Nasdaq Futures Climb as Buyers Tiptoe Back Into the AI Trade
Futures up 0.4% as dip-buyers test the water
A 4.5% weekly drop, and a broken winning streak
Yields and AI debt, not earnings, drove the selloff
Anthropic's $16.8 billion quarter, read as a warning
Anthropic told investors in San Francisco on Oct. 14 that third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, up 45% from $11.6 billion in the second quarter and $4.7 billion in the first, and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis for a second straight quarter while generating $1.70 in revenue per $1 of compute spending, the Financial Times and Reuters reported. Q2 had grown 145% on the quarter, per ROIC.ai. Business Standard quoted Miller Tabak strategist Matt Maley calling the news "somewhat negative," noting that credit default swap prices for hyperscalers have risen sharply in recent weeks.
This week's earnings are the real exam
LSEG IBES expects S&P 500 third-quarter earnings growth of more than 30%, and LSEG estimates Meta's earnings per share up 460% year over year, Tesla's down 14.5% and Netflix's up about 40%. Kalkine consensus has Netflix reporting after the close on Oct. 20 with EPS of $0.82 on revenue of $12.87 billion; Meta on Oct. 21 with EPS of $6.76 on roughly $63.3 billion in revenue; and Tesla after the close the same day.
Asia keeps falling, with the Nikkei down 1.65%
CNBC reported Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.65%, the Topix 1.12%, South Korea's Kospi 1.29% and the Kosdaq 0.93%, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.37%. Bloomberg data showed the Nikkei down as much as 2.3% intraday, about 10% below its Oct. 6 high of 70,683.98. China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.55% after third-quarter GDP grew 4.5%, according to MarketScreener.
Cheaper oil and a bond rally give equities room
Oil slipped after Washington waived some sanctions and tariffs on Russia: Brent fell 1.6% to $108.06 a barrel and US crude 0.7% to $100.70, Reuters reported, while the Economic Times noted Brent had settled Friday at its highest since May 19 and touched $110 during the session. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 3 basis points to 5.0645% after its biggest weekly drop in more than eight months.
Retail buys, funds bleed, banks step back
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits tilted bullish, with traders saying they would add to beaten-down names such as Nebius. Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data showed global fundamental long-short funds lost money every day last week, down 2.9% in the week to Oct. 15, Reuters reported. Goldman's basket of regional AI hardware stocks fell 11% last week, the steepest slide since mid-July, the Taipei Times reported. Quartz reported that JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are retreating from fully underwriting a $5 billion loan package for Volta Infrastructure Holdings, and that the IMF puts hyperscalers at 10% of global investment-grade bond issuance, up from under 1% in 2024.
What to watch next
Whether the bounce holds depends on capex guidance in this week's results from Meta, Tesla and Netflix, and on whether the Fed raises rates again on Oct. 27–28 — both feed straight into AI's financing costs and valuation math.
