The Closer, October 28, 2026

The Fed's hold and the Oracle-led AI rally that carried the S&P 500 ETF to a 0.3% gain look increasingly like the calm before a messier after-hours earnings crush, one that has reopened the question of who actually benefits from AI spending and who is being squeezed by it.

Alphabet reported Q3 revenue of $128.09 billion against $132.02 billion expected and EPS of $2.12, badly missing despite CEO Sundar Pichai citing the fastest query growth in five years and strong cloud and Gemini demand. Both share classes fell more than 9% in the snapshot, with GOOGL down 9.8% and GOOG down 9.5%. ServiceNow fell 17.6% even after raising full-year subscription revenue and free cash flow targets, and Fortinet collapsed 25.7% despite beating on EPS and raising guidance, a reaction that overwhelmed the fundamentals. Marvell Technology dropped 7.8%. On the other side, Lumentum Holdings jumped 8.5%, Carvana rose 8.3% despite missing EPS estimates, Gen Digital gained 7.3% on raised guidance, Chipotle added 6.6% despite an EPS miss, and eBay rose 4.2% on a beat and raised dividend. Microsoft beat estimates with Cloud growth accelerating to 30%, and its CFO flagged calendar-year capital spending near $170 billion, with outlays accelerating into the second half as third-party capacity deliveries shift later in the fiscal year, a detail the market will weigh against Alphabet's miss. The split suggests investors are now pricing AI infrastructure capex and cybersecurity spending very differently, rewarding hardware and optics names while punishing software and security vendors regardless of guidance.

Europe's energy squeeze intensified alongside this: TTF gas futures touched 100 euros per megawatt-hour for the first time since December 2022, with EU storage at 74.9%, a record low for the date, as Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, France and Belgium are already withdrawing gas. Analysts at Wood Mackenzie and Goldman Sachs see further upside risk, with one citing a possible 150-euro level by year-end if Gulf LNG exports stay curtailed and winter runs colder than average.

In Asia, Samsung Electronics fell 4.4% even as it flagged record 2027 AI infrastructure investment, and South Korea's KOSPI slumped 2.4%. Brent pulled back to $114.20 a barrel after Wednesday's settle, while Vance reportedly reached out to a senior Iranian hard-liner to revive Hormuz talks.