| TQ Morning Briefing | That is the sound of a market that was positioned for the good news. Nvidia beat on every metric, guided Q1 revenue to $78 billion against a Street expecting $73 billion, and the stock popped 3.5% after hours before fading back to flat. The question this morning is not whether AI demand is real. It is whether anything Nvidia said last night changes the math for the names one layer below it. | | | | | | The Beat That Did Not Stick | Nvidia was supposed to settle the AI spending debate. Revenue grew 73% to $68.1 billion. Gross margins held at 75.2%. Q1 guidance came in $5 billion above consensus, and supply deals doubled to $95.2 billion. By any past standard, this was a blowout. | The stock rose 3.5% in the first ten minutes of after-hours trading. By the time the call ended, it was back near $196. | That pattern matters. The price action suggests much of the beat was already reflected in positioning. The debate now shifts from "is demand real" to "is demand already in the stock." | The S&P closed Wednesday at 6,946 after gaining 0.81%, its second straight green session. Futures this morning sit at 6,957, flat, keeping the index trapped in the 6,800 to 7,000 range it has held for weeks. | The 10-year yield ticked up to 4.05%. Gold pulled back to $5,200 but remains above $5,000. The dollar is firming. Oil dropped to $64.52, down over 1%, as a large US inventory build offset the Iran risk premium. Bitcoin gave back 1% to $68,500 after a two-day rally. | When yields stay low and oil falls into what should be a risk-on catalyst, both markets lean toward growth as the marginal concern rather than inflation. | The VIX at 18 says implied vol has come off this week's highs, but not enough to signal the kind of all-clear that drives a breakout above 7,000. | Trade Implication: | If Nvidia opens flat and breadth fails to expand beyond semis, the rally is capped by its own focus. The S&P needs software and rate-sensitive sectors to push through 7,000. If the 10-year stays below 4.10% and names like CRM and WDAY keep selling despite earnings beats, treat the upside as borrowed. |
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| | | | | WHAT ACTUALLY MOVED MARKETS |
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| | | Demand Confirmed. The Spread Questioned. | Two earnings calls last night told opposite stories about where the AI economy is heading. | Nvidia's call was about scarcity. Data center revenue hit $62.3 billion, up 75% year over year. CFO Colette Kress called demand "strengthening" with growth expected through the year. The company doubled its supply deals, a signal that it sees demand lasting well into 2027. When a company locks in $95 billion in forward supply, it is running at full output and betting it stays there. | Salesforce told a different story. Revenue came in at $11.2 billion, up 12%, but the full-year outlook for fiscal 2027 fell short. The stock dropped 4% pre-market, extending a 28% decline for 2026. Agentforce, its AI platform, is real, with 22,000 deals and $1.8 billion in ARR. But the market looked at the guide and decided that growth is not fast enough to justify the price in a world where AI tools may compress software margins rather than expand them. | That split is the key signal. AI chip makers are being valued on scarcity and demand. AI software sellers are being valued on whether they can earn from it faster than it erodes their current business. Hardware scarcity commands a premium. Software abundance creates doubt. | This does not look like a broad unwind of the AI trade. | Execution Bias: | Lean toward names with visible backlog and supply locks. IGV (iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF) has lost 18% this year for a reason. SMH (VanEck Semiconductor ETF) and names like CoreWeave (CRWV) carry the demand proof from last night. Avoid software names trading on AI story alone without clear proof that agentic tools are creating net new revenue rather than eating existing seats. |
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| | | | The Split Widens | You could see it in Wednesday's session before the earnings dropped. | Semis led the tape. AMD, Broadcom, and TSMC all firmed. Nvidia rose 1.4% into its print on 250 million shares, the most active name by a wide margin. Software bounced off Monday's selloff but with fading force. First Solar cratered 16% after issuing a bleak outlook, citing a "rapidly evolving environment," which is shorthand for tariff fears hitting capital plans. | Salesforce gained 4% Tuesday, then gave it all back and more after hours. Workday dropped 8% on weak guidance. | After hours, the split deepened. Dell (DELL) rose 3% pre-market on the Nvidia read-through. Trade Desk (TTD) plunged 16% on weak Q1 guidance, another app-layer name punished despite a solid quarter. | The market is rewarding anything tied to the chip supply chain and selling anything that has to prove software value. Leadership remains concentrated in semis and megacap names. Semis and megacap names are carrying the index. Software, solar, and consumer names are not helping. | Breadth improved Wednesday but was top-heavy. The top 10 stocks drove most of the index gains while small caps barely moved. Russell 2000 futures this morning are the one bright spot, up 0.10%. | Execution Bias: | Watch whether today confirms or rejects the hardware-software split. If Dell reports strong AI server demand after the bell and CoreWeave delivers on its backlog, the thesis extends. If software names keep selling despite beats, the rotation into chips over apps becomes a real trade. Size based on what the tape shows, not what the thesis suggests. |
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| | | | Tariffs Are Collecting. Courts Are Still Fighting. | While the market focused on Nvidia, the 10% global tariff under Section 122 began collecting Tuesday. | The White House wants to raise the rate to 15%, but legal fights are in motion after the Supreme Court struck down the broader IEEPA tariffs last Friday. | Steve Madden withdrew its 2026 earnings forecast due to tariff risk. That is the first consumer brand to pull forward guidance over trade policy this cycle. It signals that planning windows have shortened for importers, and more names will follow if rates stay unclear. | The dollar firmed overnight, with the DXY at 97.74, a shift from earlier this week when it was drifting lower. If the dollar firms while oil falls 1.4%, the read is simple: markets are pricing tariffs as a growth drag, not a price shock, and that keeps the Fed on hold. | Oil at $64.52 has given back most of its Iran premium. A large US inventory build this week reminded the market that supply is not tight. If Iran talks produce a positive signal, oil has room to fall further, easing cost pressure on data center builds and makers alike. | Fed speakers this week backed the hold stance. Governor Collins noted that current rates are right given sticky inflation. Markets price three quarter-point cuts for 2026, but the odds of a June move have dropped to 50%. | Investor Signal: | If more consumer brands follow Steve Madden and pull guidance, watch XRT and XLY for growing weakness. Tariffs are now a planning problem, not just a headline. Companies with domestic supply chains, like defense names LMT, RTX, and GD, gain value in that setup. |
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| | | | CoreWeave Reports Tonight. The Backlog Is the Story. | CoreWeave (CRWV) reports its first full-year results as a public company after today's close. The numbers matter, but the real signal is the backlog. | As of Q3, CoreWeave had $55.6 billion in contracted revenue, nearly doubling in one quarter. That is more than what analysts expect the company to earn in 2026 and 2027 combined. Its active data center power stood at 590 megawatts with 2.9 gigawatts under contract. | Last night changed the context. Nvidia's demand proof backs CoreWeave's entire model. CoreWeave is one of the largest non-hyperscaler buyers of Nvidia GPUs. If Nvidia sees demand into 2027 and is doubling supply deals, CoreWeave's backlog gains weight. | But the market will also want margin progress. CoreWeave posted a $110 million net loss in Q3 on $1.4 billion in revenue with adjusted EBITDA margins of 61%. Revenue is growing 134% year over year. The question is whether that growth converts to profit before the capex cycle matures. | Edge Setup: | If CoreWeave delivers strong Q4 growth and adds to its backlog, it proves the "picks and shovels" trade at a pure-play level Nvidia cannot offer because Nvidia already trades at a premium multiple. If backlog growth slows or customer focus tightens, it signals demand is flowing to hyperscalers directly rather than through middle players. That would narrow the AI trade back to just the chip makers. |
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| | | | Economic Data: Initial Jobless Claims Fed Speakers: Fed Governor Bowman Earnings: Dell Technologies (DELL), Intuit (INTU), CoreWeave (CRWV), Vistra (VST), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Autodesk (ADSK), Monster Beverage (MNST), Sempra Energy (SRE), Cheniere Energy (LNG), Zscaler (ZS), Public Service (PSEG) Overnight: Nikkei +0.70%, Hang Seng +1.71%, FTSE +1.18%, DAX +0.76%
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| | | | | | The New #1 Stock in the World? | A tiny company now holds 250 patents tied to what some call the most important tech breakthrough since the silicon chip in 1958. | Using this technology, it just set a new world speed record, pushing the limits of next-generation electronics. | Nvidia has already partnered with this firm to bring its tech into advanced AI systems. | This little-known company could soon become impossible to ignore. | See how it works. |
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| | | | The Trade Has Proof. Does It Have Room? | Nvidia gave the AI bulls everything they asked for. Record revenue, record data center sales, guidance that crushed consensus by $5 billion, and a CFO who called demand "strengthening" without hedging. The demand is real. | And the stock went nowhere. | That is the tension for today. The story improved overnight, but the price action says the market already owned it. If Nvidia cannot break above $200 on the best quarter it has ever posted, what does it take? | Today answers a different question. Dell reports into the same AI demand story. CoreWeave reports with a $56 billion backlog behind it. GDP data and jobless claims set the macro tone. Intuit tests whether small-business software can hold while enterprise names get punished. | The fork is not about whether AI spending is real. Last night reinforced that view. The fork is about whether the market can price that truth into more than three or four names. If Dell and CoreWeave confirm, the trade broadens. If they miss, Nvidia becomes a ceiling, not a floor. | The answer comes after the bell. |
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