To The Moon

The Weekly Investing Preview - Week of Monday 9 November 2026

In this issue: the AI audit begins — last week’s crash and what really repriced; The Muse: the politics of a duress economy; the calendar for 9–13 Nov (CPI Tuesday, Cisco Thursday, PPI Friday); the earnings board; teaching case: Cisco, the toll road of the AI buildout; the news long-list with your captures; and why this is a week for hedging, not leverage.

1. Executive Summary

Observation. Last week the market stopped applauding the AI story and started auditing it. On Thursday 5 November a single session erased roughly US$3 trillion of US stock value — the Nasdaq’s worst day in 19 months — after the midterm results raised the odds of slower data-center building. Underneath, the real economy did not blink: employers added 165,000 jobs in October, close to triple the roughly 65,000 expected, and unemployment edged down to 4.1%.

Finding. We are now in an audit market, and the audit’s centre of gravity is funding, not fancy. StoneX projects the big hyperscalers and neoclouds will burn more than US$309 billion of free cash flow next year — against over US$112 billion this year — and Anthropic’s amended S-1 shows US$895.4 billion of committed compute spend, US$69.8 billion of it due within twelve months. The audit turns literal this week: CoreWeave reports Tuesday, Cisco and Cerebras on Thursday, October CPI on Tuesday, PPI on Friday. Cisco is the cleanest test of the whole theme: a record year with AI orders up four-and-a-half times — and a share price still 28% below its June high.

Call to action. Keep last week’s yellow light on — it moved closer to red. The S&P 500 ended Friday at 7,376.86, only about 50 points above its 200-day average, with the 10-year Treasury yield back near 4.9%. Tuesday’s CPI and Thursday’s Cisco numbers will tell you more than any politician’s speech. If even Cisco’s paid-and-delivered AI revenue cannot hold its stock, the audit has further to run. Consider some hedging, avoid leverage, keep cash useful — and let this week’s numbers, not the noise, set the next move.

2. The Week That Was (2–6 November)

The week began with the US midterms and ended with the AI trade on trial. On Tuesday, Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress and won a clutch of governor races — several of the new governors had campaigned on reining in data-center construction, and congressional leaders are said to be planning new AI legislation. Wednesday brought a relief rally and the calmest fear gauge reading of the week: the VIX fell to 16.6.

Thursday was the audit’s opening bell. Fears that the new political landscape will slow data-center building collided with doubts about the pace of AI spending, and the selling was indiscriminate: the Nasdaq fell 5.5% and the S&P 500 4.4%, roughly US$3 trillion in market value gone in a day, with chipmakers leading. The Nasdaq slipped into correction territory and the VIX spiked to 28.2 — a level of fear not seen since the tariff panic of April 2025. Traders pinned much of it on forced selling: hedge-fund liquidations and team shutdowns inside multi-strategy firms, not a sudden collapse in corporate fundamentals.

Friday brought stabilisation rather than recovery. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to close at 7,376.86, the Nasdaq added about 1.1%, while the Dow slipped 0.4% to 51,285.73. For the week the S&P 500 lost 2.7% — its worst week since June — the Nasdaq 3.4%, and the Dow 0.9%. The technology sector fell 7% on the week and energy 11%. Oil told its own story: Brent slid about 15% across the week to near US$99 — one of its steepest weekly drops in recent memory — as traders priced in possible US–Iran peace talks, even as drone and tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz continued.

The economic data argued with the market narrative all week. The October jobs report, on Friday, was strong across the board: 165,000 jobs added against forecasts near 59,000–65,000, September revised up to 60,000 from the initial 29,000, August up to 186,000, unemployment down to 4.1%, and wages up 0.4% on the month. A week earlier, first-time jobless claims had printed 189,000 — matching a mid-July reading that was the lowest in 57 years. This is not an economy rolling over.

Money is still not cheap, and Friday’s data kept it that way. The 10-year Treasury yield settled around 4.87% after the jobs report and the 30-year near 5.26%. Markets now put roughly 80% odds on a quarter-point Fed hike at the 8–9 December meeting, up from about 67% during Thursday’s rout. In London, the Bank of England hiked Bank Rate to 4.00% on Thursday — its first rise since the Iran war began, decided 8–1 — with UK CPI at 3.5% and a warning that energy costs from the conflict could push inflation towards 5% by mid-2027. Fed voices kept the pressure on: St. Louis president Musalem said AI-driven demand for commodities like copper is feeding inflation, while San Francisco’s Daly called the market slide the kind of rebalancing you would hope for. Chair Warsh, who kept rates at 3.75–4.00% on 28 October, says he is watching the accumulation of data. The data, this week, said: hike.

One technical note for the chart-watchers: at Friday’s close of 7,376.86 the S&P 500 sits below its 50-day average (near 7,679) and only about 50 points above its 200-day average (near 7,325). Last week we called that a yellow light. After Thursday, it is a yellow light flickering towards red.

@TigerStars

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