Even before last week’s sell-off, we were all feeling nervous during the last quarter. Anthropic IPO prospectus (ANTH.PVT). Big Tech Profits. Bond yields are through the roof. An unexpectedly high blue wave that lifted the stock market and brought it down. With volatility (^VIX) on the rise, investors are on a knife edge between a distress wave or a rebound. As the Goldman Sachs Panic Indicator suggested, the extreme level may indicate that a further Friday bounce is coming. It’s a new week and we’ll have plenty of plot points lined up to guide us. Of particular interest, we’re looking forward to quarterly results from CoreWeave (CRWV) on Tuesday and Nebius Group (NBIS) and Cerebras Systems (CBRS) on Thursday, some companies caught up in the post-election data center destruction. What they have to say about their plans and prospects, the debt markets they have been tapping and the health of their businesses will be a priority. It’s a good time to have it just a week after the midterms. On the economic calendar, we’re back in inflation mode, especially after that red-hot jobs report. We’ll start the week with consumer inflation expectations from the New York Fed before getting some actual data on Tuesday, and wholesale inflation numbers on Friday to close out the week. Two big AI narratives continue to fight each other for control of the market. What’s more important: trading in AI chips and infrastructure or the companies that actually provide AI? As we wrote in Friday’s Morning Brief, “A data center slowdown is bad for the stock market’s AI engine” and “A data center slowdown is good for Big Tech’s profit machine.” Can Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN) offer AI at least some productivity and tools to customers with the computing they have, and make a lot of money doing it, shifting the shift from growth and scale to monetization? Maybe! Those companies have been in healthy shape since the election and are doing well amid a widespread selloff. And while Tesla (TSLA) has sold off, SpaceX (SPCX) is doing well. The CoreWeave AI data center is shown under construction on October 21, 2026 in Kenilworth, New Jersey (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) · Stephanie Keith via Getty Images As DataTrek’s Nicholas Colas wrote on Thursday, you need to look at the entire week, not just Bloody Thursday, to see the bigger picture (however small). And it’s pretty clear that this may be reflected in the overall indices, but it’s mostly chips. “As for what the market is ‘saying’ over the past two days, we believe the moves are focused on AI, not portents of an imminent recession,” Colas wrote, also noting that Google and company are doing well. The push and pull of the chip narrative and the hyperscaler narrative is the pulse on our fingers right now. A big check on inflation after a booming jobs report Friday’s spectacular jobs report of 165,000 jobs delivered an unexpected verdict on the current state of the labor market: It’s better than good. Even September’s disappointing 29,000 jobs were adjusted upward to 60,000. Good for breaking the ice of “low fire, low rent,” if this represents the start of a trend. As all Fed chairs like to remind us, a month means nothing on its own. The big takeaway from the report, however, is not that the labor market is heating up, but that any weakness or recession is currently nothing to worry about. Customers check out fruit at a grocery store in New York on Oct. 14, 2026. (Zhang Fengguo/Xinhua via Getty Images) · We are keeping in mind a research note from Apollo’s Torsten Sløk that caught our attention last week: that the Federal Reserve rates needed to reduce inflation to its 2% target could be as high as 6.75%. (Disclosure: Yahoo is a portfolio company of funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management.) While the data center sell-off is obviously important, inflation remains more important than anything else. The average estimate by Bloomberg analysts calls for core inflation to rise 0.2%, slowing from 0.3% last month. There are plenty of post-election Fed speeches coming up. In the midst of all the data, there will be a lot of commentary from people reading the data and deciding what to do with it. Fed’s Goolsbee, Bowman speak Monday; Waller and Bowman (again) on Tuesday; Barr, Barkin and Logan on Thursday; and Williams, Jefferson and Bowman (again) on Friday. We love to see our public officials working hard. But the market loves the guidance and FedSpeak even more and hopes to receive more lenses through which to read all this data and get a better idea of how the Fed views the economy, and maybe even the sell-off, depending on the topics that arise and how communicative they feel willing to be. Right now, after Friday’s jobs report, the December increase looks more likely. Now that Fed Chairman Warsh is settling into a cryptic, morose pace with no forward guidance, it’s up to these guys, who may also feel more emboldened after the midterms. As JPMorgan noted last week, new Democratic leadership in the Senate will be important for the Federal Reserve. Economic and Earnings Calendar Monday Economic Data: New York Fed Consumer Inflation Expectations for October (previous 3.9%), Wholesale Inventories for September Earnings Calendar: Constellation Energy (CEG), KKR (KKR), Barrick Mining (B), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Skydance (SKYD), Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO), NRG Energy (NRG), Kaspi.kz (KSPI), Paramount Skydance (PSKY), Praxis Precision Medicines (PRAX), Sanmina (SANM), Clearway Energy (CWEN), Qualys (QLYS), H&R Block (HRB), Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS), Casella Waste Systems (CWST), The Trade Desk (TTD), Hims & Hers Health (HIMS), NexGen Energy (NXE), monday.com (MNDY), Archer Aviation (ACHR), Via Transportation (VIA), USA Rare Earth (USAR), Plug Power (PLUG), Lucid Group (LCID), Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) Tuesday Economic Data: ADP Weekly Employment Change, Consumer Price Index (CPI) MoM (0.3% expected, 0.6% previous), Core (CPI) MoM (0.2% expected, 0.3% previous) Earnings Schedule: CoreWeave (CRWV), Petróleo Brasileiro (PBR), TransDigm Group (TDG), Honda Motor (HMC), Sea (SE), Alcon (ALC), Ecopetrol (EC), Venture Global (VG), Hesai Group (HSAI), Embraer (EMBJ), On Holding (ONON), KT (KT), Legend Biotech (LEGN), D-Wave Quantum (QBTS), Rigetti Computing (RGTI), Wix.com (WIX), StubHub Holdings (STUB), Sonos (SONO), eToro Group (ETOR) Wednesday Economic Data: MBA 30-Year Mortgage Rate (7.3% last week) Earnings Calendar: Franco-Nevada (FNV), Vylor (VYLR), CGI (GIB), Tetra Tech (TTEK), CAE (CAE), Corteva (CTVA), OR Royalties (OR) Thursday Economic Data: Initial Jobless Claims (189,000 last week), Existing Home Sales Earnings Calendar: Cisco Systems (CSCO), Applied Materials (AMAT), Brookfield (BN), Nu Holdings (NU), Nebius Group (NBIS), Cerebras Systems (CBRS), Korea Electric Power (KEP), QXO (QXO), Brookfield Wealth Solutions (BNT), Dillard’s (DDS), Hudbay Minerals (HBM), Stantec (STN), Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (ARWR), Twist Bioscience (TWST), Companhia Paranaense de Energia (ELPC), Mobility Global (MBGL), Kodiak Sciences (KOD), NIQ Global Intelligence (NIQ) Economic data for Friday: Monthly producer price index (PPI) earnings for October (0.4% expected, 1.3% previous), Core PPI (0.3% expected, 0.7% previous) Earnings schedule: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), Mizuho Financial Group (MFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group (CMTDF), Cosan (CSAN), RLX Technology (RLX), Twenty One Capital (XXI), Inhibrx Biosciences (INBX), Americas Gold and Silver (USAS), Talon Metals (TLOFF), Lithium Americas (LAC), Suncrete (RMIX), Sigma Lithium (SGML), Entera Bio (ENTX), SBC Medical Group Holdings (SBC), Gravity (GRVY), Costamare Bulkers Holdings (CMDB)
