Tech News · The field notes
Personal Tech — Saturday, October 31, 2026
Friday's tech selloff wipes over two trillion dollars from the Nasdaq 100 in October, Apple faces its first earnings call under new CEO John Ternus on Monday, the week's biggest funding rounds top two billion dollars, and Samsung posts a record chip quarter.
Friday selloff and October Nasdaq wipeout
- Nasdaq -~2.9% Friday, Intel -~29%, >$2T wiped from Nasdaq 100 in October
- big tech capex $556.9B exceeded record $542.9B operating cash flow in first nine months of 2026
- buybacks collapsed 83% to $13.6B, shareholder returns 9.3% vs 27.4% a year earlier
- Alphabet and Meta bought back no shares in 2026
- Intel Q3 beat ($16.51B revenue) but weak Q4 guide on PC slowdown and Israel fab disruption
Apple earnings preview (Monday, November 2, 2026)
- first call led by new CEO John Ternus
- guidance 9-11% revenue growth (~$111.7-113.7B), consensus ~$113B and $1.99 EPS, 47-48% gross margin
- iPhone 18 Pro early sales mixed (Counterpoint: +3.1% units in first 3 weeks, China +29%, US -4%, Japan -27%)
- iPhone Duo foldable ($1,999, launched Oct 23) excluded from quarter
- memory prices and inventory build ($11.09B) in focus
Week's biggest funding rounds
- Re:Build $2.1B (manufacturing, General Catalyst and JPMorganChase)
- Kalshi $1B Series G at $40B valuation, >$1T annualized volume
- Serval $150M at $3B (coding agents, Sequoia)
- Dulo $130M seed (Eric Schmidt, John Doerr, DST Global)
- Wabi $55M at $1.25B
- Cohere initial closing toward up to C$7B
- Group14 ~$169M for silicon battery materials in Spain
- Firehawk Aerospace >$150M at >$1.4B
- Foundry Robotics $100M
- General Compute $100M
- Hex Technologies $100M at $1.2B
Samsung record Q3
- operating profit 107.4 trillion won, driven by semiconductors as memory prices rose and high-bandwidth memory shipments expanded
- memory scarcity boosts Samsung and SK hynix while squeezing device makers like Apple