Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images News
Download this episode on Apple, Spotify, or listen below:
Anthropic plows ahead despite the tech selloff. (0:18) October inflation data could strengthen case for another Fed hike. (1:21) Berkshire Hathaway ramps up buybacks. (2:25)
The following is an abridged transcript:
Wall Street may still be reeling from a volatile midterms week, but there will be little chance to settle down amid earnings, inflation data and a historic IPO roadshow.
The next leg of Anthropic’s (ANT) journey to becoming the first publicly traded frontier model company gets underway as the company makes its pitch to institutional investors.
The maker of Claude is going ahead with its plans despite last week’s tech bloodbath and is even prepared to accept a lower valuation, the Financial Times reported.
Odds on Kalshi for the IPO happening before December are back above 80% after sinking amid the big tech selloff.
Anthropic is racing toward a debut before Thanksgiving, and investors told the FT that it’s planning to raise $80B to $100B at a valuation of $1.25T to $1.75T.
While that is a significant increase from its current $965B valuation, the target falls short of the $2T investors had hoped for as recently as a month ago.
“My view is they will price it very conservatively, call it $1.5tn, and go up from there,” one large investor said. Others taking part in the deal expected an even lower valuation of roughly $1.3T.
On the economic front, the October consumer price index is out on Tuesday. Headline CPI is expected to have risen 0.3% for the month, with the core rate, excluding food and energy, up 0.2%. Currently, consumer inflation is at 3.7%, with annual core inflation up 2.6%.
Wells Fargo economists say a softer core reading “would be welcome after September’s upside surprise, but it would do little to alter the broader picture of 2026 being a lost year for bringing core inflation back to 2%.”
“We expect the report to reinforce the slow and uneven nature of the disinflationary process, underpinning our expectation for the FOMC to hike once more in December,” they added.
Fed funds futures put the odds of a quarter-point hike next month at 76%.
The earnings calendar gets a little lighter, with just 13 S&P 500 companies reporting.
On Monday, KKR (KKR), Rocket Lab (RKLB), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY).
CoreWeave (CRWV) reports Tuesday.
Cisco (CSCO), Applied Materials (AMAT) and Nebius (NBIS) are up Thursday.
We’ll also get earnings from the groundbreaking quantum computing sector.
Quantum Computing (QUBT) reports Monday. Rigetti (RGTI) and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) report Tuesday.
SA analyst Lee Bailey says D-Wave “is selling real technology, and its enterprise traction bears watching.”
“I’m not ruling out the prospect of quantum optimization turning into a large enterprise business,” he says, but adds that at $9, “there’s simply not enough margin for error in how many success factors must occur.” He rates the stock a Sell with a working fair value of ~$3.
In the news this weekend, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) accelerated its stock buybacks during Q3, while the investing giant’s operating earnings fell amid weakness in its insurance businesses.
The company repurchased $9.6B in shares in the quarter, ahead of Visible Alpha estimates of $1.6B, increasing its full-year stock buybacks to $14.4B.
Operating earnings for the period fell ~6% year over year to $12.7B.
And U.S. intelligence officials believe Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Chinese woman who allegedly served as a spy for China’s main intelligence agency, the FT reported.
Based on information obtained by American intelligence, U.S. officials wrote a memo earlier this year stating that Huang had been romantically involved with Alice Huang, an executive at a Singapore-based client of the chipmaker.
U.S. intelligence officials believe China’s Ministry of State Security recruited Alice Huang as a spy. She served as an executive at Megaspeed, a company facing U.S. scrutiny over allegations that it smuggled advanced Nvidia chips into China.
Nvidia has said Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang were ordinary customer meetings and that no sensitive company information was shared.
And for income investors, Baker Hughes (BKR) and IBM (IBM) go ex-dividend Tuesday. Baker Hughes pays out on Nov. 20 and IBM on Dec. 10.
Credit: Source link
