S&P 500 stalls at 7,712 before Meta and Tesla
Published on October 21, 2026
The S&P 500 closed Tuesday at 7,712.57, up 0.28%, still short of the record it set in early October. The market is looking past that. Meta, Tesla, IBM and Texas Instruments all report after tonight's close, and those four sets of numbers will show whether the AI bill is starting to turn into profit.
The S&P 500 is pinned to its resistance
Tuesday's gain was thin. The real move happened elsewhere. The Dow added 529.85 points, or 1.02%, to 52,495.88, its highest in a month, and the small cap Russell 2000 rose 1.65%. Health care set its first record of the year and finished the best sector, led by Eli Lilly up 3.49%, as The Wall Street Republic reported. Technology fell 0.28%. The Nasdaq Composite ended flat at 26,424.82.
So money changed hands without leaving the market. The VIX dropped to 17.31, down 6.13%, and CNN's Fear and Greed gauge rose to 27 from 23 on Monday. Nerves are easing, but they have not gone.
Meta and Tesla meet the AI bill
Tonight's expectations are already on the table. Analysts look for Meta to post 63.24 billion dollars in revenue, up more than 23%, with earnings of 6.54 dollars a share, down close to 10%, according to Zacks estimates carried by Yahoo Finance. The company guides to 130 to 145 billion dollars of capital spending for 2026. Tesla is seen at 27.78 billion in revenue, down 1%, and 0.44 dollars a share, down 12%, after 486,532 third quarter deliveries.
The size of the bill is no longer the issue. Paying for it is. Goldman Sachs expects the five big cloud players to lift combined capital spending to roughly 1.2 trillion dollars next year. "With the cost of capital going up, this capex blowout is going to become more expensive, which raises the bar for returns," said Chuck Carlson, chief executive of Horizon Investment Services, quoted by Reuters. He added that Meta will be the first to answer that question.
Futures swing back to tech this morning
US contracts are higher. December Nasdaq 100 futures are up 0.7% and S&P 500 futures 0.3%, per Newsquawk. Two reports drove the shift. SpaceX posted net income of 4.4 billion dollars against 1.88 billion expected, and Super Micro jumped about 15% on preliminary sales that beat estimates, as Saxo Bank noted.
In Asia, the Nikkei gained 1.1% and the Kospi tripped a sidecar after its futures surged 5%. In Europe, Euro Stoxx 50 and DAX futures are up 0.4%. The euro slipped to 1.1224 dollars, weighed down by French political strain ahead of a Moody's review on Friday. Oil is climbing again, with December WTI up 1.2%.
The credit signal few people are watching
One number slipped through unnoticed. Spreads on the riskiest corporate debt, rated CCC, reached 1,072 basis points, the widest since October 2022, again per Saxo Bank. That is exactly Carlson's point. The more expensive credit gets, the harder AI returns have to work. Third quarter profits across the S&P 500 are expected to grow more than 30% according to LSEG IBES, which leaves little room for a miss. Our market updates track that shift day by day.
Key levels today
| Instrument | Level (support / resistance) | Change (Tuesday session) | Scenario / What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | Resistance 7,757 (October 16 high), support 7,685 | +0.28% at 7,712.57 | Above 7,757 the October record comes back into play. Below 7,685 opens a slide toward 7,632 |
| Nasdaq 100 | Support 29,480, resistance 30,075 | -0.13% at 29,490 | The index closed right on support. A clean break under 29,480 shifts the target to 29,000 |
S&P 500 levels from Rallies.ai, Nasdaq 100 levels from Fawad Razaqzada at StoneX.
Economic calendar
- 08:00 Paris, UK September CPI. A hotter print lifts sterling and narrows the room the Bank of England has to cut.
- 16:30, US crude inventories. Last week brought an 8.56 million barrel draw. Another draw that size and WTI goes looking for 100 dollars.
- 18:00, ECB President Christine Lagarde. A firm line on services prices and the euro claws back ground against the dollar.
- 19:00, US 20-year bond auction. The last one cleared at 5.42%. Weak demand would push the 10 year above 5.15% and press on the indexes.
The bottom line
The S&P 500 is still boxed in below its record while money rotates into health care and small caps. Tonight it comes down to Meta's spending guidance and Tesla's margins.
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This is not investment advice. Informational content only.