Wall Street: Dow jumps 1% on earnings, Netflix falls after hours

Data as of: Closing prices Tuesday 20 October 2026; Asia and futures on Wednesday morning, 21 October (to about 07:00 CEST). US trading opens at 15:30 CEST

On Tuesday the Dow Jones rose 1.02% (529.85 points) to 52,495.88, the S&P 500 gained 0.28% to 7,712.57 and the Nasdaq Composite was almost flat (-0.02%) at 26,424.82 (AP). The small-company Russell 2000 index gained 1.7%. According to Reuters, investors are moving out of tech into other sectors because they doubt the huge spending on artificial intelligence (AI) will pay off. Healthcare led and hit a record, while tech and communication stocks fell.

Gainers included Braze (+51.7%, Salesforce is buying it for $47.50 a share in cash), Equifax (+11.3%) and Hasbro (+11.2%) after strong quarterly results, 3M (+5.8%, higher profit forecast) and Northrop Grumman (+4.6%). Airlines rose on cheaper oil – American 3.7%, United 2.3% (AP). General Motors lost 6.8% even though profit beat forecasts and it announced share buybacks of up to $20 billion. The reason: its full-year forecast disappointed and GM warned of higher commodity costs and weaker truck sales.

After the close Netflix fell about 6%: third-quarter profit beat expectations, but its fourth-quarter outlook was weak and it cut its 2026 advertising revenue goal to about $2.7 billion. SpaceX rose 4% to 6.6% in after-hours trading as revenue jumped 161% to $14.58 billion. United Airlines slipped 2.1% after results came in slightly below forecasts; fuel costs were $1.8 billion higher than a year earlier.

The 10-year US Treasury yield eased to about 5.12% from 5.14% on Monday after weak housing data: housing starts fell 5.2%. The yield is the annual interest the government pays on new debt. Brent crude fell 0.7% to $108.79 a barrel after nearing $112 (AP). On Wednesday morning Brent was higher again at $110.37 and South Korea's Kospi jumped 3.4%. S&P 500 futures were up about 0.4%.