November 2, 2026: Supreme Court Rejects DOJ California Ballot Push, Apple Mixed Results, More

0:02 News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now, I'm Doug Krisner. It is the final day before the U.S. midterm elections. Democrats are looking to flip key GOP-held districts across the country. Now, control of the Senate would give Democrats the ability to block President Trump's nominees, while control of either chamber could halt parts of the president's legislative agenda. Meantime, a short while ago, the Supreme Court rejected a request from the Trump administration to to force California to set aside some 20,000 ballots. The DOJ had claimed these voters may not be American citizens. However, California said its voters list is riddled with inaccuracies. Here is Bloomberg's Megan Scully.

0:44 So this is yet another setback for the Trump administration and the courts as it tries to litigate the outcome of the midterm elections, be it before the election itself or preparing court challenges for afterwards. This is a victory for states, which in the United States run the elections. The federal government does not.

1:05 That was Bloomberg's Megan Scully. Meantime, two federal judges have blocked the Justice Department from demanding several states, including California, set aside ballots alleged to be from non-citizen voters, and one judge issued a nationwide order preventing the DOJ from threatening election workers with prosecution for failing to comply. After the bell, Apple reported revenue growth for the latest quarter of 12%. Now, that was narrowly above analyst expectations. Even so, sales growth is decelerating. It's down from 16% in the prior quarter. Other points to consider for Apple's latest quarter, gross profit margin of 47.9%. That was ahead of estimates. However, revenue for greater China missed estimates by roughly a billion dollars. Now,

1:52 Apple has been dealing with supply shortages along with slower growth in its services business and increased pressure to catch up in artificial intelligence. Right now, in late trading, shares in Apple are down by more than 4%. Palantir Technologies reported its first $ 2 billion revenue quarter in company history.

2:12 Overall revenue for the latest period grew 96% from last year to $ 2. 31 billion. Now that figure reflects surging demand for Palantir's data analytic tools. And at the same time, Palantir boosted its revenue guidance for the full year. Here is Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow.

2:30 Palantir is in a place where they execute really well, but they're going from a focus on the public sector, selling to governments and particularly the defense apparatus of this country. to like increasing focus on commercial customers in the United States. For them, they were kind of like one of the early voices to say like, Europe, get your act together.

2:49 You guys don't understand AI and you're not spending on it. But here in the United States, every quarter that they're having, they seem to be having a lot of traction.

2:56 That is Bloomberg said Ludlow, despite the positivity, shares in Palantir are down 3.8% in late New York trading. The stock market closed mixed today as value outperformed growth. The Nasdaq composite fell more than 1% and entered a correction from its early October record high. Tech shares were under pressure after Anthropic highlighted rising cost for AI compute. And at the same time, polling shows Democrats gaining ground in Texas.

3:25 The worry here is a stronger Democratic midterm result could bring a tougher regulatory backdrop for the build-out of AI data centers. We had the S & P falling a half of 1%. The Dow Industrial Average, though, picked up four-tenths of 1%. Marvell Technologies is buying Lumentum Holdings. This deal has an enterprise value of $ 115 billion, and it represents Marvell's boldest move yet to recast itself as a star of the AI industry. The company already designs chips used in AI infrastructure. And with Lumentum, It will have components that use light to speed information around data centers.

4:04 Even so, shares in both companies slid today on worries whether this deal is a risky proposition given the existing jitters over the AI trade. Here is Bloomberg's Ryan Gould.

4:15 There's something always tricky about all stock M & A like this, which is that, you know, if you're not putting a cash component in this deal, you as the buyer, you transfer all the risk of the deal onto the target. And therefore, you know, with Marvell down sort of pretty badly today, you're basically seeing a lot of risk being put on the target. And so, you know, it's just creating it's hard to see the floor here. This is a deal that, you know, had there been some cash in there, you know, a cash collar, as they say, it might have helped it to sort of be, you know, preserve some of that value sort of more properly.

4:48 That is Bloomberg's Ryan Gould. Shares in Marvell fell by more than 12% and shares in Lumentum were down 18.5%. Anthropic disclosed a 12-fold increase in its quarterly revenue in an SEC filing. The company is preparing for a potentially record-breaking IPO set to take place before the Thanksgiving holiday.

5:10 Revenue totaled nearly $ 17 billion. That compares with $ 1. 4 billion in the same period a year ago. Anthropic also disclosed intentions to spend more than $ 895 billion in the years ahead. The Wall Street Journal reports Anthropic investors are coalescing around a lower valuation for the company... of between $ 1. 5 trillion and $ 1. 6 trillion. In recent months, figures closer to $ 2 trillion had been bandied about. Crude oil prices tumbled in New York trading after the U.S. and Iran signaled a potential diplomatic opening. President Massoud Pazeshkin said Iran's supreme leader granted the government certain powers to try to resolve the conflict through dialogue and, at the same time, The New

5:55 York Times reports Iran is prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in two days if the U.S. agrees to a set of demands. Earlier, Axios reported President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu he is open to allowing more time for diplomacy. WTI crude tumbled 7.4 percent in New York, trading to 96.46. On Sunday, a Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach, California, killing all nine people on board and injuring at least one person on the ground. Authorities say the plane broke apart before impact, and they also say adverse weather conditions are a major focus of the investigation.

6:34 Here is NTSB member Tom Chapman.

6:38 The crew reported the outside temperature was minus 47 Celsius, which is minus 53 Fahrenheit, and they were managing the ice but were in moderate turbulence. Very soon after, the crew transmitted, we are picking up precipitation, requesting to climb to 37,000 feet if able, which was approved by FAA air traffic control.

7:03 Tom Chapman from the NTSB. Now, the last transmission before the aircraft crashed was the pilot saying they were out of time. Disney is moving toward cutting thousands of jobs. We are told some managers have been asked to target 20% in annual cost savings. Now, this could come from job eliminations as well as from expense reductions. Some of Disney's operations, we are told, will be affected disproportionately. And that is news when you want it. With Bloomberg News Now, I'm Doug Krisner, and this is Bloomberg.