So here we are, the day after Halloween, and Wall Street is dealing with its own kind of horror show. The Magnificent Seven started dropping their quarterly report cards, and let’s just say the results are giving investors some serious mixed feelings.
The “Sort Of” Success Story
Three of the big boys reported yesterday, and honestly? It’s like getting a B+ on a test you studied really hard for – good, but somehow still disappointing.
Meta crushed it with 26% revenue growth ($51.2 billion, thank you very much), but then they casually mentioned they’re planning to spend $70-72 billion on AI. That’s “buy a small country” money, folks. The stock promptly face-planted in double digits because apparently, even Wall Street has limits on how much AI spending they can stomach.
Microsoft also beat expectations with $77.7 billion in revenue and Azure growing 40%. But plot twist – their AI spending jumped 74% in one quarter. It’s like watching your friend renovate their kitchen and realizing they’ve somehow spent more than your mortgage.
Google (Alphabet) was the relative winner here, posting $102.3 billion in revenue. Their cloud business is actually making money from AI, which is apparently a novel concept these days. Who knew?
Trade Wars Take a Breather
In other news, Trump and Xi decided to play nice for a minute. Tariffs are dropping from 57% to 47%, China’s buying our soybeans again, and they’re holding off on those rare earth restrictions. It’s not exactly a love letter, but hey, we’ll take stability where we can get it.
Nuclear Stocks Go Boom (In a Good Way)
Remember when everyone was worried about AI using too much electricity? Well, the government just announced an $80 billion nuclear buildout plan. Suddenly, uranium stocks are hotter than a reactor core. Energy Fuels jumped 9%, Uranium Energy shot up 14%, and Cameco absolutely exploded with a 23% gain.
It’s almost like someone finally realized that training ChatGPT requires slightly more power than charging your iPhone.
The Cockroach Problem
But here’s where things get spicy. JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon dropped the C-word – cockroaches – when talking about the private credit market. Two companies went belly-up in September, and Dimon’s basically saying, “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more hiding in the walls.”
The private credit market has ballooned from $300 billion to $3 trillion since 2010. That’s a lot of debt floating around with questionable oversight. Dimon thinks it could get ugly if the economy hiccups, and honestly, the man’s track record suggests we should probably listen.
The Bottom Line
So where does this leave us? Big Tech is still printing money but spending it even faster on AI. Trade tensions are cooling off (temporarily). Nuclear is having a moment. And there might be some financial cockroaches scurrying around in the shadows.
Just another normal week in the markets, really. At least it’s more entertaining than watching paint dry.