The Rundown - Paramount-Warner Deal Closes with $79B in Debt, Pepsi Cuts Its Outlook

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Market update for October 8, 2026Limited Time Promo: Sign up for a Public account, deposit $1,000 and get $100 in free stock (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode, Zaid covers:What the highest Treasury yields since 2002 are doing to stock pricesWhy PepsiCo lowered its outlook even after beating estimatesParamount and Warner Bros. finally become one company, and the bill comes duePalantir gets an upgrade from Goldman SachsLevi's earnings get a boost from tariff refunds Webull slides after a House report on its ties to ChinaHalloween's biggest spending category (hint: it's not candy)

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zaidat Mani, and today is Thursday, October 8th. In today's episode, we'll tell you why the stock market is actually getting cheaper despite sitting near record highs. We'll also tell you why Pepsi is raising prices again and the media company taking on debt as if they're a hyperscaler. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why spending on Halloween, continues to surge. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. Well, stocks took a breather on Wednesday with the S&P and NASDAQ, both dropping about 0.2% from their record highs and putting an end to their mini win streak. The S&P had gone up for four days in a row, and the NASDAQ was up for five days. The bond market had a pretty wild day yesterday. At one point, the 10-year treasury yield climbed to above 5.3

which was the highest level since 2002. But then the U.S. Treasury held an auction to sell $39 billion of 10-year treasury bonds, and there was a healthy demand for those bonds, and after the auction, yields dropped to around 5.28%. Now, yields are still at 20-year highs, and on yesterday's show, I mentioned that the stock market was somewhat ignoring the higher yields. But that's actually not true. Stocks are feeling the pressure from the higher bond yields.

The S&P 500 now trades at about 19.3 times expected. earnings, which is down from the 22 times at the start of the year. So that means that investors are paying less for each dollar of expected profits than they were at the start of the year. And a likely reason for that is the higher bond yields, which makes stocks a less attractive investment. You know, many investors would rather invest in treasuries and get a guaranteed 5.3% instead of investing in the stock market. So the stock market isn't exactly ignoring the bond market. You just can't see it because earnings have been so strong, mostly from a handful of big tech. companies. And as long as the earnings growth continues to be strong, stocks could keep rallying.

And if we ever get to a point where yields start pulling back, that could add another spark to the stock market. So the earnings growth is going to be something to watch over the next few weeks as we get into earnings season. Not to mention, we have a Fed meeting at the end of the month. We'll continue to stay on top of everything. So definitely get subscribed to the podcast if you haven't already and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some head. headlines. And we're starting with PepsiCo. PepsiCo reported earnings this morning, and just like their bag of chips, it left you wanting more. On paper, the snack giant had solid numbers. Revenues rose 5.6% to $25.3 billion. And adjusted earnings came in at $2.34. Both numbers beating estimates.

But the problem is Pepsi also cut their earnings forecast for the year. They now expect earnings to grow just two and a half to three and a half percent, down from the five to seven percent. growth they previously expected. So sales are growing, but higher cost are putting pressure on the company's profits. When you dig into the report, the North America market continues to be the weak spot. Pepsi's beverage volumes dropped 2% and food volumes were flat. Meanwhile, the international market continues to grow. It now accounts for over 40% of the company's revenues. Pepsi tried to win back market share and get a boost in growth earlier this year by cutting prices of some of their snacks like lays and Doritos chips, but that didn't seem to work according to the numbers, so now the

company is planning to raise prices because their own costs keep climbing. Essentially, they're going to try to charge as much as they can to the Lays and Doritos super fans who'll buy a bag of chips no matter what the price is. In fact, some bags of chips are now over $7. You know, at this point, I just buy my kids the generic store brand chips because they can't tell the difference. Zooming out, though, I think the bigger problem for PepsiCo might be that the taste for Americans are changing. You know, it could be because of the rise of GLP ones that Americans are just snacking less on things like chips and switching to things like protein and other healthier snacks. So I think PepsiCo will need to adopt if they want to regain market share. But to me, as an investor,

it's tough to invest in a company like PepsiCo at this point. I mean, the stock is already down 13% this year while the S&P has gone up 14%. And I don't really see a turnaround in the near future. I could be wrong, though. Let me know in the comments on what you guys think. Let's shift gears and talk about Paramount because their merger with Warner Brothers has finally closed putting an end to the months of drama, no pun intended. This combined company is called Skydance

and it's controlled by David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and David now runs a media giant. Under the Skydance umbrella, there are two giant movie studios, Paramount and Warner Brothers. There's also HBO Max and Paramount Plus. There's also TV networks like CNN, MTV,

and CBS and franchises like Harry Potter and Batman. But owning all of that comes with a giant pile of debt. The company has about $79 billion in net debt, which is their debt minus cash. See, Skydance took on a lot of that debt to finance this merger with Warner Brothers, and the timing here is brutal because borrowing costs have gotten very expensive these days because of surging treasury yields. According to the Wall Street Journal, Skydance is paying interest as high as 9.1% on some of their new bonds.

And honestly, I don't really know what the move is here for Skydance. It's one thing for giant tech companies like Meta or Amazon or Google taking on tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to build AI data centers. At least those tech companies are growing and AI could be a massive payoff. But $79 billion in debt for a legacy media company is crazy, especially when parts of their business like cable television are losing subscribers. So I don't really know what Skydance can do. here to turn things around. I mean, the company has committed to releasing 30 movies a year and investing

in good content with better tech. At the same time, the company is also committed to cutting costs. Management is targeting at least $6 billion in annual savings within three years, which probably means that layoffs are coming. So that's going to be the challenge here for Skydance. They're cutting costs while also having to improve their content and turn around the business. Investors seem to be skeptical. Skydance stock has already taken a hit down 7% since the merger closed earlier in the week. going to say, man, the Ellison Family Business Empire, it's taking on a lot of debt with Skydance and Oracle. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Poundeer stock is up more than 2% this morning after Goldman Sachs upgraded the company from neutral to buy with a $230 price target

implying an 18% upside from here. Goldman sees a growing market for customized AI applications and systems that let enterprises and governments keep tire control over their data. And that's exactly what Palantir offers. They're able to come into a company and implement their AI solutions. You know, Palantir stock has actually been trailing the NASDAQ 100 this year. The stock is only up 16% year to date, while the NASDAQ is up 24%. I mean, overall, it's still a decent year for Palantir, but the stock has historically been a high flyer.

Moving on, let's talk about some losers. Shares of Levi's are down this morning in reaction to their earnings report. The denim company reported revenue growth of just 4% last quarter with sales in the U.S. actually falling by 1%. Now, adjusted earnings did come in at 48 cents per share, which did beat the estimates of 36 cents per share, but 11 cents of those earnings came from tariff refunds. So if you take that out, earnings were around 37 cents per share, pretty much in line with estimates.

So yeah, Levi's had a pretty lukewarm quarter, nothing for investors to get excited about, and that's why shares are down 3% this morning at the time of this recording. We got one more loser this morning. Weeble stock got hammered yesterday down nearly 20%. Weeble is a trading app that has over 28 million users. Well, yesterday, a bipartisan committee from the House of Representatives said the company is tied in structural ways to China's government and they call the company a national security risk.

The report highlights concerns that systems and personnel working for Weebel in China are subject to Chinese law, which could expose American customer data to the China. government. Now, Weble has pushed back saying the report is inaccurate and that U.S. customer data is stored in the U.S. You know, all of this kind of reminds me of the TikTok saga we went through a couple years ago. A shameless plug, if you are someone that uses Weeble and are looking for an alternative investing app, check out Public. Public is even offering a 3% match on transfers from Weeble right now, so it's a great time to switch over. We'll put a link in the description

if you guys want to learn more. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. The Halloween spending is expected to hit $13.5 billion this year, which is up from last year's record of $13.1 billion. And it's nearly double on what Americans spent back in 2015. This is all according to data from the National Retail Federation. What I found to be interesting is that consumers now spend more on costumes than on candy. The spending on costumes is expected to hit $4.4 billion this year. Not to mention the spending on decorations is expected to hit. hit $4.3 billion. Meanwhile, the spending on candy is only expected to be $4.1 billion. And I think the reason

for that is social media. Now, everyone likes to share their costumes and decorations on social media. You can't really do that with candy, you know? I mean, I also read that pet costumes alone are a $920 million business. So yeah, Halloween is becoming a major consumer shopping holiday. And you know, with someone with two little kids, I get it. You know, Halloween is really fun, costumes, candy, walking around the neighborhood with friends and family. It's a great time. So I can see why people are spending more and more on Halloween. As for what I plan to be on Halloween this year, I think I'm going to dress up as the 10-year treasury yield because that's the scariest thing that I've seen all year. That's going to be a fun conversation walking around the neighborhood with my kids.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have a few extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast, you know, all that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and V for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.