10AM Hour: Binance Co-CEO on Crypto Heist, Shopify President on Earnings, Wall Street’s Apple Earnings Reaction 11/3/26

The hosts opened by connecting midterm politics to local economic conditions. Michigan’s 4.2%-plus unemployment rate was attributed to auto-sector job losses, changing EV strategies, tariffs, and weak job creation, while Ohio’s rate was 3.4%. Maine, Iowa, and Michigan had among the largest electricity-price increases; the hosts said oil prices alone did not explain them, citing Michigan grid issues and expiring Iowa tax benefits. Texas accounts for 27% of planned U.S. data-center capacity, and Wells Fargo estimated that a 10% reduction there would cut overall AI capital expenditure by 1.6%. Polling could therefore affect the AI investment cycle.

Citigroup’s Kate Moore remained constructive on technology, arguing October’s selloff reflected sentiment and positioning rather than deteriorating fundamentals. Companies reporting third-quarter results had not backed away from technology investment, and she said hyperscaler debt issuance was not yet prohibitive because demand is large and supply constrained. Moore acknowledged some malinvestment, particularly among smaller companies without strong fundamentals, leadership, or forward contracts, but viewed hyperscaler spending as necessary to avoid falling behind. She expected some multiple contraction as yields rise, with equity returns still driven by earnings growth, and said she expected the market to finish the year higher without assigning a target.

Asked whether health care and cyclicals were useful alternatives to technology, Moore said health care had held up during tech selloffs but was too idiosyncratic to treat as one trade: drugs, technologies, FDA decisions, and regulation create different drivers. She preferred broader portfolio diversifiers, including gold as a duration hedge, and was more positive on commodities because she expected persistent inflation and additional Middle East war-related pressure over the next several quarters. Moore said yield risk remained to the upside, or at least that yields had a floor, because of capital-expenditure demand, the cost of capital, fiscal pressure, and inflation.

CNBC’s Mackenzie Sigalos said Apple’s results showed AI-related demand is raising component costs even though Apple has kept its own AI capital spending relatively restrained. Under CEO John Ternus, Apple more than doubled inventory and committed another $33 billion to suppliers in three months, yet warned memory costs would continue rising after December as cheaper stockpiled parts run out. Apple also guided holiday-quarter gross margin to 45%-46%, its third consecutive quarterly decline and lowest level in three years. Services, normally the high-margin cushion, was guided to 8%-9% growth instead of the 11% expected. Every 5% rise in DRAM prices was estimated to reduce gross margin by about half a percentage point.

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein defended the quarter after the stock fell on its first revenue miss since Q2 2022. Gross merchandise volume reached $119 billion, up 29.5%, revenue was $3.7 billion, up 32%, and free-cash-flow margin was 22%; Finkelstein said Shopify had captured nearly half of incremental U.S. e-commerce dollars since early 2025 despite representing 14% of the market. AI-channel traffic rose 2.6 times and orders 3.3 times, though from a small base. He said 74% of AI-attributed Q3 purchases came from outside Shopify’s top 100 categories, demonstrating demand for highly specific, long-tail products.

The hosts questioned whether consumers telling an AI agent to buy directly would eliminate visits to merchant sites. Finkelstein argued Shopify could remain embedded across whichever agents win by supplying ShopPay payment details, shopping history, tracking, and the trust of 400 million Shop app and ShopPay users. He said AI shopping was still incremental while direct search traffic remained healthy, and that e-commerce was under 20% of U.S. retail, leaving substantial room to grow. Shopify was not seeing a broad race to lower prices; instead, agents were helping obscure products such as Tin Can phones reach consumers. Finkelstein expected a strong holiday season.

The program said bank stocks were preparing for a possible divided Washington after two years of deregulation. Leadership at the OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve was not expected to change, but Democratic control could bring subpoena authority, public hearings, and investigations into banks’ relationships with the Trump administration or Jeffrey Epstein. Credit-card interest-rate caps, interchange fees, crypto rules, and capital requirements could be revisited; Elizabeth Warren could chair the Senate Banking Committee. The hosts said the main risk was slower deregulation and renewed scrutiny rather than an immediate legislative overhaul, potentially affecting capital availability by roughly $20 billion.

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said the theft was not caused by one laptop or one employee mistake. He described a campaign attributed by the FBI to North Korea that began with a fake developer tool in June, continued through fraudulent recruitment interviews and malware in a coding exercise in September, and eventually reached systems authorizing wallet transactions. On October 29, attackers used a new Ethereum feature that allowed transfers to continue after withdrawals were paused. Binance rebuilt the affected wallet and internal systems, replaced devices, canceled credentials, scanned employee devices, and upgraded monitoring. Teng said Binance had replenished 98% of affected tokens, with the remaining 2% being procured over the counter.

The market update highlighted Palantir’s revenue and earnings beat, raised guidance, and 148% growth in U.S. commercial revenue, which surpassed government revenue. CEO Alex Karp warned investors against believing the future of AI can be delayed. Semis also rose, with AI data-center revenue up 175% and gross margins above 41% for a fifth consecutive quarter. Ferrari raised its 2026 outlook after beating Q3 expectations, citing personalization, lower currency headwinds, and its Formula One position. The hosts added that success on the F1 track can create a brand halo that supports car sales.

Ahead of AMD’s results, Oliver Renick reported that options markets implied a 7.3% move, larger than AMD’s average move over the previous eight quarters but below its roughly 12% average over the past year. Put and call open interest was nearly balanced, as was daily volume, although buyers appeared more aggressive in calls: about 22,000 calls were likely bought versus 16,000 puts. Three of the five most-traded contracts were calls, including speculative $600 calls expiring Friday that cost 80 cents and required a gain of more than 20%. The most popular bearish contract was the $450 put, near the implied downside move.