Market 10/18: Investors Sit Out During October OpEx

If you missed the best recent articles:

China: Economic data better than expected

Q3 GDP 4.6% YoY, higher than 4.5% expected, slightly lower than Q2 4.7%
September retail sales +3.2% YoY, higher than +2.5% forecast and 2.1% in August
Industrial production +5.4%, forecast 4.5%
Investment +3.4% YTD, higher than +3.3% forecast
Unemployment 5.1%, lower than 5.3% in August

→ PBoC last night also stated it may continue to cut interest rates and lower bank reserve requirements to support the economy

US Housing Starts Slow in September

New housing starts -0.5% MoM
Building permits -2.9% MoM

Multi-family permits down -10.8% while Single-Family +2.7%

Netflix: Good Growth Without Additional Capex

Paid users +5.07 million, higher than +4.52M forecast

Revenue +15% YoY to $9.8B, higher than forecast by $50M
Operating margin 30% from 23% last year
EPS $5.40, higher than forecast by $0.28
Raised FY2025 revenue forecast to $43-44B from previous $43.4B

Especially without spending more on content development

Users by region:

Steve: “Cannot deny the consistent growth of at the current time. Paid users continue to increase while costs remain almost unchanged, improving margins. However, Steve feels has started entering a fairly high valuation zone now with user growth actually slowing down."

Investors sit out during October OpEx session

US stock market had little movement in Friday's session. Netflix pulled the tech sector while slightly lower bond yields helped push small caps.

Today's OpEx not large but mostly calls, and after these calls expire many investors won't roll but wait past election → creates a gap at the top → no more magnet but also no resistance