> ## 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. # Chips Down, Soap Up - URL: https://www.sharespective.com/sharespective-2026-10-23/ - Published: 2026-10-22T21:15:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-22T21:14:59.000Z - Description: Procter & Gamble rose 5.58% after shoppers bought more of what it makes. - 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 newsletterFri 23 Oct 2026 | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | | ![Today's edition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/kicker-1.png)Chips Down, Soap Up**Plus:** Procter & Gamble rose 5.58% after shoppers bought more of what it makes. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | **Good morning.** US technology shares had a rough Thursday. The NASDAQ Composite fell 2.60% to 26,008.86 and the S&P 500 lost 1.21%, while the Dow edged up 0.02% as money moved into duller companies. Chipmakers did most of the damage. Bonds rallied, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.95% from 5.15% on Wednesday. Gold fell more than 2%, which is not what a safe haven is supposed to do on a day like this. In company news, Spotify jumped 11.10% after forecasting a fourth-quarter profit above Wall Street's estimates. Elsewhere, Nokia fell 14.81% despite beating forecasts, as investors focused on negative free cash flow and rising supply costs. Finally, Tesla fell 3.08% as investors weighed lower spending this year against heavier spending in 2027 and 2028. Soap beat silicon. ### Market snapshot | S&P 5007,663.43**▼ 1.21%** | ​ | NASDAQ26,008.86**▼ 2.60%** | ​ | NZX 5013,746.84**▼ 0.11%** | | -------------------------- | - | --------------------------------- | - | ---------------------------- | | ​ | | | | | | ASX 2008,793.20**▼ 0.43%** | ​ | Lam ResearchUS$230.15**▼ 11.76%** | ​ | ModernaUS$202.63**▼ 17.57%** | US index levels are Thursday 22 October's closes in New York. The NZX 50 and ASX 200 are Thursday's local closes, taken before Friday's open. Lam Research and Moderna show Thursday's closing price and that session's move. | ​ | CHIPS | | - | ----- | ## Lam Research fell 11.76% after saying it could not get enough parts, and chip stocks followed Lam Research makes the machines chipmakers use to etch and coat silicon wafers. It closed Thursday at US$230.15, down 11.76%, the steepest fall among the chip stocks in the Nasdaq-100. **Lam says it could have sold more.** Revenue in the September quarter was a record US$8.22 billion. Lam expects about US$8.6 billion in the December quarter, and chief financial officer Doug Bettinger said that forecast would have been a bit higher without some short-term supply problems. That was enough to sink the sector. All 22 chip and data storage makers in the Nasdaq-100 closed lower. Nvidia fell 4.40% to US$212.21, and a widely followed index of chip stocks dropped more than 6%. Meta added to the gloom. Its shares rose more than 3% after hours on Wednesday, then fell 6.98% on Thursday to US$648.85. Its quarterly filing showed US$825 billion of future leases and contracts, mostly for data centres and cloud deals. In July the figure was nearly US$700 billion. | Final takeLam's customers still want its machines, and Bettinger expects supply to stay tight into 2027\. Our read is that the bigger question for chip stocks sits with the buyers. Meta's free cash flow was negative last quarter, and its commitments grew by about US$125 billion in three months. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | CONSUMER | | - | -------- | ## Procter & Gamble rose 5.58% after shoppers bought 2.4% more of its products Procter & Gamble closed Thursday at US$165.59, up 5.58%. The maker of Tide, Pampers and Gillette rallied on a day tech shares slumped, and Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola rose with it. **So why did a soap company have the better day?** Sales in the September quarter rose 4% to US$23.3 billion. Core earnings came to US$2.00 a share, against about US$1.89 expected. The detail investors liked was volume. P&G sold 2.4% more by quantity, while price rises added only 0.4 of a percentage point to sales. Chief financial officer Andre Schulten called American shoppers "remarkably resilient". He added that lower-income households are being more careful. Costs are the weak spot. Gross margin fell 1.6 percentage points, and P&G expects commodities to cost it about US$1.4 billion after tax this financial year. That estimate assumes Brent crude at US$100 a barrel, and Brent closed Thursday above US$113. | A word of cautionP&G kept its forecast for core earnings of US$6.89 to US$7.11 a share. Schulten said the cost hit will keep growing if oil stays where it is. The next quarterly update is where the US$100 assumption gets tested. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ​ | BIOTECH | | - | ------- | ## Moderna fell 17.57% after its cancer vaccine results leaked two days early Moderna closed Thursday at US$202.63, down 17.57%. At its worst the stock was down 25%, and trading was briefly halted. **The leaked results were good.** Moderna and Merck are testing a personalised cancer vaccine alongside Keytruda, Merck's immunotherapy drug, in melanoma patients who have had surgery. The leaked figures showed the pairing cut the risk of the cancer returning, or of death, by 42% compared with Keytruda alone. The numbers appeared on the medical news site Oncology Central at about 12.30​pm in New York and were quickly taken down. They were due to be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress on Saturday. Investors sold anyway. Moderna had risen more than 500% this year before Thursday, so a great deal of good news was already in the price. Merck, whose business depends far less on this one vaccine, fell less than 2%. | Next upThe full presentation comes on Saturday in Europe. The leaked figures measure whether the cancer came back. Whether patients live longer is a separate measure, and it is the one I'd want to see before deciding what this vaccine is worth to Moderna. | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ### Newsworthy numbers | ​ | ​ | ​ | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | - | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 194,000Americans who filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, the fewest since July. July's low of 189,000 was the fewest since September 1969. | ​ | 306 millionSpotify's paying subscribers at the end of September, more than it had forecast. | | ​ | | | | ​ | ​ | ​ | | 3.7%New Zealand's annual inflation rate in the September quarter, down from 4.1% in the June quarter. It is still above the Reserve Bank's 1% to 3% target band. | ​ | 1.19%roughly what it cost on Thursday, each year, to insure Meta's debt against default over five years. That was the highest since those contracts started trading actively about a year ago. | ### Worth a read | ​ | | | -- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 01 | **[Workers say ATO not doing enough to recoup unpaid superannuation](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-22/australian-workers-criticise-ato-unpaid-superannuation-recovery/107288902?ref=sharespective.com)** — Grace Atta on the one in four Australian workers short-changed on super, about A$6 billion a year. The tax office recovers only about 15% of it. | | ​ | | | 02 | **[Williams-Sonoma furnished a comeback, without homebuyers](https://thehustle.co/news/williams-sonoma-furnished-a-comeback-without-homebuyers?ref=sharespective.com)** — Bill Meincke on how the Pottery Barn owner grew by furnishing cruise ships, retirement villages and student housing. Its business-to-business sales rose 14.5% in its second quarter. | | ​ | | | 03 | **[As U.S. blocks DJI, Insta360 races to win American creators](https://restofworld.org/2026/insta360-us-dji-sanctions-drones-cameras/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Viola Zhou on the Chinese camera maker moving into the gap left by DJI. DJI held 73% of the global market for handheld smart cameras, and Insta360 had 20%. | | ​ | | | 04 | **[Birds Are More Afraid of Women Than Men. Scientists Have No Idea Why](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261021231250.htm?ref=sharespective.com)** — Daniel Blumstein of UCLA and Yanina Benedetti of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague found city birds in five European countries flew off about a metre sooner when a woman walked towards them. | | ​ | | | 05 | **[Ghosts of the Grove](https://longreads.com/2026/10/21/medjool-dates-offrange/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Ashley Stimpson, writing for Offrange, on the palmeros who climb thorny date palms to pollinate them by hand, a practice about 6,000 years old. Date sales are growing in the US while the climbers disappear. | ### Wrapping up Thursday's inflation figure firmed up the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's decision on Wednesday at 2​pm, noon in Sydney. Before it, markets put about an 81% chance on a quarter-point rise to 3%. They now treat the rise as close to certain. Microsoft reports after the close on Wednesday 28 October in New York, at 9​am Thursday in Auckland and 7​am in Sydney. After Meta's filing, the line to watch is how much Microsoft plans to spend on data centres. USD/NZD rose to 1.76 from 1.75, and USD/AUD held at 1.42. Enjoy the long weekend, New Zealand. 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.