Stock Market Surges After Midterm Rout & Men Are Becoming "Pilates Princes"

We all love connecting over a video call, a quick text, or that group chat that literally never sleeps. AT&T's got a deal worth texting the group about. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, stocks had their best day in months following the Democrats' midterm landslide. Then, a lot more dudes are doing Pilates these days. It's Thursday, November 5th. Let's ride. Here's something to do if you're bored. And I mean it. Really bored. Try to write the names of 3,000 real people, dead or alive, in one sitting. The data journalist Lev Akabas recently attempted it as part of a competition with a few friends. And he did it. 3,000 names. But it took him seven entire hours. In charts that went viral, Lev broke down different categories of the names he wrote. The biggest category was NBA, followed by film and TV stars, NFL athletes, and tennis players. He also added in a bunch of friends from college and high school, colleagues, and named all 44 presidents within three minutes to get to 3,000. Toby, do you think you could name 3,000 people in seven hours? Well, my graduating class in high school was 43 people. So I feel like I'm a bit hamstrung when it comes to just my general network at the beginning of my life. We did try something similar. You, me, and your brother, Steven, you were convinced you could name 1,000 athletes in one hour. So we did go to a bar one day. We put our headphones in. And just cranked. I did find the results. I won't say what you got, but it was a lot less than 1,000. I won by a fair margin with 491. So we really weren't even that close. I think 3,000 is extremely difficult, especially it depends on, like, your hand cramps. That was what I was thinking about. Can you name it fast enough before your hand gives out? We got to try it. We got to live stream it. I mean, what did I do? 400, 500 athletes in an hour? Extrapolate that to the entire world dead? Or alive? I think eventually we could get to 3,000. You just got to be a little more strategic about it, right? Like, go from category to category. And eventually we'll get there. I don't know if it will take seven hours, but it might take a couple days. Well, Neil, you didn't even sniff 300. I actually did have it. You didn't sniff 300 because you got so mired in early 2000s baseball relievers that you kind of lost sense of the big picture there. And now a word from our sponsor, Runway. Man, wouldn't it be cool if you could tell someone about your projects and just have them instantly. Start building concepts, ads, full campaigns, stuff like that. Yeah, that's probably why Runway, the company that makes creative tools for scaling content and teams, made Runway Agent. It does exactly that and more. Runway's creative suite gives anyone the power to generate, edit, and finish video images and audio for marketing campaigns, including social and product content. Yep, so whether you're solo or part of a team, you can storyboard, create lookbooks, restyle a shot, create cinematic videos, product shots, stage rooms, and more, all while staying totally on brand. Sign up for free at runway.com slash morningbrew and get 25% off paid plans with the code morningbrew. The blue wave that swept through the country yesterday brought new life to some industries while decimating others. After the Democrats took decisive control of Congress, the market put its sorting hat on to reveal some winners and losers. And the biggest loser award would have to go to Trump Media as the president's namesake company, which often trades in line with his political fortunes. Plunge 24%. It's now trading at just $4.50 a share after once being worth $175. Elon Inc. was close behind with Tesla and SpaceX dropping between 4% and 5%. Thanks to scrutiny, Democrats will bring towards Elon's Starlink operations in Ukraine and his data center buildouts. It's a really bad time to be in the data center business in general. Neo Clouds, which rent chips to other firms, got smacked with CoreWeave, Iron, and Nebius, all falling between 5% and 10%. Memory stocks, too, like Micron and Salesforce, and SanDisk also fell. For some industries, though, a blue wave brought sunshine and rainbows. Solar and clean energy stocks around the world rallied as Democrats are expected to bring a more favorable attitude towards the industry. Healthcare also had a field day as Congress will likely shift their attention to rolling back Medicaid cuts introduced under Trump's one big beautiful bill. The surprise winner of the day, crypto. It's not because Democrats are suddenly expected to take a more lenient approach to the technology, but the vibes have just been soaring and companies so oversold, buyers started to take their chances again. Neil, zoom out in the market goes up after midterms trend held true. All three major indexes finished well into the green. Blue wave plus green indexes. It was a turquoise day. I think you're downplaying a little bit. This was an incredible day on the stock market. The Dow was up 3%. That's 1,569 points. That's its best day since April 9th, 2025, when Trump paused liberation day tariffs. The S&P was up 1.6%. That's its best day in three months. The NASDAQ, the tech-focused NASDAQ, jumped almost 1.5% as well. Big tech did really, really well. Big tech companies added about $1 trillion in value. And I'm talking about Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple. Apple was up 6% to reach an all-time high. Microsoft also hit an all-time high. And one hypothesis for why the market broadly moved up has nothing to do with, what the Democrats are going to do when they have Congress or the gridlock that's coming. It's that Trump accepted the results. This was the overhang, the cloud, that had been dragging down markets for a few weeks as investors wondered whether we would have not necessarily another January 6th, but something that would be contested results. Well, Trump would say, I don't believe the results that showed that I lost. And the fact that he told the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, in interviews, I accept the results. I'm willing to perhaps work with Democrats when they're reasonable or something where we're aligned. That lift, that lifted that cloud. And that's why you saw markets have a big day yesterday. Yeah, they don't like uncertainty. Markets love clarity. And we saw a very similar pattern play out that we've seen over a lot of the span of recent market history. If you look at the last 20 midterm cycles, back to 1946, returns to the S&P 500 are lower leading into the midterms and then higher once they were over. The average gain on S&P 500 in the three months heading into an election, 1.8% in three months after. 7.5%. In general, if you zoom out, three months returns after a midterm exceeded pre-midterm returns 15 out of 20 times. So this is not necessarily something that came out of left field. It's just something that when you're heading into elections, you just don't know. Like, is it going to be a blue wave? Is it going to be a split Congress? You don't know. Once you do know, people breathe out and you see stocks go up. One variable that I thought was interesting yesterday and it affected the stock market and other asset prices was the war in Iran. So, J.D. Vance, the vice president, wrote this very startling and surprising ex-post where he was dissecting what happened to the Republicans and he said, everyone knows why we lost and any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. And the reason that he thinks they lost was the war in Iran and how it drove up gas prices and inflation across the board and said the president himself said so last night. So, and Trump also said he agreed. So, how is the war in Iran playing into markets? And this election yesterday? Well, because of the blue wave, it looks like Democrats may be able to hamstring President Trump a little bit when it comes to funding the war in Iran. So, that might be resolved a little bit sooner than was expected. And you saw oil prices completely dive. They went down almost 9% yesterday. They're now at their lowest level in two months. And that also lifted stocks across the board because there you're talking about oil, higher oil prices feed into inflation, lead stuff, higher rate hikes by the Fed. So, that was another thing that was booing the market in general yesterday where Republicans in their self-diagnosis of what went wrong said, it's the war, we need to end this. Now, there's a Democratic Congress which might, you know, fuel that fire a little bit. And we're seeing oil prices at their lowest point in two months. Yeah, Goldman Sachs economists wrote on Wednesday morning that they expect Democrats to, one, seek to limit the war with Iran, two, roll back selected tariffs, and three, reverse spending cuts enacted last year. So, those are the big three things that they are hoping for. Also, I guess the fourth thing is they don't expect to see any effect changes to AI regulation at a national level either, which should help, you know, support the AI trade that's been holding up the market. Right, it was super interesting to see that divide that you mentioned. We saw the NeoClouds, the smaller AI companies like CoreWeave get smacked, but we saw Microsoft and Apple and Meta and Amazon do really well. They're also heavily invested in the AI build-out, so it's a little confusing why we're seeing Amazon and Meta do so well. And some experts said that, look, well, maybe they're getting punished for spending so much, and here you have a third party, which is Congress, saying, well, you can't do that. And so they're having sort of an external break on their systems and said, okay, well, you guys got to get your finances in order. You're all cashflow negative now. Now you're going to become cashflow positive because you literally can't be building AI data centers anymore. And that's one reason why you saw Apple and Microsoft hit all-time highs. All right, moving on, CVS is splitting itself up in one of the biggest and most surprising corporate breakups in history. Yesterday, the health giant announced plans to break off into C and VS, Just kidding. One company will be called CVS. pharmacy and contain the retail pharmacy business, including 9,000 drugstores, while the other will be called CVS Health and be home to the health insurer Aetna, the pharmacy benefit manager Caremark, and other businesses like senior clinics. Why is this so surprising? Because this is the complete opposite of what healthcare companies have been doing for the better part of two decades. CVS and its rivals Cigna and UnitedHealth have been bulking up to create vertically integrated behemoths that became your all-in-one stop for health needs. The capstone of this push to consolidate was CVS buying Aetna in 2018 for nearly $70 billion. But getting that swole that quickly makes people start to notice you. Don't I know it. And lawmakers have increased scrutiny on the big three, concerned that their concentrated power has driven up costs for consumers and led to conflicts of interest that allow them to profit from various segments of their businesses. CVS denied that the threat of regulation motivated the breakup, but its other explanations left investors scratching their heads. CVS shares tumbled 12.5 percent yesterday, wiping out its entire gains for the year. Worseful at one point, but now you're in your running arc. If you're like most people, you probably didn't know that CVS was this massive conglomerate. For me, it's just a place you go in and buy gummy worms, but they really own every single step of you getting sick, feeling under the weather. They own the doctor. They bought up those primary care clinics like Oak Street. They own the insurance. They bought up Aetna. Then they own that middleman that everyone hates pharmacy benefit managers. It's a company called Caremark. And then they do own the retail storefront where you actually pick up the pills and those gummy worms. So that model they thought was awesome. They're like, hey, let's let's own the entire stack. But now they do think that the regulatory winds are shifting. It doesn't make sense anymore. That pressure is too great that they might get broken up. So they might as well just get out ahead of it. Right. Republicans in Tennessee and Arkansas have already passed laws. Ban co-ownership of pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers because they think there's a self-dealing that goes on between them when you do own the pharmacy and then also the entity that is negotiating drug prices with the pharmacy and the insurer. And this applies both to Cigna and United Health as well. I think one reason why investors were a little curious about this particular move is that basically they're hiving off the drugstores and the drugstore business has been really tough lately. Walgreens, which was which which was Cigna, has been really tough lately. CVS, his chief rival in this space, went private last year because it couldn't turn around its its share price. Rite Aid, another one of those rivals, went out of business entirely. So just by you're kind of leaving it to the dogs. And what was interesting is that David Joyner, who's the new CEO of CVS, he came in two years ago, has been turning around that business, been doing really well. CVS shares are up 70 percent since he joined in October 2024. So this thing was kind of humming at the moment. And then they're saying we're breaking this up. And they said, yeah, it wasn't even for regulation. We're taking this as an offensive move. And we're seeing this happen not just in health care, but across the entire corporate space is conglomerates just really aren't working anymore. We're going to split up our various businesses so they can just focus on what they do best. Moving on, frozen pizzas are off the menu in Europe because their refrigerators can't stop getting hacked. A wave of cyber attacks have hit refrigeration systems across Europe, affecting everything from supermarkets to blood banks. The French blood establishment confirmed that its cold storage was not safe. The French blood establishment confirmed that its cold storage was compromised across multiple sites, but no blood products were lost. Supermarket chains wish they could say the same. Coming off of freezer attacks where hackers cranked up temperatures to over 120 degrees at hundreds of locations in France, another wave of attacks spread across Europe this week. Swedish supermarket chain Coop said their cooling systems had been hit, while big and small chains from Portugal to Estonia reported similar tampering. Especially in the crosshairs is Danfoss, a Danish maker of refrigeration equipment. In a major cybersecurity no-no, the default password of a Danfoss controller is 1-2-3-4-5. If no administrator takes the time to change it, it remains 1-2-3-4-5, which has led to a field day for hackers who have been on the hunt for vulnerable controllers to mess with. Neil, connecting everything to the internet, including refrigerators, might have been a bad idea. 1-2-3-4-5? That was a. You stole your password! That was a joke that Spaceballs. Spaceballs made 40 years ago. And this is just terrible security hygiene, I think. Yeah, it's probably worse than my particular security hygiene, even though I use the same password for everything. Providian, a threat intelligence firm, told the Wall Street Journal, it's hard to believe that in 2026, businesses are selling software with this level of insecurity. It's really shocking. So they're just not updating the default password, and the default password is 1-2-3-4-5. Then the hackers are going to have an absolute field day. And it is fascinating that we're hackers move from hacking banks and Binance and crypto firms to just things like refrigerators, which you didn't think normally would be able to get hacked. But now everything's connected to the internet. So all of this just mundane infrastructure is now becoming a vector for cyber attacks. Yeah, why would you hack a freezer? That was the big question. And basically, it's just low-hanging fruit. Like, the cybersecurity is so poor, and these bad actors, these malicious people out there realize they can cause massive havoc by just targeting people. So I think it's a good idea to do that. I think it's a good idea to do that. Refrigerators, systems that are not very well protected whatsoever. So no one actually knows what's behind it. No one has claimed responsibility so far. So it looks like it's just someone kind of messing with stuff because they can. And those hacks haven't just remained in Europe, actually. The US has been investigating some similar hacks, not at Publix or Hannaford's or what was your local grocery store? Hannaford's? When would you ever be near a Hannaford's? That's like New Hampshire. I know. I just charged at a Hannaford's, just charged an electric car upstate New York. So it was top of mind. What is your grocery store? Big Y. See, I never even heard of that. But anyway, those stores are not getting hacked. The US military actually has been getting hacked. They think that hackers broken and defrosted all its ice cream. Officials told Reuters they're investigating the hack of a military based commissary freezers where they did a similar thing where they just turned off the refrigeration technology. So this is something that's been going on. That happened back in the summer, by the way. So maybe this has been happening longer than we think. Now it's just coming to a head as all of these freezers are getting hit across Europe, too. I just can't believe you know what Hannaford's is. Hannaford's, baby. And I lived in Maine, by the way. So there's some Hannaford's up there. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's numbers right after this. Did you feel a shift? Yes. I moved everything three centimeters to the left. It's very exciting. No, the shift in how business runs with AI. Rubric helps make sure that shift actually works in your favor instead of against you. With Rubric, you don't have to choose between moving fast and staying secure thanks to their agentic cyber resilience. One, a platform covering a company's data, its identities, and its AI systems. See what it looks like when security and AI operations work together at rubric.com slash mb. That's r-u-b-r-i-k dot com slash mb. Neil, does your credit card help you get airline points? No, my credit card only gives me points. They're like points, only they're useless and I can't exchange them for anything. Wow, that is sad. MasterCard BlackCard is way better. You can earn up to 75,000 bonus points after qualifying account activity with their limited time offer. That's worth up to $1,500 when redeemed towards airfare with no blackout dates or seat restrictions. Visit luxurycard.com slash brew for more details. That's luxurycard.com slash brew. Offer ends soon. Terms and conditions apply. Just like my response to being an addendum chair, many business leaders are probably ready to white-knuckle it through the next few months. But unlike Neil when he's getting a cleaning, business leaders have a real reason to be concerned. Following the midterm elections, major policy shifts could be coming soon. Fortunately, PwC can help. Whether it's shifts in tariffs, AI acceleration, or geopolitical fragmentation, their expertise helps you understand the ripple effect and how you can respond. Let PwC help turn your knuckles back to their normal color. Go to pwc.com slash us slash 2026 midterms. Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will feel like solid core for your brain. And speaking of that, for my first number, the boys have found Pilates. The New York Times reports that Pilates, an exercise regimen most commonly associated with women in matching sets and post-workout matcha, is becoming increasingly popular with dudes. Here are the numbers. Overall, last year, 4.1 million men in the U.S. took Pilates, up from 2 million five years ago, according to the New York Times. According to the Health and Fitness Association, at Equinox, male Pilates participation has jumped more than 50% in the past 18 months, while ClassPass said the number of men taking Pilates has almost tripled since 2023. Endorsements from male celebrities might have helped remove some of the stigma. Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Cristiano Ronaldo have all done Pilates, showing how even the world's most elite male athletes get humbled by the reformer. Now, when your Pilates princess spouse tries to drag you along to the studio, you might be a little more open to the idea, because, hey, football players are doing it, too. It also speaks to the de-genderization of fitness more broadly. Greta Wagner, president and CEO of the Health and Fitness Association, told the Times, you see women in the weight room now, and you see men in Pilates. Toby, we were talking about finding some winter hobbies yesterday. Should we become Pilates bros? I've been there, Neil. You think I haven't been on a reformer in a studio before? And I'll tell you what, my adductors are lacking. Anytime you get me upright or with my feet in some straps and tell me to control my adductors. It's a disaster. The groins, uh, are gone. Pilates, though, it was never meant to be a gendered workout. Joseph Pilates, not many people know this, but Pilates is named after a guy named Joseph Pilates. He was a German circus performer and boxer. He developed a system of working out called controlology around World War I. When he was imprisoned, actually, in the United Kingdom during the war, he began teaching his methods to fellow inmates. They loved it. But then he moved to New York City, and a lot of female dancers started taking his Pilates class, hence why it's become kind of female-coded ever since, but absolutely did not start out as a way for women to work out. It was just a way to work out. Now maybe it's shifting the pendulum back towards just a non-gendered form of putting your adductors through a lot of pain. For my next number, I hope you're okay. I'm not. For my next number, your local biker gang might be picking up a few members. While higher costs have Americans cutting back on mostly your products from boats to RVs, they're actually buying more motorcycles. According to the Wall Street Journal, Harley-Davidson posted year-over-year retail sales growth in each of the past four quarters and is pacing to record its first full-year sales increase since 2021. Its share price since the start of 2026, up more than 60%. Harley credits its renaissance to a slew of new hogs that match what bikers are looking for. A refreshed three-wheel trike designed for boomers is flying off of lots, while two mid-tier bikes, the Superglide and the Deadwood, don't take a huge bite out of your wallet, with the Superglide featuring a sticker price of $16,000. A two-decade slump has Harley still reminiscing about its glory days. At its peak in 2006, the company sold 344,000 bikes around the world, compared to this year's 139,000 at the top end of projections. Plus, Harley still hasn't cracked the code for inspiring a new generation to hop on their bikes as its current customer base gets older. Still, Harley may be well-positioned at a time when people want to get off their phones and enjoy the real world. One deal with Harley-Davidson is that Harley-Davidson people are looking for camaraderie, and they're looking for something to do. They're looking for their next sense of joy. Yeah, four strong quarters in a row is great for Harley. And you know, it's been a rough couple of years for them, but some analysts are saying we're going to need to see a little bit more than that. Cities, a city analyst said, we're going to need a lot more evidence to be convinced that there still aren't demographic headwinds that weigh on this business, because yes, new products can be resonating. The boomers can love the trikes. And yes, the fact that you are still selling to this one very concentrated group of diehard fans, that is always going to be a risk for your business. So longer term, it needs to prove that it can replenish its customer base with younger people. I don't know. It doesn't seem like motorcycles resonate with younger people. They're just like so dangerous. They have such a danger attached to them. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I will never get on one. I mean, I know when I'm driving on a country road, like something's in the back of my mind being like, this would be kind of awesome. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I am terrified of them for sure. And yeah, we also live in a city where no one has anything. But I could see you on a trike though, Neil. I love big hogs. Yeah, just lean absolutely get me a trike might just need like 30 years for that. For my final number. If you look at the chart of the most popular albums in the US right now, you'll find an unexpected number one, the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. And it's surprising because this album came out when I was a young boy in 2006. 20 years marks the longest wait for an album to reach number one in Billboard's history. Last week, the New Jersey emo rockers re-released their seminal album with 20 physical variants and six bonus tracks, reminding everyone old enough to have heard the Black Parade when it was first released just how epic it was and introducing their music to a new generation. The Black Parade is known as a rock opera or an album that tells some sort of cohesive story often involving world building and fictional characters. The Who is credited with pioneering the form, but plenty of other artists have built upon it like David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Green Day. And when My Chemical Romance came out in 2006, they rocked music's world, catapulting these guys from emo stars to mainstream recognition. 20 years later, thanks to the reissue and a globe spanning Black Parade Stadium tour, they're on top for the first time ever. They also tripled down on physical album variants. They kind of took a page out of Taylor Swift's book where the anniversary edition was released with 20 different physical varieties. So that just speaks to the collectivity that people feel towards these older albums. And 87% of the albums equivalent units came from actual album sales. It's not necessarily just a resurrection on streaming, though it's doing well on streaming too, but people are literally buying physical albums. So that I thought was very interesting. I didn't really, this song didn't hit for me like it hit for some other people around the office. They were saying it reminds me of middle school, but I think I just, I was too young. I know, but we played it for you yesterday. You're like, I didn't even know that song. We played it for you yesterday and you started singing along. And I also thought this was a great track. So back in 2006, it was released. It was, it was huge, but it never hit number one, right? Because it only hit number one now, 20 years later. So what beat it back in 2006 that week when it was released? Well, it ran into a juggernaut. It ran into a juggernaut. This was the soundtrack to Hannah Montana. It was released the same week and it went number one, defeating the black parade. All right, let's run to the finish with some final headlines. Rice Krispies fans in Europe are in an uproar because the cereal doesn't pop like it used to in marketing. Going back to the 1950s, Rice Krispies pledged three things above all else, snap, crackle, and pop. But recently it hasn't been delivering on that third promise. And that's because the brand swapped out rice from its Rice Krispies in European markets for rice flour, citing adverse weather conditions for disrupting rice supplies from Southeast Asia. And people have noticed social media has been flooded with complaints about the new recipe with one calling the change grim and disgusting and another saying her toddler would no longer eat them. Kellogg's has acknowledged, quote, consumers might notice that the sound may be quieter and not as instant as before. Toby, is the pop an essential part of the Rice Krispies or do you think snap and crackle is enough? It's a happy sound. I know double singing. I was so bad at singing, too. But she she's like, you are snap. Like, so I've always been a snap guy. But I understand why people feel so strongly about this. We've seen similar backlash to other recipe changes. Remember how everyone was like chocolate companies are doing something different. And it came out that they absolutely were Reese's was in the crossfire, especially because they've had to reduce cocoa content because of weather conditions. Around the world, actually, iron brew as well. This is a Scottish drink that we recently tried for the first time. They reduced their sugar content back in 2018. That caused people to stockpile crates because they wanted the original recipe. So food is a very emotional thing for people. So if you're not getting the snap crackles and pops you want, absolutely. I can see why there's backlash. I think they're getting the snap and the crackle. They're just not getting the pop. And that might be enough to bring this brand to its knees. All right. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. To share your thoughts on the episode or anything else, send an email to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MB Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Liu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Technical direction by Nina Miller. Hair and makeup is joining the Black Parade and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Morning Brew. slash subscribe and see why over 4 million people start their day with Morning Brew.