Earnings Blitz, CPI Record, and Index Churn Define a Busy Thursday

US: Earnings Season Kicks Off

The week's first major results are already in motion. SCHW reported Q3 this morning before the open, and Interactive Brokers slipped after its own print despite analyst targets holding firm. The pace accelerates sharply from here. GM drops Q3 on Tuesday 20 October and TSLA follows the next day. Both names are drawing options volume well above normal. ORTEX Alt Data shows German car registrations running 133% above the same quarter last year for GM and 269% for Tesla. That dataset leads both companies' revenue figures in backtesting, and three full months of the quarter are now in.

Chip stocks are at the centre of options activity. NVDA and MU top both the bullish and bearish bets leaderboards over the past seven days. Two-sided flow like this points to protection buying, not a clean directional call. AVGO's CEO warned of a "casino" mentality in AI investing this week. Put flow in semiconductors rose sharply the same session.

Macro: CPI at a Record High

US CPI-U all items hit 336.94 in September, the highest reading since the series began in 1997. The headline number looks alarming, but core CPI fell to a 2.6% annual rate, the smallest September reading in five years. The two prints pull in opposite directions and give the Fed no clean signal.

Europe and Index Watch: Copart Deal Triggers $275M in Forced Selling

The Copart tender for ACV Auctions carries a 93% completion probability. If it closes today as expected, $275M of index-driven selling is triggered across Russell 3000, MSCI World Small and Russell 2000 memberships. Separately, the MSCI World November rank date falls on 19 October. Australian names PLS Group and Xero both sit within 2% of their exit lines, with combined forced selling of $791M if they fall out. Masco pulled back from the exit overnight as its deletion probability collapsed from 76% to 31%.