Stocks are mixed at midday on Election Day as the Nasdaq leads on a rebound in chip stocks and ahead of Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) earnings after the bell. The Dow lags on losses in Apple (AAPL), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), and Home Depot (HD).

Most mega caps are moving higher, led by Broadcom (AVGO), Meta Platforms (META), and Microsoft (MSFT). Additionally, Nvidia (NVDA) is higher as Samsung (SSNLF) is reportedly set to make chip parts for it and AMD at its second Texas plant. Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA) are the notable exceptions, with Apple slipping after its quarterly report as Greater China sales fell short.

Industrials (XLI) and Information Technology (XLK) are leading this afternoon. AI power and data center names are lifting Industrials (XLI), led by GE Vernova (GEV), Eaton (ETN), Vertiv (VRT), and Quanta Services (PWR), after Bernstein said political pushback on U.S. data center construction looks overstated heading into the midterms. Howmet Aerospace (HWM) is adding gains to the sector as well after an upgrade from KeyBanc following earnings. In Technology, chip stocks are rebounding from their recent dip, led by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Texas Instruments (TXN), and Analog Devices (ADI), while Oracle (ORCL) is bouncing back after yesterday's drop on its $20 billion financing plan.

On the other hand, Materials (XLB) and Consumer Staples (XLP) are the biggest laggards. Packaging names weigh on Materials with Ball (BALL) sliding despite beating estimates, along with peers Amcor (AMCR) and International Paper (IP). Paint makers Sherwin-Williams (SHW) and PPG Industries (PPG) are also down. In Consumer Staples, Sysco (SYY) is sliding after agreeing to buy Jetro Restaurant Depot in a $29.1 billion deal, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) is lower despite beating estimates and raising its outlook, and Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) is down as its coffee business remains challenged. Financials (XLF) are also lower, with Apollo Global Management (APO) falling after its quarterly report.

AI Self-Improvement

Researchers at MIT found that frontier AI models can directly read and edit the weights of other neural networks without any training. OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra changed just 0.016% of the weights in Alibaba's (BABA) Qwen3.5-0.8B model, fixing its reasoning loops and lifting its math score more than sixfold, from 7.9% to 48.1%, while also tripling its instruction-following score.

Anthropic told prospective IPO investors that its 15-person chip design team is already using Claude to help design custom silicon to train and run its models, cutting design time compared with workflows at Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The custom chips are meant to add to its existing mix of GPUs, Amazon (AMZN) Trainium, and Alphabet (GOOGL) TPUs rather than replace them.

CrowdStrike's AI Kill Switch

CrowdStrike (CRWD) unveiled an AI Kill Switch in Falcon Guardian that lets security teams shut down AI agents acting outside their instructions, block them from relaunching, and cut off their network access, and it plans to acquire Fiddler AI to add agent observability. It is also building Falcon Guardian natively into Anthropic's Claude, integrating with Amazon (AMZN) Bedrock AgentCore, and expanding its partnership with EY, which made a significant Falcon Flex commitment.

Economic Data

Job openings rose by 333,000 to 7.52 million in September, a four-month high and well above consensus of 7.10 million, while August was revised up to 7.19 million. Layoffs and discharges fell to 1.64 million, the lowest since March 2025, and the quits rate climbed to 2.1%, its highest in over a year.

Factory orders increased 1.8% in September, topping consensus of 1.2% for the biggest gain since April, while August was revised up to a 0.3% gain. Transportation equipment led with a 4.6% jump on a 28.3% surge in civilian aircraft orders. The final read on durable goods showed orders excluding defense up 2.3% and excluding transportation up 0.5%.

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