> ## 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. # The Dip Buyers Return - URL: https://www.sharespective.com/sharespective-2026-10-20/ - Published: 2026-10-19T21:15:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T21:14:59.000Z - Description: Disc Medicine jumped 38.86% after its drug for a painful reaction to sunlight passed its big trial. - 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 newsletterTue 20 Oct 2026 | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | | ![Today's edition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/kicker-1.png)The Dip Buyers Return**Plus:** Disc Medicine jumped 38.86% after its drug for a painful reaction to sunlight passed its big trial. | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | **Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday.** Chipmakers finally had a good day. After eight straight losing sessions, a Yahoo Finance basket of 60 chip stocks won back nearly US$250 billion of market value on Monday. The NASDAQ Composite rose 1.11% to 26,430.89 and the S&P 500 added 0.41% to 7,690.73\. The Dow slipped 0.07%. The gains were narrow, though. About 70% of the companies in the S&P 500 fell, and the equal-weighted version of the index, which gives every company the same say, finished lower. In company news, Silence Therapeutics jumped 125.58% after Merck KGaA agreed to buy it for US$20 a US-listed share in cash, about US$1.3 billion in all. Elsewhere, EyePoint fell 85.28% because its eye drug missed the main goal of a second late-stage trial. Finally, Intel rose 2.43% to US$92.03 after JPMorgan upgraded it to neutral from underweight. Monday finally behaved itself. ### Market snapshot | S&P 5007,690.73**▲ 0.41%** | ​ | NASDAQ26,430.89**▲ 1.11%** | ​ | NZX 5013,652.07**▼ 0.74%** | | -------------------------- | - | --------------------------------- | - | ------------------------------------ | | ​ | | | | | | ASX 2008,845.69**▲ 0.44%** | ​ | Disc MedicineUS$78.93**▲ 38.86%** | ​ | Cleveland-CliffsUS$14.10**▲ 16.34%** | US index levels are Monday 19 October's closes in New York. The NZX 50 and ASX 200 are Monday's local closes, taken before Tuesday's open. Disc Medicine and Cleveland-Cliffs show Monday's closing price and that session's move. | ​ | BIG TECH | | - | -------- | ## A Morgan Stanley note added about US$134 billion to Amazon in a day Amazon rose 4.98% on Monday to US$262.45\. For a company now worth US$2.83 trillion, that added about US$134 billion in a single session. **The push came from a bank.** Morgan Stanley named Amazon its top pick on Monday. The bank pointed to the cloud business, Amazon Web Services, along with advertising and Prime memberships. Amazon Web Services rents computing power to other businesses, including the companies training AI models. That makes it the part of Amazon most exposed to last week's argument about whether all the AI spending will pay off. The shares had ground to make up. Amazon hit a record of about US$287 in August, and Monday's close still sits almost 9% below it. | Our takea broker's note moves the share price and leaves the business where it was on Friday. Amazon reports on 29 October in New York, which is 10​am Friday in Auckland and 8​am in Sydney. I'd want to see how fast the cloud arm grew before reading much into Monday. | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | HEALTHCARE | | - | ---------- | ## Disc Medicine rose 38.86% after its drug for a painful reaction to sunlight passed a final-stage trial Disc Medicine closed Monday at US$78.93, up 38.86%. Its drug, bitopertin, met every goal it was set in a final-stage trial of 183 patients, and the company is now worth about US$3 billion. **So what does the drug treat?** Erythropoietic protoporphyria, or EPP, is a rare genetic disorder in which sunlight causes severe pain, swelling and sometimes blistering. Disc counts about 14,000 diagnosed patients in the US aged 12 and over. Only one treatment, Scenesse, is approved there, and there is no cure. Over six months, patients on bitopertin gained an average of 12.2 extra hours a month in daylight without pain, compared with those on a placebo. The drug also cut the compound that builds up in the blood and causes the reactions by 41.4%. This is Disc's second attempt at approval. In February the US Food and Drug Administration turned bitopertin down and asked to see this trial first. Disc now plans to refile by the end of 2026, and it expects a decision by the middle of 2027. | The catchhalf the patients taking bitopertin reported dizziness, which Disc says was mild to moderate and passed. A second rejection would cost the company at least another year, so the mid-2027 ruling is the date that matters. | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | MATERIALS | | - | --------- | ## Cleveland-Cliffs rose 16.34% after its strongest quarter in three years Cleveland-Cliffs rose 16.34% on Monday to US$14.10\. The American steelmaker's adjusted EBITDA, its profit before interest, tax and depreciation, came to US$612 million in the September quarter, against US$143 million a year earlier. **The forecast is what moved the shares.** Cliffs expects that figure to top US$4 billion in 2027\. For the December quarter it expects about US$715 million. Prices did most of the work. Cliffs sold its steel for an average of US$1,177 a ton, up from US$1,032 a year earlier. Shipments rose only slightly, to 4.2 million tons. Tariffs on imported steel sit behind those prices. Washington has used national-security powers, known as Section 232, to tax steel coming into the country. Chief executive Lourenco Goncalves said imports remain well below their usual levels and lead times are long. | The open questionhow much of this is the business and how much is the tariff wall around it. Cliffs carries US$7.6 billion of long-term debt against a market value of about US$8 billion. A forecast built on trade policy can change with one announcement from the White House. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ### Newsworthy numbers | ​ | ​ | ​ | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | - | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 4.5%China's annual growth rate in the September quarter, up from a three-year low of 4.3% in the June quarter and a touch ahead of the 4.4% economists expected. | ​ | 14.5%the share of US home purchase contracts signed in September that were later cancelled, according to Redfin. Outside the early pandemic months, that is a record. | | ​ | | | | ​ | ​ | ​ | | 57%the share of New Zealand's exports to India that go tariff-free from today, as the trade deal between the two countries takes effect. Wine tariffs fall from 150% to between 25% and 50% over ten years. | ​ | 508 pointshow far the Dow fell on 19 October 1987, a 22.6% drop in a single day. Monday's anniversary went rather better. | ### Worth a read | ​ | | | -- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 01 | **[Higher KiwiSaver contribution rates could leave some worse off, NZIER warns](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/2014198/higher-kiwisaver-contribution-rates-could-leave-some-worse-off-nzier-warns?ref=sharespective.com)** — Susan Edmunds on research showing a single parent earning NZ$50,000 to NZ$75,000 falls short at every higher contribution rate modelled. A bigger retirement balance can mean a thinner emergency fund. | | ​ | | | 02 | **[The AI boom is making the world's cheapest smartphones disappear](https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-data-center-memory-chip-shortage-cheap-smartphones-digital-divide/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Kinling Lo on data centres soaking up the world's memory chips. Shipments of phones under US$100 fell 60% in the June quarter. | | ​ | | | 03 | **[Gotta steal 'em all: Pokémon card retailers targeted in six-figure crime spree](https://www.smartcompany.com.au/retail/gotta-steal-em-all-pok%C3%A9mon-card-retailers-targeted-in-six-figure-crime-spree/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Simon Thompson on a crew that hit card shops in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Pokémon cards carry no serial numbers, so stolen stock is almost impossible to trace. | | ​ | | | 04 | **[Alaska's Monster Tsunami Sent Water 1,580 Feet Up a Mountain](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261018205047.htm?ref=sharespective.com)** — Alaska Earthquake Center seismologists on the 2025 landslide in Tracy Arm fjord, the second-highest tsunami on record, and the thousands of small tremors that came before it. | | ​ | | | 05 | **[Where the Forest Went](https://longreads.com/2026/10/13/american-forest-development-property-hugh-maxwell/?ref=sharespective.com)** — James Whorton Jr. retraces Hugh Maxwell's 1788 survey: 1,100 miles walked in straight lines to carve 2.6 million acres of Seneca forest into a grid. | ### Wrapping up The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's next decision is on Wednesday 28 October, at 2​pm in Wellington and noon in Sydney. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.14% on Monday, so borrowing costs stay the backdrop for every rally. General Motors reports before the open on Tuesday in New York, and Intuitive Surgical after the close. IBM and Texas Instruments follow on Wednesday. After the chip selloff, Texas Instruments' outlook for the December quarter is the line to watch. USD/NZD held at 1.77 on Monday, and USD/AUD eased to 1.43 from 1.44. A fortnight to the Melbourne Cup. 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.