Financial Recap: October 12 to 16, 2026

Overall, it was a very bad week for financial markets. I kind of expected it since we were waiting for inflation numbers. The Nasdaq lost 4.48%, the S&P 500 lost 1.95%, and only the Dow gained 0.67%.

Biggest News

Inflation, the Iran conflict, and bond yields

Inflation numbers for September were published. CPI reached 3.7% year over year, and PPI jumped 1.3% month over month. I expected inflation to rise, mainly driven by energy prices that the USA has not been able to stabilize due to the Iran conflict.

As soon as I heard about the diesel deal with Russia, I knew what was coming.

I mean, how incompetent was this war overall? Absolutely zero objectives were achieved. You have the same regime in Iran, you gave money to the Russian war machine, and the only things we got were higher prices and a bombed school.

With the nuclear program as well, if the regime stays the same and there is a push to develop a nuclear program, they will just keep going.

Absolute madness. This should end ASAP.

Yields are a bit down. The 10-year Treasury yield fell around 15 basis points, but still, the bond issue is not fixed. It remains one of the biggest problems.

Massive sell-off in technology

Massive sell-off on the tech side of things. I am actually not worried here. It was mostly related to data centers and AI.

This is going to keep happening. These corrections will happen, especially since the S&P 500 broke its all-time high again last week. Investors generally try to be cautious.

Semiconductor stocks took a hit, but it’s more of a confidence hit. We don’t yet have proof that demand is slowing down or something like that.

Overall, a messy week, but it was expected. Plus, SpaceX, Meta, Tesla, Netflix, and IBM earnings are coming next week, so the market keeps testing and testing.

Top Gainers

Accenture

I don’t think Accenture needs a lot of introduction. It is a global giant, mostly in technology and consulting. They also have managed services, where they operate technology systems and business processes for clients.

Really good financials. $74.2 billion in annual revenue, an increase of 6%, and healthy free cash flow. A very deep client base and globally recognized.

Actually, their stock has been surging for a while, gaining around 15.5% over the last two weeks.

I actually struggle to understand why.

If there is one thing I would stay away from investing in right now, it is consulting companies.

They justify consulting by helping companies use AI more and integrate it into their processes. But how are they going to do it? Powerful AI is only a few years old. I am pretty sure they have not become experts at it.

I can also guarantee that I can consult anyone on how to adopt AI better than those people, or a 16-year-old kid who is developing his own app could.

Not sure where this surge is coming from. Even if they capture some of the AI consulting value, I think this is so temporary.

I have to read more about this because I can’t really understand this surge.

Darden Restaurants (Up 9.46%)

Darden Restaurants is a large American restaurant holding company. You might know some of their restaurants, like Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, etc.

They saw this sudden surge in stock price. They extended leases for some of their restaurants by another five years, but there was not a single clear catalyst that would explain the entire surge.

Actually, pretty good financials. $3.2 billion in quarterly revenue. Not a crazy debt-heavy company.

I have an unpopular opinion.

Restaurants are slow-growth, low-margin businesses, but I think they are going to have a massive surge in the AI era.

First of all, margins are going to improve, and taste will improve as well. Due to more available time, people will eat in restaurants more.

Just think about it. Restaurants are one kind of business that has lasted for centuries. You had taverns before restaurants.

This is a business that will never die, but it is also a super competitive field.

Brown & Brown (Up 10.37%)

Brown & Brown is one of the largest insurance brokers in the USA, but they have a different approach from insurance companies.

They are not selling insurance that they underwrite themselves. They sell insurance policies from other issuers to the public, so they generally don’t take the insurance underwriting risk themselves.

Financially, they look good.

In 2025, they made the largest acquisition in their history for $9.8 billion, acquiring Accession Risk Management Group, another insurance business, and expanding their operations.

But $9.8 billion is a lot of money, so that can be flagged. Can they generate enough ROI to justify that $9.8 billion?

Generally, I have no idea about the insurance market. I don’t really know how it operates, so ask Claude for more info.

Top Losers

Bloom Energy (Down 21.10%)

Interesting company. It builds its own technology called the Bloom Box.

In a nutshell, it’s a fuel cell system that can generate electricity directly on-site. It turns natural gas, biogas, and hydrogen into electricity.

I mean, it’s not really a bad idea, especially since the grid is overloaded nowadays and companies can go off-grid and generate their own electricity.

They saw a massive surge in revenue, a 165.5% increase compared to the same quarter last year, and they reported a profit compared to last year, when they lost money.

Debt-wise, they are doing pretty well. Based on their latest reported balance sheet, they have enough cash to cover their outstanding borrowings, although using all that cash to pay off debt would obviously not be practical.

The massive sell-off was again related to the demand question. Will all these data centers actually be built, and how much energy will they need in the end?

I like hydrogen in general, but it is still expensive.

Electrolysers are expensive. Separating H2 from O in water is a very energy-intensive process. So, if you take natural gas, why even produce hydrogen? You can use gas turbines directly.

I think there is a lot of potential since water is one of the most abundant resources we have, but costs are still high.

Maybe a little promo for Vattenfall here. We have a cool project called HYBRIT, where we are developing fossil-free steel production using hydrogen from clean energy.

So, if more heavy industries start to adopt this technology, there is definitely upside here.

Skydance (Down 24.56%)

Skydance, I don’t think it needs a big introduction from me. It’s one of the largest entertainment groups.

Paramount is part of it, and they recently bought Warner Bros. Discovery. HBO Max, CBS, I mean, a very large entertainment group.

One important thing about this week’s drop is that part of it was related to warrants starting to trade separately after the merger, so the stock price decline does not entirely reflect a loss of business value.

I don’t really like the debt situation of the company,(more than 60 billion or even 70 billion in debt) especially after the Warner Bros. acquisition, which involved significant borrowing.

Also, I mean, with AI, content creation is going to become much more affordable.

I, of course, don’t mean that movies will just be prompted, but the budget for creating a good movie will probably drop. More competition will be there.

They still have very good titles already in their portfolio that will last decades. Harry Potter, SpongeBob, etc.

But is it enough to pay back all that debt?

You judge it.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Down 24.95%)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides servers, networking equipment, storage systems, and cloud technology to businesses and data centers.

The company generates healthy cash flow, not overloaded with debt. Its a decent company

But this is generally a question of whether there is going to be enough demand for data centers.

They acquired Juniper Networks in 2025, expanding their networking business and strengthening their position against Cisco.

Good company overall. I like it.

I think it’s discounted.

What to Watch Out for Next Week

Earnings: Meta, Tesla, IBM, Netflix, and SpaceX

AI monetization and spending discipline

The key questions are whether companies are actually making enough money from AI and how much they are spending to develop it.

Margins and cash flow

Revenue growth is important, but margins and cash flow will be just as important to watch.

NAHB Builder Sentiment

Housing confidence under high financing costs.

This will be interesting to watch, especially with the current bond yields and the pressure they are putting on borrowing costs.