CNBC Daily Open: Nasdaq hits all-time high even amid poor earnings growth

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

New high for Nasdaq
On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite hit an all-time high, but the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell and snapped their six-week winning streaks. Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped about 1.8% and the yen weakened to a three-month low against the dollar on the back of the country’s election results.

Steepest drop since pandemic
China’s industrial profits in September slumped 27.1% from a year ago, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. That’s the steepest drop since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, based on data from Wind Information – which excludes statistics from most of 2022 when China was under strict zero-Covid policies.

Oil prices dropped on ‘limited damage’
Prices for both Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil futures dropped more than 4% on Monday. This comes after Iranian media described Israel’s strikes over the weekend on its military installations as causing “limited damage.” Citi lowered its forecast for Brent oil prices by $4 to $70 per barrel over the next three months.

Japan’s ruling coalition loses parliamentary majority
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and its Komeito partner will lose their parliamentary majority, according to projections from public broadcaster NHK and publication Nikkei Asia, while the opposition camp made significant gains. The Japanese yen fell against the U.S. dollar on the political uncertainty.

[PRO] Very, very busy week for markets
This week is jam-packed with important earnings and economic data. Five of the Magnificent Seven companies report earnings. The personal consumption expenditures index report for September and the key jobs report for October will also be released this week.

The Nasdaq Composite managed to log a seventh consecutive winning week.

After adding 0.56% on Friday, the index closed at an all-time high, ending the week 0.2% higher.

Other major U.S. indexes, however, didn’t do so well. Both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average shattered their six-week positive streak following their falls on Friday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was boosted by Tesla’s monster rally. Investors also looked ahead to Big Tech earnings coming out this week: shares of Meta, Amazon and Microsoft added as much as 1%.

Earnings season has been a mixed bag so far. Even though almost three-quarters of S&P companies have beaten expectations, according to FactSet data, the rate of profit growth has not met expectations, disappointing investors.

Tesla had a monster rally over two days last week, which helped it regain all its losses for the year. But more than half of the 20-largest companies saw their stocks fall after they announced their financials last week, notes CNBC’s Pia Singh.

As those companies were mostly from sectors outside tech, their losses dragged down the S&P and the Dow, especially, since a good proportion were constituents of the 30-stock index. In fact, around 90% of Dow members ended the week in the red.

For instance, Coca-Cola surpassed Wall Street’s estimates of its earnings and revenue, but its shares still fell. Investors were perhaps disappointed by news that consumers are buying fewer packs of Coke products, as CEO James Quincey said during the post-earnings conference call, and troubled by the headwinds that the company thinks will hamper its growth in 2025.

With five of the Magnificent Seven companies reporting earnings and crucial economic data coming out this week, investors will hope all the numbers line up for a payout – if not of the jackpot magnitude, then at least one that jolts the S&P and Dow back into the green again.

— CNBC’s Brian Evans, Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.