CNBC Daily Open: Everyone loves Reddit

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Rising cloud revenue for Alphabet
Google-parent Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings beat expectations. The company’s quarterly revenue was $88.27 billion, up 15% year on year, boosted by its cloud division’s 35% jump in revenue from a year ago. Google’s search and advertising revenue also grew. Net income was $26.3 billion, 33.5% higher than the year-ago quarter.

Reddit swings to profit
Reddit shares surged almost 25% in extended trading Tuesday, breaking the $100 barrier for the first time, on the company’s better-than-expected third-quarter results. Notably, Reddit turned profitable in the third quarter with net income of $29.9 million, compared with a net loss of $7.4 million during the same quarter a year ago.

Mixed markets
On Tuesday, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.78% to close at a new high and the S&P 500 added 0.16%, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.36%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index lost 0.57%. Earnings results from European companies were mixed, causing trading in the region to be choppy.

End of zero interest rates era
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, thinks the U.S. Federal Reserve will lower rates only once, by 25 basis points, for the rest of this year because of high “embedded inflation,” Fink said at a panel Tuesday. At the same event, Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said the era of zero interest rates and zero inflation is over.

[PRO] Citi likes these small-cap stocks
The Russell 2000 has gained around 10.4% so far this year. While that trails the S&P 500’s 22% increase in the same period, both analysts and investors are paying more attention to small-cap stocks. As the Fed cuts interest rates, small-cap stocks tend to benefit more — and these are the small-cap stocks Citi thinks are good buys.

It’s not too surprising, then, that the companies behind those services – Snap, Reddit and Alphabet – reported third-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s expectations.

Their revenues, in particular, are bright spots. For its third quarter, Alphabet’s advertising revenue increased 10.4% year on year. While Snap and Reddit didn’t report their advertising top line specifically, there were indications both companies are also doing well in that area.

Snap’s total active advertisers have more than doubled from the year-ago quarter, according to CEO Evan Spiegel. That’s coupled with two million more global daily active users than expected. More advertisers and more eyeballs mean more revenue per ad.

Meanwhile, Reddit swung from a loss a year ago to earning a profit. That remarkable transformation was in part helped by a 47% year-over-year jump in daily active users and better-than-expected average revenue per user.

All companies reported earnings after the bell. In extended trading, shares of Reddit rocketed almost 25%, Snap surged around 10.6% and Alphabet added 5.8%.

It’s Meta’s and Microsoft’s turn to report earnings later today. Microsoft isn’t really involved in the ad market because it’s more focused on enterprise products. But investors will be watching to see if Meta keeps up with the positive trend so far.

Judging by how much time I spend on Meta-owned Instagram and see ads that seem to know exactly what I want, the company’s ad revenue is likely to see healthy growth as well.

— CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, Jonathan Vanian and Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.   

Note: CNBC Daily Open will be on a break Thursday, Oct. 31, for the public holiday in Singapore. Regular programming will resume Friday.