Alphabet fell 12.66% on Thursday as Wednesday night's $9.1 billion cash burn became a full-session rout, ServiceNow plunged 26.96% on a softer contract outlook and Caterpillar's 'moderate' guide dragged the Dow — on a day GDP beat at 3.4%, core PCE ticked up to 3.1% and December hike odds held near 85%.
Recap
Thursday was the earnings bill coming due.
At the official closes (Robinhood), SPY fell 0.36% to $769.52, QQQ fell 1.42% to $715.28 and DIA fell 0.36% to $522.77. The S&P 500 index printed 7,720.39 (-0.30% vs Wednesday's 7,743.98) and the Nasdaq-100 printed 29,402.51 (-1.38% vs 29,813.16), with the VIX up 1.71% at 17.20 (Robinhood index quotes, ~4:32–4:35 PM ET). Alphabet was the day's anchor: the stock closed at $283.75, down 12.66%, after Wednesday night's report — a revenue and earnings miss with free cash flow negative for a second straight quarter at -$9.1 billion despite Google Cloud revenue more than doubling (Barron's; Reuters) — turned an 8.5% after-hours drop into a full-session rout. Microsoft, which jumped after hours on Azure growth of 48%, gave the move back and closed nearly flat at $530.43 (-0.11%).
The morning data stack pointed the other way from the stock tape: third-quarter GDP grew at a 3.4% annualized rate, beating consensus (BEA advance estimate via Reuters), while September PCE inflation rose 0.5% on the month to 3.6% year over year and core PCE rose 0.3% on the month to 3.1% year over year (Reuters). Financial markets were pricing a roughly 84.6% chance of a December rate hike (CME FedWatch via Reuters), and the 10-year Treasury yield eased to around 4.95% (Investopedia).
After the bell, Amazon missed on the headline lines: GAAP EPS of $1.89 vs the $1.97 estimate in this morning's Robinhood earnings calendar (Seeking Alpha: misses by $0.07), revenue of $201.9 billion (Seeking Alpha: misses by $360 million), while operating income of $28.08 billion beat the $26.06 billion estimate and AWS sales of $45.98 billion grew 39% excluding currency effects (MarketFlux). Amazon's extended-hours mark was $234.39 at ~4:33 PM ET, down 4.03% from Thursday's $244.23 close (Robinhood). Bitcoin's Robinhood evening mark was $79,803.14 (+0.07% vs its open) and Ether's was $2,286.63 (-0.84% vs its open).
Truth API recap
The day's other story stayed on the tape all session. Reuters reported overnight that Truth Social has signed up Bloomberg, Susquehanna International Group and Jump Trading for paid faster access to President Trump's posts — a service, called Truth API, with a list price of up to $100,000 a month that Trump Media officials describe as delivering about a 50-millisecond timing advantage (Reuters exclusive). Susquehanna and Jump are high-frequency trading firms whose software ingests headlines and executes trades in thousandths of a second; Reuters says the service has the potential to give Wall Street traders an edge not available to everyday investors on posts that can move markets, and that the deals likely mark the first time a business tied to a sitting president has sold access to their statements. Trump Media told investors in August that it had signed more than 10 customer agreements at $60,000 to $100,000 a month, a claim Reuters could not confirm.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff asked the SEC in July to investigate whether the service violates securities laws; the SEC declined to comment to Reuters. Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued in August, seeking to block the White House from posting official government announcements exclusively on Truth Social while the paid feed exists; the suit is ongoing. Trump Media's response, in its own terms: the company calls Truth API an industry-standard API product with significant demand across industries, says the reporting is misleading, and a spokesperson said congressional Democrats mischaracterize the service, citing the distinction between public and nonpublic information. Bloomberg, Susquehanna and Jump declined to comment to Reuters.
No new official reaction, statement, lawsuit development or follow-on reporting on the story was verified during Thursday's session — the day's coverage was follow-on summaries of the Reuters exclusive.
The market color: Trump Media (DJT) closed Thursday at $5.78, down 3.18% in its first session after the story broke (Robinhood official close). MarketsOnDeck's full treatment of the story is this morning's brief and Medium piece.
Mag 7 on Thursday, split on the earnings bill. Source: Robinhood official closes, October 29, 2026.
The Mag 7 closed split on Thursday (Robinhood official closes): Meta rose 1.97% to $624.55 and Apple rose 1.49% to $348.94, while Alphabet fell 12.66% to $283.75, Amazon fell 4.07% to $244.23 ahead of its after-close report, Nvidia fell 0.77% to $213.72, Tesla fell 0.23% to $403.29 and Microsoft was nearly flat at $530.43 (-0.11%). Elsewhere, earnings movers ran in both directions: ServiceNow plunged 26.96% to $109.65 after guiding fourth-quarter contracted-revenue (cRPO) growth to 18.5% in constant currency, down from 21% in the third quarter, with adjusted EPS of $1.00 vs $1.02 expected (Investing.com via AIStockWire); Caterpillar fell 9.27% to $647.25 after guiding to only 'moderate' fourth-quarter sales growth despite a $7.20 EPS beat vs roughly $7.05 expected (Tickeron); Eli Lilly jumped 6.57% to $1,373.00 on its morning beat and raised outlook, Merck rose 3.84% to $146.34, KLA rose 5.78% to $167.94, Gilead rose 4.04% to $165.63 and Boeing rose 3.34% to $172.72, while the AI-memory complex gave back Wednesday's gains — Nebius -5.68%, SanDisk -5.30%, CoreWeave -5.02% and Micron -4.98% (Robinhood closes).
Thursday's standouts: ServiceNow and Caterpillar sank on guidance while Lilly jumped on its beat and raised outlook. Source: Robinhood official closes, October 29, 2026.
Watch tomorrow: whether Amazon's after-hours drop holds at Friday's open, the after-close reactions from Intel, SanDisk and Coinbase, whether December hike pricing near 85% survives into the weekend, any SEC or court development on the Truth API story, and Friday's earnings slate.
The OnDeck Book
Trading fell 6.55% on Thursday and Agentic rose 2.66% (percent only) vs SPY -0.36%, QQQ -1.42% and DIA -0.36%. Trading day P&L was -$3,304.00 on a core-equity basis (Robinhood: core equity $47,134.43 vs adjusted previous close $50,438.43) — $3,126.00 of it was the options book marking down as the underlying names fell, and $178.00 was the equity positions. Positions (Thursday official closes, Robinhood): SPCX 150 shares, avg $132.13, close $143.82 (-0.97% on the day), +8.85% vs avg cost, unrealized +$1,753.47. SOFI 200 shares, avg $17.10, close $17.605 (+2.71%), +2.97% vs avg, unrealized +$101.50. QUBT 700 shares, avg $8.21, close $6.825 (-1.23%), -16.87% vs avg, unrealized -$969.50. Options (adjusted marks at Thursday's close, Robinhood; total market value $6,895, down from $10,021 at Wednesday's close): SPCX $148 calls expiring Wed Nov 4, 7 long, clearing cost $2,698 total, mark $1.98, market value $1,386 — expiring within 7 days; NVDA $215 calls expiring Wed Nov 4, 2 long, clearing cost $880 total, mark $2.90, market value $580 — expiring within 7 days; NVDA $217.50 calls expiring Wed Nov 4, 4 long, clearing cost $1,814 total, mark $1.89, market value $756 — expiring within 7 days; SPCX $148 calls expiring Fri Nov 6, 11 long, clearing cost $4,903 total, mark $2.66, market value $2,926; SPCX $152.50 calls expiring Fri Nov 6, 7 long, clearing cost $1,940 total, mark $1.45, market value $1,015; NVDA $222.50 calls expiring Fri Nov 6, 2 long, clearing cost $720 total, mark $1.16, market value $232. No orders today — no equity, option or crypto orders in Trading or Agentic on Thursday (Robinhood order history). Futures: none — the position was fully closed on Oct 22 and nothing is held this evening. Crypto: ETH 3.6 coins, clearing cost basis $8,608.00, mark $2,286.63 (Robinhood crypto quote, ~4:35 PM ET), indicative value $8,231.88; BTC mark $79,803.14 (quote only; no BTC position); USDG 102.88 units including Crypto Earn (last checked October 15); dust: CC 1.0, DOGE 1.0, USDC 0.00993.
Sources: Robinhood (official closes, broker records, index and crypto quotes, portfolio pull), Reuters (Truth API exclusive, GDP and PCE), BEA (GDP advance estimate), Barron's (Alphabet), CME FedWatch via Reuters (December hike pricing), Investopedia (10-year Treasury), Seeking Alpha and MarketFlux (Amazon after-close), Investing.com via AIStockWire (ServiceNow), Tickeron (Caterpillar). No buy or sell advice.