Bulls, Bears, & The Bell Afternoon Edition 11/6/25

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good afternoon and welcome to Bulls Beers in the Bell.
Thank you for joining us. We are diving deep today into
really one of the most conflicting trading days we've
seen in a while. November 6th, 2025.
The market spent the entire day,well pretty much on edge didn't
it? Ending with a sharp sell off
right at the close. But then almost the second the
bell rang, we got these corporate earnings reports that

(00:22):
just delivered well, a powerful counterpunch.
It completely neutralized the panic, at least for a moment.
It really did. It was like the market was
fighting itself. So for you listening, the big
question we need to tackle is which story wins out here?
Is it the huge fear driven back rate panic we saw during the
day? Or is it the cold, hard,
fundamental strength from companies reporting after the

(00:42):
bell, the micro story? Exactly.
That's our mission today to really unpack this macro fear
versus micro strength battle. It's created this perfect
stalemate. Really high stakes were to break
down the closing bell carnage, then dive into those frankly
blow out earnings reports that stop the bleeding.
And crucially, we need to figureout why one small piece of soft

(01:04):
data has suddenly become maybe the most important number on
Wall Street this week. Let's get into this volatility.
OK, let's start with the damage from the main trading session.
It was unambiguously risk off. Broad selling in tech, which has
been the market leader all year,really took it on the chin.
Yeah, 1.90% plunge in the NASDAQComposite.
I mean, that's not just general profit taking, is it?

(01:25):
What does that tell you about the conviction?
It tells you the selling was focused and pretty severe.
The NASDAQ closed right down there at 3053.99 I.
And it wasn't just tech. The S&P 500 fell 1.12%, closing
at 6720.32. Even the Dow dropped .84%,
nearly 400 points. When you see selling that wide,
it suggests you know systemic worry, not just shuffling money

(01:46):
between sectors. And you could measure the
anxiety, right? We saw the VIX, the fear gauge
surge 11.60%. Why is closing above 20 so
important for the VIX? Right, that 20 level is the
threshold everyone watches. It closed above 20.0.
Historically, getting and staying above 20 signals a
material jump in market stress. Below 20, things feel relatively

(02:08):
stable, maybe even complacent. Above 20, hedging gets expensive
fast, and it's clear uncertaintyis taking over.
You can almost feel the nerves in that number.
OK, so the mood shifted from just stress to genuinely
fearful. What lit the fuse?
Our sources seem to point to twomain things.
First, that old debate about tech valuations came roaring
back. Yes, exactly.

(02:29):
For months, the market sort of ignored warnings about the AI
rally maybe getting ahead of itself, but that seemed to break
yesterday. We saw a really focused selling
driven by these worries popping up again that maybe the
valuation bubble just isn't sustainable.
And you saw it right in the big AI names.
NVIDIA, the poster child, down 3.7%.
Amazon fell 2.9%. Tesla down 3.5%.
Even stocks often seen as AI proxies like Palantir, slid hard

(02:53):
down 6.8%. That's not just trimming
positions, that's actively cutting risk.
And the second driver was, well,honestly, more chaotic.
It's the vacuum left by this ongoing government shutdown.
We're what, 3637 days in now? A record, and that means the
markets flying blind without theofficial BLS data, no proper

(03:13):
jobs report, no official inflation numbers.
Right. And into that void steps this
private data point that was decidedly grim.
Precisely the Challenger, Gray and Christmas report.
It showed US employers announcedover 153,000 job cuts in
October. To give you some context, that's
the worst October number since 2003.

(03:33):
When there's no official data toargue back a private report like
that, especially 1 so negative, it just takes on huge
importance. And we also saw real world
fallout from the shutdown itself, didn't we?
The FAA cutting flight. Yeah, reducing air traffic by
10% at 40 busy airports. They cited staffing shortages,
air traffic controllers not getting paid and that
immediately hit airline stocks. American, Delta, United, they

(03:54):
all felt the pressure. So it was like a double hit.
Really bad private labor News Plus actual operational
problems. Which brings us to maybe the
most interesting part of the day, psychologically speaking,
this idea of the market's brokenreflex.
Oh yes, the classic Wall Street saying bad news is good news.
The idea that weak data means the Fed will have to cut rates.
Did the market even try to play that game yesterday?

(04:17):
It did, but only for a moment. The initial reaction, you know
in pre market trading futures, actually ticked up a little when
that grim challenger report cameout.
That was the classic knee jerk response.
Bet on a fed pivot maybe in December.
Weak jobs, slower growth means lower rates eventually.
But that optimism just vanished.Poof, gone almost as soon as the
regular trading session started.Why did it reverse so

(04:39):
aggressively? Why lose faith in the Fed saving
the day? Well, the problems seem to be
the scale of the weakness. Those layoff numbers weren't
just hinting at a slowdown. They felt two week like maybe
the economy wasn't just gently cooling, but actually heading
for a Cliff. So the markets thinking shifted.
It went from pricing in a nice soft landing with some helpful
rate cuts to suddenly pricing ina nasty hard landing.

(05:02):
So the story changed from the Fed will cut rates, everything's
fine, Maybe even a rally to uh oh, the economy might actually
be breaking, and rate cuts won'thelp much if earnings are about
to fall off a Cliff anyway. That old way of thinking where
bad economic news was somehow good for stocks because of the
Fed. That link seems broken, at least
for now. We're in a bad news is just bad

(05:24):
news mode and it overwhelmed anyhope about lower rates.
That fear driven macro view is definitely a powerful, but as
you said, This is why the day ended in such a weird stalemate.
If the economy was really breaking that badly, future
should have kept tanking after hours right?
Instead nothing. Futures basically went flat.
E mini S&P futures down just what, .04%?

(05:45):
It's like the after hour sessionbrought this huge rebuttal from
companies. Exactly, the market was just
paralyzed because the actual results, the fundamental data
from companies refused to play along with the panic narrative.
The micro strength was a powerful counter argument.
OK, let's dive into that. Let's look at the actual
corporate results. Take two interactive TTWO.

(06:05):
This feels like a perfect example of real numbers pushing
back against those AI bubble fears or consumer worries.
Oh, these results were fantastic.
Take two reported net bookings. That's basically their revenue
measure grew 33% year over year,came in at $1.96 billion, which
smashed estimates and crucially,recurrent consumer spending.
Think subscriptions in game stuff that grew 20%.

(06:27):
That shows people are still engaged, still spending
consistently, not just buying a game once.
And they raised their forecasts too, right for fiscal 2026 net
bookings, second time they've done.
That second consecutive quarter,they've raised that forecast.
But the real headline grabber, the thing that makes you ignore
macro worries for a second, was the Grand Theft Auto, the 6th
release date. It's official now, November
19th, 2026. The CEO basically said they

(06:50):
expect record levels of net bookings in fiscal 2027 because
of it. That's a massive tangible driver
you can point to. OK, so take two look strong, but
if the Challenger report and that broken reflex had the
market convinced the consumer was tapped out, maybe dying, how
does monster beverage fit into that MNST?
It just doesn't fit at all. Monster Beverage on a day

(07:11):
completely dominated by panic about job cuts, reports record
Q3 net sales $2.20 billion, up nearly 17%.
You just can't square the idea of a collapsing consumer with
record sales of, let's face it, premium energy drinks.
And it wasn't just selling more cans, they showed serious
pricing power, too. That's right.
Their gross profit margin expanded significantly, up to

(07:33):
55.7%. That tells you they're managing
costs and can pass price increases to consumers without
killing demand. Plus, their international
business surged over 23%. It's now a record 43% of their
total sales. This is hard data showing a
pretty robust consumer both hereand globally.
So this clash, macro fear versusmicro strength, it really proves

(07:54):
what people have been saying, doesn't it?
We're in a very split market, a stock pickers market maybe.
Absolutely. It's a market with 0 patience
for any perceived weakness. Just look at the huge swings
yesterday. You had winners like Datadog, up
21, maybe 23% on strong guidance, Snap up 10% after
reporting companies that delivered clear, strong beat and
raise results. But the punishment for missing

(08:16):
was brutal. Duolingo got crushed, down 27%
on weak guidance. DoorDash dropped 1517% because
they warned about spending more.How do you justify spending more
on R&D if the market chops off nearly 1/5 of your value
overnight? It just shows the psychology
right now, investors demand perfection, immediate results,
any hint that growth might slow down or cost might go up.

(08:37):
It gets a filter through that macro fear lens and the
assumption is the growth story'sover.
And the prime example, maybe theposter child for this
unforgiving market on November 6th, was Airbnb ABNB.
Their report wasn't terrible, was it?
But it seemed to hit all the wrong notes for the current
mood. Airbnb really highlighted how
thin the margin for error is. Revenue actually beat
expectations, came in at $4.1 billion.

(08:59):
But the key number, earnings pershare it missed consensus,
printed $2.21 when the Street expected closer to $2.29.
So revenue beat, slight EPS missand the guidance for Q4 was just
OK, kind of inline. Why did that cause such a
negative reaction for a name like Airbnb?
Because for a stock price for high growth, inline guidance

(09:21):
feels like a disappointment. Investors need that constant
beat and raise story to justify paying a premium multiple.
The take away from analysts was pretty clear.
This confirms it's a stock pickers market.
If you don't deliver that perfect report, you get punished
severely and that in turn just feeds back into those hard
landing fears we saw earlier in the day.
So we end this really confusing day in this perfect stalemate

(09:43):
and hanging over everything is this huge government shutdown
induced data void. We know the official jobs report
for tomorrow is delayed. Yeah, the market is basically
flying blind, desperate for anything, any signal to break
the tie. And because of that, the single
most important piece of data tomorrow, November 7th, becomes
the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment
survey that's out at 1000AM Eastern.

(10:06):
It's wild, isn't it, that this soft survey data usually kind of
a sideshow compared to CPI or the jobs report is now the main
event. It's the decider in this macro
versus micro battle. The stakes are massive because
right now this survey is the market's best guess at how
consumers are really feeling, how resilient they are.

(10:27):
So the bowl cases sentiment beats expectations.
That validates the strong earnings from companies like
Monster and Take Two maybe triggers a buy the dip rally.
People breathe a sigh of relief.But the bear case if consumer
sentiment misses. If it misses, well, that
confirms all the pessimism from the Challenger report, validates
the broken reflex, reinforces those hard landing fears, and

(10:49):
you'd likely see an accelerationof the tech sell off we saw in
the main session. This survey is basically acting
as a proxy for both the jobs report and a consumer health
check. We should probably mention
though, this data void isn't permanent.
That's right. The immediate focus is on this
soft data point tomorrow, but the big official inflation
numbers are expected the week ofNovember 10th to the 14th.

(11:09):
We should finally get CPI and core CTI on the 13th, then PPI
and retail sales on the 14th. Those numbers will really give
the Fed something concrete to chew on heading into their
December meeting. What a setup.
The market's just stuck balancing this overwhelming
macro panic fueled by political gridlock and one scary private

(11:29):
report against solid real world corporate result showing the
consumer, at least at the higherend, is still spending.
And that leaves us with maybe a provocative thought for you to
consider. The very short term stability of
the entire market is now hangingon soft data, a survey of
consumer feelings, all because the official hard data is stuck
in political limbo. So when critical policy

(11:52):
decisions like what the Fed doeswith interest rates have to rely
on these kinds of proxy reports and sentiment surveys, how
reliable is the market's decision making right now?
And what happens to stability? We'll see tomorrow if the
consumer can indeed rescue the market from its macro fears.