The New Jersey Devils are the winners of the Connor Hellebuyck sweepstakes, pulling off a big trade with Winnipeg right as the goaltender was scheduled to return to the team. Jason Bukala breaks down both sides of the deal.
US stocks fell on Thursday as renewed concerns about artificial intelligence spending pressured technology shares, while rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East pushed oil prices to a five-month high.
The Nasdaq Composite recorded its steepest daily decline since June, while the S&P 500 suffered its worst session since July.
Investors also moved into US Treasuries as they assessed the risks posed by rising energy prices, AI-related financing requirements and the outlook for Federal Reserve interest rates.
Nasdaq leads Wall Street lower as AI spending concerns return
The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.60% to 26,008.86, while the S&P 500 fell 1.21% to 7,663.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.02% to 52,867.98.
Technology stocks led the declines as investors reassessed the costs of expanding AI infrastructure and the financing required to support the industry’s growth.
Meta Platforms fell around 7% despite reporting better-than-expected third-quarter revenue and providing an upbeat outlook.
Investors focused on its rising AI expenditure, its first cash outflow in more than a decade, and plans to issue non-voting shares as it seeks greater flexibility to fund its expansion.
Chipmakers also came under pressure. Advanced Micro Devices fell more than 8%, Micron Technology declined 6%, and Nvidia lost 4%.
CoreWeave, a major provider of AI-focused cloud infrastructure, dropped more than 10% amid continued concerns about its debt and financing costs.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also recorded a steep decline, extending its losses from its June 22 record closing high.
Despite the recent pullback, the index remained sharply higher for the year and continued to outperform the broader S&P 500.
Tesla shares also declined despite the electric vehicle maker reporting positive free cash flow for the quarter and lowering its 2026 capital expenditure plans.
Oil climbs as Middle East tensions raise supply risks
Oil prices surged after reports that the US and Israel were considering renewed strikes against Iran following next month’s US midterm elections.
Tensions increased further after Iran-backed Houthi forces launched new attacks against Saudi targets, raising concerns about potential disruptions to energy supplies.
Brent crude futures rose 3% to settle at $113.03 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude advanced 2.18% to $99.27.
Higher oil prices also raised concerns about inflation and the potential implications for Federal Reserve policy.
US jobless claims remained near multi-decade lows, suggesting labour market conditions could allow policymakers to maintain their focus on inflation.
Financial markets were pricing in the possibility of another 25-basis-point interest rate increase before the end of the year.
Treasury yields fall as investors seek safe-haven assets
US Treasury yields declined as investors sought safer assets amid volatility in technology stocks and rising geopolitical risks.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell more than 17 basis points to 4.974%, its lowest level in almost a month.
The two-year Treasury yield dropped more than 16 basis points to 4.66%.
The move marked a shift from earlier concerns about inflation and elevated borrowing costs, as investors reassessed the risks associated with AI-related financing and the outlook for energy prices.
Meanwhile, third-quarter earnings continued to provide mixed signals across the market.
Of the 111 S&P 500 companies that had reported results, 83% had exceeded analyst expectations, according to LSEG data.
Procter & Gamble shares rose after the consumer goods company beat revenue estimates, despite warning that higher commodity costs would weigh more heavily on annual profits.
Lockheed Martin gained after raising its annual sales and profit forecasts, while Spotify advanced after projecting fourth-quarter profit above Wall Street expectations.
The post Nasdaq falls 2.6% as AI spending fears hit tech stocks, oil prices jump appeared first on Invezz
Gold can be expected to fall further toward the next round support level 4000.00 (which reversed the price multiple times in July and August).
- Gold broke support level 4095.00
- Likely to fall to support level 4000.00
Gold recently broke the support level 4095.00 (lower boundary of the daily sideways price range from the start of October, as can be seen from the daily Gold chart below). The breakout of this support level created the long daily Japanese candlestick Black Marubozu, which extended the active primary correction 2 from the end of August – which is moving inside the daily down channel from September.
Given the clear daily downtrend and the strongly bearish sentiment seen across the precious metal markets today on rising Fed rate-hike expectations, Gold can be expected to fall further toward the next round support level 4000.00 (which reversed the price multiple times in July and August).
The subject matter and the content of this article are solely the views of the author. FinanceFeeds does not bear any legal responsibility for the content of this article and they do not reflect the viewpoint of FinanceFeeds or its editorial staff.
The information does not constitute advice or a recommendation on any course of action and does not take into account your personal circumstances, financial situation, or individual needs. We strongly recommend you seek independent professional advice or conduct your own independent research before acting upon any information contained in this article.
Most security breaches start with a lock nobody knew was broken.
For years, that was the comfortable assumption behind the software that runs the internet. Bugs existed, but finding the dangerous ones took rare skill and a lot of time.
That buffer has quietly disappeared. Artificial intelligence is now finding old flaws faster than humans can patch them, and attackers are using the same tools to turn fixes into weapons.
If you have a website for your business, your side hustle or your church, this one lands on you too.
The fix is free and already out. The hard part is getting it onto millions of servers before attackers get there first, and that race started earlier than most people realize.
It also explains why Wikipedia, the Port of Rotterdam, and France’s Interior Ministry all pulled sites offline on Oct. 21.
I spent the morning going through the disclosures, and one detail stands out more than any outage list.
Amazon (AMZN) says its security team caught someone trying to exploit the newly discovered flaws in PHP, the programming language behind most of the web, on Oct. 17. That was four days before the developers released a fix, according to a post on Amazon’s security blog.
Read more: IBM, Amazon quantum pricing gets a challenger in Postquant Labs
Amazon’s honeypot saw the attack before the public did
Amazon runs decoy servers, known as honeypots, to watch what attackers do. One of them recorded an exploit attempt from an anonymized internet address while the flaws were still under embargo, wrote CJ Moses, chief information security officer of Amazon Integrated Security.
It is still unclear how the attacker learned about the bugs early. Moses said proof-of-concept exploits were circulating as early as 2 a.m. UTC on Oct. 21, about 12 hours before the official release.
“PHP2Shell is now being broadly exploited in the wild,” Moses wrote.
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The flaws, tracked as Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) entries CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, let an attacker run code on a vulnerable server without logging in. Cybersecurity firm Wiz, which Alphabet (GOOGL) owns, said it found them with help from its own AI tool plus Google’s Gemini 4 Argon and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol, according to its research post.
Wiz said the bugs reach back to PHP 5.4 and had been hiding in the code for more than a decade. “Applying the PHP security update remains the only complete remediation,” the firm wrote.
Moses explained why the window keeps shrinking. “AI-assisted analysis makes it cheaper to turn a patch diff or advisory into a working exploit,” he wrote.
Governments pulled sites offline as PHP shipped fixes
The scale is what spooked officials. “All servers using any version of PHP released in the last 20 years will be vulnerable,” Tiffany Farriss, interim chief executive of the Drupal Association, told Reuters.
PHP runs roughly 75% of websites whose programming language can be identified, according to web tracker W3Techs, as cited by Reuters. It sits under WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and Magento.
Here’s how the response played out across the first 48 hours:
- The Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre took its own site offline, and the Port of Rotterdam, government portal Overheid.nl and several hospitals followed, according to Reuters.
- European cyber agencies, including the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), told organizations to “consider isolating exposed applications” if they cannot patch right away, according to a joint statement.
- Attackers began altering their payloads to slip past filters, Cloudflare (NET) said, as reported by The Hacker News.
- PHP released fixed versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35 at 14:00 UTC on Oct. 21, according to The Repository, a WordPress industry newsletter.
Costin Raiu, co-founder of security firm TLP:Black, warned that the next phase could be “mass compromise of every vulnerable web server on the internet,” Reuters reported.
Censys count shows 1.5 million servers need upgrades
In my analysis, the outage headlines understate the real exposure. Internet scanning firm Censys counted about 1.5 million of 2.6 million hosts running a PHP version with no fix available, according to Reuters.
That is roughly 58%. Those servers cannot simply be patched; they need a full upgrade to a newer PHP release, which takes longer and can break older websites.
That gap will not close in a week. It means the risk window stays open well after the headlines fade.
Hosting companies are moving at different speeds
Most people with a website never touch PHP directly. Your hosting company does, and the responses so far vary.
Automattic said customers of WordPress.com and its other managed platforms were protected before the release.
“On WordPress.com, security is our job to solve, not yours,” said Ian Stewart, the company’s artistic director and product lead, according to The Repository.
GoDaddy (GDDY) said its Managed WordPress hosting was fully patched, while its standard Web and Windows Hosting still relied on interim protections as of Oct. 22, the newsletter reported. Bluehost warned that customers may see limits on upload file sizes while it finishes patching.
Risk is highest for small sites run by people with limited technical help, often on shared hosting where customers do not manage the servers, Reuters noted.
3 checks for your own website this week
You do not need to be a programmer to protect yourself. Start with three steps:
- Check your PHP version. In WordPress, it appears under Tools, then Site Health, then Info.
- Ask your host directly whether your server runs 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, 8.2.35 or later. Get the answer in writing.
- If you sell anything online, review recent orders and admin accounts for anything you do not recognize, and save your logs from Oct. 17 onward, as Amazon advised.
If you are still on PHP 8.2 or older, plan an upgrade now. PHP 8.2 reaches end of life on Dec. 31, according to The Repository.
Investors get a stress test for Cloudflare and GoDaddy
For investors, the story cuts both ways. Amazon and Alphabet just showed their security teams can spot threats early, while Cloudflare’s filtering business gets a real-world stress test.
GoDaddy carries more operational risk, because its customers skew toward small businesses on shared plans. I will be watching whether any host reports a breach tied to these flaws in the coming weeks.
The bigger shift is the speed. “The scale is huge, and with AI, exploitation may happen instantly,” Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow at King’s College London, told Reuters.
Your website is part of your income now. Treat your host’s patch status the way you treat a bank alert: check it today, not next month.
Related: Food Lion, Stop & Shop online ordering stays down for a 3rd day
Aaron Ashby could very well be the difference-maker in the World Series.
Jeff Blair highlights Ashby and five others to watch in the Fall Classic between the Brewers and Rays.
Western Digital’s stock has been under pressure since June, when it peaked at $800. Since then, it has fallen more than 52% to its current price of $378, with its market capitalization shrinking from $257 billion to $141 billion. Investors are now looking to the company’s upcoming earnings report as a potential catalyst that could help improve sentiment and drive a recovery in the stock’s performance.
Western Digital’s implied volatility has jumped
WDC stock has dropped sharply in the past few months because of the ongoing weakness among companies in the memory industry. A look at all companies in the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) shows that all of them have retreated by double digits from their highest levels this year.
Western Digital stock will likely experience some volatility when it releases its earnings report. The options market show that its implied volatility has jumped to 140%, more than double the historic volatility of 63%.
Most traders in the options market expect the stock to rebound after its earnings report. The company has a put/call ratio of 0.67, a sign that there are more calls than puts. Most calls are concentrated at $400, 4.5% above the current level. On the other hand, most of the calls are at $375, a few points below where it is today.
Western Digital stock dropped by over 13% after releasing its last results. Before that, its post-earnings moves were usually muted because it was not a popular stock.
Most recently, however, most memory stocks have remained muted after publishing their financial results. Micron remained in a tight range, even after management released a strong earnings report, which showed that its revenue jumped to $54 billion.
Western Digital’s revenue is soaring
The upcoming earnings report is expected to show that Western Digital’s revenue continued growing in the first quarter. This growth is happening because of the artificial intelligence boom that has led to vast amounts of data being produced.
The average estimate among analysts is that Western Digital’s revenue rose by 47% to $4.14 billion, with the most optimistic forecast being $4.27 billion. Its earnings per share is expected to soar from $1.78 in Q1 of last year to $4.08. Based on the recent earnings report, chances are that the company’s real results will be much higher than expected.
Western Digital’s management expects that its revenue growth will continue accelerating, with its gross margin rising to over 50%. Its margins are benefiting from the ongoing shift towards higher-capacity HDDs that are used in the data center industry.
The main risk that Western Digital faces is that its business may see a big supply of HDDs, especially from Chinese companies.
WDC stock price technical analysis
Western Digital stock chart | Source: TradingView
The daily chart shows that the Western Digital stock has slumped in the past few months, falling from a high of $800 in June to the current $378. Most recently, it formed a descending channel, which is characterized by a series of lower lows and lower highs. It has also dropped below the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA).
The most likely scenario is where the stock rebounds as bulls attempts to retests the upper side of the descending channel at $420. A drop below the lower side of the channel will point to more downside in the near term.
The post Western Digital stock is stuck in a bear market: will it rebound after earnings? appeared first on Invezz
Bitcoin cryptocurrency can be expected to rise further toward the next resistance level 86960.00 (which stopped the previous impulse wave (1) at the end of September).
- Bitcoin reversed from support zone
- Likely to rise to resistance level 86960.00
Bitcoin cryptocurrency recently reversed up from the support zone between the key support level 80800.00 (former strong resistance from May and September, as can be seen from the daily Bitcoin chart below), lower daily Bollinger Band and the 50% Fibonacci correction of the upward impulse from the middle of September. The upward reversal from this support zone created the daily Japanese candlesticks reversal pattern Bullish Engulfing, which completed the intermediate ABC correction (2) and then broke the daily down channel from the start of October – accelerating the active minor impulse wave i of the intermediate impulse wave (3).
Given the strong daily uptrend and the improving bullish crypto sentiment seen today on the renewed inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoin cryptocurrency can be expected to rise further toward the next resistance level 86960.00 (which stopped the previous impulse wave (1) at the end of September).
The subject matter and the content of this article are solely the views of the author. FinanceFeeds does not bear any legal responsibility for the content of this article and they do not reflect the viewpoint of FinanceFeeds or its editorial staff.
The information does not constitute advice or a recommendation on any course of action and does not take into account your personal circumstances, financial situation, or individual needs. We strongly recommend you seek independent professional advice or conduct your own independent research before acting upon any information contained in this article.
Americans expect to pay delivery fees when ordering food online, but many don’t realize they may also be paying more for the food itself.
I recently discovered that my regular order of an Indian sweet (called Chamcham) was listed at $17.49 (1lb) on Bikanervala’s website but cost $22.74 on Uber Eats. That’s an extra $5.25, or roughly 30%, before delivery fees and other charges.
And I may not be the only one overlooking these markups.
A new survey commissioned by restaurant technology company Olo found that while 74% of Americans expect delivery charges, only 27% expect individual menu items to cost more on third-party delivery apps.
Those extra costs matter as inflation continues to squeeze household budgets. Consumer prices increased 3.7% in September from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Now, a new food-ordering app promises to eliminate menu markups, allowing customers to enjoy the convenience of ordering from home without paying inflated prices.
To test that promise, I compared the cost of a cheeseburger and Little Fries from Five Guys across four ordering platforms in New Jersey on October 21. You can see the results below.
New Olo app offers restaurant brands without menu markups
Restaurant technology company Olo launched its consumer app on October 20, offering customers access to regular restaurant menu prices at more than 250 brands, without the markups commonly found on third-party delivery platforms.
The app launched with national and regional restaurant brands, including:
- Waffle House
- Five Guys
- First Watch
- Dave’s Hot Chicken
- Del Taco
- Din Tai Fung
Customers can order for pickup or delivery, depending on the restaurant and location.
Unlike DoorDash and Uber Eats, Olo says it doesn’t charge restaurants commissions on orders placed through its consumer app.
DoorDash’s published merchant pricing lists delivery commissions of 15%, 25% and 30%, depending on the plan.
Uber Eats also charges restaurant marketplace fees that can reach 30%.
Related: Bath & Body Works makes a big move for the holidays
Restaurants sometimes pass those costs along through higher menu prices, although markups vary by restaurant and platform.
Olo says eliminating those markups can save customers an average of 15% to 30% per menu item compared with traditional delivery apps.
The push toward lower online food prices extends beyond restaurants.
In September, Instacart expanded its partnerships with grocery retailers offering the same everyday prices online as in stores.
The company said more than 90% of its active U.S. customers now have access to at least one grocery retailer without markups.
I compared Five Guys pickup prices across 4 delivery platforms
To see whether Olo delivers on its promise of lower prices, I compared the cost of ordering a cheeseburger and Little Fries for pickup from Five Guys in New Jersey on October 21.
The results showed that Olo offered the lowest menu subtotal at $18.28, compared with $20.88 on DoorDash and $22.92 on Uber Eats.
|
Platform |
Menu subtotal |
Fees and taxes, net |
Final total |
|
Five Guys direct |
$19.10 |
$1.27 |
$20.37 |
|
Olo |
$18.28 |
$2.53 |
$20.81 |
|
DoorDash |
$20.88 |
$1.38 |
$22.26 |
|
Uber Eats (Uber One) |
$22.92 |
$0.37 |
$23.29 |
Prices exclude tips. Uber Eats includes a $1.15 discount for Uber One members; its undiscounted total was $24.44. Olo includes a $0.91 network fee with taxes. Restaurant branches were not confirmed as identical across all four quotes.
Olo’s final total was $1.45 lower than DoorDash’s and $2.48 lower than Uber Eats’ discounted total. However, ordering directly from Five Guys was still 44 cents cheaper than Olo.
The comparison also highlights how promotions can change the equation.
Uber Eats was advertising a buy-one-get-one-free cheeseburger offer, which could provide greater value for customers ordering multiple burgers. This promotion was not reflected in the single-cheeseburger comparison.
How Olo makes money without restaurant commissions
Olo isn’t new to the restaurant business.
Founded in 2005, the company already powers digital ordering for more than 800 restaurant brands across approximately 90,000 locations.
It was acquired in 2025 for about $2 billion by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which has also backed major cybersecurity companies including Proofpoint and Sophos.
Alongside its existing restaurant technology business, Olo collects a 5% network fee from customers on every order placed through its new app, including pickup.
Delivery orders may carry additional charges, meaning lower menu prices don’t necessarily guarantee the lowest final bill.
The app is available nationwide on iOS and Android, although participating restaurants and delivery options vary by location.
For customers tired of paying extra just for the convenience of ordering food online, Olo offers another option. But the price check shows that comparing the final bill, including fees and promotions, remains the best way to determine where the real savings are.
More Restaurant News
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Strategy (MSTR) stock has traded within a narrow range over the past few days as Bitcoin’s rally has lost momentum. The stock was trading at $142.70, down from its September high of $170. However, this period of consolidation could be the calm before the storm, especially after JPMorgan issued a bold prediction about Bitcoin’s future price trajectory.
JPMorgan expects Bitcoin to beat stocks
Bitcoin has underperformed stocks this year. After soaring to $126,200, it has dropped by over 30% to where it is today. In contrast, the stock market has soared, with the S&P 500 Index hovering near its highest level on record, helped by artificial intelligence and energy sectors.
Now, however, JPMorgan analysts believe that Bitcoin will outperform stocks in the long term. The bank also believes that the coin will beat bonds and gold over time. It sees Bitcoin achieving an annual return of about 10%.
Other top analysts have maintained a bullish outlook for Bitcoin. Michael Saylor, Strategy’s founder, believes that Bitcoin has more upside to go over time, which explains why he has continued the buying spree.
Vivek Ramaswamy is also bullish on Bitcoin as evidenced by the ongoing accumulation by Strive. Also, Tom Lee sees Bitcoin continuing to outperform over time.
Blackrock, which runs the biggest Bitcoin ETF, believes that Bitcoin is a good hedge against risk, especially as US government debt continues to rise. It crossed the key milestone of $40 trillion and has already jumped to $40.2 trillion so far.
Strategy will be the biggest beneficiary if these Bitcoin forecasts come true, since it is the biggest holder. It bought 267 coins last week, bringing its total holdings to 848,517 coins, which are currently valued at $70.2 billion.
Meanwhile, there are signs that American investors are rotating back into Bitcoin. On Monday alone, they purchased more than $550 million worth of Bitcoin ETFs, reducing the cumulative net outflow to just $90 million. If these inflows continue for a few more days, Bitcoin ETFs are likely to record a fourth consecutive month of net inflows.
Bitcoin price has more upside to go
BTC price chart | Source: TradingView
The daily chart suggests that Bitcoin has more upside to go in the near term. It has formed a falling wedge pattern, which is characterized by two descending and converging trendlines. The two lines often leads to a bullish breakout, especially when they are nearing the convergence.
Bitcoin has also remained above the Supertrend indicator and the 100-day moving average. Therefore, a rebound may push it to the important resistance level of $87,254. A surge above that level will point to more gains, possibly to $90,000, followed by $100,000. A jump to $100,000 would push the valuation of its Bitcoin holdings to nearly $85 billion.
MSTR stock forecast
MSTR stock chart | Source: TradingView
The daily chart shows that MSTR stock has pulled back in the past few days, moving from a high of $170 to $142. This retreat, however, is losing momentum, as evidenced by the Average Directional Index (ADX), which has dropped from 40 to 24.
Strategy has remained above the ascending trendline that links the lowest levels since August. Therefore, the stock will likely rebound, initially to $170, followed by $200.
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