Corporate America: October 29, 2026 — Alphabet’s Record Fall Meets DoorDash’s $17 Billion Grocery Bet

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Alphabet suffered the worst day in its history on Thursday. Its shares fell 12.64%, wiping around $500 billion off its market value, according to Reuters, a day after its advertising business missed expectations and free cash flow turned negative under the weight of artificial intelligence spending. The fall dragged communication services down 6.6%, its biggest drop since February 2022, and pulled the Nasdaq down 1.4%, even as eight of the eleven S&P 500 sectors rose. Health care, up 2.5%, was the offset: Eli Lilly and Merck both beat expectations, and DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for about $17 billion, the day’s biggest deal on our Corporate America desk.

The punishment did not end at the close. Amazon reported cloud growth of 39% at Amazon Web Services, its fastest in nearly five years, yet its shares fell more than 7% in extended trading on a soft holiday-quarter outlook. Intel guided well below expectations and lost more than 20% after the bell. Microsoft went to the bond market for about $25 billion. The through line was the test our Earnings Season Playbook keeps returning to: growth is welcome, but investors are now pricing what that growth costs to fund.

Earnings: Health Care Paid, Guidance Did Not

Eli Lilly was the day’s clearest winner. Third-quarter revenue rose 39% to $24.4 billion as a 53% jump in volume more than offset a 15% drop in realized prices, Reuters reported. Mounjaro brought in $10.7 billion and Zepbound $5.3 billion, while the newer obesity pill Foundayo added $184 million, short of the $216.86 million analysts expected. Lilly raised its full-year revenue forecast to $91 billion to $92 billion, from $85 billion to $87 billion, but trimmed its adjusted profit outlook to $35.00 to $36.00 a share, from $35.50 to $36.50, because of $4.57 a share in charges tied to its AtaiBeckley and Curevo acquisitions. Its shares closed up 6.63% after briefly touching a record high.

Merck and Mastercard made steadier beats. Merck reported revenue of $18.1 billion, above the $17.3 billion analysts expected on LSEG data, and adjusted earnings of $2.49 a share against expectations of $2.08, Reuters reported. Sales of cancer drug Keytruda rose 6% to $8.6 billion, including $830 million from its newer under-the-skin version, Keytruda QLEX, while Gardasil sales rose 14% to just under $2 billion. Merck raised the low end of its full-year revenue forecast to $66.8 billion, keeping the high end at $67.3 billion, and its shares closed up 3.83%. Mastercard’s net revenue rose 14% to $9.807 billion, with adjusted earnings of $5.31 a share beating the $5.16 to $5.17 analysts expected, as cross-border volume rose 11% and switched transactions rose 9%. Its shares rose more than 4% in afternoon trading, Reuters reported.

Caterpillar showed how little a beat is worth without a raise. Revenue rose 17% to $20.7 billion, ahead of the $20.55 billion forecast, and adjusted profit of $7.20 a share topped the $7.08 expected, helped by AI-driven demand for power equipment and a record $78.1 billion backlog, Reuters reported. But Caterpillar left its full-year sales growth target in the mid-to-high teens, below the roughly 18% analysts expected, and kept its annual tariff cost forecast at about $2.2 billion. Its shares closed down 9.25%. ServiceNow fell harder, down 27% on the day according to Reuters, after adjusted earnings of $1.00 a share missed the $1.02 expected and it forecast slower growth in contracted revenue, even as subscription revenue rose 21% to $3.988 billion.

After the close, Amazon and Intel extended the pattern. Amazon’s net sales rose 12% to $201.94 billion, just short of the $202.2 billion analysts expected on FactSet data, and earnings of $1.89 a share missed the $1.97 consensus, according to the Associated Press report of its results. AWS revenue rose 39% to $46 billion, beating the $45.61 billion LSEG estimate, but Amazon forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $240 billion to $247 billion against an average estimate of $244.51 billion and held its annual capital spending forecast at about $220 billion, Reuters reported. Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion, below the $17.07 billion expected, and adjusted profit of 25 cents a share against 43 cents expected, as an explosion at its Kiryat Gat factory in Israel, which idled the plant for two weeks, cut about $300 million from its outlook and a prolonged PC slowdown weighed on demand, Reuters reported. Starbucks and Coinbase closed the evening more quietly: Starbucks reported adjusted earnings of $0.80 a share on revenue that fell 4.5% to $9.141 billion, while Coinbase returned to profit with net income of $718.7 million, or $2.51 a share, as operating expenses fell about 17% even though transaction revenue dropped 43% to $590.2 million, Reuters reported.

Deals, Capital and Jobs

DoorDash supplied the day’s deal, agreeing to buy grocery delivery rival Instacart in a transaction valued at about $17 billion, at $65 for each Instacart share, stepping up its push into U.S. grocery delivery, Reuters reported. The deal follows Uber’s roughly $15 billion purchase of Delivery Hero earlier this year, and it is likely to face scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which has focused on affordability and delivery-app practices, Reuters reported separately.

Microsoft made the day’s biggest capital move, planning to raise about $25 billion in its first U.S. investment-grade bond sale in more than nine years, drawing more than $100 billion of orders, sources told Reuters. The debt is being sold in as many as 10 tranches with maturities from 2 to 40 years, managed by Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and UBS. Jobs moves were smaller. People Inc., the publisher of People and Better Homes & Gardens, said it would lay off 195 employees. Oshkosh Corp. cut about 80 salaried, office-based jobs in its Transport segment, less than 3% of that segment’s workforce, on the same day it missed expectations and cut its profit outlook. Wells Fargo notified Iowa officials that 86 employees at its Jordan Creek campus in West Des Moines will lose their jobs on December 26, its largest announced layoff there since at least 2021.

The one to watch is Friday, October 30, when Exxon Mobil, Chevron, AbbVie and Colgate-Palmolive report before the open, according to the earnings calendars published for the week. After Alphabet, Amazon and Intel, the question for Friday is whether old-economy cash generation, of the kind Shell showed on Thursday with profit of $10.81 billion, now commands the premium that growth spending no longer does on its own.

This is not investment advice. Corporate America is AI-assisted research produced with automated data checks; figures are verified against the cited sources at publication time.