Intel INTC shares plunged more than 20% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company reported disappointing third-quarter results and forecasted a prolonged slowdown in personal-computer sales. Much of the pressure on the PC segment is coming from the persistently high price of memory chips, and the company expects that pressure to remain in 2028. The weak results were compounded by production challenges in its server chip business. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan said on a call with analysts Thursday that earlier this month, an “unfortunate and tragic” accident at a factory in Kiryat Gat, Israel, led to a multiweek facility shutdown that will affect some server shipments in the fourth quarter. Tan added that the server chip unit is also being slowed down by supply shortages. “I’m disappointed that we were not able to meet strong customer demand in this quarter,” Tan said, citing the supply challenges, memory crunch and slowing PC demand. “We need to address these challenges with urgency.” Intel projected fourth-quarter revenue between $15 billion and $16 billion, and adjusted earnings of 25 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $17.29 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, and adjusted earnings of 45 cents a share.

The Swiss market ended on a strong note on Thursday after staying firm throughout the day's session, amid optimism about earnings and positive cues from other markets in Europe. The benchmark SMI, which moved between 14,656.57 and 14,861.53, settled at 14,756.86, gaining 175.76 points or 1.21%. Sandoz Group climbed 4.4%. Amrize moved up 3.2% and UBS Group advanced nearly 3%. Holcim, Galderma Group and Novartis ended higher by 2.3%-2.6%. Alcon, Kuehne + Nagel and Lonza Group gained 1.75%-2%. Julius Baer and Sika ended up by 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively. Geberit, Helvetia Baloise Holding, Roche, Swiss Life Holding, Swiss Re and Zurich Insurance posted moderate gains. Lindt & Spruengli drifted down 1.1%. SGS ended down by about 0.8%. Sonova and Logitech International closed modestly lower.

Europe
European stocks closed higher on Thursday as investors reacted to a slew of corporate earnings announcements and digested the monetary policy moves of the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve. The ECB left its key interest rates unchanged on Thursday, as expected, after raising them in September, and the chief Christine Lagarde revealed her decision to step down next year, as policymakers wait for the effect of the past moves amid surging inflationary pressures and study the impact of the turmoil in French bond yields. The Governing Council, led by ECB President Lagarde, held the deposit rate steady at 2.5%, the main refinancing rate at 2.65%, and the marginal lending rate at 2.9%. The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.61%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 climbed 0.47%, Germany's DAX closed with a gain of 0.92% and France's CAC 40 gained 1.05%. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Türkiye closed higher. Ireland, Russia and Spain ended weak. In the UK market, BAE Systems, LSEG, 3i, Airtel Africa, AstraZeneca, ICG, Polar Capital Holdings, SSE, Melrose Industries and IAG gained 2%-3.1%. Standard Chartered gained a little over 2%. Advertising Group WPP moved up after logging a year-on-year increase in revenue for the third quarter and confirming its FY26 outlook. Shell moved up sharply. The British oil and gas giant hiked its quarterly share buyback to $5 billion after nearly doubling its quarterly year-year adjusted earnings and reported record refining margins. Lloyds Banking Group dropped by 5.4% despite reporting a notable jump in third-quarter earnings.

United States
U.S. stocks declined as a revenue shortfall from Google parent Alphabet caused one of the largest ever one-session market capitalization losses for a single company, feeding doubts about the payoff from artificial-intelligence infrastructure spending. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 132.54 points, or 0.25%, to 52342.56. The broad S&P 500 slipped 23.59 points, or 0.30%, to 7720.39 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 365.13 points, or 1.38%, to 26184.72. After two years of an AI boom and a historic surge in the stock market, the bar for earnings is almost unattainably high. Alphabet fell over 12% to $281.73 despite logging a marked increase in operating income after Google's search revenue growth waned due to the less lucrative nature of AI searches. The slide erased $499.8 billion from Alphabet's market value, the second biggest single-session loss for any company on record. Similarly, shares of mining and construction machinery maker Caterpillar fell 9.3% to $647.39 after its third-quarter sales lagged Wall Street expectations. Caterpillar is among the old economy companies that have gotten caught up in the AI boom, and it noted that orders for power generators popular with data-center developers extended into 2030. Microsoft, one of the first major companies to push into AI, fell 0.2% to $530.14 despite reporting better-than-anticipated quarterly earnings. Shares of CoreWeave, one of the cloud-computing firms whose infrastructure debts have raised concerns, fell 5% to $60.74 after another volatile session. Rival Nebius lost 5.7% to $171.99.

Asia
Stock markets in East Asia and Australia are showing mixed performance on Friday. On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Nikkei 225 index is down 2.4 per cent, whilst the Topix index has lost 1.3 per cent.

Bonds
The yield on the policy-sensitive two-year U.S. Treasury declined 0.077 percentage point to 4.654%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell 0.056 percentage point to 4.988%. The yield on the 30-year bond declined 0.033 percentage point to 5.327%.

Analysis
Bank of America raises its Airbus target to EUR 263 (258) – Buy

Bank of America raises its Danone target to EUR 93 (92) – Buy

Bank of America lowers its Heineken target to EUR 93 (95) – Buy