Daily newsletter · Mon 12 Oct 2026
 | Sharespective Wall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletter Mon 12 Oct 2026 |
 Harvest Season Plus: America's big banks start reporting on Tuesday, 13% below their August peak. |
Good morning. The S&P 500 gained 1.15% last week to 7,811.54, and set a record on Tuesday along the way. The NASDAQ Composite added 0.64%. The steady sectors did the lifting: utilities, consumer staples and energy led, while technology lagged.
The 10-year Treasury yield finished the week at about 5.24%, and it gets a night off. The US bond market is shut tonight for Columbus Day, though stocks trade as normal. The banks start reporting on Tuesday in New York, and September's inflation figures follow on Wednesday.
In company news, Ciena jumped 13.85% on Tuesday with no news of its own, as demand for AI networking gear lifted the whole group. Elsewhere, Western Digital rose 6.34% on Monday after Bernstein called the selloff over Toshiba's expansion plans a storm in a teacup. Finally, Cisco gained 4.5% on Tuesday on the same networking demand.
Boring was beautiful.
Market snapshot
S&P 500 7,811.54 ▲ 1.15% | | NASDAQ 27,366.17 ▲ 0.64% | | NZX 50 13,749.35 ▲ 0.50% |
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ASX 200 8,716.64 ▲ 0.40% | | USD/NZD 1.78 ▲ 0.16% | | USD/AUD 1.43 ▼ 0.43% |
| AGRICULTURE |
America is growing far more corn than anyone expected, and Deere had its worst week in two years
Deere fell 4.85% to US$620.93 on Friday. That left the tractor maker 9.6% lower for the week, its worst since August 2024.
The trigger was a bumper corn crop. On Friday the US Department of Agriculture raised its corn yield estimate by 2.7 bushels an acre, to 181.2. The market had expected a cut, to 177.7.
That puts the harvest at 16.03 billion bushels, the second-largest American crop on record. Corn futures fell sharply, and AGCO and CNH Industrial, Deere's two big listed rivals, each lost about 5% on the day.
Cheaper corn leaves farmers with less to spend on a new harvester. Deere also has a regulator to deal with. On Wednesday the Federal Trade Commission and the agriculture department opened a joint inquiry into how farm equipment is sold and repaired, with comments open until 7 December.
The fertiliser makers had a rough week too. Mosaic fell about 11% to US$18.74 after RBC Capital Markets downgraded it on Monday, citing a slow recovery in phosphates.
Boiled down a bigger harvest means cheaper corn, and cheaper corn means smaller farm budgets next year. The equipment makers' order books will show that before their profits do. |
| BANKING |
America's big banks report this week, and their shares are down 13% since August
America's biggest banks open the results season on Tuesday in New York. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup report before the open. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley follow on Wednesday.
So why have bank shares fallen so far? The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index is 13% below its mid-August peak. Truist Securities analyst Brian Foran said financials just had their worst month against the S&P 500 since 1990.
Yields are the problem. Higher rates let a bank charge more on loans, but they also push up what it pays depositors. A 10-year yield above 5% has also slowed the deal-making that feeds investment banks.
The profits still look healthy. JPMorgan is expected to earn about US$5.90 a share on roughly US$51 billion of revenue. It has told investors its investment banking fees and trading revenue rose by a mid-to-high teens percentage.
Bank of America is less upbeat. Chief executive Brian Moynihan has warned that its investment banking fees fell at least 10% in the quarter.
Our take the deposit line matters more than the profit line. UBS analyst Erika Najarian says investors need to see deposit costs contained. I'd want to hear that from JPMorgan on Tuesday before concluding the yield spike has done the business no lasting harm. |
| CHIPS |
TSMC just had a record quarter, and its American shares fell four days running
TSMC, which makes chips for Nvidia and Apple, took in NT$1.49 trillion in the three months to September. That is about US$46.7 billion, 50.9% more than a year earlier and a quarterly record.
TSMC beat its own forecast. It had told investors to expect between US$44.6 billion and US$45.8 billion. September alone came in 54.6% above a year earlier.
Its American-listed shares fell anyway. They dropped four sessions in a row, from US$485.80 on Monday to US$453.31 on Friday, a slide of 6.7%.
The rest of the chip sector had it worse. Intel lost 12.3% over the week to US$104.70. Much of the selling came after Thursday's report that OpenAI earns less than investors had been told.
TSMC's results call is at 2pm Thursday in Taiwan, which is 7pm in Auckland and 5pm in Sydney. The sales are already public, so the call is about margins and next year's spending plans.
Next up TSMC's outlook for 2027. The sales figures show AI money is still arriving. Last week's selling was about whether it keeps coming, and TSMC is among the first to hear its customers' plans. |
Newsworthy numbers
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7 weeks in a row the kiwi has lost ground against the US dollar, though last week's slip was a small one. | | 0.9% how much the Russell 2000 index of smaller American companies fell last week, while the S&P 500 rose. |
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14.84 where the VIX, the market's gauge of expected swings in the S&P 500, closed on Friday. A 24-year high in bond yields barely registered. | | 237 days how long NASA's Crew-12 spent on the International Space Station before splashing down off Los Angeles on Thursday. |
Worth a read
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01 | How the big four banks reacted to fourth RBA rate hike — Bernadette Lunas on the big four passing on the full rise from 9 October, and on their economists' split over November. CBA calls it live; NAB thinks the Reserve Bank is done. |
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02 | Prime Big Deal Days sales 2026 — Digital Commerce 360 on what Americans bought in Amazon's October sale. Adobe has costume sales up 610% on September's average, which tells you which holiday is next. |
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03 | Home, sweet factory-built home — Danny Jensen on the return of homes built in factories. Builders say they go up 30% to 50% faster and waste up to 90% less material. |
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04 | Scientists Build a Nuclear Clock That Could Make Atomic Clocks Obsolete — Thorsten Schumm's TU Wien team used thorium nuclei to keep a laser on time. The prototype would drift by about a second in 30 million years. |
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05 | Anton De Pasquale runs out of fuel on last lap, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood win — The ABC's live coverage of Sunday's Bathurst 1000, where the leader's car ran dry climbing the mountain on the final lap. |
Wrapping up
Last week was three up days and two down, with a Friday rally after Donald Trump ruled out striking Iran before the midterms. There is no Fed decision this week. US consumer prices land at 1.30am Thursday in Auckland and 11.30pm Wednesday in Sydney.
The banks, UnitedHealth and Johnson & Johnson report from Tuesday in New York, early Wednesday here; investment banking fees and deposit costs are the lines to watch. TSMC follows on Thursday. Australia's September jobs figures land at 11.30am Thursday, Sydney time, and Stats NZ's September-quarter inflation figures arrive on 22 October.
Retail sales and producer prices close the week at 1.30am Friday in Auckland and 11.30pm Thursday in Sydney. With the 10-year yield near its highest since 2002, Wednesday's inflation number is the event most likely to set the tone for the rest.
The week ahead
- Wed (before Tuesday's US open) — JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup report, with UnitedHealth and Johnson & Johnson; JPMorgan is expected to earn about US$5.90 a share.
- Thu 1.30am NZ · Wed 11.30pm Sydney — US consumer prices for September; economists expect a 0.6% monthly rise and annual inflation of 3.6%, up from 3.4%.
- Thu (before Wednesday's US open) — Bank of America and Morgan Stanley report; Bank of America has warned of at least a 10% fall in investment banking fees.
- Thu 1.30pm NZ · 11.30am Sydney — Australian jobs figures for September, after unemployment rose to 4.6% in August.
- Thu 7pm NZ · 5pm Sydney — TSMC's September-quarter results call, after record sales of NT$1.49 trillion.
- Fri 1.30am NZ · Thu 11.30pm Sydney — US retail sales and producer prices for September.
Term four starts today in New Zealand. Good luck with the lunchboxes.