winhorse/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images
Download this episode on Apple Podcasts / Spotify or listen below:
JPMorgan missed earnings forecasts when big banks started reporting. (0:14) UnitedHealth raises its one-year outlook for the third time. (1:24) Fund managers pile into tech stocks at six-year highs. (2:39).
Below is a brief transcript:
Big bank earnings started today with a “meh” response from Wall Street.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) estimates are missed on the top and bottom lines. Q3 commercial and investment banking results were very weak from Q2’s strong pace.
JPM has missed estimates in 17 quarters. In particular, Fixed Income & Markets revenue of $5.4B was down 4% Y/Y.
Goldman Sachs (GS) Q3 top and bottom lines exceeded consensus estimates, although market-related revenue was down from a very strong Q2.
Wells Fargo’s (WFC) capital market revenue is less than expected. But for the full year, WFC did not change its guidance for net interest income of around $50B, in line with estimates.
And Citigroup (C) Q3 earnings beat Wall Street consensus as its services and wealth units posted solid gains, even as markets and investment banking revenue weakened from the previous quarter.
Among other active stocks, it beat Q3 in both lines and boosted sales in 2026 and adjusted earnings guidance was not enough to push Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) further, because MedTech revenue was disappointing considering the stock.
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) reported better-than-expected results and raised its full-year guidance for the third time this year.
And Applied Materials ( AMAT ) fell after its Investor Day presentation during SEMICON West in San Francisco.
Applied Materials makes the case for why AI is leading to greater demand for bigger dies, more transistors and additional wire layers, but avoids industry spending forecasts.
In other news, the FTC asked a federal judge to hold Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, now known as Vyera Pharmaceuticals, in contempt for allegedly violating a 2022 court order by trading pharmaceutical stocks and voicing opinions about the company.
The motion filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges that Shkreli has traded at least 60 pharmaceutical stocks and posted opinions about pharmaceutical companies on social media platforms including YouTube, X and Reddit.
Shkreli, who earned the nickname “Pharma Bro,” gained notoriety in 2015 when Turing obtained a manufacturing license for Daraprim and raised the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill, while making agreements designed to make it difficult for other companies to produce competing versions.
And in the Wall Street Research Corner, global fund managers chasing an AI rally have driven exposure to tech stocks ( XLK ) to their highest level in six years.
The latest BofA survey of fund managers shows 37% of portfolio managers are overweight the technology sector, up from 30% the previous month.
The increase marks the most clearly overweight position since August 2020, pushing institutional exposure above the historical average and close to the upper standard deviation threshold.