Halloween Market Wrap: Chips, Deals, and a Big Index Shake-Up

Earnings Season Peaks This Week

The heaviest week of the earnings calendar lands just after Halloween. QCOM reports Wednesday after the bell, with options activity running through January 2027. AMGN posts Monday evening. PFE holds its investor call Tuesday morning. Options markets are already leaning bullish on several names. Call-side activity in LUMN has picked up ahead of its Q3 print, with analyst return potential sitting at 56%.

Chips Under Pressure

Short sellers are not letting up on semiconductors. Wolfspeed short interest stands at 88.6% of free float, up 4.8 points in a week. Zero shares remain available to borrow. Cerebras Systems saw short interest climb 5.2 points in seven days to 20.1% of free float, a fast build for a recently listed AI chip name. Short sellers are retreating from Astera Labs, though, ahead of Monday's print. Analysts cut Intel targets further, with DA Davidson dropping to $70 and Rosenblatt reiterating a Sell.

ADT Deal Arbitrage Dominates

ADT surged 43% in a week as deal arbitrage dominated trading. The security company's peers slid while traders crowded the spread.

Index Radar: Russell and MSCI in Focus

Today is the Russell 2000 rank date for the December review. Two names saw deletion odds jump sharply overnight. Life Time Group Holdings moved to 90% deletion probability, carrying $901M of forced selling. UMB Financial also hit 90%, with $1.3B of potential selling across 15.4 days of volume. The announcement is due 13 November. On the MSCI World side, Moderna leads additions at 88% probability, with $5.9B of forecast buying attached.

European Signal

Shopify fell 6.6% in a week despite analysts continuing to raise price targets. Spain's unemployment rate dropped to 10.3% in September, the lowest September reading in 18 years, adding a mild positive note to the European macro backdrop heading into November.