SpaceX Gains, Netflix Falls, Abbott Drops on News it Plans to Spin Off its Nutrition Unit
Mittwoch, 21. Oktober 2026 · 4 min
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On this episode of Stock Movers:
- SpaceX (SPCX) shares gain. Elon Musk endorsed the prospect of combining SpaceX with Tesla Inc, uniting assets from electric cars to AI data centers to rocket and satellite capabilities. Musk said the boards of both companies had formed special committees to consider the idea of a combination, but cautioned that getting enough support from Tesla shareholders may be tricky.
- Netflix (NFLX) shares fall. Netflix reported its slowest sales jump in three years and forecast a fourth consecutive quarter of slowing growth, amplifying concerns about the performance of the world’s leading online TV network. The company blamed its sales shortfall on the advertising business, which is on pace to deliver $300 million less than expected, and has overhauled its leadership to address a decline in programming quality.
- Abbott Laboratories (ABT) shares drop. Abbott plans to spin off its nutrition unit into a separate publicly traded company through a tax-free distribution to shareholders. The new company will have annual sales of about $8.5 billion from its key brands, including Pedialyte and Ensure, and will be led by Daniel Salvadori as chief executive officer. The separation is expected to be completed by the end of 2027 and will allow the new company to adapt to changes in the nutrition industry "faster and more efficiently and effectively as an independent company".
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The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg data.
Let's take a look at some of the stocks.
On the move today. We can do that with Chloe Mealy, earnings reporter for Bloomberg News. She joins us live in studio. Chloe, what are you looking at today?
Yes, I'm looking at SpaceX. Of course, we've already talked a little bit about it, but it's really worth digging deeper into it because it's the big story of the day. So there's two big things to talk about with SpaceX. We've got, first of all, a very good set of results with third quarter revenue coming in much better than expected, driven by inflation. both the AI business and the satellite internet business as well. And then the other thing, perhaps the more important thing that we're thinking about today, is Elon Musk publicly endorsing this idea of a SpaceX-Tesla merger.
Of course, it would be the biggest ever corporate merger, would create a giant conglomerate that makes so many different things, you know, electric cars, AI data centers, space rockets, humanoid robots, everything. But in terms of the feasibility of this, you know, Musk is crucially not part of the discussions. It's actually the boards of both companies that have formed special committees of independent directors to consider the merger. So that means that a deal is actually far from certain and the details will matter. And we'll be looking at the earnings call for Tesla, which is coming this evening, where Musk might be providing a little bit more detail on all of that.
Or maybe he said everything he's allowed to say at this point. But I'm sure the questions will be there. Let's talk about another company that reported earnings.
Yes. So Netflix down this morning after quite disappointing reports, reported the slowest sales growth in three years. And it also expects a fourth consecutive quarter of slowing growth. So investors have not been really keen on Netflix over the last few months. We have shares down about 25%. in 2026.
And this report is really unlikely to reassure investors in Netflix. The problem is that it has gone now quite a while without a massive film or TV hit. And it's obviously a very competitive environment in streaming, which means that you do need those are big hits so recently netflix actually fired the chief content officer and laid off about a thousand people so he's trying to sort of do away with what hasn't been working and and try and revive his programming slate um and at the same time also expanding into a live sports podcasts video games as well um but until that really translates into better engagement investors will probably continue to be a little bit cold on Netflix.
All right. It's been a tough road there recently for Netflix. How about Abbott, ABT?
Yeah, Abbott is spinning off its nutrition unit, which has been the source of many headaches for the company recently. So both Abbott and also a bunch of its competitors have found nutrition to be quite a difficult area to navigate. It's affected by quite a lot of recalls, particularly for infant formula, and then loads of litigation as well. So It's quite interesting to have this spinoff being announced within the context of all of those big health conglomerates really shaking up their portfolios. Recently, we had Reckitt in the UK also looking to exit its infant formula business. J & J spun off its consumer health business a couple of years ago and is now looking to spin off its orthopedics business. So that's all kind of part of this
broader trend there. And for Abbott specifically, even though analysts do see this spinoff as something that makes quite a lot of strategic sense, the shares are actually down because of a weaker profit outlook. So that's the big story today there.
Let's move on. The Stock Movers Report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with us throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies making news on Wall Street. And for the latest market-moving headlines, listen to Bloomberg Radio Live. Catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg.com, and on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
