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Stock Market Live November 3: S&P 500 (VOO) Gains on First Trading Day of November

By Joel South · Updated Nov 3, 11:40am ET · Published Nov 3, 9:05am ET

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Roku Powers Up

Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion upgraded shares of streaming champion Roku (Nasdaq: ROKU) to overweight with a $135 price target this morning.

While “Roku 3Q results were unremarkable,” says Champion, advertising “fundamentals” look strong and the analyst forecasts 14.5% sales growth in Platform revenue across 2026 — rising into the high-teens for growth rate towards the end of the year. Champion also notes that Roku delivered positive operating earnings in Q3, “well ahead of promised profitability for 2026.”

Roku stock is up 3.3% on the report, and the Voo is also back in positive territory, up 0.2%.

OpenAI Taps Amazon for More Computing Power

In AI news today, OpenAI just announced a $38 billion multi-year deal to buy AI computing power from Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) — on top of existing deals to buy computing power from Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG).

In total, OpenAI says it plans to spend $1.4 trillion to access 30 “gigawatts” worth of computing resources from multiple suppliers. OpenAI will immediately begin paying Amazon for its Amazon Web Services help, ramp up to full capacity by 2026, and then potentially expand the relationship further in 2027.

OpenAI is also reportedly planning a $1 trillion IPO as early as next year, but isn’t public yet. Amazon stock is up nearly 5% on today’s news. The Voo, however, has given up all its gains and is now flat for the day.

 

Kimberly-Clark Buys a $48.7 Billion Headache

Now speaking of Kenvue, while the Tylenol company beat earnings this morning, this is not the real reason Kenvue stock is rising today — or at least not the most important.

This morning, concurrent with earnings, Kenvue announced that fellow S&P 500 component company Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) will take over Kenvue in a $48.7 billion transaction. Paid in cash and stock, the deal would see Kimberly-Clark absorb Kenvue in the second half of 2026.

Kimberly-Clark believes it can wring out $1.9 billion in cost synergies by combining the two companies, and grow its own profits by $500 million, over the next three to four years. Investors seem less optimistic, and are selling off Kimberly-Clark stock by more than 12%. They worry that what K-C is really buying itself is a lot of legal headache from taking on Kenvue’s Tylenol business, which has been dogged by worries over alleged links to autism.

The Voo is up 0.4% in early trading.

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The story so far

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

October ended with a 2.3% gain for the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO). As the first trading day of November dawns, the ETF is up 0.3% premarket.

What’s driving the stock market’s gains? Earnings season, for the most part. Roughly 60% of the 500 companies making up the S&P 500 have reported so far, and 80% of those “beat earnings.” Simply math tells you this means we’ve already nearly reached the halfway mark for more companies beating than missing this quarter — positive news for investors.

This week, the earnings cavalcade will continue, with another 100 or so S&P 500 component companies reporting, including popular names such as Palantir (Nasdaq: PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction) and Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD). Palantir is expected to report this evening in fact, and AMD tomorrow.

Wednesday will see McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) report, ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and Cummins (NYSE: CMI) will come out on Thursday. On Friday, Constellation Energy Group (Nasdaq: CEG) will give a glimpse into the nuclear sector.

Earnings

Mondays aren’t usually busy days for earnings, but a handful of companies have reported.

S&P 500 component company and insurer Loews Corporation (NYSE: L) — not to be confused with the home improvement retailer — reported a $2.43 per share profit that was up 33% from last year on revenue of $4.7 billion.

Pandemic hero and Covid-19 vaccine-maker BioNTech (Nasdaq: BNTX) disappointed with a 12 euro-cent loss, the opposite of the 10 euro-cent profit that was expected. Surprisingly, the loss came as BioNTech reported strong revenue of 1.5 billion euros, well ahead of the 1 billion euros forecast.

S&P 500 component company and Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue (NYSE: KVUE) beat earnings by two cents, reporting $0.28 per share in Q3 profit on sales of $3.8 billion, just shy of forecasts. Guidance is for $1 to $1.05 per share in profit this year, in line with expectations, and Kenvue stock is up nearly 18% premarket. (More on why in a minute).

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Joel South

Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.

He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.

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