Daily Diary

Doug KassDoug Kass
DATE:

Only 4 Sectors Positive at 9:38 a.m.

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:53 AM EDT

Tweet of the Day

Positions: None

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:50 AM EDT

Glass House Offers Some Clarity

Glass House finally has issued a press release.

Here it is Glass House Brands Reports Preliminary Unaudited Third

I will have more after speaking to management but I believe the release will set the stage for stability and improvement in its share price.

Positions: Long GLAS S  

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:40 AM EDT

From The Street of Dreams

$META: Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak raised the firm’s price target on Meta Platforms to $820 from $775 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares as the firm updated its model into Q3 results.

$LLY: BofA raised the firm’s price target on Eli Lilly to $1,397 from $1,341 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm’s Q3 physician obesity survey adds validation for oral GLP-1s and the Medicare Bridge as U.S. “category expanders,” the analyst tells investors.

$APO:Piper Sandler lowered the firm’s price target on Apollo Global to $145 from $159 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Going into Q3 results, sentiment remains negative in the alternative asset manager space, which has put a cap on stock prices over the last three months. The firm expects monetization commentary to be a headwind with realizations likely to be pushed out further, and sees increased scrutiny on data center financing. Core fundamentals including management fees, fee related earnings, and margins should remain solid, but Piper doesn’t expect a breakout given sentiment as well as seemingly apathy from many investors.

KKR: Piper Sandler lowered the firm’s price target on KKR to $121 from $128 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Going into Q3 results, sentiment remains negative in the alternative asset manager space, which has put a cap on stock prices over the last three months. The firm expects monetization commentary to be a headwind with realizations likely to be pushed out further, and sees increased scrutiny on data center financing. Core fundamentals including management fees, fee related earnings, and margins should remain solid, but Piper doesn’t expect a breakout given sentiment as well as seemingly apathy from many investors.

$BX: Piper Sandler analyst Crispin Love lowered the firm’s price target on Blackstone to $125 from $130 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. Going into Q3 results, sentiment remains negative in the alternative asset manager space, which has put a cap on stock prices over the last three months. The firm expects monetization commentary to be a headwind with realizations likely to be pushed out further, and sees increased scrutiny on data center financing. Core fundamentals including management fees, fee related earnings, and margins should remain solid, but Piper doesn’t expect a breakout given sentiment as well as seemingly apathy from many investors.

From last week – I covered all my private equity shorts:

More Short Covers

I am covering my private equity shorts:

  • BX $106.31
  • APO $113.17
  • KKR $84.92

Position: None

BY Doug Kass · Oct 14, 2026, 11:39 AM EDT

Positions: None.

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:20 AM EDT

Charting the ETF Action in the A.M.

Source: TipRanks

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:10 AM EDT

Select Upside, Downside Movers in the Morning

Upside

– IRON +52% (Phase 3 APOLLO trial met all primary and secondary endpoints in erythropoietic protoporphyria)

– AAME +41% (long-delayed 2025 annual report was filed, showing a return to annual profitability)

– XLAB +24% (extends rally after securing an $8.2M AI-server order)

– TCRT +20% (extends volatile rally tied to a proposed acquisition and financing of up to $350M)

– MEDS +15% (extends rally after outlining peptide-compounding expansion and licensing a direct-to-consumer GLP-1 platform)

– CLF +11% (Q3 profit and EBITDA beat expectations, Q4 EBITDA was guided higher and 2027 EBITDA is expected to exceed $4B)

– NBIS +7.5%, CRWV +7.7%, BE +5.2%, SMCI +4.1%, IREN +5.9% (AI-infrastructure names rebound from last week’s financing-driven selloff as Treasury yields ease)

– CRDO +4.7%, TER +5.1%, LRCX +4.6%, AMD +3.7%, MU +3.7%, AVGO +3.1% (chip names rebound from last week’s AI-led selloff ahead of key sector earnings)

– INTC +4.3% (JPMorgan upgrades to Neutral from Underweight as confidence in the turnaround improves)

– VAI +4.0% (agrees to acquire an 18MW Ohio computing center)

– DDOG +3.9% (Bernstein upgrades to Outperform and sharply raises its price target on stronger AI-consumption trends)

Downside

– ACTU -9.1% (files to sell 40M shares with 20M warrants)

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Premarket Percent Movers

Source: TheStreet Pro

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 8:45 AM EDT

Economic Calendar Today

Source: TipRanks

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 8:36 AM EDT

Someone Always Knows

“The monster – men made it, but they can’t control it.”

-John Steinbeck (hat tip Keith McCullough)

Someone knew.

Someone knew about the proposed Russian/U.S./Chinese Summit.

S&P futures opened -16 handles Sunday night at 6 PM and immediately rallied. At one point the E-minis were +65 handles and now have “settled in” at +37 handles. 

The markets looked like we would have a dramatic Monday drop following Friday’s schmeissing  (futures were trading lower throughout the weekend).

I remain bearish. However, as I mentioned on Friday, given the uncertainty of the markets and the news, the dominance of passive products and strategies (with machines and algos) that exaggerate short-term moves (they know everything about price and nothing about volume) coupled with what appears to be frequent leaks of policy I am limiting my index trading. When I do trade (on the short side) it is for very quick trades. 

My comments of Friday remain very much intact:

I See Tail Risk to the Left and to the Right

* But more to the left!

The volatility of certain sectors demonstrated yesterday — particularly semiconductors and memory — is growing extreme and (to be honest) I am not sure what it portends for the near or intermediate term.

I do know when Micron (MU) trades down to $858 and closes at $931 (+$17 on the day) and Sandisk (SNDK) trades down to $1,276 and closes at $1,391 (-$12) such wide intraday swings render trading difficult to impossible.

This extreme intraday volatility has become routine in a market that now more resembles a casino than a capital market.

As would be said on “American Bandstand” — I give it a 78 I am not sure of the beat but it’s hard to dance to.

American Bandstand – Record Review Beatle Edition

This sort of extreme volatility likely indicates a lot of uncertainty and depending on your risk appetite and profile, most should pass on trading these stocks. And if you are trading the QQQs one might reconsider VAR (“value at risk’) and reducing the size of your trading (and investing) positions.

I know I am.

BY Doug Kass · Oct 16, 2026, 6:45 AM EDT

Position: None 

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 7:33 AM EDT

Oscillator Is Back to Neutral

The S&P Short Range Oscillator is back to neutral at -0.08% vs. 0.74%.

I have no positions in the indices.

Position: None

BY Doug Kass · Oct 19, 2026, 6:58 AM EDT