phones already work on the new band. Elon Musk called it "the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle."
The plan is to pair the satellites with towers and small cells on the ground. That showed up elsewhere on the tape. Crown Castle, which rents out space on phone towers, rose 15.60% to US$79.64, and SpaceX added 1.25% to US$162.57.
AST SpaceMobile, a satellite rival that was also interested in Grain's licences, fell 10.48%.
The tell how fast SpaceX builds on the ground. The deal still needs the FCC's approval, and a national network takes years and a great many towers. The first city switched on will say more about the carriers than Friday's prices did. |
| HEALTH CARE |
Humana's Medicare plans won back their stars, and the shares jumped 11.56%
Humana rose 11.56% to US$431.87 on Friday. It opened at US$450.49 and was up almost 18% at its high before giving some of that back.
The stars are a government scorecard. Medicare Advantage plans are private health plans that cover Americans aged 65 and over in place of the government's own Medicare. Washington rates them from one to five stars every year, and plans with four or more earn bonus payments worth billions.
The ratings for 2027 are now out. Humana said 95% of its Medicare Advantage members are in plans rated four stars or higher, up from 20% this year. JPMorgan's analysts had expected between 60% and 70%.
Its rivals did worse. Across the industry about 71% of members will be in four-star plans, Reuters reported, and UnitedHealth is expected to fall to about 67% from 81%. CVS Health lost 1.87%.
Evercore ISI's Elizabeth Anderson said the jump shows how much weight Humana's management put on fixing the ratings over the past year.
The catch the bonus money tied to these ratings is paid in 2028. The plans are scored again next October, so the bonus for 2029 is still to be won. |
| AIRLINES |
Delta cut its profit forecast by almost a quarter, and its shares didn't move
Delta Air Lines closed 0.04% higher at US$82.17 on Friday. That was after it cut its 2026 profit forecast to between US$5.10 and US$5.60 a share, from between US$6.50 and US$7.50.
The finance chief blamed one thing. Asked about the cut, chief financial officer Erik Snell said: "All of it's fuel." Delta paid an average of US$3.61 a gallon in the September quarter, 60% more than a year earlier, and its fuel bill rose 62% to US$4.1 billion.
Adjusted earnings came in at US$1.72 a share, a little short of forecasts. Chief executive Ed Bastian expects a pre-tax profit of about US$4.5 billion this year, while absorbing a US$6 billion jump in fuel costs.
The rest of the business is doing well. Adjusted revenue rose 16% to US$17.6 billion, and premium cabins grew 18%. Delta expects December-quarter revenue to rise about 20%, and nearly 60% of the quarter is already booked.
The shares fell as much as 3.6% early on, then won all of it back by the close.
Our view the market looked past the fuel bill because people are still paying for seats. The December forecast assumes jet fuel at about US$4.25 a gallon. That is the number I'd watch, because fuel above it comes straight off a forecast already cut by almost a quarter. |
Newsworthy numbers
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15,000 satellites the FCC cleared SpaceX to operate for the next generation of Starlink Mobile, in an order released on Tuesday in Washington. | | US$350 million the penalty American Express agreed to pay the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over its anti-money-laundering controls. Amex says part of it was set aside earlier, so this year's guidance stands. |
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NZ$8.4 billion how much New Zealand's household net worth fell in the June quarter, a 0.3% dip, as land values dropped NZ$26.2 billion. | | 4.7% the inflation Americans expect over the next year, according to Friday's Michigan survey. That is up from 4.6% in September and the highest since May. |
Worth a read
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01 | Are you feeling wealthier? The numbers suggest maybe not — Susan Edmunds asks four economists why New Zealanders feel poorer. Disposable incomes rose 5.2% in a year, but households' interest bills went up for the first time in two years. |
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02 | Who's driving this delivery truck? Nobody — Bill Meincke on Gatik, which runs driverless box trucks between warehouses and stores for Walmart and Loblaw. It has completed more than 85,000 deliveries without anyone at the wheel. |
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03 | As U.S. blocks DJI, Insta360 races to win American creators — Viola Zhou on the Chinese camera maker filling the gap while America approves no new DJI products. DJI still ships 73% of the world's handheld smart cameras. |
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04 | Healthy reef sounds can boost coral and fish recovery efforts — Scripps researchers played recordings of a healthy reef through underwater speakers in Hawaii's Kāne'ohe Bay. The noisy sites drew between four and 14 times as many fish larvae. |
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05 | Up a Creek — David Schurman Wallace in The Baffler on John McPhee, now 95, and the patient attention his books on rivers, rocks and glaciers ask of a reader. |
Wrapping up
America's September retail sales arrive at 1.30am Friday in Auckland and 11.30pm Thursday in Sydney. After Friday's sentiment survey, they will show whether spending is slowing too.
UnitedHealth reports before Tuesday's New York open, early Wednesday in Auckland and late Tuesday in Sydney. After Friday's ratings, its Medicare Advantage outlook is the line to watch. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley follow before Wednesday's open.
The kiwi barely moved, and USD/NZD held at 1.78. USD/AUD eased to 1.43.
Four weeks until New Zealand votes. Enjoy the weekend, and see you Monday.