The Morning Brief
Mega-cap tech's highest-stakes earnings week collides with a mixed European reporting season and a crude market that just fell out of bed, leaving traders to sort signal from noise before the bell.
Overnight, Europe's earnings season cuts both ways.
Lufthansa (LHA) trimmed its full-year operating profit outlook, while Evonik (EVK) went the other direction and raised its guidance. Bayer (BAYN) posted an unexpected jump in Q3 earnings on pharma strength, and bioMérieux (BIM) beat revenue expectations, but Hugo Boss (BOSS) warned on 2026 revenue and Fresenius Medical Care (FMS), which also reports in the U.S. session today, narrowed its earnings outlook. Schaeffler announced workforce cuts of roughly 3,460 positions and Audi workers staged warning strikes in Ingolstadt, underscoring how uneven European industrial demand remains. On the deal front, Lonza agreed to acquire Merck KGaA's CDMO business, consolidating the contract manufacturing space. In Asia, ASE Technology lifted its capex budget to $11.5 billion, another data point confirming chip supply chains are still building out capacity for AI demand even as sentiment toward AI names wobbles.
Crude is the overnight story that matters most for the tape.
Oil fell sharply, with the United States Oil Fund (USO) down 7.2%, while gold caught a bid, with the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) up 1.6%. The dollar proxy (UUP) sat roughly flat and long bonds (TLT) ticked down, suggesting the oil move is more supply-and-demand than a broad risk-off signal, but it is large enough to ripple through energy-linked earnings landing today from Marathon Petroleum, CVR Energy, Par Pacific and Suncor.
Mega-cap tech enters the gauntlet under pressure.
Equities carried into the week on a soft note, with the S&P 500 proxy (SPY) down 0.5% and the Nasdaq-100 proxy (QQQ) off 1.3%, small caps (IWM) comparatively steadier. The focus tonight is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), reporting after the close following a stock that has been crushed roughly 26% over the past month. Lisa Su's commentary on AI accelerator demand and data-center guidance will set the tone for chip sentiment into Wednesday. AMD reports alongside Arista Networks, Super Micro Computer, Astera Labs and Skyworks Solutions, making this the most important 24 hours yet for the AI infrastructure trade.
On the radar today:
a packed earnings slate includes Pfizer, Amgen, BioNTech, Prudential Financial, American International Group, Eaton, DuPont, Yum Brands, Clorox, Shopify, Booking Holdings, Toast, Duolingo and Coupang. Watch energy names (Marathon Petroleum, CVR Energy) for read-through on the overnight crude drop, and European industrials for confirmation of the Lufthansa-versus-Evonik divergence.
Bottom line: the market heads into the open soft and waiting, with crude's plunge and gold's bid hinting at cross-asset nerves, but the real verdict comes after tonight's close when AMD tells traders whether the AI trade still has legs.