It’s a choppy session so far, with stocks drifting lower as earnings season starts. Small caps, represented by the Russell 2000, are lagging.

Under the hood, only four of eleven sectors are in the green, led by Communication Services (XLC) driven by strength in Meta Platforms (META), while Energy (XLE) posts gains as oil edges higher. Health Care (XLV) is the biggest laggard as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) slides on soft medtech sales despite raising guidance, while Industrials (XLI) are weighed down by Caterpillar (CAT) and other engineering, construction, and defense names.

President Trump took to Truth Social to put the Houthis on notice after attacks on Saudi Arabia that he said were aimed at driving up oil prices ahead of the U.S. elections.

Meanwhile, at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit in San Jose, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su highlighted that its Helios rack is now ramping production, while Meta Platforms (META) unveiled new liquid-cooled networking hardware and open standards for linking AI clusters. Separately, Marvell Technology (MRVL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL) formed an OCP working group to standardize hardware security for hyperscale data centers.

In other news, according to FactSet, the S&P 500 is expected to post third-quarter earnings growth of 29.6% on revenue growth of 12.4%, up from 26.7% expected at the end of June. If that holds, it will mark the eighth straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth.

Economic Data

Existing home sales rose 1.5% in September to an annualized rate of 3.99 million units, slightly above expectations of 3.95 million. Inventory climbed to 1.6 million units, or 4.8 months of supply, while sales rose in the South and West and fell in the Northeast.