AM Markets Need to Know: Meta plans share issuance, Anthropic IPO, and more
Stock market futures were lower on Thursday as investors weighed growing risks from world events and company earnings.
Here are five news stories investors should watch:
Meta Platforms approves new Class C shares: Shareholders of Meta META who control most of the company's voting power approved a new type of common stock called Class C shares. They also approved changes to the company's 2025 Equity Incentive Plan, which covers stock-based rewards. The changes are expected to take effect on Jan. 19, 2027, and the new shares will trade on Nasdaq. Meta plans to use these shares to pay for AI investments, employee pay and benefits, and company purchases. It expects to do this without changing the voting power of current shareholders.
DOE releases heating oil reserves: The U.S. Department of Energy approved an exchange of up to 315 million barrels of heating oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve. The goal is to help ease rising fuel costs before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. In Maine, heating oil prices are about 80% higher than they were a year ago. This is putting more pressure on household energy budgets across New England.
Anthropic prepares possible IPO filing: Anthropic ANTHROPIC could publicly file a document called an S-1 registration statement as early as Friday, Oct. 23, Yahoo Finance reported, citing three people familiar with the plans. This document would give investors more details about the company behind Claude, including how quickly its revenue is growing, how much it depends on a small number of customers, its computing costs, and the risks linked to AI. In June, the company privately sent a draft registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
AI finds serious PHP security weaknesses: PHP developers released urgent security updates on Wednesday after work using AI helped uncover serious security flaws that had gone unnoticed for years. Alphabet GOOG, OpenAI OPENAI, and Amazon AMZN have helped find these flaws and protect affected computer systems. The developers urged users to install the updates right away. The discovery also shows the growing need for tools that protect computer systems and for regular software maintenance.
New car registrations rise in Europe as electric vehicles grow: The number of new passenger cars registered in the European Union rose 5.7% in the first nine months of 2026. Registrations of battery-powered electric vehicles rose about 48% from the same period a year earlier, reaching 1.93 million. Fully electric vehicles made up 22.7% of all new car registrations, compared with 16.1% a year earlier. New car registrations in September rose 9.3%, and all four major markets recorded growth.