Chips +2-6% on Anthropic's IPO filing; Brazil -13.88%; Fed day one

The AI trade came back on Monday because Anthropic filed to go public: the Nasdaq rose 0.82%, the S&P 500 0.70%, the chipmakers gained 2% to 6%, and 57 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. The same day Meta launched a plan to sell up to $95 billion of stock to pay for AI and fell 1.88%, Brazil’s Ibovespa dropped 13.88% after President Lula’s re-election, and Verizon lost 3.49% on a revenue miss. Overnight Seoul closed up 3.1% and Tokyo 1.7%, US futures are flat to slightly lower, the Fed’s two-day meeting begins today, and Coca-Cola, Boeing, PayPal and UPS report before the open, Visa and Robinhood after.

Monday: the chips led, but the new-lows list says the rally was narrow

The S&P 500 rose 53.18 points, or 0.70%, to 7,676.77, the Nasdaq Composite 0.82% to 26,169.38, the Dow 0.28% to 52,361.58 and the Russell 2000 0.38% to 2,786.42, per CappNotes and Investrade. The VIX fell 5.45% to 18.39. The 10-year Treasury yield was unchanged at 4.987%, still a hair under 5%, with the 2-year up 3.2 basis points to 4.712%; the long-bond fund TLT rose 0.42% to $81.68 and the gold fund GLD 0.33% to $367.82, with December gold up 0.76% to $4,038.40. In our 100, the S&P 500 fund SPY rose 0.71% to $765.37, the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ 1.11% to $712.20, the Dow fund DIA 0.31% to $522.97 and the small-cap fund IWM 0.45% to $276.99. 57 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. 42 fell, and the health care fund XLV was unchanged at $179.28, the only flat name in the feed.

Technology was the best sector, up 1.69%, then industrials 1.42% and consumer discretionary 1.03%, while communication services fell 1.57% and consumer staples 0.34%, per CappNotes. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2.82% to 11,083.47 and is still down 12.2% for October. In our 100, Arm (ARM) rose 6.19% to $223.35 from $210.33, the biggest gain of the day, with no filing or headline of its own, per Quiver Quant; Texas Instruments (TXN) 4.72% to $298.12 from $284.69, five sessions after its October 21 report, again with no news we could find; Intel (INTC) 4.04% to $90.47 from $86.96 on 98.3 million shares after New Street upgraded it to Buy, arguing server CPU shortages persist for years, and JPMorgan lifted it to Neutral, per 24/7 Wall St. and Benzinga; Cisco (CSCO) 3.51% to $110.24 from $106.50; Micron (MU) 2.98% to $903.70 from $877.55; AMD (AMD) 2.80% to $531.28; Applied Materials (AMAT) 2.74%; Nvidia (NVDA) 2.39% to $216.00 from $210.96 on 90.5 million shares; Broadcom (AVGO) 2.33% to $329.17; and Qualcomm (QCOM) 2.10%. The technology fund XLK rose 1.69% to $186.32. The data-infrastructure and security names kept Friday’s bid: MongoDB (MDB) rose 4.86% to $389.11, Datadog (DDOG) 3.93% to $280.24, Snowflake (SNOW) 2.93%, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) 2.60%, Cloudflare (NET) 1.88% and CrowdStrike (CRWD) 1.65%, and Microsoft (MSFT) rose 1.54% to $532.60 from $524.51 ahead of its Wednesday report, while Adobe (ADBE) fell 1.97%, ServiceNow (NOW) 0.49% and Salesforce (CRM) 0.39%.

The numbers under the index are less cheerful than the index. CappNotes counts 349 new 52-week lows on the Nasdaq against 82 new highs, NYSE advancers beat decliners by only 1.36 to 1, and Yahoo Finance notes the equal-weight S&P 500 lagged the cap-weighted one. The sector that fell hardest, communication services, is the platforms, not the suppliers: Meta (META) fell 1.88%, Alphabet (GOOGL) 1.06% to $316.80, Netflix (NFLX) 2.96% to $63.90, Disney (DIS) 1.88%, Spotify (SPOT) 2.03%, Reddit (RDDT) 4.02% to $138.45 from $144.25 and Verizon (VZ) 3.49%. Apple (AAPL) fell 1.10% to $343.91 from $347.73, off its $351.73 52-week high, after reports of display cracks on the foldable iPhone, per Investrade. The banks rose with the tape, Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.01% to $893.28, Morgan Stanley (MS) 2.23%, JPMorgan (JPM) 0.74% and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) 1.17%, and RTX (RTX) rose 3.39% to $197.48 from $191.01 with GE Aerospace (GE) up 0.98% and Caterpillar (CAT) 0.75%, with no RTX headline we could find.

Anthropic’s S-1 and Meta’s $95 billion: who is paying for AI

Anthropic filed its S-1 publicly on Monday and intends to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq as “ANT”, with the share count and price range not yet set, per the company’s statement and the SEC filing. The figures that moved the chip stocks: revenue of $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026 against $1.2 billion a year earlier, after $4.6 billion for all of 2025 and $386 million for 2024, per Yahoo Finance and ABC’s reading of the filing, with remaining performance obligations of $10.8 billion. The figure the headlines led with was the other side: a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, after a loss of about $42 billion in 2025, per Yahoo Finance and Peter Lewis’s Asian briefing, and five customers accounted for about a quarter of revenue in the first nine months of the year. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading, the talk is of a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion valuation, which would beat SpaceX’s June record, and the risk-factor section runs about 94 pages, which is where the BBC’s “catastrophic risks” headline comes from. None of the valuation figures is in the filing, so they stay as reporting, not fact.

Meta is paying for its share of the build-out with stock. On Monday it launched up to $95 billion of equity, per CappNotes and Reuters: $25 billion of Class A common stock priced at $625 a share, upsized from $22.5 billion, plus $12.5 billion of three-year mandatory convertible preferred sold as 250 million depositary shares at $50, both expected to close on October 29, and an at-the-market program of up to $60 billion in non-voting Class C shares expected to start in the first quarter of 2027. Nvidia said it would buy $3 billion of the common offering as part of a wider partnership on Meta’s Muse models and agents, with Meta expanding its use of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems, and Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom together indicated interest in up to $5 billion, non-binding, per Reuters and Investing.com. Meta fell 1.88% to $630.56 from $642.62, so the $625 offering price sits about 0.9% below the close, and the after-hours feed had it at $633.33. Peter Lewis adds that Meta’s future spending commitments rose by $125 billion to $825 billion in the same disclosure. On the same day Elon Musk said debt markets had cut off funding for AI data-center operators without other revenue, and the neocloud names were volatile, per Investrade. The pattern on the tape is simple: the company selling stock to fund AI fell, and the companies being paid with it rose.

Verizon, Tesla, PayPal, Merck and the deals

Verizon (VZ) fell 3.49% to $43.10 from $44.66 on 45.2 million shares after a beat on earnings and a miss on revenue: adjusted earnings of $1.31 a share against a $1.27 consensus, 8.3% higher than a year earlier, on revenue of $34.31 billion, 1.5% higher but short of the $34.77 billion estimate, per Zacks, 24/7 Wall St. and CappNotes. Postpaid phone net additions were 406,000, the best third quarter in five years, and the company raised its 2026 earnings guidance to $5.04 to $5.06 a share and its phone-add target to 1.1 million to 1.2 million, while equipment revenue fell 9% as customers keep handsets longer and the company cut subsidies, which is where the revenue shortfall sits. Verizon also announced an AWS deal worth over $2 billion, per Investrade. AT&T (T) fell 0.38% to $20.85 and T-Mobile (TMUS) rose 0.27%, so the SpaceX tower report of Friday did not get a second leg; American Tower (AMT) fell 0.37% to $188.28 and reports at 7:00 a.m. ET today.

Tesla (TSLA) rose 5.21% to $391.62 from $372.22 after Barclays upgraded it to Overweight, arguing that a combination with SpaceX is widely expected and most likely as an all-stock acquisition of Tesla by SpaceX, and pointing to a sharp rise in robotaxi miles, per Yahoo Finance and Opening Bell Daily. That is an analyst’s view of a deal nobody has announced, and Monday’s buyers took it anyway; the after-hours feed had the stock at $393.00. Rivian (RIVN) fell 3.38% to $11.43.

PayPal (PYPL) fell 3.56% to $54.99 from $57.02 ahead of its report before today’s open, and 24/7 Wall St. notes the financials fund XLF rose 0.21% on the day, so the selling was the stock’s own; the worry cited is checkout share against Klarna and Affirm, and Affirm (AFRM) fell 0.84%. Consensus for PayPal is $1.31 a share, per Earnings Whispers. Block (XYZ) fell 2.50% to $74.55 after Morgan Stanley cut it to Equal Weight on credit-risk concerns, per Investrade; Coinbase (COIN) fell 2.95% to $159.60 with bitcoin near $79,800, and Robinhood (HOOD) 2.35% to $92.84 ahead of its report after the close. Merck (MRK) fell 3.21% to $140.61 from $145.27, its second 3% fall in three sessions after last Thursday’s leaked melanoma-vaccine data with Moderna, per Bloomberg, with its report due Thursday; UnitedHealth (UNH) fell 1.77%. Reddit’s 4.02% fall came ahead of its own Thursday report.

Deals topped the movers feed. Surgery Partners (SGRY) rose 47.53% to $23.25 after HealthSpan Partners, an affiliate of Bon Secours Mercy Health, agreed to buy it for $23.50 a share in cash, about $5.7 billion in enterprise value, per the company’s 8-K. Range Resources (RRC) rose 17.61% to $53.56 after EQT agreed to buy it in an all-stock deal, 0.987 EQT shares per Range share, valued above $50 billion in enterprise value, per the Motley Fool and CappNotes. Instacart’s parent Maplebear (CART) rose 7.79% to $60.86 on a Wall Street Journal report that DoorDash is in advanced talks to acquire it, and DoorDash fell, per Investrade; Friday’s 9.24% rise in CART now has a story. GrafTech (EAF) rose 26.39% and Rapid7 (RPD) 20.46% to $17.96, neither with a story we could confirm, so they stay as data. After the close, per CappNotes and CNBC: Cadence Design (CDNS) rose 2.28% on adjusted earnings of $2.11 a share and revenue of $1.633 billion, raised its 2026 outlook to 21% revenue growth and $8.40 a share, and added $2.5 billion to its buyback; Celestica (CLS) rose 13.18% on adjusted earnings of $3.30 and an initial 2027 revenue outlook of $40.0 billion; Whirlpool (WHR) fell 8.88% after a third-quarter loss and a cut in full-year revenue guidance to $14.5 billion from $15 billion; Amkor (AMKR) rose 4.32%; and Nucor (NUE) was flat on adjusted earnings of $4.84 and cautious fourth-quarter guidance.

Brazil: a 13.88% day and a circuit breaker

President Lula won Sunday’s runoff with 51.8% of valid votes to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.2%, per the electoral court count, and markets that had positioned for the other result repriced in one session. The Ibovespa fell 13.88% to 176,608, its worst day since March 2020, after a 10% fall in the morning tripped a 30-minute circuit breaker, the first since the 2020 pandemic halts, per the Rio Times; the intraday low was as much as 17% down, per the Economist and Eurasia Business News. The dollar rose 8.79% against the real to 5.4154. Bradesco’s preferred shares fell 21.70%, Itaú’s 13.66% and Petrobras’s preferred 8.18%. In New York the Brazil fund EWZ fell almost 20%, per Peter Lewis, and Investrade lists MercadoLibre, Nubank, Petrobras and Itaú ADRs among the day’s sellers. The fiscal arithmetic that worries the market, per David Roche’s note as quoted by Peter Lewis: sovereign debt at 83% of GDP, a deficit near 10% of GDP and a Selic rate of 13.75%. None of this reached the US indexes, which rose.

Overnight: Seoul +3.1%, Tokyo +1.7%, oil lower, futures flat

Asia bought the AI trade on Tuesday. The Kospi closed up 3.1% at 5,638.34, after rising as much as 4% intraday, with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics leading, per the AP and KuCoin’s wrap, and the Nikkei 225 rose 1.7% to 63,268.37 per the AP, with Advantest up more than 10%, after Monday’s close was the lowest since July 30. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gave back early gains to close about 0.2% lower near 23,174 and the Shanghai Composite about 0.1% lower, with the party plenum in its second day, per the AP; Australia’s ASX 200 rose 0.46% to 8,850.1, a seven-week high, per ABC; Taiwan’s market reopens today after Monday’s holiday. In Europe on Monday the Stoxx 600 rose 0.8% after a 1.4% fall last week, the DAX 0.9%, the CAC 40 0.8% and the FTSE 100 0.7%, per CNBC and ZeroHedge’s wrap, and spread-betting firms called the FTSE 64 points lower for Tuesday, per the Market Reporter.

US futures were flat at 1:39 a.m. ET: Dow futures up 0.20%, S&P 500 futures down 0.04% and Nasdaq-100 futures down 0.30%, per TipRanks, and CNBC’s later reading had S&P 500 futures down 0.13%, Nasdaq-100 futures down 0.42% and Dow futures flat. Oil is lower again: Brent down 1.01% to $114.64 and WTI down 1.11% to $100.63, per TipRanks, after Monday’s settlements of $115.81, down 0.8%, and $101.76, down 1.46%, per Reuters, on hopes for the Qatari and Saudi mediation in Tehran; the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at 282.6 million barrels, its lowest since October 1982. Spot gold is near $4,006 to $4,024 after Monday’s 0.76% gain in the December contract. The after-hours feed shows Nvidia at $216.50, Meta $633.33, Tesla $393.00, PayPal $54.57, Coca-Cola $92.55, Boeing $188.49, UPS $100.10 and Visa $403.72, each within 1% of its close.

What to watch today

The Fed: the two-day FOMC meeting begins today, with the decision Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET and the funds rate at 3.75% to 4.00%; futures put a 25-basis-point hike near 10%, per Seeking Alpha, and the Reuters poll of 100 economists had 94 expecting a hold.
Before the open: Coca-Cola (KO), consensus $0.88 a share; PayPal (PYPL), $1.31; Boeing (BA), a loss of $0.24 a share on $24.39 billion in revenue; UPS (UPS); American Tower (AMT) at 7:00 a.m., the first tower owner to speak since the SpaceX report; also Corning (GLW), SoFi (SOFI), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), S&P Global (SPGI), Centene (CNC), HCA, Royal Caribbean (RCL), Hilton (HLT), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), Novartis (NVS), HSBC and PACCAR (PCAR), per Earnings Whispers and CappNotes.
Data: September durable goods orders at 8:30 a.m. ET, consensus +1.8% after 0.0%; Case-Shiller and FHFA home prices at 9:00; Conference Board consumer confidence at 10:00, consensus about 80.5 after 81.9, with new home sales, consensus 649,000 after 684,000, and the Richmond Fed survey at the same hour; the $70 billion 5-year note auction at 1:00 p.m., prior yield 5.033%, per CappNotes and Investing.com.
After the close: Visa (V), consensus $3.44 a share on $12.09 billion; Robinhood (HOOD); Seagate (STX); NXP (NXPI); SK hynix; Enphase (ENPH); Waste Management (WM); F5 (FFIV). Earnings Whispers counts 151 reports today, 66 before the open and 85 after.
The opens: the chipmakers after Seoul’s 3.1% and Tokyo’s 1.7%; Meta at the $625 offering price against a $630.56 close; Tesla after its 5.21% gain; Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile after Verizon’s report; the Brazil ADRs and EWZ for a second session.
Abroad: Israel votes today; the Bank of Canada decides Wednesday, the ECB Thursday and the Bank of Japan Friday; China’s plenum runs through Thursday.
This week: Microsoft and Alphabet report Wednesday after the close, Amazon, Intel, Merck, Reddit and Caterpillar on Thursday; third-quarter GDP, consensus 3.0% annualized, and September PCE land Thursday at 8:30 a.m.; Meta’s offerings close Thursday.

Not financial advice. iTrading Buddy summarizes publicly available market data and news; every figure above is sourced from the reporting available before the US open on the date shown. Verify anything you act on.