On today’s episode of Free Lunch, Ryan McQueeney recaps morning news from Wall Street, including tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, big bank earnings, and historic data from Activision Blizzard. The host also covers the bankruptcy of Sears, September’s retail sales results, and holiday shopping expectations.

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Free Lunch is presented by Zacks Investment Research. It is streamed live, four times per week, and features breaking news and analysis from Zacks strategists. Free Lunch is available on YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitter, Ustream, and more.

U.S. stocks were down in early morning trading Monday, with tech stocks once again taking the brunt of the volatility. Despite a decent rebound on Friday, investors simply were not ready to forget about the headlines which caused volatility last week, and mounting tensions between Western powers and Saudi Arabia only added to concerns over the weekend.

On the earnings side of things, Bank of America BAC reported its latest quarterly results before the bell, notching bottom-line growth of 43% and topping expectations for both profits and revenue. The bank joined peers JPMorgan JPM, Wells Fargo WFC, and Citigroup C in posting better-than-expected results in the early days of Q3 earnings season.

Elsewhere, Wall Street had some preliminary data from Activision Blizzard ATVI to digest, with the video game behemoth announcing that its highly anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 broke a launch day record and is now the biggest day one digital release in the company’s history.

Bullish results were, however, overshadowed by sluggish news from the broader retail sector. Notably, Sears Holdings SHLD finally filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday morning after it was unable to pay a $134 million debt bill.

The iconic American retailer plans to stay operational during the bankruptcy proceedings, although it did also announce the closure of more than 100 stores. Sears hopes to keep open stores that are profitable, along with the Sears and Kmart websites.

The slow death of a once-great business underscored near-term concerns about retail that were inspired by seemingly weak September sales results. Retails sales last month rose just 0.1%, missing estimates of 0.6% growth. So-called “core retail” results, which exclude automobiles, gasoline, building materials, and food services, rose about 0.5%.

Nevertheless, consumer confidence and spending power appear strong enough to propel the sector to a powerful holiday shopping season this year. In fact, the latest estimates for the National Retail Federation are calling for Halloween spending to remain near all-time highs and November and December sales to sure 4.3% to 4.8%.

Ryan explores all of these stories on today’s episode. Make sure to check out the show for all of the key facts and details!

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