CHRIS VERSACE : Good morning, Action Alerts Plus members. We'll once again be tuning our attention to Jerome Powell, who is speaking today after yesterday's Fed Beige Book and the recent parade of Fed speakers. If you're wanting to call them Powell and the gang, I am right there with you.
Now to say that we've been getting some conflicting views on the path for monetary policy over the last several days, in my opinion, is a bit of an understatement. Despite what we've been seeing in the data since we entered October, which shows inflation being stubborn and an economy that continues to defy expectations, the parade of Fed heads continue to send what I would simply call mixed messages. This will put the spotlight on Powell when he speaks today around 12:00 Eastern Standard Time at the Economic Club of New York.
Now I do expect some tough talk out of him reiterating that the Fed will keep at its job until it is done, pretty much higher for longer. However, given multiple wars and some renewed uncertainty in Washington, Powell could very well soften his language, which in my view, would push the emphasis from November to the Fed's December meeting. But if he doesn't, we're likely to see the market come under some pressure this afternoon. Because of that potential risk, we're going to let our inverse ETFs and our cash do their thing leading up to Powell's comments and potentially soon thereafter.
Let's move over to the portfolio. This morning, Taiwan Semiconductor, a company we closely watch for several of our holdings, reported a beat and raised September quarter with notable strength in its smartphone business. That revenue was up 30% quarter over quarter and it's the latest positive data point for strength in that market, making it a positive for our shares of Apple, Qualcomm, and Universal Display. Taiwan Semiconductor's high performance computing revenue was also up quarter over quarter, a positive for our shares of Marvell.
Switching gears to semiconductor capital equipment company Lam Research, it also delivered a solid quarter with favorable top line guidance, which is a positive for our shares of Applied Materials. Again, some of these positions are on our shopping list, but we are going to wait at least until we get Chair Powell's comments, again, at noon today.
And finally, as noted in yesterday's Alerts, we did move forward with boosting our panic point on Elevance to 410 from 400. That followed stronger than expected quarterly earnings. Now why did we do this? Well, this is simply in keeping with our strategy to move our panic points higher following similar moves in a company's stock price. We've done that with Axon shares and a few others, and we'll continue to evaluate panic points on other positions as we move through the current earnings season.
And a quick reminder, members, you can find each position's panic point with its particular comments in each Friday's roundup. That's it for today. JD will be back tomorrow to discuss the impact of geopolitics on the markets and much more with AAP team member Sarge Guilfoyle.