Preview of US Stock Market | The three major stock index futures are mixed; Brent crude breaks above $110; Nvidia secures over $35 billion in GPU orders from ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent.

Pre-market Market Movers 1. On Tuesday, October 20, before the U.S. market opened, the three major U.S. stock index futures were mixed. As of press time, Dow futures were up 0.05%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.21%, and Nasdaq futures were down 0.66%. 2. As of press time, Germany's DAX index was down 0.77%, the UK's FTSE 100 was down 0.59%, France's CAC 40 was down 0.84%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 was down 1.02%. 3. As of press time, WTI crude oil was up 2.46% at $100.96 per barrel. Brent crude oil was up 1.86% at $111.59 per barrel. Market News OpenAI is said to be accelerating a $30 billion fundraising round, seeking to lock in capital before Anthropic's IPO. According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI is stepping up efforts to secure investor commitments, hoping to complete the financing before competitor Anthropic's expected listing in mid-November. The fundraising effort is moving unusually quickly and could value OpenAI at more than $1.4 trillion. In addition, OpenAI hopes to leverage revenue growth achieved after the recent launch of new models to attract more investment. One of the people said SoftBank, Abu Dhabi-based MGX and other existing OpenAI investors are in talks to participate in the roughly $30 billion round. IEA Executive Director Birol: Will consider releasing more strategic crude oil reserves if necessary. International Energy Agency Executive Director Birol said on Tuesday that the timetable for the organization's member countries to release 20 million barrels of diesel from emergency reserves depends on each country's specific circumstances and the oil market situation. Last week, the IEA decided to accelerate the release of oil not yet delivered under the record-scale emergency reserve release plan pledged in March, including more than 20 million barrels of diesel, to increase supply as quickly as possible and ease soaring prices. Birol said: "How much is released specifically and when depends on each country's own situation, and also on winter market conditions." Oil prices maintained their rally this week, with the Middle East conflict and the U.S.-Iran negotiation stalemate supporting the risk premium. Crude oil prices extended their gains this week, with the market quickly digesting the brief pullback triggered by Trump's exemption of sanctions on Russia. The main driver remains the Middle East situation, where negotiations between the United States and Iran have reached a stalemate, coupled with ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, keeping the oil price risk premium elevated. The Houthis said yesterday that they had launched multiple attacks on Saudi energy facilities, airports and military targets. The recent marked escalation of the conflict has become one of the main factors driving oil prices higher. On the U.S.-Iran negotiations, Al Arabiya reported yesterday that a breakthrough in the talks is expected to be announced this week. UK Ministry of Defence: Royal Air Force to assist in protecting Saudi cities and critical national infrastructure from air attacks. The UK Ministry of Defence announced that it will deploy Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets on defensive air superiority missions to help protect Saudi cities and critical national infrastructure from air attacks. The UK Ministry of Defence said the jets will carry out defensive missions and will not conduct offensive strikes against the Houthis. Investors step up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge industry debt risk. According to reports, investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to protect their portfolios in case the AI boom bursts. According to Morgan Stanley research data, in September, CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle Corporation (ORCL.US), SpaceX (SPCX.US), Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US), Meta (META.US), Broadcom Inc. (AVGO.US) and NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) averaged more than $9 billion in weekly trading volume, compared with less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that so far this year, trading volume in the U.S. corporate CDS index has exceeded the total for all of last year. South Korea's most closely watched data center IPO falters, plunging 32% on its first day of trading. On Tuesday, South Korean AI services company Elice Group's shares plunged 32% on its first day of trading. Investment sentiment toward the sector has cooled sharply, causing several companies' listing plans to stall. Elice raised 201.1 billion won (about $150 million) in its initial public offering (IPO). The company provides AI cloud services and AI-based education and business software, and plans to use most of the IPO proceeds to launch portable modular data centers and related infrastructure. With high inflation keeping borrowing costs elevated, investors are increasingly questioning whether the massive amounts of capital invested in AI can deliver returns in the short term. Individual Stock News ByteDance, Alibaba (BABA.US) and Tencent (00700) order more than 3 million NVIDIA Corporation RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards, with total orders exceeding $35 billion. According to reports, ByteDance, Alibaba Group Holding Limited Sponsored ADR and Tencent have ordered more than 3 million NVIDIA Corporation RTX PRO 5500 workstation graphics cards. At about $11,400 each, the total order value exceeds $35 billion. The chip complies with U.S. export control requirements and is one of the NVIDIA Corporation high-performance chips that Chinese buyers can still purchase. General Motors Company (GM.US) international business profit plunges 88%, announces $20 billion buyback. General Motors Company's third-quarter earnings report showed quarterly revenue of $50.015 billion, up 2.9% year over year, above the LSEG consensus estimate of about $48.7 billion; adjusted earnings per share were $3.70, up 32.2% year over year, above the consensus estimate of $3.63. Among them, adjusted EBIT for the international business fell 87.7% year over year to $28 million, including a 60.3% decline in equity income from Chinese joint ventures to $32 million; pre-tax profit at the financial services unit fell 16.9% to $668 million. Adjustments related to the quarterly EV strategic restructuring narrowed to $238 million, compared with $1.592 billion a year earlier. The company also announced that its board approved a $20 billion multi-year buyback authorization, representing about 28% of its current market value, and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share. GE Aerospace (GE.US) Q3 revenue rises 16%, beating expectations, and raises guidance for the eighth consecutive time. GE Aerospace's third quarter showed revenue up 16% year over year to $14.12 billion; adjusted revenue was $13.29 billion, above the LSEG IBES consensus estimate of $12.87 billion, up about 18% year over year. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.25, significantly above the expected $2.01, up about 36% year over year. On a GAAP basis, earnings per share from continuing operations were $2.32; net profit was $2.8 billion, up 12% year over year; operating profit was $3 billion. For full-year guidance, adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $8.00-$8.10, and free cash flow guidance was raised to $9.1-$9.4 billion. The company also raised its free cash flow and operating profit forecasts; adjusted revenue growth guidance was maintained at about 19%-20%. JPMorgan: CoreWeave (CRWV.US) debt selloff poses limited risk to global banks. JPMorgan estimated on Tuesday that most banks globally have limited exposure to Coreweave. This follows a sharp decline last week in the cloud computing company's shares and bonds amid investor concerns about its debt financing. JPMorgan said that although potential exposure of large U.S. investment banks and Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. Sponsored ADR to CoreWeave could be between $1 billion and $3 billion, most European and Asian participants have exposure of less than $500 million. Most of this is through delayed draw term loans, which are largely held through special purpose entities, with funds released when projects reach milestones. From the perspective of the financing banks, JPMorgan believes banks' exposure to CoreWeave is well managed and very adequately secured. NVIDIA Corporation is said to have successfully won a CPU chip order from AI startup Modal. According to reports, NVIDIA Corporation has successfully won a central processing unit (CPU) chip order from fast-growing artificial intelligence startup Modal. Modal previously used only Intel Corporation and AMD chips, an early sign that NVIDIA Corporation has made important progress in entering a market dominated by the two giants. Alphabet Inc. Class C's Waymo plans to use $5 billion in financing to expand its fleet fivefold. According to reports, as Waymo expands its robotaxi business to more cities, the company plans to use the recently borrowed $5 billion to significantly expand its autonomous driving fleet. According to people familiar with the matter, Waymo currently has about 4,000 vehicles and plans to double its fleet to 8,000 by the end of this year and further expand to 20,000 by the end of next year. The company said in a statement on its website that the funds raised are intended to drive domestic U.S. and international business expansion. U.S. advanced Siasun Robot&Automation ban affects chip manufacturing, Intel Corporation (INTC.US) seeks exemption: no domestic alternative for key equipment. According to reports, Intel Corporation has applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for an exemption from the recent ban on foreign-made advanced Siasun Robot&Automation, saying the company needs continued access to certain specialized equipment critical to U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. According to the application, Intel Corporation is concerned that its automated guided vehicle equipment could be affected by the comprehensive ban on importing and selling foreign advanced Siasun Robot&Automation technology. Such equipment is mainly used to transport materials within semiconductor factories. Intel Corporation said ensuring the continued operation of these Siasun Robot&Automation is "critical" to U.S. national security. Currently, there is no verified domestic alternative in the United States that can meet Intel Corporation's strict requirements, and replacing existing equipment would take years. Any operational disruption would "immediately have a negative impact on Intel Corporation's U.S. semiconductor manufacturing capacity." Amazon.com, Inc. plans to invest 16 billion euros in Germany next year. According to reports, Amazon.com, Inc. plans to invest about 16 billion euros (about $21 billion) in Germany next year. Amazon.com, Inc. said the investment covers "jobs, technology and infrastructure," including "expansion of data centers and AI infrastructure, high-speed satellite internet service through Amazon Leo, new logistics projects across the country, and a new round of large-scale production plans for Prime Video." According to the company, about 4.8 billion euros (about $6.4 billion) of the planned investment will be used to expand Amazon.com, Inc.'s cloud service (AWS) cloud and AI infrastructure in Germany. Key Economic Data and Events Preview Beijing time 20:15: U.S. ADP weekly employment change for the week ended October 3. Beijing time 20:30: U.S. September building permits preliminary monthly rate, U.S. September housing starts annualized monthly rate. Beijing time 22:00: U.S. September pending home sales index monthly rate, seasonally adjusted. Beijing time 04:30 the next day: U.S. API crude oil inventory change for the week ended October 16. Earnings Preview Wednesday morning: SpaceX (SPCX.US), Netflix (NFLX.US), United Airlines (UAL.US) Wednesday pre-market: AT&T (T.US), Abbott Laboratories (ABT.US), Danaher Corporation (DHR.US)