Daily newsletter · Thu 29 Oct 2026
 | Sharespective Wall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletter Thu 29 Oct 2026 |
 Hold Everything Plus: New Zealand's Reserve Bank held rates at 2.75% when almost everyone expected a rise. |
Good morning. The Federal Reserve left interest rates at 3.75% to 4.00% on Wednesday, and US shares edged higher. The S&P 500 rose 0.28% and the NASDAQ Composite 0.27%. Two officials, Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, voted for a quarter-point rise.
Futures traders now put the odds of a December rise at 82.6%, up from 78.3%. From 2027, Chair Kevin Warsh said, one meeting a year will discuss strategy only, with no vote on rates. A Fed that meets less often has fewer chances to surprise anyone. This week, New Zealand's Reserve Bank did that job instead.
In company news, Vertiv jumped 16.48% after its orders more than doubled and it raised its full-year sales forecast. Elsewhere, Enphase Energy fell 16.03% because it forecast weak December-quarter revenue, blaming higher interest rates for soft US home solar demand. Finally, Genmab rose 28.25% after a head-and-neck cancer drug cut the risk of death by 50% in a late-stage trial.
Nobody moved, except Canada.
Market snapshot
S&P 500 7,743.98 ▲ 0.28% | | NASDAQ 26,549.85 ▲ 0.27% | | NZX 50 13,691.33 ▲ 0.08% |
| | ||||
ASX 200 8,847.30 ▼ 0.03% | | Wendy's US$7.07 ▲ 15.15% | | Vertiv US$242.94 ▲ 16.48% |
| BIG TECH |
Microsoft's cloud beat forecasts, and Alphabet's search business fell short
Microsoft and Alphabet reported within minutes of each other after Wednesday's close in New York. Microsoft shares rose about 4% in after-hours trading, while Alphabet's fell about 7%.
Microsoft's revenue rose 19% to US$92.3 billion, ahead of the US$90.7 billion expected. Azure, its cloud business, grew 48% excluding currency moves. The company's own guidance had been 44% to 45%.
Alphabet's cloud did even better, which makes the fall stranger. Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to US$30.7 billion, up 103% and about US$1.6 billion ahead of forecasts.
Search was the problem. Search revenue came in at US$63.4 billion against US$64.9 billion expected, and YouTube advertising missed as well. Operating profit of US$40.6 billion was about US$2.6 billion short of forecasts.
That matters because search pays the bills. Alphabet spent US$51.4 billion on equipment and buildings in the quarter, much of it on data centres for the cloud business that just doubled.
Next up on Monday we said we'd want cloud revenue at these companies growing faster than their spending, and both cleared that bar. Alphabet's test is now search, where AI answers have to keep earning what the old list of links did. |
| ECONOMY |
New Zealand's Reserve Bank held rates at 2.75% when almost everyone expected a rise
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand left the official cash rate at 2.75% on Wednesday afternoon. Markets had priced about a 90% chance of a quarter-point rise to 3%.
The vote was as close as it gets. Four of the seven committee members, including Governor Anna Breman, voted to hold. Paul Conway, Hayley Gourley and Karen Silk wanted the rise.
The majority said inflation was behaving better than feared. Prices rose 3.7% in the year to September, and 3.0% once vehicle fuel is taken out. Dearer fuel has also spilled into other prices less than the bank expected.
The kiwi fell about 1.6% against the US dollar after the announcement. The NZX 50 edged up 0.1%, led by companies that depend on the local economy, and Fletcher Building rose 5%.
All seven members agreed that tighter policy is likely to be needed, depending on the data. The bank still expects annual inflation of 4.4% in the December quarter, mostly because of fuel.
Worth pondering the bank says the next six weeks of information could move it in either direction. Its December decision comes with fresh forecasts, a month after the 7 November election, and that is the one borrowers should circle. |
| RESTAURANTS |
Wendy's jumped 15% after Nelson Peltz's Trian offered to take it private
Wendy's shares rose 15.15% to US$7.07 on Wednesday. Trian Fund Management, Nelson Peltz's firm, offered US$7.35 a share in cash, valuing the burger chain at about US$1.4 billion.
The shares stopped short of the offer price for a reason. The bid is non-binding, and Trian has stepped back once already. In August, Wendy's fell 12.9% in a day after Reuters reported that Trian had stopped preparing a bid.
Trian already owns about 16% of Wendy's. It is bidding alongside Flynn Group, one of Wendy's largest franchisees, and the investment firms BlueFive Capital and Sixth Street.
The business needs the help. US same-restaurant sales fell 7% in the June quarter, and the number of customer visits fell 12.5%. Higher prices made up some of the difference.
Peltz said Wendy's "sits at a critical juncture", pointing to squeezed American consumers, stubborn food costs and tougher competition. Wendy's board has set up an independent committee to consider the offer.
The catch the shares closed 28 cents below the offer, a gap of about 4%, which is the market's price for doubt. If the deal goes through, the turnaround happens in private, and today's shareholders take US$7.35 and step off. |
Newsworthy numbers
| | |
79.7% SK Hynix's operating margin in the September quarter, a record for the South Korean memory maker. Operating profit came to 83.3 trillion won on revenue of 104.6 trillion. | | 2.5% the Bank of Canada's policy rate after Wednesday's quarter-point rise, its first increase since July 2023. |
| | ||
| | |
9.4% how much Australian fuel prices rose in September alone, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. | | US$39 billion roughly what Microsoft spent on equipment and buildings in the quarter, more than US$6 billion less than expected. Azure grew faster anyway. |
Worth a read
| |
01 | What will OCR surprise mean for home loan rates? — Susan Edmunds asks four economists. Westpac's Kelly Eckhold sees downward pressure on mortgage rates if lower wholesale rates last; Simplicity's Shamubeel Eaqub says any relief will be small. |
| |
02 | How Biscoff boarded airplanes everywhere — Danny Jensen on how a 1986 peanut shortage put a Belgian biscuit on Delta, which now hands out 70 million packets a year. |
| |
03 | The Tokenizer Tax: Why non-English AI users pay more for tokens — Ananya Bhattacharya on research showing some languages need up to 17 times as many tokens, the units AI companies charge by, as others. |
| |
04 | James Webb discovers a scorching lava planet with a "giant sunscreen" — Researchers from Birmingham and Waterloo find that TOI-561 b, a lava world 280 light-years away, has kept a thick atmosphere that should have been stripped away long ago. |
| |
05 | Napoleon can be partly blamed for Gen Z's weightlifting obsession – here's why — Claire Warden and Conor Heffernan trace the modern gym to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who answered Prussia's defeat by Napoleon with an open-air gymnasium and invented the parallel bars. |
Wrapping up
Australia's inflation figures have changed the odds for Tuesday's RBA decision, at 4.30pm in Auckland and 2.30pm in Sydney. A rise to 4.85% was about a coin toss on Monday. Markets put it near 85% after annual inflation reached 4.3% in September.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron report before Friday's open in New York, which is Friday night here, and refining profits are the line to watch. Apple has set its results for Monday 2 November in New York, Tuesday morning here.
USD/NZD rose to 1.78 from 1.76 after the Reserve Bank's hold, while USD/AUD edged down to 1.42.
Mind the mortgage maths, New Zealand. See you tomorrow.