Morning Watchlist: Saturday Edition
A quick note from Behind the Markets
It's Saturday morning, and this was the week the market tried to have it both ways. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at record highs. By Thursday midday, the 10-year Treasury yielded 5.35% — 2002 territory — oil had jumped almost 5% on fresh tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, and the tape was handing the records back.
Records on Tuesday. Invoices by Thursday.
Saturday is when we grade our own card against that whipsaw — all eighteen calls from this week.
Four stops on the tour. Let's get into it.
1) The Snack Aisle Confessed. The Shopper Had Already Moved.
The consumer-staples confession we scheduled all week arrived Thursday morning: PepsiCo beat its quarter — core earnings of $2.34 a share, revenue up 5.6% — and cut its year, naming North America as the culprit. The stock rose about 2% anyway, from a 12-month low. When a guidance cut can't dent a stock, the markdown came early. That was the referendum our whole food aisle was waiting on.
Ingredion, Sunday's Buy at $96.46, traded at $94.53 Thursday midday — down about 2%, with UBS trimming its target to $104, still well above the price. The thesis never needed Pepsi to win; it needs recipes to keep getting made, name-brand or store-brand. Still Buy.
Post Holdings, Friday's bottom-shelf Buy at $73.32, sat at $73.36 Thursday — a newborn unmoved, buying back an eighth of itself a year while it waits. Still Buy.
Constellation Brands is the week's best grade — and an honest one, because the market did most of the work before breakfast. We flagged it Wednesday in the premarket markdown near $110, condemned over a 0.6% dip in beer shipments. The market reversed its own verdict by the close — $118.39 Wednesday — and by Thursday midday the stock traded at $122.79, about 12% above the flag (6% above Tuesday's close). The crowd is still arguing: HSBC downgraded to Hold on Wednesday; Freedom Broker upgraded to Buy on Thursday. A toll bridge the market condemned and re-opened inside 48 hours. Still Buy — though the easy markdown is gone.
Deckers, Monday's musical-chairs Buy at $79.08, reached $81.01 Thursday, up 2.4%, while Nike digests the FY27 guide-down that handed HOKA the chair. Still Buy.
And GXO ran its first live test: Prime Big Deal Days fired the holiday starting gun Tuesday and Wednesday, with Adobe projecting $9.9 billion of online spending across the two days, up 9.2% from last year — the full tally lands after our press time. The stock inched to $46.20 Thursday, up half a percent from Sunday's flag, with the November 4th report now on the calendar. Still Buy.
2) Google Signed Two Power Deals. The Bond Market Countersigned.
Wednesday afternoon's Fed minutes showed most officials still penciling in one more hike this year — insurance against sticky inflation, in their framing — and the long end obliged: the 10-year touched 5.35% Thursday, the 30-year held near 5.69%, and the 30-year mortgage printed 7.49%, its highest since late 2023. Everything on this page that borrows, lends, or collects a yield got re-marked against that tape.
Start with the week's loudest discipline story.
Curtiss-Wright — Thursday's Watch, flagged at Tuesday's $553 close because 34 times earnings was the aisle's price, not ours — fell to $503 by Thursday midday, down 9% in two days, crashing through its $522 52-week low. Citi's cut to $622 and the now-official CFO handover (both risks we named in the same breath as the pairing) did the pushing. The rule stands — if it holds below $522 into Monday, the premium has shrunk toward reason and the entrance is live. Watching cost nothing. Buying Tuesday would have cost 9%. Still Watch — but check Monday.
Black Hills, the other Google deal, eased 1.3% to $74.88 Thursday as BMO raised its target to $86 — drifting toward the ~$70 entrance without us lifting a finger. Still Watch.
Moody's, Tuesday's notary at $441, reached $451.51, up 2.3%, and collected another receipt: SpaceX is reportedly assembling $40 billion of chip financing. Every AI mortgage still stops at the notary's desk. Still Buy.
StepStone took the week's worst Buy grade: $43.31 Thursday, down 4.3% from Tuesday's flag. The news cut both ways — Blue Owl's flagship fund said withdrawal requests eased last quarter, 16.8% of shares versus 18.8%, and "turmoil eases" made Monday's headlines. But a fund asked for 17% and honoring 5% is still a long line at the side door, which is the consignment shop's whole order book. Wells Fargo initiated at Overweight. Still Buy.
And First American held at $61.19, up slightly from Monday's flag, through a week that took mortgages to 7.49% — the freeze deepening is the thesis, not the risk. Targets got trimmed (KBW to $82, Barclays to $79) and both still sit some 30% above the price. Earnings October 21st. Still Buy.
3) The G7 Released the Barrels. The Strait Took Them Back.
On Tuesday we wrote that reserve-release relief is borrowed, not earned. It took two days to collect. Thursday morning, after the heaviest week of tanker attacks since the war began, WTI jumped almost 5% to $92.52 and Brent to $105 — borrowed barrels still have to sail past a shooting gallery.
Global Ship Lease, Friday's fleet landlord at $45.18, held at $45.09 — and on Tuesday said it will exercise options on additional newbuilds. The war keeps repricing the ocean in the landlord's favor; the newbuild bill keeps growing as the bet. The multi-year charters are still the seatbelt. Still Buy.
Knight-Swift shows the other side of the same barrel: flagged Watch at $66.35 on the diesel-relief story, it slid 3.7% to $63.90 while Citi, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan all cut targets into the October 21st report — which was always the entrance. Thursday's crude spike is exactly why we wanted the rebate on the income statement before paying for it. Cheaper, not confirmed. Still Watch.
AAR, Sunday's Watch at $99.90, nosed up to $100.84 as Jefferies raised its target to $160. The $2.1 billion mortgage on the MRO Holdings deal still isn't priced. Still Watch.
4) Appraisals, Halftimes, and the Last Jar
Addus HomeCare, Thursday's gray-wave Buy at $111, reached $114.47 — up nearly 3% in two days, the appraisal one shelf over still doing its quiet work. Still Buy.
Bentley Systems slipped 1% to $34.41 with the software tape; the shelf didn't get any fuller. Still Buy.
CF Industries eased 2% to $113.71 and declared its 60-cent dividend Thursday; its flour still costs $3 a sack while Europe's rivals pay $24. Still Buy.
StoneCo sat at $11.50, a penny under Wednesday's flag — the halftime celebration holding its breath until the October 25th runoff, which was always the entrance. Still Watch.
And IMAX round-tripped to $52.90, jumping 2.8% Thursday as B. Riley ($64) and StoneX ($65) raised their targets — the crowd keeps paying full freight for the express lane. The entrance is unchanged: a digestion pullback toward the mid-$40s, or the late-October report at a saner price. Still Watch.
Before You Go
Eighteen calls this week — twelve Buys, six Watches, no Sells. Through Thursday midday, six Buys were green, led by Constellation Brands at +12% from the flag, with Addus +2.9%, Deckers +2.4%, and Moody's +2.3% behind it; Post and Global Ship Lease sat flat; tuition ran from Bentley's 1% to StepStone's 4.3%. But the watch column earned its keep better than any Buy: Curtiss-Wright fell 9% in two days while we stood outside — straight through the entrance we'd named — and Knight-Swift marked itself down 3.7% toward its own exam. The trades we didn't make were worth more than most of the ones we did. Same system as every week: buy the story at the fair price, name what kills it, and let the exciting version go to somebody else.
Your Monday checklist, in order. First, Delta's Friday-morning numbers — the first read on travel demand at $90-plus oil, refereeing our AAR entrance and Copa's unhedged fuel bill. Second, Friday's bond close: did the 10-year hold above 5.3%, and did Curtiss-Wright hold below $522? If the second answer is yes, our named entrance has printed. Third, circle Tuesday: Goldman Sachs reports October 13th, the first exam of our October 2nd Buy and the opening bell of bank earnings, with Anthropic's Nasdaq debut still expected this month. Fourth, October 21st is a doubleheader for this page: Knight-Swift's entrance exam and First American's earnings. Fifth, October 25th: Brazil's runoff — StoneCo's entrance, win or washout.
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Written by Behind the Markets