This Week
Artifical intelligence (AI) fears may have reached new heights this week, with some attributing Monday’s selloff to a futuristic viral blog post. But, in the here and now, there was some more positive AI news:
- Anthropic’s update on its enterprise AI agents actually boosted some software stocks since it includes plugins for some of the very same software companies caught up in the months-long AI-related selloff.
- NVIDIA’s fourth-quarter earnings highlighted continued AI chip demand, nearly doubling profits year on year and projecting higher first-quarter revenue ($78 billion) than expected. And yet, with investors questioning the durability of demand, the stock was down over 5% the next day.
So, between concerns about AI’s economic impact and geopolitical tensions, there’s been a flight to safety this week, pushing down 10-year Treasury yields over 10 basis points to ~3.95%, while the Nasdaq-100® ended the week flat.
Next Week
Here are the top events I’m watching next week:
- Monday: Manufacturing PMIs (Feb.)
- Wednesday: AVGO earnings (Q4) & Services PMIs (Feb.)
- Thursday: Productivity (Q4)
- Friday: Nonfarm payrolls (Feb.) & Retail sales (Jan.)
