Stock market news: Opening bell, November 1, 2018

A
man dressed as Santa Claus receives an influenza vaccine from a
nurse in Santa’s Village at the Arctic Circle.
Reuters/Lehtikuva/Laura Haapamaki

Here is what you need to know. 

Stocks avoid their worst month since the financial
crisis. The S&P 500 gained 1.08% Monday to
finish the month of October with a loss of 6.94% — the biggest
monthly decline since 2011. It would have needed to finish the
month down 8.2% to suffer its biggest monthly drop since the
financial crisis. 

The UK and EU have agreed on a “tentative” deal for financial
services. The deal will allow the UK “continued
access to European markets” following Britain’s departure from
the EU, securing the post-Brexit future for the City of London,
according to The Times. 

Sydney home prices just fell at the fastest annual pace in almost
29 years. Home prices in the Australian city
fell for a 13th consexutive month in September and were down 7.4%
year-over-year, making for the steepest annual drop since
February 1990.  

Goldman Sachs says there’s one big fear troubling
investors. The stock market appears to have
stabilized, but Goldman Sachs says there’s still plenty of fear
in the market if you look at it on a single-stock basis. 

Google staff are staging a walkout on
Thursday. Google employees around the world
will leave their desks at 11 a.m. to protest the company’s
handling of sexual-misconduct allegations. 

The owner of MoviePass is delaying a shareholder vote on its
reverse-split plan. In a sign of shareholder
pushback, Helios & Matheson, the parent-company 0f
MoviePass, announced it is delaying the vote on its plan to
dramatically reduce its number of shares outstanding and boost
its stock price by two weeks.

Denny’s soars after saying it will sell company-operated stores
to franchisees. Shares surged 25% Wednesday after
the restaurant chain said it intends to sell between 90 and 125
company-operated restaurants in the next 18 months in order to
make it a purer franchised brand. 

Earnings reporting rolls on. DowDuPont and Spotify
report ahead of the opening bell while Apple, Shake Shack, and US
Steel release their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is heavy. Challenger Job Cuts
will be released at 7:30 a.m. ET before nonfarm productivity and
initial claims cross the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. Then, at 9:45
a.m. ET, Markit manufacturing PMI is released. Data conculudes at
10 a.m. ET with construction spending, and ISM manufacturing. The
US 10-year yield is up 2 basis points at 3.16%.