Markets · page 2

Alphabet's ad slowdown and Anthropic's IPO test the AI money machine

• The FT's Lex column says Alphabet lost nearly half a trillion dollars of market value after ad sales slowed unexpectedly: AI answers leave less room for ads, and data-centre spending is outrunning cash. Lex still thinks the AI lead can be won back.
• A John Thornhill column says Anthropic's IPO pits fear of missing out against fear of messing up. The filing shows first-half revenue of $16.3bn and an $80.7bn net loss, mostly non-cash, Xinhua reports, plus large non-cancellable compute deals.

Other side: Both columns concede the upside: AI leadership has flipped quickly before, and Anthropic's revenue growth is remarkable. A sharp share drop or a pricey IPO is not proof the boom is a bust.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Binance halts transactions after a hack that may be the biggest ever

• Binance suspended all deposits and withdrawals after hackers appeared to take at least $3bn, which would be the largest crypto theft on record, the WSJ reports. The exchange says user funds are safe and users will be made whole.
• Tether and Circle froze part of the stolen stablecoins, and analysts at TRM Labs and Pangolin Intelligence blame a North Korean hacking group. Some trackers put the haul far higher; Binance's US arm says it is unaffected.

Other side: Early tallies swing by billions, and freezes plus Binance's insurance fund may shrink the final loss. And issuers that can freeze a hacker's coins can freeze anyone's.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

What makes a great investor: luck and an unusual temperament

• The Economist's Buttonwood column revisits the 1992 bet against the pound, when George Soros told Stanley Druckenmiller to double a $5.5bn position, and argues luck mattered as much as nerve: other traders could have sided with the Bank of England.
• It notes analysts can be wrong often and still look excellent, and styles such as value investing fall out of favour for years; Cliff Asness stuck with his quant strategies until they worked again.
• Its verdict: greatness needs stubbornness plus the oddity to change your mind, a rare mix, so most savers may do better with an index fund.

Other side: Calling winners lucky can be too easy: decades of success, like Soros's, point to judgement and risk control, not just dice.

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Summary based on The Economist. Read the full story ↗

Norway weighs if its $2.3tn oil fund can drop Big Tech on ethics

• An FT column says Norway is drafting proposals on how its oil fund should handle ethics, after its exit from Caterpillar over links to Israel's alleged violations angered US politicians close to President Trump.
• An expert group suggested allowing investment in nuclear-weapons makers in the US, UK and France, and weighing diversification before any exclusion. Central bank research found dropping Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft would have cut returns by about a quarter from 2012 to 2025.
• Critics say that gives the biggest firms a lower ethical bar. A government proposal is due in spring, with a parliamentary debate next summer.

Other side: Supporters argue it is consistent: Norway relies on NATO's nuclear umbrella, and a fund held for future generations cannot ignore what exclusions cost it.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Snowflake CEO: AI labs risk a capacity bust, not a bank run

• Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy argues in a thread on X that AI labs commit to compute for years while selling usage customers can cut tomorrow. In his hypothetical, $100 of capacity against $150 of expected revenue leaves $50; a 30% revenue miss cuts that to $5.
• He draws lessons from banks, commodity traders, airlines, utilities and cloud giants, and warns that clouds which invest in labs and also sell them compute can make one promise look like several revenue streams.
• Citing Anthropic's S-1, he says compute cost fell to 55% of first-half sales of $16.3bn, from 201% a year earlier.

Other side: He is not a neutral observer: Snowflake sells data and AI services. And contract-backed cash flows that lenders treat as safe are only as strong as the labs signing them.

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Summary based on Sridhar Ramaswamy on X. Read the full story ↗

Fed holds rates steady; markets read Warsh as wary of more hikes

• The Wall Street Journal reports the Federal Reserve held rates on Wednesday, a month after raising them. Chairman Kevin Warsh said tighter financial conditions showed policy was already working, which investors took as a sign that a fast run of hikes is unlikely; stocks edged up and longer-term yields rose.
• Two officials dissented in favour of a hike, among them Governor Lisa Cook, who had never voted against a Fed decision. Futures still put the chance of a December rise at about 85%.
• The paper notes Anthropic's IPO filing helped tech shares bounce this week, while high oil prices keep inflation worries alive.

Other side: Long-term yields rising while short-term ones fell suggests some investors think the Fed is too relaxed. If inflation stays hot, the calm could turn quickly.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

China's inflation stays low as an energy shock lifts prices elsewhere

• In a Mint column, economists Puneet Kumar Arora and Jaydeep Mukherjee note China's retail inflation was just 0.9% in September 2026, against 3.7% in the US, 3.8% in the eurozone and 5.5% in India, despite the West Asia energy shock.
• Oil reserves and the shift to electric cars helped, but they argue weak demand matters more: housing is about 70% of household assets, and while factory-gate prices rose 5%, core consumer inflation stayed at 1%.
• With retail sales up 1.1% and exports up 14.6% this year, they warn China may export its disinflation, easing prices abroad but stoking trade fights.

Other side: Factory-gate prices are already climbing fast; if energy stays dear, those costs could reach Chinese shoppers and turn exported disinflation into exported inflation.

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Summary based on Mint. Read the full story ↗

China's AI stocks crash 40% as US neocloud debt stress spreads

• Reuters reports China's STAR50 index of AI and chip leaders has fallen 40% in under four months, erasing about $480bn; AI stocks are 42% of China's market value, per Goldman Sachs. The Nasdaq has slipped only 6%.
• In the US the strain shows in credit. ET says CoreWeave's 2032 bonds trade below 80 cents, Musk predicts a die-off among 200-plus neoclouds, and Gartner sees $8.5tn of revenue needed by 2030 against at most $3.6tn.
• Ed Yardeni says air is leaking without a burst. An FT editorial warns hedges are getting dearer; Columbia's Neeraj Kaushal argues AI can transform the economy and still destroy capital.

Other side: The biggest spenders are among the most cash-rich firms ever, and overbuilt railways and fibre were later put to use. Gartner's gap is a model, not a measurement, so losses may stay with leveraged lenders rather than the wider economy.

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Summary based on Reuters, The Economic Times and Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Fed expected to hold as markets see 73% odds of a December rate hike

• The Fed is expected to hold rates this week, so attention shifts to its 8–9 December meeting, where CME's FedWatch tool puts the odds of a rise at 73%, Barron's reports. Inflation is above target and an oil shock is spreading.
• This week's Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon results matter because AI spending has propped up growth and depends on borrowing that gets dearer as rates rise.
• Citigroup economists warn a deeper stock slide could end the hiking cycle. Chair Kevin Warsh wants to drop forward guidance, leaving markets to read the signals.

Watch next: Warsh's press conference on Wednesday and the 8–9 December decision. Dearer energy could keep inflation high even as growth slows, which would push the Fed to hike despite a sell-off.

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Summary based on Barron's. Read the full story ↗

Weight-loss drugs reshape spending as 1 in 10 Americans take GLP-1s

• An FT Big Read finds people on GLP-1 drugs, now about one in 10 Americans, are changing what they eat, buy and do. Gyms are giving more floor space to strength training, and supplement and skincare makers are gaining customers.
• Snacks, fast food and plus-size clothing are losing out: Macy's calls its plus-size business very soft, and brands are pushing smaller, pricier, protein-rich portions.
• More than 200 listed companies outside healthcare discussed the drugs on earnings calls last quarter. Pills and cheaper generics after patents lapse in the early 2030s could widen use.

Other side: Drinking and nights out have barely dipped, so the hit is narrower than feared. Some users regain weight or stop, and so far the clearest effects come from early, wealthier adopters, which may not hold as use widens.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Anthropic IPO filing: $800bn compute bill, founders keep control

• Anthropic's S-1 sets up a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT as soon as next month. The FT says revenue has soared, though growth slowed in the third quarter, and a few big customers bring in a large share.
• It has signed compute deals worth more than $800bn, some running to 2045, with Broadcom, the big clouds, SpaceX, AMD and smaller providers. The founders call the approach bold but sane.
• A Long-Term Benefit Trust picks most of the board and the seven founders hold 50.1% of the vote. A Lex column says the past numbers tell investors little; ordinary holders should expect to be powerless.

Other side: A locked-in founder group and a mission trust can shield long-term bets from short-term traders, which some investors will welcome. But the filing itself warns growth may reflect early adoption; if demand cools, the compute bill does not.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Meta plans $95bn share sale, with Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom as anchors

• Meta plans about $35bn of underwritten share offerings and a further $60bn at-the-market programme, one of the biggest equity raises on record, to pay for AI data centres. The FT says the second part is expected to start in early 2027.
• Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, which all sell it chips and gear, have shown non-binding interest in buying up to $5bn as cornerstone investors.
• A new share structure lets Meta sell stock without diluting Zuckerberg's control, which could meet shareholder pushback. The FT puts it in a wider rush to equity after Alphabet's raise and SpaceX's listing, with Anthropic next.

Other side: Selling shares is a safer cushion than piling on more debt, and Meta says AI already lifts engagement and ad returns. The open question is whether shareholders accept dilution while their say is held down.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Anthropic's S-1 pitches a $40tn market and warns of catastrophe

• WSJ reporters say the filing effectively sizes the prize at $40tn, the value of the world's knowledge work, and shows first-half revenue of $16.3bn. A huge net loss is mostly an accounting charge; the core business eked out a second-quarter operating profit.
• It warns models can try to avoid being shut down and that a catastrophe might be uninsurable. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the deal.
• The Journal's editorial board says the risk list reads like an effort to scare buyers, flags open-weight rivals and regulators, and suspects insiders want to cash out while the boom lasts.

Other side: The cash-out theory is the editorial board's guess, not something the filing says. Long risk lists are standard legal protection, and a lab sitting on a large cash cushion is hardly a forced seller.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Private equity faces $300bn debt wall from 2028, a third in software

• Risky loans owed by buyout-backed firms bunch up in 2028 and 2029, far above the usual load, per PitchBook data cited by WSJ. Much was borrowed in the cheap-money buyout boom of 2021 on seven-year terms.
• Software makers owe about a third, and many face disruption from AI labs. Higher rates make refinancing dearer and exits harder, so firms are racing to negotiate extensions.
• Some sweeten talks with fresh fund cash: Clearlake put money into symplr so lenders would push its maturities to 2030 and 2031.

Other side: Two years leaves time to amend and extend, as lenders did with symplr, and a forced loss rarely suits anyone. A clear fall in rates would shrink the wall quickly.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

France's 10-year bond yield tops 5% as investors weigh euro contagion

• France's 10-year yield rose above 5% for the first time since 2002, CNBC reports, and its premium over Germany is the widest since the euro crisis. The euro is down almost 5% against the dollar this year, and 2026 growth is forecast at 0.5%.
• A WSJ column by James Mackintosh calls France the weakest link in a world of higher rates: a deficit near 5% of GDP against nominal growth of 3% at best, taxes already near their limit, and voters refusing cuts.
• Most analysts CNBC spoke to see contagion as limited: stronger banks, ECB tools and trusted statistics, unlike Greece in 2009.

Other side: A 5% yield is not panic territory, and the ECB would likely step in long before Italy-style spreads. If a credible spending plan emerges after the next election, today's sell-off could look like a buying opportunity.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Read the full story ↗

Who's paying for the AI build-out? Savers, pensions and insurers

• FT columnist Robert Armstrong argues that almost every big pool of capital in the rich world is now funding AI data centres, so anyone with savings is exposed.
• He cites a Brookings estimate that the US build-out will cost $10.3tn through 2032, more each year than the railroad and interstate booms combined. Hyperscalers are spending all their cash flow, chipmakers are buying stakes in AI labs, and debt is piling up.
• Most of that debt is rated investment grade, thanks to hyperscaler guarantees or chips as collateral, which lets it into pensions, annuities and life insurance.

Other side: Investment-grade ratings reflect borrowers that are among the most profitable firms on earth, and booms that looked reckless, like the railroads, still left valuable assets behind. The risk is timing, not ruin.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

China's stocks lose $3.5 trillion as weak demand squeezes profits

• Chinese stocks have shed $3.5tn since a May peak, Bloomberg data in Moneycontrol show, pushing the CSI 300 into a bear market. Reporting MSCI China firms have missed forecasts by 9% on average, led by CATL, while cash-hungry tech giants sell shares.
• A Mint column by IIM Indore's G. Venkat Raman explains why: in September exports jumped 36.3% and industrial output 5.5%, but retail sales rose just 1.1%. Beijing calls it strong supply, weak demand.
• Property gloom and job worries keep households saving, and local rivalry breeds price wars. With growth on target at 4.5%, big stimulus looks unlikely.

Other side: Low valuations, state buying and low bond yields can pull money back fast, and Bridgewater's China arm is cautiously optimistic. A credible push on household incomes from the Fifth Plenum would change the story.

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Summary based on Moneycontrol and Mint. Read the full story ↗

CoreWeave's debt pile tests whether the AI build-out can be financed

• CoreWeave, an AI cloud firm built on borrowed money, has become a test of whether the AI build-out can be financed. Investors have been selling its shares and bonds.
• Its model: sign a contract with a big customer such as Microsoft, then borrow against it, with chips as collateral. Other borrowing is repaid from corporate cash, so debt sits on top of debt; the total is $35.4 billion.
• Rising Treasury yields and hot inflation raised borrowing costs, and yields on its existing debt passed 15%. One startup CEO says Goldman bankers could not explain the slide.

Other side: CoreWeave's CEO calls it a market misunderstanding, Nvidia's Jensen Huang voices confidence, and Goldman's analysts upgraded the stock. Project loans are repaid from customer contracts, so a falling share price is not the same as default.

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Summary based on The Information. Read the full story ↗

SpaceX-Tesla merger and Anthropic IPO: how investors price AI

• The FT's Big Read says Elon Musk wants SpaceX and Tesla combined into one AI-led company worth about $3.5tn, with pay awards that could reach $1.7tn.
• Anthropic told investors its third-quarter revenue was $16.8bn, up 45% on the quarter, and profitable on an adjusted basis, with an annual run rate of $67bn, Damodaran notes.
• Damodaran says young, loss-making firms are priced on buzzy metrics, from eyeballs to users to ARR, and warns that ARR can be defined in different ways.

Other side: Bulls say AI's market is vast and the leaders will take most of it. Bears say compute costs, cheaper open-source rivals and rules could squeeze margins, and critics see the merger as a way to shift attention from a weaker Tesla. Damodaran takes no side until the full prospectus is filed.

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Summary based on Financial Times, The Economic Times and Musings on Markets. Read the full story ↗

France's riots meet a debt squeeze, and youth want the system fixed

• The WSJ says years of subsidies to cushion prices have left France with one of Europe's biggest deficits, and investors have pushed its 10-year borrowing costs above 5%.
• It adds that stagnant real incomes, a heavy tax burden and pension costs hidden in ministry budgets leave little room for new help.
• The FT's Simon Kuper describes looting in Paris and polls that put Marine Le Pen in line to win next year's election, while a Janan Ganesh column argues the young protesters mostly want a fairer system, not a new one.

Other side: Kuper notes the French often talk radical but act conservative, and Ganesh reads the protests as a bid to make the existing system work. So the anger may be answerable through budget choices, but the bond market may not wait for them.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

US recyclers harvest rare earths from old wind turbines

• The WSJ says Paladin EnviroTech is pulling rare-earth magnets from retired wind turbines in Iowa, hoping to cut US reliance on China.
• Only a fraction of older turbines carry rare earths, but newer, more powerful ones hold much more, so supply grows as fleets are replaced.
• Dismantling huge parts and separating the metals cheaply are the hard parts; most recyclers so far chased copper instead.

Other side: Few turbines carry rare earths, and battery-recycling ventures have stumbled before on supply and cost. This can complement new mines, not replace them.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Hedge funds post broadest losses since Covid as AI stocks slide

• Bloomberg reports, citing Goldman Sachs's prime brokerage, that Thursday's tech sell-off pushed all three broad equity hedge fund strategies down more than 1% on the same day for the first time since Covid; about two-thirds of funds lost money.
• In FT's Unhedged, Robert Armstrong says Treasuries rallied hard, with the 10-year yield falling to 4.96%, and calls it a fear-driven, risk-off move rather than a bet on lower inflation or rate cuts.
• He notes losses are concentrated in hyperscalers, chipmakers and data-centre builders, while defensives such as consumer staples have rallied; strong consumer spending and earnings still support stocks.

Other side: Armstrong notes the economy and earnings remain strong, and most S&P 500 stocks are up since early October. One bad day in earnings season may be a rotation, not the start of winter.

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Summary based on Bloomberg and Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

Meta's Muse passes 10 million downloads, but costs outrun revenue

• Zuckerberg said on Meta's earnings call that more than 10 million people in the US and Canada have downloaded Muse, its AI agent app, far faster than ChatGPT's app reached that mark.
• WSJ columnist Asa Fitch argues that even rapid subscriber growth would cover only a slice of Meta's AI spending, which analysts expect to approach $200 billion next year; free cash flow has turned negative and debt has climbed.
• Meta also created a new class of nonvoting shares, seen as a step towards raising equity, and its stock fell sharply on Thursday. Fitch adds that low trust in Meta could limit what users let an agent do.

Other side: Meta's ad business still grew strongly last quarter, and its reach across Instagram and WhatsApp is unmatched. Heavy early spending is how platforms are won; judging returns six weeks in may be premature.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Tokenised stocks still need someone to vouch for the ledger, FT argues

• Brendan Greeley argues that tokenisation, putting assets such as Treasuries, funds and now stocks on blockchains, speeds up trading but does not fix trust: buyers still need to know what the issuer holds and who stands behind it.
• He notes the SEC in September gave a temporary exemption letting firms make markets in tokenised stocks, and data provider rwa.xyz counts $39bn of tokenised real-world assets.
• Vanderbilt's Morgan Ricks tells him tokenisation is "just a different ledger"; regulated players such as BlackRock and JPMorgan carry the same old risks on new plumbing.

Other side: Round-the-clock settlement and cross-border trading are real gains, and well-regulated issuers can earn trust as they always have. Dismissing the technology risks missing cheaper, faster markets.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

AI stocks drove $138bn in gains for US public pensions, WSJ finds

• A WSJ analysis of 13 large public pensions finds a basket of 15 AI-linked stocks drove $138 billion in paper gains from late 2022 to June, rising to about 27% of their US equity holdings.
• Yet officials in the same states are slowing data centres: New York paused many new projects in July, and Pennsylvania’s governor tightened approval rules in August.
• The Equable Institute says the boom has nearly restored pre-2008 funding levels; a sharp downturn could leave governments facing tens of billions in costs.

Other side: Pensions mostly track indexes, so the AI weight reflects the market, not a bet. Selling to make a political point has cost retirees before, and trustees’ duty is to risk-adjusted returns.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

AI bull market is no dotcom bubble, argues Bloomberg’s Nir Kaissar

• In a Bloomberg Opinion column carried by Mint, Nir Kaissar argues the AI rally lacks the euphoria that drives bubbles: bears now outnumber bulls by 8 percentage points in AAII surveys, while bulls led by over 20 points in the late 1990s.
• He concedes AI’s grip is bigger: AI firms make up 40% to 60% of US market value and nearly 70% of S&P 500 third-quarter earnings growth, per Citadel Securities estimates.
• His forecast: profit growth cools and a pullback follows, but absent a crisis, nothing worse than an ordinary bear market.

Other side: Scepticism alone does not prevent a bust. Concentration is higher than in 1999, earnings can disappoint, and as Kaissar admits, bubbles are hard to call in real time.

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Summary based on Mint. Read the full story ↗

Private credit firms court retail investors with festivals and F1

• The WSJ reports asset managers are courting wealth advisers at events like California’s Future Proof Festival, where nearly 6,000 attendees got concerts, wellness classes and private-credit pitches, as institutional clients reach their limits.
• Carlyle uses a Red Bull F1 sponsorship; Blue Owl and EQT back tennis; Apollo sponsors a PGA golfer.
• Withdrawals are rising: investors pulled an estimated $30 billion from retail-marketed funds in 2026’s first three quarters, per Robert A. Stanger, and many funds limit quarterly exits.

Other side: Supporters say it opens returns once reserved for institutions, and advisers insist perks don’t sway their picks. For some clients a small allocation can make sense.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗

Is China falling into Japan’s lost-decade trap?

• The FT finds China showing Japan-style malaise: falling property values, deflationary pressure, cautious consumers and a population that began shrinking in 2022. Total debt is near 300% of GDP, by Capital Economics’ count.
• An updated Goldman Sachs ‘Japanisation’ gauge has rated China more Japanised than Japan for years, and household bank lending has fallen outright for the first time.
• Nomura’s Richard Koo calls it a balance-sheet recession needing bold fiscal spending; Beijing is leaning on exports and high-tech bets instead.

Other side: BNP Paribas’s Isabelle Mateos y Lago says the differences matter more: China is poorer, its factories stay competitive, and its very high household savings could be unlocked.

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Summary based on Financial Times. Read the full story ↗

California’s one-time billionaire tax may lose money, study finds

• California’s proposed Billionaire Tax Act, on the November ballot, would take a one-time 5% of the worldwide wealth of residents worth over $1bn on 1 January 2026.
• Economists Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh estimate it would raise about $30bn ($28–36bn), under a third of an earlier $100bn projection, partly because seven billionaires holding about 28.5% of the base left first.
• Billionaires pay an estimated $3.3–5.8bn a year in state income tax. Counting those lost years, the authors put the net value at −$38.9bn, with 85% of 100,000 simulations negative.

Watch next: The paper assumes even odds the tax survives court and is not yet peer reviewed; 15% of its simulations still show a gain for the state.

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Summary based on NBER. Read the full story ↗

Want to short the AI boom? Futures on chip rental prices are coming

• Silicon Data, founded by former Bloomberg data executive Carmen Li, compiles indexes of Nvidia chip rental prices. CME plans cash-settled futures on them for H100 and B200 chips, running up to three years out.
• The launch slipped after the CFTC extended its review; the regulator has flagged manipulation risk and doubts that compute is standard enough to trade like a commodity.
• Rival Ornn, backed by a16z, is working with ICE on similar contracts. Silicon Data’s backers include DRW founder Don Wilson, VanEck and Jump Trading.

Other side: Sceptics recall dot-com bandwidth futures, which failed when a fibre glut sank prices; a market only works if its benchmark can be trusted.

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Summary based on The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story ↗