🚀 Tesla beats expectations

Market Overview
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Year To Date Performances:

1. Signalling a sharp deceleration in U.S. hiring, nonfarm payrolls expanded by just 29,000 jobs in September, falling well short of the 84,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent. The Bureau of Labour Statistics report also delivered net downward revisions of 60,000 positions for prior months, shifting July into negative territory at a 10,000-job loss, even as a 485,000-person expansion in the civilian labour force helped lift the participation rate to 61.8 percent. Annual wage growth slowed to 3 percent—its lowest level since May 2021—with monthly job creation concentrated narrowly in healthcare, construction, and manufacturing alongside notable losses in government, information services, and financial activities. The unexpectedly weak labour read prompted a swift rally in equity futures and a slump in Treasury yields as financial markets sharply repriced expectations, with traders pricing in an 82.8 percent probability that Federal Reserve policymakers will hold benchmark interest rates steady at their upcoming October meeting.

2. Ford Motor narrowly held onto its position as the third-largest automaker by U.S. sales volume in the third quarter, fending off an aggressive market push from South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group. Ford reported a 6.6% year-over-year sales decline to 507,395 light-duty vehicles—excluding heavy-duty commercial units—while Hyundai, alongside corporate sibling Kia and luxury brand Genesis, expanded U.S. quarterly deliveries by 5.4% to 506,200 units. Despite supply chain disruptions caused by supplier fires that hampered Ford's core F-Series pickup production and a sharp 80% third-quarter plunge in electric vehicle sales following the expiration of federal EV tax credits, the Detroit automaker outperformed industry forecasts that had predicted a Hyundai takeover, preserving an 89,700-vehicle cumulative sales lead through the first nine months of the year.

3. Tesla reported third-quarter vehicle deliveries of 486,532 units, beating StreetAccount consensus estimates of 461,100 and surpassing second-quarter figures, even as total volume edged down roughly 2% year-over-year against tough comparisons from a record-setting prior period. Driven by its core Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV lines—which represented 98% of total volume alongside 464,391 vehicles produced—the performance sparked a 5% bump in Tesla shares following a challenging year marked by intensifying competition from Chinese rivals like BYD, consecutive annual sales contractions, and the early expiration of U.S. federal EV tax credits. Concurrently, the electric vehicle pioneer expanded its energy division by deploying a record 13.7 GWh of utility-scale storage products, including Megapack and Megablock systems for data centers and grid infrastructure, ahead of its scheduled third-quarter financial earnings release on October 21, 2026.

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