A Week of Tests for the AI Trade

NEW YORK, Nov. 8 — AfterAfter an election week that took 12.15 percent off the PHLX Semiconductor index, the AI trade meets a test on four of the five weekdays from Monday: October’s consumer prices, a Fed governor on artificial intelligence, and quarterly results from CoreWeave, Nebius, Cisco and Applied Materials. The chip index closed Friday at 9,390.25, after a 4.21 percent gain that day.

CoreWeave, Nebius and Applied Materials fell harder than the index. CoreWeave lost 15.44 percent over the week, to $46.40, Nebius 15.99 percent, to $129.49, and Applied Materials 14.71 percent, to $332.72.

The week opens in Washington. At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 9, the Senate votes on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2347, which Pasadena Now, citing Senate officials, described as the legislative vehicle for the permitting bill in today’s lead story. At 1 p.m. the Treasury auctions $58 billion of three-year notes, the first of $125 billion of notes and bonds it sells by Thursday.The Auctions$42 billion of 10-year notes follow at 1 p.m. Tuesday and $25 billion of 30-year bonds at 1 p.m. Thursday, all to be issued on Nov. 16, according to TreasuryDirect. The 10-year yield ended Friday at 4.86 percent, from 4.94 percent a week earlier, by the Treasury’s daily figures.

Tuesday

SoftBank Group, an existing OpenAI backer, discloses its results for the six months to Sept. 30 at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Tokyo, 1:30 a.m. in New York, with a briefing scheduled an hour later.The BriefingSoftBank lists Yoshimitsu Goto, its chief financial officer, among the presenters of the webcast briefing, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Japan time.

At 8:30 a.m. the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes October’s consumer price index, which Reuters called “perhaps the most closely watched inflation measure.” The Fed raised its key rate by a quarter point on Sept. 16, to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent, and held it there on Oct. 28.The VoteThe September rise passed 12–0. In October the vote to hold was 10–2: Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack voted against, preferring another quarter-point rise. After Friday’s jobs report, fed funds futures suggested a roughly 80 percent chance of another rise at the Dec. 8–9 meeting, Reuters reported, citing LSEG data.

That evening CoreWeave, “the cloud company at the center of concerns about financing the AI buildout,” as Reuters put it, holds its call on its third quarter, at 5 p.m. Another story today follows CoreWeave in Texas.

Thursday and Friday

Nebius releases its third-quarter results before the market opens on Thursday, Nov. 12, with a call at 8 a.m. At 10 a.m., by the Fed’s calendar, Michael S. Barr, a Fed governor, gives a speech titled “Artificial Intelligence and Inequality.” After the close Cisco reports its first fiscal quarter, which ended Oct. 24; it and Applied Materials, whose fourth quarter ended Oct. 25, both hold calls at 4:30 p.m.

Citi is wary of the build-out’s suppliers. “This is far from ideal for the picks and shovels, including semis,” the bank told clients, as quoted by Investing.com on Sunday. Citi wrote that “the pullback ahead of the midterms was not mostly due to the election, but due to AI financing worries, and oil,” and said it prefers European stocks to American ones for now.

Yardeni Research sees the selling as overdone. “Data centers will get built, albeit at a slower pace,” it said, as quoted by Investing.com. “Speed bumps should prevent the AI boom from moving too fast and crashing around the next curve.”

Data centers will get built, albeit at a slower pace.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes October’s producer price index at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 13. The Fed’s calendar lists a 7 p.m. speech that evening by Philip N. Jefferson, the Fed’s vice chair, on “New Technology, Old Questions: Assessing Productivity Puzzles and Their Implications for Macroeconomic Activity,” in La Jolla, Calif.

Then comes Nvidia, which reports its third fiscal quarter on Nov. 17, with a call at 5 p.m.; its shares fell 8.80 percent in the election week, to $186.64.NVDANasdaq178.67▼7.97−4.3%Nvidia · Monday’s session The Fed publishes the minutes of its October meeting at 2 p.m. the next day.