Daily newsletter · Mon 19 Oct 2026
 | Sharespective Wall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletter Mon 19 Oct 2026 |
 The Great Rotation Plus: Netflix reports on Tuesday, days after the biggest job cuts in its history. |
Good morning. The NASDAQ Composite fell 4.48% last week and the S&P 500 lost 1.95%, the worst week for both since June. Technology did the damage, as investors sold companies tied to AI spending.
This week puts that selling to the test. Meta and Tesla report on Wednesday in New York, and their spending plans should show whether last week was about AI or about the bond market.
In company news, Crescent Energy jumped 10.07% on Friday as oil producers rallied with crude. Elsewhere, AMD fell 5.95% the same day as chipmakers slid for an eighth straight session. Finally, Alcoa rose 2.55% after reporting adjusted September-quarter earnings of US$1.82 a share.
Toothpaste beat chips.
Market snapshot
S&P 500 7,659.44 ▼ 1.95% | | NASDAQ 26,140.03 ▼ 4.48% | | NZX 50 13,753.73 ▲ 0.03% |
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ASX 200 8,806.71 ▲ 1.03% | | USD/NZD 1.77 ▼ 0.73% | | USD/AUD 1.44 ▲ 0.55% |
| MARKETS |
Seven of the S&P 500's 11 sectors rose last week, and the index still fell 1.95%
Most of the American market had a decent week. Consumer staples, the companies selling groceries and toothpaste, rose 5.02%. Energy gained 4.86% and healthcare 3.45%.
So how did the S&P 500 still fall? Technology dropped 7.70% over the five sessions. The S&P 500 weights each company by its market value, and technology made up about 38% of the index at the end of August.
A 7.7% fall in something that big takes almost three points off the index on its own. The other ten sectors clawed back about one of them.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tells the other half of the story. It holds just 30 companies, weighted by share price, and it rose 0.67% to 52,002.41 for the week.
Our view we'd call this a healthy rotation for the market, and a painful one for anyone whose savings track the index. With technology near two-fifths of the S&P 500, Meta's results on Wednesday matter to almost every index fund. |
| MEDIA |
Netflix cut about 1,000 jobs and replaced its content chief, days before its results
Netflix fell 2.86% on Friday to US$70.53. That leaves the shares 43% below their 52-week high of US$124.86.
The week started with a memo. On Wednesday, co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters told staff that about 1,000 jobs would go, roughly 6% of the workforce. It is the biggest round of layoffs in Netflix's history; the cuts in 2022 came to about 450 people.
Then came the bigger surprise. Bela Bajaria, the content chief behind Bridgerton and Squid Game, is leaving after nearly a decade. Peter Rice, who ran Walt Disney Television until 2022, takes over on 26 October.
The worry behind both moves is viewing. Time spent watching Netflix grew just 2% in the first half of 2026, and a subscription business needs people to keep watching to keep paying.
Netflix reports on Tuesday after the close in New York, which is 9am Wednesday in Auckland and 7am in Sydney. It has told investors to expect earnings of US$0.82 a share for the quarter.
What to watch the plan for viewing. Job cuts protect this year's profit margin. I'd want to hear how Netflix expects to get people watching more again, because viewing is what pays for the years after this one. |
| UTILITIES |
Microsoft will pay for its own power in Indiana, and NiSource rose 3.47%
NiSource rose 3.47% on Friday to US$42.68. The utility had just signed a 20-year deal to supply about 1,100 megawatts to a Microsoft data-centre campus in northwest Indiana, starting in 2028.
The interesting part is who pays. Microsoft will fund all the generation and transmission the campus needs. Its Jeff Riles said the company is "committed to paying our own way."
NiSource says its existing customers come out ahead. It now expects data-centre contracts to save customers of NIPSCO, its Indiana electricity business, about US$1.75 billion over their life, up from US$1.4 billion, or as much as US$140 a customer each year.
Microsoft joins two other tech giants. In April NiSource added Alphabet as a customer and expanded an existing deal with Amazon, and put the savings at about US$1.25 billion.
The tell the detail behind the US$1.75 billion. NiSource has promised more on the deal with its September-quarter results. A data centre that pays for its own power station is easier for a town to welcome, and that matters as these campuses look for new sites. |
Newsworthy numbers
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24.3% how much more New Zealanders paid for petrol in September than a year earlier, according to Stats NZ. Prices rose 6.4% in September alone. | | US$99.02 where West Texas Intermediate, the American oil benchmark, settled on Friday. It rose 7.81% over the week. |
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US$500 million the fraud Josh Wander, co-founder of 777 Partners, admitted to in a Manhattan court on Thursday. His firm was the sole backer of Bonza, the Australian budget airline that collapsed in 2024, and it also collected football clubs. | | 100 years how soon two supermassive black holes at the centre of the galaxy Mrk 501 could merge, according to a Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy team led by Silke Britzen. Each one drives its own jet of matter, which is how the team spotted the pair. |
Worth a read
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01 | Car insurance premiums increase almost 60 per cent in four years — Malcolm Sutton on comprehensive cover in Australia, up 57% since 2023. The average claim has risen 32% to A$6,266. |
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02 | The big way Target and Big W are disrupting Amazon in Australia — Dean Salakas on two chains turning their shops into one-hour delivery depots. Big W has put more than 35,000 products on DoorDash across 156 stores. |
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03 | Make it so (eventually): Startups are still eyeing Mars — Bill Meincke on start-ups building Mars machinery that pays its way on Earth first, laying solar panels and building data centres. A good warm-up for SpaceX's results on Tuesday. |
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04 | Scientists Discover a Surprising Twist in Japan's 7,300-year-old Volcanic Apocalypse — A team led by Lund University's Peter Jordan found the Kikai-Akahoya eruption shrank some populations and grew others, as survivors moved and built new kinds of economy. |
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05 | Supplemental Journey — Gordon Peake, a krill-oil taker himself, sails to Antarctica with vegan activists to see how the supplement gets caught. |
Wrapping up
Last week had two flat days, a sharp fall on Wednesday's inflation figure, a small Thursday bounce and a Friday tech rout. No central bank decides this week, and the Fed is in its quiet period before 28 October. China's growth figures land at 3pm today in Auckland and 1pm in Sydney.
Netflix and SpaceX report on Tuesday in New York; SpaceX is reporting for only the second time as a listed company, and Starlink is its number. Meta and Tesla follow on Wednesday. Here, economists expect Thursday's figures to show New Zealand's inflation easing to 3.7%.
The kiwi ended a run of seven straight weekly losses, and USD/NZD fell to 1.77. Falling US bond yields softened the US dollar. The Aussie went the other way after Australia lost 39,300 jobs in September, and USD/AUD rose to 1.44.
The week ahead
- Mon 3pm NZ · 1pm Sydney — China's September-quarter growth figures, with September's retail sales and factory output.
- Wed 9am NZ · 7am Sydney — Netflix results, its first since announcing about 1,000 job cuts and a new content chief.
- Wed 9.30am NZ · 7.30am Sydney — SpaceX results webcast, its second as a listed company; it lost US$541 million on revenue of US$7.8 billion in the June quarter.
- Thu 9.30am NZ · 7.30am Sydney — Meta's results call, with its spending plans the line to watch after last week's tech selloff.
- Thu 10.30am NZ · 8.30am Sydney — Tesla's results call; analysts expect earnings of about 45 US cents a share.
- Thu 10.45am NZ · 8.45am Sydney — New Zealand's September-quarter inflation figures; economists expect the annual rate to ease to 3.7% from 4.1%.
Five working days to Labour Weekend. See you tomorrow.