CMR is the leading provider of funding and management support for small to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs 

Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said Sunday that his party faces a voter turnout problem two days before the midterm elections, as public polling and forecast models show Democrats favored to win control of both chambers of Congress.

Gruters made the remarks on NewsNation's The Hill Sunday after host Chris Stirewalt asked him point blank.

"Yes, but Democrats tend to turn out early," Gruters said. "We tend to vote on Election Day. We expect large turnouts across this country. We know our base is motivated."

The RNC chair echoed a warning Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) issued to GOP voters days earlier. "If our voters turn out, we win," Gruters said. "That's what Sen. Cruz is trying to communicate. You can't sit back and think that we're going to win if you don't show up to the polls."

On Friday's episode of his podcast, The Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Texas senator said "massive Democratic turnout" could produce a "bloodbath" for Republicans. "Democrats are showing up, they're energized, they hate, hate, hate Donald Trump," Cruz said. He added, "If the election were over today, if just the early votes that have been cast so far are counted, Republicans would lose massively."

An Emerson College Polling survey and a CNN/SSRS poll each show Democrats leading Republicans by 10 points. Decision Desk HQ, the polling partner of The Hill, gives Democrats an 83% chance of winning the House and a 62% chance of winning the Senate.

Gruters pointed to the president's campaign schedule as the party's response. "That's why the president's out there every single day being an absolute machine," he said. "We have to win this race, and in order to do that, we need our voters to turn out on Tuesday."

Trump has held rallies for GOP candidates across the country, and the RNC announced Thursday that he would hold tele-rallies for 19 states. "Voters across the country want to hear from President Trump before Election Day, and this 72-hour sprint will be a huge boost in the closing days," Gruters explained.

Pollster Frank Luntz made a similar case last month, saying the election hinges on whether the president's voters show up.

In an interview on NewsNation, host Leland Vittert asked Luntz whether polls capture the Republican vote. Vittert cited ColdSpark interviews across five Pennsylvania Senate districts in which Democrats who had voted in each of the last four elections turned out at 129% over quota, compared with 2% over quota for Republicans with the same voting record.

"It says that the Democrats are participating, are prepared to participate, and that the Republicans, low-propensity voters, except in the presidential race, are still less likely to participate," Luntz said of the data.

The pollster described the president's presence on the trail as a factor that works in both directions. "Donald Trump is magic to his voters. When he speaks, they listen, and they don't hear anyone else," Luntz said. "Here's the problem. He's also magic to people who don't like him, who are more likely to participate because they're thinking of him."

Luntz also cautioned against forecasts of a Democratic wave. "Be very careful about this. I think a lot of pollsters are gonna look awfully stupid on Election Day because they're so out there with their projections," he said. When Vittert asked if he meant pollsters forecasting a blue wave, Luntz agreed, while acknowledging that Democrats hold an edge in both chambers.

He pointed to the closing stretch of the 2024 campaign as evidence of a Republican opening. "But I'm telling you, Leland, there is a significant chance that the Republicans can recapture that vote because in the end, in 2024, in the last, let's say, 10 days, Republicans won Latino votes that they had never won before," Luntz said. "They won union votes that they'd never won before. And they won younger males under age 30 like they'd never done before."

Are the pollsters undercounting Republicans? @FrankLuntz joins @LelandVittert pic.twitter.com/OQxk84GLsX

— On Balance with Leland Vittert (@NewsNationOB) October 14, 2026

Luntz also appeared on CNN and cautioned against predictions of a blue wave.

"We know that they don't respond to phone calls," Luntz told CNN's Boris Sanchez. "We know that in the exit polling back in 2016, and I say this publicly because I want people to hear this. You know, I teach at West Point. I cannot lie, cheat, or steal. The cadets can't. I can't. I got 2016 wrong. I believed in the exit polls. Trump voters walked away, refused to participate because they thought that it was against them."

Luntz conceded the polls could be right, but he didn't sound convinced, and he believes pollsters haven't accurately measured turnout.

"And turnout determines everything," Luntz said. "And I ask the viewers, pay attention to how they've asked the questions about turnout. It's not whether you say you're going to vote or not, because people lie."

??Frank Luntz *DUMPS COLD WATER* on CNN viewers' dreams of blue wave??

Luntz warned Trump voters "don't respond" to pollster phone calls.

He admitted he "got 2016 wrong" because he trusted the exit polls.

Luntz asserted he is "skeptical" the current polling is accurate.... pic.twitter.com/uDYItXrxrw

— Jason Cohen ???? (@JasonJournoDC) October 18, 2026

Luntz's point about turnout lines up with the case Gruters made on Sunday, when he said Republicans win if their voters show up. With Trump's tele-rallies set to run through Election Day, the RNC chair said the party needs its base at the polls Tuesday.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, a former al-Qaeda member, said on Saturday that Damascus was considering joining the Mecca defense pact, the new military alliance between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey.

"Discussions are currently underway to evaluate Syria’s entry into the Mecca alliance," al-Shaibani said at the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain.

Al-Shaibani’s comments come several weeks after several media outlets reported that Syria was considering sending troops to Yemen to help Saudi Arabia fight Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis.

The Syrian government denied the reports and said its plan is to focus on Syria’s internal situation, but the country’s potential membership in the Mecca defense pact could draw it into the war. 

Both Pakistan and Turkey have pledged support for Saudi Arabia’s war, though so far there’s no indication that they are aiding in offensive operations against Ansar Allah.

Axios reported that Syria’s potential Yemen deployment could specifically include a military unit known to be full of foreign jihadists who previously fought under the umbrella of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaeda offshoot that took power in December 2024 after the ousting of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Like Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, al-Shaibani was a founding member of the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate that became HTS when it rebranded to gain more international support in the war against Assad. 

According to a February 2025 Pentagon Inspector General report, al-Shaibani managed the group and oversaw its transition into HTS.

NASA's space telescope that tracks gamma-ray bursts has experienced an "ongoing attitude control issue" according to the space agency. A separate report from solar tracker website SpaceWeather warns the spacecraft is expected "to fall out of the sky" in the very near term. 

"NASA's Swift observatory is about to fall out of the sky. The 1.5-ton spacecraft spent nearly 22 years observing gamma-ray bursts. Now it is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere within days, creating a fireball that could even be visible in daylight (magnitude -8 to -10)," SpaceWeather wrote on its website. 

SpaceWeather continued: 

NASA's Space Weather Operational Readiness Development Center predicts reentry on Nov. 3rd at 16:18 UTC +/- 12 hours. The Aerospace Corporation says Nov. 4th at 09:30 UTC +/- 26 hours. Uncontrolled reentries are hard to pin down, and the orbit is decaying fast. Only in the final hours will we know for sure when and where it will re-enter.

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and southern Mexico are in the potential re-entry zone. Swift's orbit is tilted 21 degrees to the equator, so debris can only come down between latitudes 21N and 21S. That band is mostly ocean, so the odds still favor a harmless splashdown.

Most of Swift will burn up in the fireball. But according to chief scientist Brad Cenko, some tungsten pieces and the observatory's mirrors could survive.

NASA tried to save Swift. In July, Katalyst Space launched a robotic spacecraft named LINK to rendezvous with Swift and boost it higher. The mission failed. Meanwhile, solar activity puffed up Earth's upper atmosphere, dragging Swift down faster than expected. 

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA, told USA Today that the spacecraft played "a major role in advancing our understanding of the changing universe and was part of a revolution in astrophysics that showed how critical rapid-response observations are to the entire community," adding, "Swift leaves us with an extraordinary archive of multiwavelength observations that will fuel new discoveries for decades more." 

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

Democrats appear poised to win control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate on Nov. 3 as Republicans labor to overcome a decades-long pattern of midterm losses by any party controlling the White House.

Voter dissatisfaction with fuel prices and the war with Iran bode well for Democrats.

Yet the X-factor in this contest is the sitting president and his uncanny ability to rally supporters to the polls.

Despite some $6 billion spent on House and Senate races, this election may be decided by the one name not on the ballot: Donald Trump.

Here's what to know about the stakes, the issues, and the state of the race as America prepares to vote.

Voter Engagement High

Midterm elections historically draw lower voter turnout, yet objective signs indicate high engagement this year.

More than 46 million Americans voted early in this election, and 14 states had exceeded their 2022 early voting totals by Oct. 29. At least 14 others were well ahead of their 2022 pace.

About three-quarters of respondents from both parties agreed that "it really matters who wins this election" in mid-October opinion polling by Pew Research.

Interactive polls also indicate high voter interest, pollster Tom Carroll told The Epoch Times.

Carroll's firm, Convos, conducts polls via text message for candidates of both parties. Using AI-generated follow-up questions, Convos engages voters in open-ended conversations that he said reveal high voter passion.

"They're going on 30, 40, 50-text rants with our AI agent, diving deep into the frustration, telling personal stories," Carroll said.

Democrats have dominated early voting in some key areas, according to Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School.

"Democratic early voting was outpacing Republican voting by about a two-to-one margin," Wice told The Epoch Times, speaking of recent data from highly competitive Long Island, New York.

Carroll's polling confirms a Democratic edge in voter interest. "We're just seeing a lot higher percentage of Democrats engaging," he said.

Affordability Front and Center

The economy (85 percent) and the cost of living (84 percent) topped voter concerns in an Oct. 15 poll by The Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center.

Affordability was a constant complaint among voters The Epoch Times encountered at early voting sites and political rallies throughout October.

"I just can't believe every time I go to Costco it's like $400," Judy Ruthier of Westlake, Ohio, told The Epoch Times.

That issue hits voters in both parties, analysts told us, and is hampering Republicans in the Midwest where the high cost of fuel hits farmers especially hard.

"Diesel fuel is like $6 a gallon," Stanley Kumm, a Republican voter and retired farmer from Nebraska, told The Epoch Times. "We're harvesting, and a lot of these machines take 20 gallons an hour."

"I think every Democrat, Republican, independent - we all kind of agree that there's a massive cost of living problem," Mazie Stilwell of Des Moines, Iowa, told The Epoch Times.

Healthcare and the Iran war ranked behind economic concerns, rated as top issues by nearly two-thirds of respondents in the Oct. 15 poll.

Stilwell, a Democrat, drew a clear connection between the war and the economy. "Our cost of living is directly tied to those choices, like the war in Iran," she said.

That's a common voter opinion, said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

"Dissatisfaction over the war is principally dissatisfaction as it affects the economy," Wilson told The Epoch Times.

Immigration was named as a top concern by 59 percent of respondents.

And while voters voice skepticism and opposition to data centers, that does not appear to be a top-line issue in this election cycle.

The Trump Factor

Trump has significantly boosted voter turnout since 2016, driving record participation for a midterm election in 2018, Dusso said.

The key question is whether Trump can sustain the level of enthusiasm he has enjoyed among the base, or whether his policies and persona will work against him, experts said.

"The Democratic base despises Donald Trump with a white-hot passion and have been champing at the bit for their opportunity to show up and express their displeasure," Wilson said.

The president campaigned relentlessly during October, holding more than two dozen rallies in at least 19 states.

Yet the economy could depress Republican voter turnout even as it motivates Democrats, said Aaron Dusso, a political science professor at Indiana University.

"When the economy is bad, it's going to turn off the party of the president," Dusso said. "So those voters are going to be more likely to stay home."

Among respondents who were "extremely motivated" to vote in this election, Democrats ranked 17 percentage points ahead of Republicans according to polling by Pew Research.

The election will come down to two factors, Wice said. One is whether Trump can sustain previous levels of voter enthusiasm and whether that works for or against him. The other is local political issues that could drive turnout in swing districts.

Thirty-six states will elect a governor on Nov. 3, and voters will decide more than 6,000 state legislative races and 132 ballot questions.

Property taxes, bond issues, state budgets, housing, and water issues could bring voters to the polls independent of national races.

Congress in the Balance

To maintain their slim majority in the House, Republicans must overcome a well-established pattern of midterm losses by the party of a sitting president.

Over the last 80 years, only two presidents have defied that trend. Both had approval ratings well above 60 percent: Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush in 2002.

Trump's approval rating stands at 38 percent in an average of polls compiled by RealClear Politics.

Democrats need to gain just four House seats to gain a majority.

That seems all but inevitable, our experts said, given that 27 House races are listed as competitive, and 17 are considered toss-ups by independent elections analysts Cook Political Report.

"Republicans would have to essentially have no losses at all in order to keep control of the House of Representatives, and that would be an extraordinary outcome," Wilson said.

Control of the Senate is also uncertain, as Republicans have a seven-seat margin with 10 races rated as competitive, seven of them toss-ups by the Cook Political Report.

Those seven races remain near or within the margin of error in an average of polls despite $1.8 billion in spending by the major candidates and political action committees.

Democrats have marginal pre-election leads in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas.

Republicans also have a path to victory, Wilson said. "But it would require them to hold on to closely contested seats like Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, while potentially picking up a Democratic seat in a place like Michigan."

The GOP candidate holds a marginal polling lead in Kansas.

If Democrats do win the House, Congressional investigations are likely to follow, according to our analysts. But a third impeachment would be largely symbolic and unlikely to succeed.

Democrats are unlikely to attempt a bold legislative agenda unless they win a sizable majority in both Houses, according to analysts. More likely, they would pass messaging bills to set the stage for the 2028 presidential election.

Trump, asked on Oct. 27 how he intended to work with Democrats if they should prevail in the election, said, "We'll figure a way. Look, I have a strong veto."

A controversial new industry is slowly taking root across the United States, with so-called "kill me clinics" charging terminally ill patients thousands of dollars to end their lives, according to the Daily Mail.

In New York, where assisted suicide became legal in August, a boutique clinic called Quietus is charging patients up to $12,000 to end their lives. The clinic was founded by David Atkins, a former hospice worker who spent more than a decade living in Buddhist temples in South Korea. Atkins told the Mail that 15 people have already died through his clinic, while another 40 to 50 have contacted the business or been referred.

"You borrow this body from the universe. It's like a rental car, and then at a certain point, you got to return the rental car," Atkins said.

Patients are prescribed a lethal cocktail of drugs that they consume at home, typically losing consciousness within minutes and dying within an hour. However, some have reportedly taken hours or even days to die.

Quietus charges $11,000 for its services, plus another $1,000 for the drugs. Competing providers in California and New Mexico advertise prices ranging from $2,500 to $3,000. The emergence of these clinics has sparked concerns that assisted suicide is becoming a lucrative business, with critics warning that financial incentives could put vulnerable patients at risk.

"It's sadly no surprise to see kill-me clinics popping up in New York, because most doctors don't want to touch assisted suicide with a ten-foot pole," Jessica Rodgers of the Patient's Rights Action Fund told the Mail.

Rodgers accused some providers of setting up practices "to make lucrative profits off of scared patients."

Atkins pushed back against the criticism, insisting his clinic has turned away patients who aren't terminally ill and referred them for mental health assistance instead. "The goal is that those who can afford this will balance out those who cannot afford it," he said.

Under New York law, patients must be terminally ill adults with six months or less to live, undergo a mental health evaluation and administer the lethal drugs themselves. In Canada, where the practice was legalized in 2016, 16,499 people received medical assistance in dying in 2024, accounting for 5.1% of all deaths, according to government figures.

Unlike in New York, Canadians no longer have to be terminally ill to qualify, which has long raised concerns among opponents about how far eligibility could eventually expand.

Some of the stories emerging from Canada are downright horrifying.

As we reported in September, an 83-year-old Christian grandmother in Ontario, Brigitte Stegemann, was allegedly euthanized under Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program this summer, and her family says she never gave her final consent.

 Family members claim that Stegemann, a devout Christian, had already turned down MAID because it went against her faith. A nurse's first attempt to insert an IV failed, leaving blood on Stegemann, her bedding and the floor. When the doctor arrived and asked about giving her "medicine," her grandchild Kranendonk said her grandmother didn't speak, nod or open her eyes, while her hands were folded in prayer. The doctor went ahead with the euthanization and Stegemann was dead within roughly 10 minutes.

The care providers involved have maintained that Stegemann legally consented, and police in Belleville have confirmed an open investigation.

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Attorney General Todd Blanche has claimed that there are no national security secrets included in the "Epstein files" - the trove of documents the Justice Department holds on deceased multimillionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

"There's not some tranche of super-secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we're withholding," Blanche said around the time that the DOJ started releasing the Epstein files last winter.

However, an inventory of the Epstein files shows that, contrary to what Blanche said, there is classified information included in the files. Government documents ostensibly can only be classified if their release would damage national security.

Todd Blanche: "There's not some tranche of super-secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we're withholding."

The Epstein files inventory: https://t.co/nyndeReyGQ pic.twitter.com/gDpoeOxFJV

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 30, 2026

The document that shows there's classified material in the Epstein files is an inventory compiled by the FBI when they were redacting the files for public disclosure. The inventory says that on March 3, 2025, agents responded to a "request for any documents at a higher classification (50D serials 538, 539, 684)."

The inventory further reveals the presence of an "Inventory sheet with page counts and red lines showing classified material (x2)." It also says there are "CDs with classified materials (x2)."

The inventory was first reported by CBS News, which noted that the Epstein Files Transparency Act - which Congress passed to force disclosure of the files - authorizes withholding information in the interest of national security or foreign policy.

CBS also reported that there appears to be missing documents from the Epstein files, including financial records collected as evidence in a federal prosecution.

The Justice Department's internal watchdog announced a review in April of the department's compliance with the law mandating the release of the Epstein files.

The review from the inspector general's office will focus on how the department collected, reviewed and redacted materials in preparation for their release, as well as its process for addressing concerns that arose after the files were made public, when Epstein survivors complained that personal information about them had been disclosed.

Meanwhile, at least 3 million documents from the Epstein files have yet to be released, according to public reports.

As we previewed earlier, today's AAPL earnings report will be the first for Apple with new CEO John Ternus in charge. He technically has shared responsibility over the quarter, with his start date taking place on Sept. 1. But the quarter actually began several weeks before then when Tim Cook, now executive chairman, was still in the CEO’s office. We’ll be paying close attention to Ternus’s opening statement, when he’ll have his first extended chance to make an impression on Wall Street. 

As we also noted, some of the key things to pay attention to will be: how much of the call is led by Ternus, how many questions he answers, how much he hands off to CFO Kevan Parekh and if COO Sabih Khan will be on the call ( which would be a first). As BBG notes, when Steve Jobs was CEO, Tim Cook - then COO - partook and led most of the company’s earnings calls. Given Ternus’s lack of business, financial and sales experience, it’s worth watching who handles what moving forward.

As for the numbers, Wall Street expects growth to slow. Apple forecast Q4 revenue growth of between 9% and 11%. Wall Street is looking for a number around $113.4 billion, which would land it on the high end of that range. Keep in mind that the period would only include a couple of weeks of new iPhone sales.

Naturally, the big concern is holiday quarter guidance. As Bloomberg's Mark Gurman notes, few people can buy an iPhone Duo right now. There is no regular iPhone 18. There is no new iPhone Air. The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are worthless year-over-year upgrades for iPhone 17 buyers. The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max were blockbuster upgrades. The comparables for Q1 2027 are going to be extremely challenging. Wall Street is looking for Q1 revenue that’s north of $152 billion. It’ll be hard. We’ll soon see what the company is forecasting.

The highlight will be the iPhone Duo, which has been basically impossible to find since it went on sale on launch day (perhaps because so many show screen defects). Pre-orders placed soon after launch aren’t arriving until the end of January, and new inventory is thin at retail stores. AI bots are buying units within 30 to 60 seconds of them hitting the company’s online reservation portal, so getting this thing has been a huge challenge, assuming the demand is as lively as the narrative suggests. 

“Apple’s ability to fulfill surging demand for its first foldable smartphone, Duo, will likely be central to its fiscal 4Q26 earnings call,” says Anurag Rana, senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “If supply constraints persist, consensus 1Q27 iPhone growth of 6% appears doable, with a larger sales boost shifting into subsequent quarters.”

“Long delivery times suggest robust Duo uptake,” according to Rana, “and our revised scenario points to 14-16 million units in the first 12 months, up from 10-14 million previously.”

Besides the Duo, Apple has launched many other new products this fall, but many aren’t going on sale until deep into the holiday period. They include the M6 iMac and MacBook Pro, the revamped touch-screen MacBook Pro, the new Apple TV box, OLED iPad mini and the HomeView. But none of those products are huge sellers. It all comes down to the iPhone Duo’s performance in the period, and it seems murky right now due to supply.

With that in mind, here is what AAPL just reported for its fiscal Q4 ended Sept 30:

• EPS $2.10, vs $1.85 yoy, beating estimates of $2.00
• Revenue $114.48 billion, +12% y/y, beating estimates of $113.47 billion 
  • Products revenue $82.90 billion, +12% y/y, beating estimate $81.85 billion
  • IPhone revenue $57.58 billion, +17% y/y, beating estimates of $56.49 billion
  • Mac revenue $10.79 billion, +24% y/y, beating estimates of $9.7 billion
  • IPad revenue $6.23 billion, -10% y/y, missing estimates of $6.89 billion
  • Wearables, home and accessories $8.30 billion, -7.9% y/y, missing estimates of $9 billion

Here is revenue broken down by product:

And focusing on the iPhone we see revenue growth is also slowing:

While product were mostly good - thanks to iPhone - despite misses in iPads and Wearables, services revenue of $31.57 billion, +9.8% y/y, just missed estimates of $31.58 billion. Services revenue growth of 9.8% was the lowest since the second quarter of 2023 and the first one below 10% in three years.

There were more surprises on a geographic breakdown, where solid US and Europe revenues were offset by big misses in China and Japan:

• Americas rev. $48.68 billion, +10% y/y, beating estimates of $48.51 billion
• Europe revenue $32.01 billion, +12% y/y, beating estimates of $30.21 billion
• Rest of Asia Pacific revenue $9.71 billion, +15% y/y, estimate $9.02 billion
• Greater China rev. $17.54 billion, +21% y/y, missing estimate $18.75 billion
• Japan revenue $6.54 billion, -1.4% y/y, missing estimate $7.3 billion

China revenues missed as revenue YoY growth of 21.0% was the lowest in the past year.

A beat/miss snapshot shows that while most product lines and geographies beat, there were clear misses in iPad, Wearables, Greater China and Japan:

Going down the income statement, margins dropped but were good enough to beat estimates. First, expenses: 

• Cost of sales $59.66 billion, +10% y/y, estimate $59.55 billion
• Total operating expenses $19.19 billion, +21% y/y, estimate $19.19 billion
• Research and development operating expenses $11.73 billion, +32% y/y, estimate $11.63 billion
• SG&A operating expense $7.46 billion, +5.8% y/y, estimate $7.65 billion

Which brings us to Gross Margin: 

• Gross margin $54.82 billion, +13% y/y, estimate $53.93 billion

While Services margins remained rock-solid, Products dropped to a 1 year low, dragging overall margin to 47.9%, also a one year low.

Commenting on the quarter, Apple's new CEO said that that “today, Apple is proud to report a September quarter revenue record of $114.5 billion, up 12 percent from a year ago, with iPhone reaching a September quarter record and Services reaching an all-time high, capping off our best fiscal year ever." 

Ternus continued: “Apple delivered September quarter records for net income and EPS. Our record September quarter capped off a strong fiscal 2026, with all-time record revenue of $479 billion and double-digit EPS growth,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO. “We generated $28 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter, allowing us to return $28 billion to shareholders. Thanks to our very high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, our installed base of active devices reached a new all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments.”

Some other items: 

• Cash and cash equivalents $36.31 billion, +1% y/y, missing the estimate $46.79 billion
• Total current assets $173.86 billion, +18% y/y, estimate $163.56 billion
• Total current liabilities $169.92 billion, +2.6% y/y, estimate $158.95 billion

Looking at the company's full year operating cash flow, it rose 30% to $145.1bn. At the same time, capex fell to $9.0bn from $12.7bn, which leaves free cash flow of about $136bn, up roughly 38%.

Still, despite the surge in cash flow, buybacks shrank: Apple repurchased $86.4bn of stock vs. $90.7bn in FY25. Dividends were $15.7bn.

Total shareholder returns of about $102bn were only about 75% of free cash flow; this is notable since in past years Apple returned more than it generated, as part of its push toward a net-zero cash position.

The declining buyback meant that net cash rose to about $57bn from about $34bn a year ago. Cash plus marketable securities was $136.9bn, against total debt of $80.1bn. Apple paid down about $18bn of debt: term debt fell to $78.1bn from $90.7bn, and commercial paper fell to $2.0bn from $8.0bn.

So net cash is growing again, while buybacks shrink and R&D jumps 32%; hardly the stuff to make shareholders too excited.

And sure enough, whether it was the sporadic misses across product lines, or the big miss in Chinese revenue growth, AAPL stock initially kneejerked lower before rising to roughly unchanged.

Expect a bigger move once the call begins.