Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf speaks during in interview with CNBC on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 4, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
My top 10 things to watch Tuesday, Oct. 14
1. Stocks looked to open lower this morning as the U.S.-China trade war appeared to heat back up. The day seems to be controlled by a collapse in crypto and more speculative names. The selling comes after a one-day bounce on Monday that sent the S&P 500 and Dow up 1% after President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social: “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine.”
2. Today’s sell-off came despite mostly strong earnings from big financial names, three of them Club holdings. BlackRock posted results that were sharply better than expected, with more than $13 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo had good numbers and is raising its goal for return on common equity. The quarter is being better received than I thought. And, Goldman Sachs crushed the numbers, thanks to strong investment banking and bond trading. Look for our in-depth earnings analyses a little later this morning.
3. And finally, JPMorgan Chase beat analysts’ estimates for the third quarter, with trading revenue hitting a record $9 billion. Credit losses were a little higher than I like, rising 9% to $3.4 billion and above the $3.08 billion estimate.
4. Deutsche Bank hiked its Advanced Micro Devices price target to $235 from $200. First, it was last week’s big OpenAI deal, now today, Oracle’s cloud unit announced plans to deploy 50,000 AMD chips, starting in the second half of 2026. I think AMD goes much higher. Karan Batta, senior VP of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, told CNBC, “AMD has done a really fantastic job, just like Nvidia, and I think both of them have their place.”
5. Bank of America lowered its price target on Ford to $13.50 from $14, but kept its buy rating. This one is hard to own after a fire at a key supplier — a New York aluminum plant — will interrupt business for months.
6. Ahead of next week’s release of third-quarter results, General Motors announced in a public filing today a $1.6 billion charge related to its pullback on electric vehicles. GM cited the Trump administration’s termination of “certain consumer tax incentives for EV purchases and the reduction in the stringency of emissions regulations.”
7. Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of CVS Health with a buy and a $91 price target. This is the lone drug store survivor with good outlook from Aetna.
8. Johnson & Johnson reported quarterly earnings and revenue beats, raised its full-year sales outlook, and announced plans to spin off its orthopedics business. CEO Joaquin Duato keeps surprising us. With separation, the growth rate gets stronger, and the multiple goes higher.
9. Stephens resumed coverage of FedEx with a buy rating and a $260 price target. The analysts are encouraged by recent market share gains. I really like this call. Stay away from United Parcel Service, which got a Stephens price target cut to $86 from $92. The analysts, who kept their hold rating on UPS, cited the wind-down of Amazon volumes as a headwind.
10. JPMorgan raised its Caterpillar price target to $650 from $505. Kept buy rating. A favorite machinery stock that is no longer cyclical? Incredible. That new PT implies nearly 29% upside from yesterday’s close, which was just under the old price target.
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