4 events this week will dictate the fate of the stock market through year-end - Business Insider

BNN Bloomberg is Canada’s definitive source for business news dedicated exclusively to helping Canadians invest and build their businesses. U. S. futures are mostly lower as artificial-intelligence stocks come under pressure again and oil prices rose amid sporadic fighting in the Middle East. Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.1 per cent on Tuesday, while those for the Nasdaq declined 0.5 per cent. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2 per cent. Shares of South Korea’s AI company Elice Group tumbled 30 per cent on its market debut with investors seemingly wary of the debt being taken on by companies in the sector, with a recent tech selloff gaining momentum again. AI companies perceived as vulnerable because of start-up costs, like CoreWeave in the U. S., are being targeted. Shares of CoreWeave, down 30 per cent this month on such fears, tumbled 4.5 per cent before the market opened. Anxiety over debt in the sector is being fanned due to inflation and rising odds that the U. S. Federal Reserve will hike borrowing costs for a second time this year to cool spending and borrowing. Benchmark U. S. crude jumped two per cent to US$100.55 a barrel.

Published: October 20, 2026 at 8:17a.m. EDTLONDON — Online services for a number of U. K. banks in and around London were disrupted by a Google Cloud outage Tuesday. The cloud outages began just after 2 a.m. eastern, or 6:08 a.m. GMT. The center of the outage is London, but the impact can extend outside of the U. K. if apps in other countries rely on London-based infrastructure. “Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue,” Google Cloud said early Tuesday. U. K. banks that reported disruptions include Lloyds, Halifax, HSBC and Revolut. “We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services,” Revolut said in an email. ”We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe. We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused.”There appear to be outages elsewhere in Europe, but it is unclear if they are connected. “We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption,” Google Cloud said, and promised an update around 8 a.m. eastern time.

Published: October 20, 2026 at 8:14a.m. EDTGeneral Motors’ third-quarter core profit rose sharply on the back of strong pickup truck sales, but its shares fell on Tuesday after the automaker’s earnings-per-share forecast for the full year fell short of analyst expectations. The company said quarterly earnings before ​interest and tax, not including one-time items (adjusted EBIT), rose 22 per cent from a year earlier, to US per cent4.1 billion. That amounted to per cent3.70 per share, topping analyst expectations of per cent3.63, according to LSEG data. GM said it expected to end 2026 with adjusted EBIT in the range of per cent14.5 billion to per cent15.5 billion, narrowed from previous guidance of per cent14 billion to per cent16 billion. It tightened its annual adjusted earnings-per-share forecast to between per cent12.75 and per cent13.75, the midpoint of which is below analysts’ estimates of per cent13.41, according to data compiled by LSEG. GM shares fell about four per cent in premarket trading. Confidence in ‘27GM said it remained confident despite inflationary pressures from higher logistics and energy costs, tariffs and other expenses.

Published: October 20, 2026 at 7:51a.m. EDTBNN Bloomberg is Canada’s definitive source for business news dedicated exclusively to helping Canadians invest and build their businesses. LONDON -- The euro rebounded slightly on Tuesday as unrest in France eased overnight, while the pound rose after British jobs data showed signs of a recovery in the labour market. The yen also jumped, snapping a two-day drop, after an auction of longer-dated Japanese bonds drew record demand, pushing the U. S. dollar lower after it rose the day before. In France, authorities set curfews in several cities on Monday to curb nationwide anti-government protests which have plunged President Emmanuel Macron’s final months in office into turmoil. France will remain in the spotlight on Tuesday as the lower house is set to vote on the revenue section of the proposed 2027 budget. Concerns about France’s long-term finances have pushed its bonds lower and weighed on the euro since the start of September. The single currency was last up 0.2 per cent on the day at US$1.1231, after hitting its lowest since May 2025 last week at $1.1113.