Hold onto your pants and your coping mechanisms… it’s report card week for Corporate America, and considering the lights are still off in D.C…. maybe it’s just me, but the stakes feel bigger this earnings go around.

A lineup of household names (Tesla, Netflix, Intel, and Coca-Cola) are all about to face Mrs. Market’s red pen. Strong results could keep the rally alive… weak ones, and we might be in for the kind of overreaction that rivals a Kardashian’s episode.

Kicking things off, Zions Bancorp reports after the bell… and let’s just say expectations are low after the regional bank recently confessed to some “fraud-related loan issues.”

Despite all that, investors kicked off the week in good spirits. The Dow jumped over 500 points (+1%), the S&P 500 rose 1.1%, and the Nasdaq aced the session with a 1.4% gain… sparked by Apple hitting a fresh record high on blockbuster iPhone 17 demand… again.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that U.S.-China relations have “deescalated” (read: Trump’s probably halfway through an all-caps Truth Social post aimed directly at Xi Jinping’s wife right now). 

Talks are resuming in Malaysia this week, and President Trump has hinted that his previously threatened 100% tariffs might not kick in November 1. Instead, the focus has shifted to rare earths, fentanyl, and soybeans… which, let’s be honest, sounds a lot like a Breaking Bad grocery list.

While traders cheer stocks, Uncle Sam’s doors remain locked. The government shutdown just entered its third week, as politicians continue arguing over federal healthcare subsidies. Economists warn it could ding near-term GDP, but most agree it’s more of a temporary paper cut than a recession-inducing injury.

Still, the shutdown has delayed key data that the Fed depends on… including the Consumer Price Index, which finally drops Friday. The CPI report could determine whether J-Poww keeps rates steady or devalues our currency even more (via money printing).

In other absurdities, Amazon Web Services briefly broke the internet this morning… taking down Robinhood, Reddit, and United Airlines. AWS claims it’s “mostly back to normal,” which likely means someone panicked, unplugged the wrong server, and prayed.

Elsewhere, Cleveland-Cliffs jumped 18% after joining the rare-earth mining party, and Bitcoin climbed 2.5% to $111,000, dragging MicroStrategy and Coinbase up with it. Michael Saylor even bought another 168 bitcoins to celebrate. 

And to kick off our Stock Prophet Watchlist this week, we had quite the day. We delivered (checks notes) 263% in LONG opportunities today, with our biggest move coming from GSIT, which we alerted at 9:37 a.m…. going from $7.62 to $18.15 for a 138% LONG move. And this week’s just getting started. Again, it’s only available for FREE on the Stocks.News official app. (If you haven’t already, you can download it here.)

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla, Netflix, Intel, Coca-Cola, Apple, Robinhood, Amazon, and United Airlines as mentioned in the article.