Stock market news: Opening bell, October 25, 2018

Central
American migrants traveling with a caravan to the U.S. crowd onto
a tractor as they make their way to Mapastepec,
Mexico.
AP/Rodrigo
Abd

Here is what you need to know. 

Stocks go negative for the year. The Dow Jones
industrial average plunged more than 600 points on Wendesday,
sending it into negative territory for the year. It’s on track to
open higher by 200 points on Thursday. 

New home sales dropped sharply in September. New
home sales in the US fell 5.5% in September, making for the
fourth straight monthly decline, according to data released
Wednesday by the Commerce Department. 

Medicaid enrollment didn’t grow in 2018 for the first time in a
decade. Enrollment fell 0.6% in 2018, due to
the strong US economy and policy changes made by states,
according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report.

Eddie Lampert steered Sears into bankruptcy, but he’s found ways
to gain if it sinks. Lampert is among the first
in line to get paid if Sears fails to emerge from bankruptcy as
the loans he provided to the company are backed by key company
assets that can be repossessed.

Facebook receives maximum fine from the UK for the catastrophic
Cambridge Analytica data breach. The UK’s
Information Commissioner’s office has fined the social-media
giant 500,000 British pounds ($645,000) for the Cambridge
Analytica data breach. The fine would’ve been much larger had the
European Union’s GDPR rules already been in place. 

Tesla reports a surprise profit in ‘truly historic’
quarter. The electric-car maker earned an
adjusted $2.10 a share on revenue of $6.8 billion, topping the
$0.15 loss and $6.3 billion that Wall Street analysts surveyed by
Bloomberg were expecting. 

Microsoft beats, but Azure sales slow. The tech
giant beat on both the top and bottom lines, but said sales from
its Azure cloud-computing unit grew 76% year-over-year, down from
89% in the fourth quarter. Shares were up more than 4% ahead of
Thursday’s opening bell.  

AMD misses on revenue and guidance. The
chipmaker reported third-quarter revenue and fourth-quarter
guidance that fell short of Wall Street estimates, sending shares
down almost 20% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.  

Earnings
reporting remains heavy. American Airlines,
Comcast, and Twitter report ahead of the opening bell while
Alphabet, Amazon, Chipotle, and Snap release their quarterly
results after markets close. 

US economic keeps coming. Durable goods and
initial claims will both be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before
pending home sales crosses the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US
10-year yield is up 2 basis points at 3.13%.