| Good morning. Netanyahu rebuffs resignation calls as ground operations in Gaza intensify, Apple unveils new chips and UK store inflation eases. Here's what people are talking about. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for him to resign over security failures in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ruled out a cease-fire with the militant group as the army intensifies ground operations in Gaza. A top Israeli official said aid flows to Gaza are poised to increase as concern mounts over the humanitarian situation. Authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll since the war erupted has surpassed 8,300. Apple announced a new iMac, MacBook Pros and the third generation of its in-house Mac processor line, rolling out a first-of-its-kind M3 chip that boosts performance and graphics horsepower. The new chip lineup relies on advanced 3-nanometer manufacturing technology and more efficiently handles graphics processing, Apple said in a presentation Monday. New MacBook Pro models, also unveiled at the half-hour event, will run the new processors. Inflation in UK stores fell to the lowest level in more than a year in another sign that the cost-of-living crisis is starting to ease. The British Retail Consortium said Tuesday that shop prices were 5.2% higher in October than a year earlier, down from 6.2% in September. It's the fifth month in a row that inflation in stores has fallen, with the rate at its lowest since August 2022. The Bank of England will decide on Thursday whether to lift rates above 5.25%, with the economy suffering from tepid growth as well as lingering price pressures. The US Treasury reduced its estimate for federal borrowing for the current quarter thanks to stronger-than-expected revenues, offering some relief for investors concerned about the rapidly widening fiscal deficit. The Treasury Department cut its net borrowing estimate for the October-through-December quarter to $776 billion, against the $852 billion for the period predicted in late July. Debt managers kept their estimate for the Treasury's cash balance for the end of December at $750 billion. European stocks are headed for a muted open after disappointing Chinese manufacturing figures. The ECB's Ignazio Visco speaks on his last day as Bank of Italy governor. French President Emmanuel Macron begins a visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addresses the Nordic Council Session in Oslo. Expected data include French GDP. AB InBev, BP and BBVA are on tap for earnings. This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. The dimmer outlook for corporate profits is led by health care, which leaves the beleaguered sector under pressure into year-end. Despite the pummeling in tech last week, it's actually other sectors that are leading the downside in earnings revisions for the fourth quarter. Top among them is health care, followed by materials and consumer discretionary (which does include Tesla and Amazon, widely folded under the 'tech' basket), according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. However, the tech-heavy S&P 500 Information Technology group (led by Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia) has actually seen an increase in estimates for 4Q last week versus what analysts forecast before the season started. Health care is also leading earnings revisions for the current reporting season, on pace to post a quarterly EPS drop of 18.63% vs expected drop of 11.48% before the season started. Eli Lilly's write-off is a drag, BI notes, and only a third of the index has so far reported. Investors have nonetheless punished the sector, sending its 12-month blended forward price-to-earnings ratio sliding to 16.24, matching its five-year average. It's also underperformed the S&P 500 since the earnings season started. Versus the broader market, though, S&P 500 Health Care does remain a little pricier than its five-year average, leaving it vulnerable to further downside. Tatiana Darie is a macro strategist on the Markets Live team for Bloomberg News, based in New York. | 
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