Good morning, it’s Monday, October 26, 2026. Futures are green to start the most important week of the quarter.

S&P 500 futures are up 0.3% after President Trump said there would be no strike on Iran "today," and oil is down about 2%. That's relief, not resolution.

The real test is Wednesday. The Fed decides on rates at 2 p.m. ET, and Microsoft and Alphabet report a few hours later. Amazon and Apple follow Thursday.

The setup: Meta beat on revenue last week and still fell 9.4% because AI spending pushed its free cash flow negative. This week tells us whether that was a Meta problem or an AI problem.

➤ No. 1 stock to cash in on the death of iPhone →
(from Stansberry Research)

Green across the board. Expect a quiet tape until Wednesday.

What's moving the market: Oil. Crude is easing off a six-month high, and the 10-year yield is back under 5%.

TODAY’S CATALYSTS

Most important: Verizon. Carriers sank last week after SpaceX moved into wireless (AT&T fell nearly 11%). Steady subscriber numbers would reassure dividend holders.

Elon Musk just dropped another bombshell...

He's going after your cell phone provider.

For months, Elon kept these plans under wraps. But late last week, he finally showed his hand.

I've tracked this story for months, and it's playing out exactly as I predicted.

Next, I believe Elon could launch a new device that kills the iPhone... and hands early investors his biggest payday yet. Potentially 50 times their money.

Here's everything you need to do BEFORE he makes his move. Just act quickly because this story is moving fast.

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Meta grew Q3 revenue 26% to $64.6B and guided above estimates. The stock fell anyway.

Capital spending hit $34.9B in the quarter, more than the business brought in. Free cash flow turned negative for the first time since Meta went public, and the company announced a new non-voting share class to help fund the buildout.

Chipmakers took the hit: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 6.7% Thursday, its worst day since June.

Now Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon face the same test. With Meta, they've guided to roughly $730B in 2026 capex, up about 78% from last year.

What this means for investors: Watch how each company pays for its spending, not just how much it spends. Cloud growth that outruns capex gets rewarded. Spending funded with debt or new shares probably won't.

WTI is down about 2% to $101 and Brent sits near $114 after Trump ruled out an immediate strike on Iran.

The relief has limits. Houthi drones targeted Saudi oil pumping stations this morning, and Benzinga reports the Pentagon is preparing strike options for after the Nov. 3 midterms.

Why it matters: Oil above $100 feeds inflation, and inflation is the Fed's problem this week. Energy led the market Friday, so a sustained drop in crude could cool that trade quickly.

Power bills have doubled and even tripled across America, and furious voters are about to send a clear message on November 3: get AI off the grid.

The only way to get AI off the power grid… without losing to China and crashing the economy… is a criticaltech now being deployed by Elon Musk.

One expert calls it "Dark Energy." Washington has already greenlit it on an emergency basis, it comes online almost instantly, it's already sold out through 2028… and one small group of companies hold the keys to it.

Click here to see the small group of stocks set to soar as a mass power bill revolt hits on November 3.

If the Fed surprises with a hike → long-term bonds take the first hit; savers get better yields on cash.

If Big Tech capex keeps rising faster than cloud revenue → pressure on chipmakers; relief for stocks outside the AI trade.

If oil keeps easing → lower inflation expectations and breathing room for yields; energy producers give back recent gains.

The opportunity: Stocks outside the AI trade.

Why now: The S&P 500 excluding AI-linked names is up more than 6% in October, while the headline index is slightly negative. Consumer staples are having their best month since 1998.

Bull case: If hyperscalers disappoint, dividend payers and value sectors become the market's shelter.

Risk: A 10-year yield near 5% competes directly with dividend stocks for income dollars.

Watch: Whether the rotation holds if Microsoft and Alphabet beat Wednesday.

Futures put about 90% odds on a hold Wednesday. Bank of America disagrees.

The bank still expects a quarter-point hike, arguing September's inflation data strengthened the case and core PCE could end 2026 near 3.4%.

Watch: Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's 2:30 p.m. press conference for any hint about December.

Investors are picking old-school gold over digital gold.

Gold and precious-metals funds took in $1.29B in the week through Oct. 21, their fifth week of inflows in six. US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $773.5M on Oct. 22–23 alone.

Bitcoin then slipped under $80,000 for the first time since mid-October.

Big Tech capex has more than tripled since 2024

Big Tech's combined capex has more than tripled in two years, and Goldman projects it tops $1.1 trillion in 2027. After Meta, investors care as much about how that bill gets paid as how big it gets.

Futures are green and oil is cooling, but today is a holding pattern before Wednesday. The Fed and Big Tech report within hours of each other, and either can move the whole market.

Stay constructive, keep some dry powder, and let the AI spenders prove their math before adding exposure.

P.S. Microsoft's own president has called the U.S. power grid "ancient." Yet his company, along with every other tech giant reporting this month, is racing to build more AI data centers.

So where will all that power come from? I believe the answer is a technology that got its start powering U.S. tanks on the battlefield. It could power AI without ever touching the public grid – and every major AI company is rushing to buy it.

Click here to see how you could back this tech before October 28.