👋 ICYMI
Democrats won both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, flipping seven Senate seats, gaining at least 39 House seats and picking up five governorships. Data centers were on the ballot as well. Voters sided against data centers in all but one of 41 local measures across 10 states, and Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has called for an immediate moratorium on new data center development. Wall Street first read the result as relief: the Dow jumped 3.03% on Wednesday to 53,356. Then it read the fine print.
On Thursday, the Nasdaq fell 5.5% and closed in correction territory at 24,315, more than 10% below its Oct. 6 record. The S&P 500 lost 4.36% and the Dow 1,833 points, and all three had their worst day since April 2025. The Magnificent Seven gave up more than $1 trillion of market value, and Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 2.78% ) alone lost more than $440 billion. Friday brought a partial bounce, with the Nasdaq up 1.09%. "We still think AI is the dominant theme in this bull market," said Truist's Keith Lerner. For the week, the S&P 500 fell 2.68% to 7,376.86 and the Nasdaq 3.37% to 24,579, both their fourth straight weekly loss. The Dow slipped 0.94% to 51,286, the Russell 2000 lost 2.05%, and the VIX jumped 32% to 25.6.
The economy kept running hot. October payrolls rose by 165,000, almost three times the 59,000 economists expected, unemployment fell to 4.1%, and August and September were revised up by a combined 84,000. Traders now see a 77% chance of a December rate hike, up from 67% on Thursday, per CME FedWatch. The 10-year Treasury yield still finished at 4.86%, down from 4.94%, after Thursday's flight to safety, while the 2-year ended at 4.51%. Oil went the other way from last week. Brent fell 8.7% on Wednesday to $94.62 and WTI 8.3% to $88.12, both the lowest settlements since Aug. 31, as traders bet the election raises the odds of a deal with Iran.
🔁 Market Movers
🗳 Chips Had Their Worst Day Since March 2020
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12.2% on Thursday to 9,011, its biggest one-day drop since March 16, 2020. It was down 21.8% over five sessions and 38.4% from its June 22 high. All 30 stocks in the index traded lower. Nvidia lost 9.3% and turned negative for the year, AMD $AMD ( ▲ 11.04% ) fell 17.3%, Micron $MU ( ▲ 5.12% ) 17.5% and Broadcom 10.4%, while Qualcomm $QCOM ( ▲ 5.53% ) dropped 9.5% on a soft forecast. The trigger was the read on the election: Dan Ives, one of the loudest AI bulls, said hyperscaler capex still tops $1 trillion next year, but growth will likely moderate in 2028 as Democratic governors and state houses regulate the industry locally. The index bounced 4.2% on Friday but still lost 12.15% on the week, its fifth straight weekly decline. The selloff is about expectations, not reported order cuts. The market is pricing in slower permits and power hookups, not vanishing demand.
💻 AMD Beat and Raised. Two Days Later, It Fell 17.3%.
On Tuesday night, AMD reported revenue up 45% to $13.38 billion against $13.09 billion expected, and adjusted EPS of $2.09 against $1.95. Data center sales nearly doubled and now make up 64% of revenue. It guided fourth-quarter revenue to about $17 billion, well above the $16.2 billion consensus, and Lisa Su said she expects server revenue to double in 2027. The stock rose 8% after hours. Then the election math took over: AMD fell 17.3% to $404.40 on Thursday, bounced 11.0% to $449.04 on Friday, and finished the week down 11.0%. This is the hardest part of a macro selloff. A company can raise its numbers and still get sold, because the market is repricing the whole sector's future, not one quarter.
🔗 Marvell Bet $115 Billion on Optics. Investors Sold Both Stocks.
Marvell $MRVL ( ▲ 5.73% ) agreed on Monday to buy Lumentum $LITE ( ▲ 5.67% ) in a $115 billion all-stock deal including debt. Lumentum holders get 4.5 Marvell shares each, valuing Lumentum at $1,132 a share, a 23.9% premium. The logic is AI connectivity: data centers now link thousands of chips that share data faster than copper can carry it. "AI infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental architectural shift toward optical connectivity, creating an opportunity that comes along once in a generation," said Marvell CEO Matt Murphy. Investors didn't like the price. The deal values Lumentum at about 33 times forward core profit, more than double the peer median, and the equity value of $102.5 billion is over ten times Marvell's previous biggest purchase. Marvell fell 12.7% and Lumentum 18.6% on Monday, and Marvell ended the week down 28.1%.
✈️ Airbnb Jumped 11.7%: "We're Back in Growth Mode"
Airbnb $ABNB ( ▲ 11.67% ) raised its full-year revenue growth forecast to the "high teens" from "at least mid-teens", and nights and seats booked rose 16% to 155 million in the third quarter. "We're back in growth mode," CEO Brian Chesky said. Jefferies' John Colantuoni noted that all major regions posted faster bookings growth, and first-time bookers are at their strongest pace in several years. Airbnb is also building its own AI travel agent. The upbeat outlook stood out because Booking, Expedia and TripAdvisor have all pointed to higher airfares tied to the Iran war. The stock rose 11.7% to $189.99 on Friday, finishing the week up 15.6% while the Nasdaq fell.
🚀 IonQ +23%, TransMedics +28%, Moderna Raised: Friday's Beat-and-Raise Winners
Thursday night delivered three beat-and-raise reports, and all three got paid on Friday. IonQ $IONQ ( ▲ 23.42% ) reported revenue up 336% to $173.8 million against $141.2 million expected, raised its 2026 guide to $505–515 million from $450–460 million, and said it has sold out its 256-qubit capacity for 2027. The stock rose 23.4% to $32.62. TransMedics $TMDX ( ▲ 27.92% ) grew revenue 41% to $203.0 million, earned 51 cents a share against about 30 cents expected, and raised its full-year guide to $764–774 million. It jumped 27.9% to $88.24. Moderna $MRNA ( ▲ 5.27% ) posted revenue up 29% to $1.31 billion against $885.1 million expected, swung to a $162 million profit, and lifted its 2026 growth outlook to 15–25% from up to 10%. It rose 5.3%. In a week that punished the AI build-out, the market still paid up for companies that raised their numbers.
👀 Signals I'm Watching
🏛 165,000 Jobs Put a December Hike at 77%
Friday's report beat every one of the 79 forecasts in Bloomberg's survey, according to TheStreet. The gains were broad, too. Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs, healthcare 42,000, transportation and warehousing 25,000, and manufacturing 19,000, and the labor force grew by 421,000. Wages rose 3.1% from a year ago. The dollar index rose 0.7%, its best day since June 18, as December hike odds climbed to 77%. The next test comes Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, when October CPI is expected to show 3.9% inflation, up from 3.7%, with core expected to cool somewhat on a monthly basis. A hot CPI would make a December hike close to certain, just as the market is trying to find a floor.
💸 OpenAI Got $1.25 Trillion. Anthropic's Price Is Next.
OpenAI has raised $11 billion so far in a round that values it at $1.25 trillion, according to Bloomberg. The round could total about $20 billion when it closes in the coming weeks, well short of the $30 billion it was reportedly seeking in late September. The bigger test is Anthropic, which is set to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT and is expected to start its roadshow next week. It was looking toward a $2 trillion valuation as recently as last month. Now some investors call even $1.5 trillion "a stretch", and one told CNBC that $1 trillion to $1.25 trillion is more likely. "The market really needs this IPO to go well and the bankers on the deal surely understand that," said D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria. A clean debut would steady the whole AI complex. A cut price would tell us the reset has further to run.
🛢 Oil Fell 8.7% in a Day on Bets That the Iran War Ends Sooner
"The reason we lost is the war," Vice President JD Vance posted on Wednesday, and Brent dropped 8.7% to $94.62. Oil futures had already fallen more than 14% in the week by Wednesday's close as U.S. and Iranian officials signaled they were open to a diplomatic settlement. "The elections are leading the market to conclude that Trump might now be inclined to make a deal," said Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates. Rapidan Energy's Bob McNally warned that the odds still favor military escalation in the region. For stocks, cheaper oil is one of the few things working in the market's favor. It eases pressure on inflation and on the consumer, just as the Fed weighs another hike.
🧭 Retail Sold the Most Since Covid. Strategists Want One More Flush.
Thursday retail dumped a net $257 million in individual stocks, Vanda Research's fifth-biggest selling day since March 2020, and the Cboe equity put/call ratio hit 1.05, above Liberation Day. That kind of fear is often a contrarian buy signal, but traders want confirmation. Freedom Capital Markets' Jay Woods wants to see the VIX above 30 before calling a real flush. "We're very close to this final capitulation," he said. "We're not seeing the panic yet, but we are seeing opportunities." The fundamentals haven't cracked. S&P 500 earnings are on track to grow 31% in the third quarter, per FactSet's John Butters, and the index is roughly where it was in July. Woods is already drawing up a list of the hardest-hit chip names: "It's not the time to jump in with both feet. But it's time to start nibbling."
Voters just became an AI risk factor.
AMD beat, raised and still lost 17.3% in a day, because the market started repricing the whole build-out at once. Selloffs like this don't separate the good companies from the bad ones. They sell both. The question for every investor now is which growth companies keep compounding when the AI cycle gets bumpier. That's what we answer in premium, one company at a time.
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⚠️ Red Flag to Note
The headline was 165,000 jobs. Underneath it, people who lose a job are staying unemployed longer than at any point since 2021. The average stretch of unemployment jumped 2.3 weeks to 27.1 weeks, the longest since September 2021, and the number of people out of work for more than 27 weeks rose to 1.96 million, the most since December 2021. The broader U-6 rate, which counts discouraged workers and people stuck in part-time jobs, rose 0.3 percentage point to 7.9%. Excluding the pandemic, both the median and average duration of unemployment are the longest in about a decade, Reuters notes, and all of the net gains in household employment and participation have come from foreign-born workers, while employment among native-born workers has fallen since July. Put that next to CPI expected at 3.9% and a Fed that markets now expect to hike in December. Layoffs are low, so most people with a job are fine. But the people who lose one are staying out longer, and higher rates make that harder, not easier. If spending is going to crack, this is where it would start.
🔍 Insider Transactions I’m Watching
Ticker | Insider | Action | Value | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Lip-Bu Tan — CEO | Buy | ~$9.7M | Tan bought 150,000 shares at about $64.73 on Nov. 2 through his family trust, which now holds 1,464,669 shares. It came one trading day after Intel's 28.6% plunge on a weak fourth-quarter guide. It's the largest insider purchase at a tracked AI or chip company this quarter, per Silicon Floor. | |
Mike Novogratz — CEO | Buy | ~$9.9M | Novogratz bought 760,000 shares on Nov. 5 at weighted prices of about $12.69 and $13.63 through an entity he controls, on a day the stock fell 7% and bitcoin slipped below $76,000. Galaxy had lost about 41% in a month, partly on Texas data center worries, even as its data center business reported $69 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q3, up from $11 million in Q2. He called the gap between price and value a "massive disconnect." The board also approved another $200 million buyback. | |
Adam Norwitt — President & CEO | Sell | ~$66.0M | Norwitt exercised 799,576 options at $11.19 and sold the same number of shares at about $82.48 on Nov. 2, the day Marvell announced its Lumentum deal, and also gifted 200,000 shares. Amphenol is a major supplier of the connectors and cables inside AI data centers, and the stock closed Friday at $74.59, about 10% below his sale price. Exercising long-dated options early is common planning. The size, three years before expiry and right before the chip rout, is worth noting. |
📬 Closing Note
Voters went to the polls on Tuesday, and by Thursday the chip index had its worst day since 2020. The market isn't saying AI demand is gone. AMD just raised its forecast. It's saying the build-out could take longer, cost more and face more pushback than the prices assumed, and it repriced the whole group in a day.
What gives me cautious optimism is the backdrop underneath the selloff: 165,000 new jobs, S&P 500 earnings growth tracking about 31%, oil down sharply on hopes for an Iran deal, and retail selling at its most intense since Covid. Demand didn't disappear this week. Prices did.
The four companies I own that reported this week all delivered. Duolingo $DUOL ( ▲ 2.17% ) grew daily active users 29% and jumped 26% on Wednesday. Ouster $OUST ( ▲ 14.01% ) posted record product revenue and total revenue of $59.3 million, up 50%. Sezzle $SEZL ( ▼ 3.59% ) grew revenue 42.6% and raised its 2026 guide for the fourth time. TeraWulf $WULF ( ▲ 12.8% ) reported $63.0 million of HPC lease revenue, about 83% of the total, and rose 12.8% on Friday.
If you missed Wednesday's deep dive, AXT $AXTI: The AI Optics Bottleneck Just Got Bigger covers why AXT's backlog passed $500 million in one quarter while the stock was about 66% below its May peak. With Marvell paying $115 billion to own more of the optical supply chain this week, it's a timely read.
Stay patient. Stay selective. And let the data guide the story.
Until next Sunday —
