A third straight 0.3% core CPI print crossed Waller’s half-point threshold and sent the 10-year yield toward 5% | That's TradingNEWS
Key Points
- October CPI rose 0.4% against 0.3% expected, and core rose 0.3% for a third straight month against a 0.2% forecast.
- Odds of a 50-basis-point December hike jumped from 0% to 15% as the 2-year Treasury yield surged 13 basis points.
- Nvidia fell 5.41% to $169.00 as the Jensen Huang probe deepened, extending its two-day slide past 9%.
The tape lost its footing at 8:30 a.m. and never got it back. By 11:06 a.m. ET the S&P 500 sat at 7,496.17, down 53.77 points or 0.71%, giving back almost a third of Monday’s 173.08-point surge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 342.18 points at 52,047.57, a 0.65% drop, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 219.06 points, or 0.87%, at 25,034.07. The Russell 2000 took the worst of it, sliding 40.43 points, or 1.42%, to 2,800.38. Small caps were the leaders on Monday, when they ripped more than 3%, and they are the laggards today. That flip tells you what the market is pricing.
The VIX moved the other way. It climbed 1.14 points, or 5.75%, to 21.06, back above the 20 line it fell through on Monday after a 22.3% collapse, its biggest one-day drop of 2026. A single session of calm lasted exactly one session.
The trigger was the October Consumer Price Index. Headline prices rose 0.4% against a 0.3% consensus and core prices rose 0.3% against a 0.2% consensus. Both missed by a tenth, and markets can live with a tenth. What they can’t live with is a tenth landing on the exact threshold a Fed governor had laid out in a London speech three hours earlier. Christopher Waller said that if core CPI came in around 0.3% or higher, a 50-basis-point hike should be considered in December. Core came in at 0.3%, so the December debate is now between a quarter point and a half point.
Futures had told the story in real time. Before the release, Dow futures were up 0.32% at 52,668, S&P 500 futures were up 0.08% at 7,580, and Nasdaq-100 futures were off 0.23% at 27,949. By 8:58 a.m., S&P futures were down 0.5%, Nasdaq-100 futures were down 1.2%, and Dow futures were flat. The cash open was softer than that low: the Dow opened down 0.2%, the S&P 500 down 0.5% and the Nasdaq down 0.8%. The selling built through the first 90 minutes rather than fading.
The thesis for the session is simple. Monday was about AI positioning, oversold chip stocks and oil falling 5.85%. Tuesday is about the Federal Reserve. The market has moved from asking whether data-center spending can hold up to asking how high the policy rate goes, and a rate question hits every sector at once. That is why the Russell is falling twice as fast as the S&P 500, and why Monday’s rebound now looks like a short-covering burst rather than a durable low.
The October CPI Print: 0.4% Headline, 0.3% Core for a Third Straight Month
The Bureau of Labor Statistics October 2026 CPI release gave the bears plenty to work with. The all-items index rose 0.4% seasonally adjusted, down from September’s 0.6% but above forecast. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3%. That matches September and August and makes October the third straight 0.3% core print, the first three-month run at that pace since one that ended in November 2024. Core has now risen 0.3% or more in five of 2026’s first ten months: January, April, August, September and October. The monthly core sequence from January through September read 0.3, 0.2, 0.2, 0.4, 0.2, 0.0, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.3, and October’s 0.3 extends the hot streak at the back end of that run.
Shelter rose 0.3%, slowing from 0.4% in September, and still accounted for more than 30% of the monthly all-items increase. Shelter carries a 35.2% weight in the index, so even a modest slowdown there can’t offset heat elsewhere. Food rose 0.5%, with food at home up 0.4% and food away from home up 0.5%. Grocery inflation at a 0.4% monthly pace annualizes to well above anything the Fed can tolerate.
Energy cooled sharply but stayed positive. The energy index rose 0.7% after jumping 5.2% in September. Gasoline rose 1.0% after a 9.1% spike the month before, and unadjusted gasoline prices are up 37.4% from October 2025. Electricity rose 0.9%. Pump prices have since dropped below $4 a gallon, their lowest since July, but that relief belongs to November’s data, not October’s.
Inside core, goods rose 0.2% after 0.3%. New vehicle prices rose 0.2% and used cars and trucks fell 1.2%, one of the few true soft spots in the report. Services did the damage: recreation, medical care, motor vehicle insurance and airline fares all pushed core higher, with airfares up 0.4%. That mix matters. Goods inflation can roll over quickly when supply chains clear or tariffs fade. Services inflation tied to wages, insurance and hospitals sticks.
There is no official year-over-year rate this month. The BLS didn’t publish a 12-month change for most series because October 2025 prices weren’t collected during last year’s government shutdown, which leaves the annual comparison blank. Rough estimates from the monthly path put annual inflation somewhere close to 4%, double the Fed’s 2% target.
The calendar makes this report heavier than usual. The November CPI is scheduled for Thursday, December 10, one day after the Federal Open Market Committee wraps its December 8–9 meeting. That makes October’s print the last CPI policymakers will see before they vote. A 0.3% core reading with no follow-up data to dilute it is the number the committee walks in with.
Waller’s Half-Point Threshold and the Fed Pricing Shift
Before the CPI hit the wires, Waller had already moved the goalposts. Speaking in London, he said he leaned toward a 25-basis-point hike at the December meeting and would support one even if October inflation cooled. Then he added the condition that defined the session: a 50-basis-point move “should be considered” if core CPI rose 0.3% or more. He called September’s inflation data “bad” and said, in his words, “Hiking only 25 basis points would put our credibility at risk.” He said he will be watching how widely price increases are spreading, whether prices for high-tech goods tied to the AI buildout keep climbing, and whether energy costs are passing through into other categories.
Core printed exactly 0.3%. On Waller’s own terms, the half-point option is now live.
Fed funds futures adjusted within minutes. The probability of a 25-basis-point December hike rose to 84%, and the probability of a 50-basis-point hike went from 0% on Monday to 15%. Monday’s pricing had essentially ruled out a half-point move. Tuesday’s pricing gives it better than one-in-seven odds, a big shift for a single data point.
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan added to the pressure. She said two more rate hikes will be needed and flagged the risk that the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, could also move higher when it is released later in November. If PCE confirms CPI, the debate moves from “25 or 50 in December” to “how many in 2027.”
Waller’s path matters as much as his words. He dissented in favor of cuts in July 2025 and again in January 2026, which put him firmly on the dovish side. He turned hawkish in May and July of this year as CPI and PPI ran hot. When a former dove names a half-point threshold in public and the data meets it the same morning, the market treats the signal as a committee signal, not a personal view.
For equities, the arithmetic is unforgiving. A 25-basis-point hike in December was priced as of Monday. A 50-basis-point possibility, plus explicit talk of further hikes, raises the discount rate on every long-duration cash flow on the board. That explains the order of today’s losses: the Russell 2000 first, the Nasdaq second, the S&P 500 third and the Dow last. The more a stock’s value depends on cheap money or distant earnings, the harder it is getting hit.
Treasury Yields Reprice the Front End: 2-Year Jumps 13 Basis Points
The bond market did most of the talking. The 2-year Treasury yield, the part of the curve most sensitive to Fed policy, jumped 13 basis points after Waller’s speech and the CPI release. The 5-year yield rose 10 basis points to 4.75%. The 10-year rose 7 basis points to 4.93% right after the print and then kept grinding higher, quoted at 4.992% by 11:06 a.m., up 12.8 basis points on the session and just under the 5% line. The 30-year rose a more modest 3 basis points to 5.29%.
That pattern is a textbook bear flattener. Short-dated yields are climbing faster than long-dated ones because the market is pricing more near-term tightening while assuming that tighter policy eventually slows growth. A 13-basis-point move in the 2-year on a CPI day is large. Historically, surges like this have kept pressure on stocks over the following weeks before equities recover on a one-year horizon.
The 10-year flirting with 5% matters for valuation. The S&P 500 traded through Monday’s close at 7,549.94 with earnings expectations built on a 10-year near 4.86%. Every basis point higher on the long end erodes the equity risk premium, which was already thin for mega-cap growth. Investors who rotated into staples and healthcare in October were partly hedging against exactly this: a rate shock that hits long-duration tech hardest.
Monday’s session had already given a warning. While stocks ripped 2.35%, the 2-year rose 5 basis points into the CPI. Bonds didn’t believe the equity rally, and on Tuesday morning bonds won the argument.
The rate repricing also explains why defensive rotation isn’t a clean escape today. Higher yields compete directly with dividend payers, so utilities and real estate lose the bid when the 10-year approaches 5%. That leaves very few places to hide in an S&P 500 where the dominant force is now the Fed rather than the AI cycle. The stronger dollar that usually comes with a front-end spike adds another headwind for multinationals that book revenue overseas.
The level to watch is 5.00% on the 10-year. A clean break would put long-end yields at their highest in this cycle and would likely pull the S&P 500 back toward last week’s lows. A rejection there, combined with a softer PCE print later this month, would give the bulls room to argue that the December hike is the last one rather than the first of several.
Monday’s 2.35% Rebound Was Short-Covering, Not a Bottom
Monday’s numbers looked like capitulation reversing. The S&P 500 rose 2.35% to 7,549.94, its biggest one-day gain since April 8. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.74% to 25,253.14, its best session since July 30. The Dow added more than 1,100 points, or 2.15%, and the Russell 2000 rose more than 3%. All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by industrials at 3.8% and technology at 3.68%. Defensive groups trailed, with healthcare up 1.91%, utilities up 1.53% and consumer staples up 0.90%. Stocks added more than $1.6 trillion in market value in a single session.
The setup explained the size of the bounce. On November 5, the S&P 500 fell 4.4%, its worst day since April 2025. Chip stocks erased trillions in market value that week. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) closed last Friday at $463.96, down 31% from its June 22 high of $668.91, after an 11% plunge last Thursday that was its worst session since March 2020. The Nasdaq ended Friday 11% below its October 6 record, in correction territory. Institutional net selling in tech hit historically rare intensity during that purge, and the Nasdaq-100 reached oversold readings last seen at the March 30 Iran-selloff low.
When a market is that stretched, falling oil and a lack of fresh bad news are enough to trigger a violent squeeze. Brent fell 5.85% on Monday after a 16% drop the prior week as trilateral US-Russia-Ukraine talks got under way and hopes for US-Iran diplomacy built. Lower oil eased inflation fears for one day.
Tuesday exposed the gap between a squeeze and a bottom. A rebound needs to clear the 20-day moving average to prove it isn’t a dead-cat bounce. From Monday’s close, that required a further 1.3% gain in the S&P 500, which puts the line near 7,650, along with a 3.7% gain in the Nasdaq-100 and a 9% gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Instead of building toward those levels, the S&P 500 is now 150 points below 7,650 and moving away from it.
The rotation underneath also argues against a clean bottom. The MSCI global consumer staples index rose 10.6% in October, its best month since 1998, and global healthcare gained 9.8%, the second-biggest monthly advance this century. That isn’t how money behaves when it expects a new leg of growth leadership. It’s how money behaves when it’s hedging against slower earnings and higher rates. Monday’s tech surge reversed a slice of that trade for a day, and Tuesday’s CPI sent investors back to the defensive side.
Nvidia Breaks Below $170 as the Huang Scandal Deepens
Nvidia (NVDA) is the single biggest drag on the indexes and the clearest example of key-person risk this market has seen in years. The stock fell 4.27% on Monday to close at $178.67, losing $192 billion in market value on more than $80 billion in dollar volume. That happened while every other member of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rallied. On Tuesday it edged up 0.6% before the bell, was down 3.15% by 10:02 a.m. and down 4.99% by 11:02 a.m., and touched a 5.41% decline in morning trading. A 5.41% drop puts the stock at $169.00, a two-day slide of more than 9% from Friday’s $186.64 close, and wipes out more than $240 billion in market value on Tuesday alone.
The trigger is a widening story around CEO Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, a former executive of Singapore-based data-center operator Megaspeed who is not related to him. Nvidia’s board opened an investigation into Huang’s reported relationship with Alice Huang, whom US intelligence reportedly views as a Chinese intelligence asset. Tuesday brought fresh escalation. A report alleged that networks linked to Alice Huang helped move at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia hardware to Chinese companies since 2023, including 240,000 H100, H200 and A100 chips. Nvidia and Huang were also sued over the alleged affair. The chair of the House China select committee demanded answers, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said there are “real concerns that need to be addressed.”
The market is pricing three risks at once. Huang has no named successor, so any forced leadership change would hit a $4 trillion-plus company with no clear handoff. The chip-shipment allegations could bring tighter US limits on sales to China, a market Nvidia has said it needs to fund US research and development. And congressional scrutiny is building ahead of Nvidia’s November 17 earnings report, which is now a governance event as much as a financial one.
Nvidia’s move matters for the indexes because of its weight. On Monday the chip sector rallied hard enough to absorb Nvidia’s loss, with AMD and Broadcom jumping 9% to 13% and adding more than $200 billion in combined value, more than Nvidia lost. On Tuesday that cushion is gone because the rate shock is hitting chips across the board. With Nvidia down more than 5% alongside a falling sector, its drag on the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 compounds rather than offsets.
The level that matters is $170. A close below it would put Nvidia at its lowest since the spring and turn the board investigation from a headline risk into a technical breakdown heading into earnings.
Chip Stocks Give Back Part of Monday’s 7% SOX Surge
Monday’s chip rally was the strongest case for a bottom. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 6.85% to 10,033.93 after losing more than 12% in the week ended November 6. The iShares semiconductor fund rose 7.49%. AMD jumped 13.26%, Broadcom rose 8.78%, Micron gained 6.25%, Monolithic Power surged 17% and Applied Materials climbed 11%. In the Nasdaq-100, 86 of 101 members rose. Nvidia was the only stock in the semiconductor index to fall.
Tuesday cracked that story before the open. Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 5% in premarket trading, and Intel (INTC) and Micron (MU) each fell 3%. Higher yields hit semiconductors from two directions. First, chip valuations depend on earnings several years out, so they discount most heavily when rates rise. Second, a Fed that keeps hiking threatens the corporate and government spending that funds data-center construction, which is the demand engine for the whole group.
There’s a subtler problem in the CPI data. Waller said he is watching whether prices for high-tech goods tied to the AI buildout keep rising. That puts AI infrastructure directly into the inflation debate. If the Fed starts treating the data-center boom as an inflation source rather than a productivity story, the group loses the policy tailwind it has had all year.
Valuations had already been crushed to multi-year lows on worries that current profits can’t last and that any slowdown in data-center builds would hit the group first. That makes chips cheap on paper. But cheap on paper is a weak argument when the 10-year is pushing 5% and the discount rate keeps moving higher.
Some names are still catching a bid on company-specific news. ASE Technology (ASX) rose 4.45% in premarket trading after reporting October revenue up 47.1% from a year earlier, a hard data point that AI packaging demand is still running hot. Quantum Corp. (QMCO) jumped 11.78% after quarterly revenue grew 42.9% to $89.6 million and its backlog hit a record of nearly $100 million. Those moves show the demand side of the AI trade hasn’t broken. What’s breaking is the multiple investors are willing to pay for it.
The 20-day moving average test is the clean marker. The SOX needed a 9% gain from Monday’s close to clear it. A down day on a hot CPI moves that target further away and keeps the group in a downtrend until either yields fall or Nvidia’s November 17 report resets the narrative.
Applied Materials reports on November 12, two days before the week closes. Its order commentary on wafer-fab equipment will be the next real test of whether chip demand can hold up against a Fed that’s still tightening.
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Russell 2000 Takes the Hardest Hit at −1.42% as Rotation Resumes
The Russell 2000’s 1.42% drop to 2,800.38 is the most important index move of the session because it isolates the rate effect. Small caps don’t carry Nvidia’s scandal or mega-cap AI risk. What they carry is floating-rate debt, thinner margins and a heavy dependence on domestic credit. When the 2-year jumps 13 basis points and the market starts pricing a half-point hike, small-cap borrowing costs reprice almost immediately. That explains why the Russell went from leading on Monday with a gain of more than 3% to leading the decline on Tuesday.
The two-day round trip shows the market’s split personality. Monday’s Russell rally was a bet that falling oil would cool inflation and keep the Fed on a gentle path. Tuesday’s CPI rejected that bet. The index has now given back close to half of Monday’s gain in a single morning.
Under the surface, the October rotation is back in charge. Hedge funds have been moving toward staples and healthcare, and the healthcare ETF (XLV) has been the most overbought sector while technology (XLK) has been the most oversold. The correlation of excess returns between XLV and XLK versus the S&P 500 sits at −0.73, which means money leaving one flows almost mechanically into the other. A shift that big tends to persist once it starts. Monday’s session briefly ran the other way, with tech up 3.68% and healthcare up just 1.91%. Tuesday’s rate shock gives the defensive trade its reason back.
The Dow’s relatively shallow 0.65% loss reflects that mix. The index is price-weighted and heavier in industrials, financials and healthcare than the Nasdaq, so it carries less exposure to long-duration growth. Dow futures were up 0.32% before the CPI and still roughly flat at 8:58 a.m., when Nasdaq-100 futures were already down 1.2%. That gap shows where the selling is concentrated.
Breadth is the clearest tell. Monday’s rally was broad, with every sector green and 86 of 101 Nasdaq-100 members higher. Tuesday’s losses are also broad, but they’re steepest where rate sensitivity is highest: small caps, unprofitable growth, chips and high-multiple software. That is a rate-driven tape, not a sector-specific one. When one macro variable moves every stock at once, stock-picking takes a back seat until that variable stabilizes.
Ahead of the midterm results last week, voters cited high living costs as a top concern, and Democrats won key congressional races. Tuesday’s grocery and shelter readings keep that cost-of-living pressure in the headlines, and it will shape the political debate around a Fed that is now hiking into a slowing equity market.
Oil, Gold, Bitcoin and the Dollar Send Mixed Signals
Commodities are giving the inflation hawks less ammunition than the CPI report did, which is part of why the selloff hasn’t turned into a rout. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery fell $1.20, or 1.38%, to $85.65 a barrel by late morning. Earlier, at 6:47 a.m., WTI was at $85.53, down 1.52%, and Brent was at $90.82, down 1.89%. Both benchmarks were at their lowest since late August after President Trump said he plans to hold off on new strikes on Iran. That follows Monday’s 5.85% plunge in Brent and a 16% collapse last week. With US-Russia-Ukraine talks under way and US-Iran diplomacy back on the table, the war premium in crude is draining fast.
That matters for the inflation outlook. October’s CPI captured a 1.0% gasoline rise after September’s 9.1% spike. November’s report will reflect pump prices that have already dropped below $4 a gallon. If oil holds in the mid-$80s or lower, headline CPI could cool meaningfully next month. The problem is that the November CPI arrives on December 10, after the Fed has already decided. Policymakers have to vote on October’s 0.3% core, not November’s likely softer headline.
Gold is losing its bid. Gold futures fell $61.70, or 1.50%, to $4,052.80 an ounce, down from levels above $4,100 earlier in the day. At 7:25 a.m. futures were at $4,086.10, down 0.69%, so the selling picked up after the CPI. Silver futures fell 0.58% to $52.39 an ounce. Higher real yields raise the opportunity cost of holding a metal that pays nothing, and a 13-basis-point jump in the 2-year is a direct hit to that trade. A move back below $4,000 would mark a clear break in the metal’s uptrend.
Bitcoin is behaving like a high-beta tech stock. It fell $1,850.09, or 2.47%, to $73,123.94 by 11:06 a.m., down from $74,708 late Monday. Crypto has traded with rate expectations all year, and a half-point hike possibility hurts every speculative asset at once.
The dollar’s role is quieter. The euro traded at $1.1193 and USD/JPY at 157.95 late Monday, with the dollar steadying after Waller’s comments. A front-end yield spike would usually lift the greenback sharply. The muted reaction suggests currency markets see the US hiking cycle as already largely priced against Europe and Japan, both of which are also running tighter policy.
Overseas, Europe opened strong before the US data. Germany’s DAX was up 358 points at 26,625 and the UK’s FTSE 100 was up 52 points at 10,835 in early trade. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.44%, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.08% and the Shenzhen Component rose 0.60%. Those markets closed or set their tone before the US CPI, so they reflect Monday’s optimism rather than Tuesday’s repricing.
Earnings Winners: AAON, Sanmina and PepGen Rip Higher
Not every stock is trading the Fed. The day’s biggest upside moves come from companies with numbers big enough to overpower the macro tape, and most of them are tied to AI data-center buildouts.
AAON (AAON) jumped 14.86% by 8:00 a.m. and was still up 13.58% at 9:02 a.m. after its third-quarter release showed record net sales of $707.4 million, up 84.1% from $384.2 million a year earlier. The growth engine is BASX, the company’s data-center cooling brand, where sales surged 218.3% to a record $397.2 million. AAON-branded sales grew 19.6% to $310.2 million. BASX backlog rose 51.1% and AAON-branded backlog rose 18.0%. Operating income climbed 129.3% to $100.0 million and diluted EPS rose to $0.83 from $0.37. Gross margin slipped to 26.7% from 27.8% a year earlier but improved 60 basis points from the prior quarter. The company also raised its 2026 growth forecast to 72%–75%, though the release came with a restatement of first-half results. Investors chose the growth over the accounting cleanup.
Sanmina (SANM) traded up 13.95% at 7:57 a.m. and 8.93% at 9:03 a.m. after its fiscal fourth-quarter report blew past its own guidance. Revenue hit $3.86 billion against an outlook of $3.3 billion to $3.6 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of $4.43 crushed the prior $3.05 to $3.35 range. Fiscal 2026 revenue came in at $14.53 billion. The guidance is the bigger story. Sanmina projects fiscal 2027 revenue of $17.5 billion to $19.5 billion, a 27% increase at the midpoint, with non-GAAP EPS growth of 24%. First-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue guidance is $3.8 billion to $4.1 billion, with EPS of $3.50 to $3.85. The ZT Systems data-center manufacturing business it bought from AMD is now ramping into next-generation accelerated-compute programs. The company also bought back $393 million of stock in fiscal 2026.
PepGen (PEPG) more than doubled, up 118.83% at 9:03 a.m. after peaking at 121.76% earlier, on trial data for its rare muscle disease drug showing 46.5% average splicing correction. Securitize (SECZ) rose 25.09% after agreeing to buy River One, authorizing a $50 million buyback and reporting third-quarter results. Senseonics (SENS) gained 14.18% after third-quarter revenue rose 140% to $19.6 million and it raised its 2026 forecast to $68 million to $70 million.
Energy and power infrastructure also caught bids. Venture Global (VG) rose 4.24% after raising 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $10.0 billion to $10.3 billion. Babcock & Wilcox (BW) added 3.17% after third-quarter revenue more than doubled to $290.8 million, with a $2.5 billion backlog and a 2027 EBITDA target of $125 million to $140 million. Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) rose 3.66% premarket even though second-quarter revenue fell 15% from a year earlier, because the company said pre-orders for GTA VI were running far ahead of expectations.
Earnings Losers: Rocket Lab, GFL, On Holding and Groupon Get Smoked
The downside list shows how little patience this market has for disappointment, even disappointment wrapped in record numbers.
Rocket Lab (RKLB) fell 8.82% at 9:03 a.m., one day after rising 10.9% on Monday. The company posted record quarterly revenue of $268 million and a backlog of $3.6 billion, both strong figures. But it confirmed that the first launch of its Neutron rocket won’t happen before 2027, pushing back the product that is central to its push into larger commercial, civil and national-security missions. Rocket Lab shares closed at $54.73 on October 30, almost 64% below their May high of $151, so the stock is still being priced on Neutron’s timeline rather than current revenue. A delayed launch at a high multiple is a bad mix when rates are climbing.
GFL Environmental (GFL) fell 13.38% after its board ended a review of take-private offers and rejected a $22 billion proposal, choosing to stay public. Takeover premiums that had been built into the shares came out in one move. On Holding (ONON) slid 10.34% even though sales grew 17.2%, or 17.8% in constant currency, because it held its forecast rather than raising it. In a market this sensitive, holding guidance reads as a cut.
Groupon (GRPN) dropped 24% after third-quarter revenue rose only 2% and it guided 2026 revenue to $500 million to $503 million. Digital Turbine (APPS) fell 22.83% even after raising its revenue forecast to $670 million to $690 million and posting quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $39.8 million, up 46%. That is a stock that had priced in more than a beat. Gilat Satellite Networks (GILT) fell 20.18% after third-quarter revenue of $116.2 million missed the $117.7 million estimate and it trimmed its 2026 forecast to $455 million to $475 million.
Janus International (JBI) dropped 18.28% after third-quarter revenue fell 2.8% to $213.1 million and adjusted EBITDA fell 22.0% on softer activity. That’s a direct read on weakening construction and storage demand, exactly the kind of slowdown the Fed’s hiking cycle is designed to produce. Ethan Allen (ETD) fell 16.07% after naming an interim CEO and confirming that longtime chief Farooq Kathwari is no longer with the company. WhiteFiber (WYFI), an AI infrastructure name, fell 5.73% after third-quarter revenue grew 19% to $24.0 million but net losses hit $101.4 million.
The pattern across the losers is consistent. Revenue growth alone isn’t enough. Stocks that delivered growth but missed on timing, profitability or guidance got hit as hard as stocks that missed outright. That is what a market looks like when the discount rate is rising: every dollar of future earnings is worth less today, so any delay or margin pressure gets punished heavily.
Anthropic’s $1.4 Trillion IPO Range and CoreWeave After the Bell
The biggest capital-markets event of the year is taking shape in the middle of a rate shock. Anthropic set a price range of $70 to $78 a share for 825 million shares, which would raise up to $64.35 billion at the top end. At $78 a share, the AI developer would carry a fully diluted valuation of up to $1.405 trillion, up from $965 billion in its May funding round. Alongside the offering, seven companies, AMD, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia and TSMC, plan $26 billion in private-placement investments at the IPO price. An earlier filing for 867 million shares at $70 to $80 was withdrawn late Monday, so the deal has already been trimmed once.
The timing is awkward. Anthropic’s roadshow launches the same week the 10-year approaches 5% and AI chip stocks face their sharpest drawdown since 2020. The revised range already sits well below the valuations floated a month ago, when targets of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion were circulating. A deal of this size soaks up liquidity, and every dollar allocated to the IPO is a dollar that isn’t bidding for existing AI stocks. The strategic placement from chip and cloud suppliers locks in a large block of demand, but it also shows how deeply interconnected the AI capital chain has become.
After the bell, CoreWeave (CRWV) reports third-quarter results at 5:00 p.m. ET along with quantum names Rigetti Computing (RGTI) and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS). CoreWeave guided third-quarter revenue to $3.45 billion to $3.6 billion, and consensus sits at $3.52 billion with an expected loss of $1.57 a share. Full-year 2026 revenue guidance is $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion. The numbers that matter most for the rate story are on the cost side. CoreWeave guided third-quarter interest expense to $860 million to $940 million and capital spending to $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion. A company carrying that much debt and capex is directly exposed to the rate move on display today. Every hike pushes its financing costs higher, and every basis point on the 10-year makes its future cash flows worth less.
CoreWeave’s report doubles as the after-hours read on whether the AI capex cycle is holding up. Strong revenue and backlog would support the chip complex into Wednesday. Weak guidance, rising interest costs or capex cuts would feed the narrative that triggered last week’s selloff, now with a hawkish Fed layered on top. The stock has drifted 17.8% lower since its August report, so expectations are already compressed.
Key Levels, the Week Ahead and the Session Verdict
The levels are clear. On the S&P 500, the line bulls need to reclaim is 7,650, which tracks the 20-day moving average a rebound must clear to prove it isn’t a dead-cat bounce. That sits 153.83 points, or 2.05%, above the 7,496.17 late-morning print. Monday’s close at 7,549.94 is the first resistance level, and the S&P 500 would need to recover all of Tuesday’s losses just to get back there. On the downside, the November 5 selloff low is the floor that matters. A retest would turn this two-day sequence into a failed rally.
On the Nasdaq Composite, 25,000 is the round-number support being tested now, with the index at 25,034.07. Monday’s 25,253.14 close is the first hurdle overhead. The Nasdaq-100 would need a 3.7% gain from Monday’s close to reach its 20-day moving average, a target that grew further away today. On the Dow, 52,000 is the support level in play, with the index at 52,047.57. For the Russell 2000, 2,800 is the line, and it’s already being tested at 2,800.38.
In rates, 5.00% on the 10-year is the trigger. The 4.992% intraday print leaves almost no room. In volatility, the VIX at 21.06 has reclaimed 20 after one day below it, and a move toward last week’s highs would confirm that Monday’s collapse in volatility was a reflex, not a regime change.
The calendar ahead is heavy. CoreWeave, Rigetti and D-Wave report after the close today. Applied Materials reports on November 12. Nvidia reports on November 17 with its CEO under board investigation and congressional scrutiny. PCE inflation arrives later in November, and Logan has already flagged upside risk there. Anthropic’s pricing is expected in the coming days. The FOMC meets December 8–9, and November CPI follows on December 10.
The verdict for Tuesday’s session so far is bearish. The S&P 500 fell 0.71%, the Nasdaq dropped 0.87%, the Dow slid 0.65% and the Russell 2000 lost 1.42%, with breadth negative and losses steepest in rate-sensitive groups. A 0.4% headline CPI and a third straight 0.3% core print crossed the exact threshold Waller set for a half-point hike, pushing 25-basis-point odds to 84% and 50-basis-point odds from zero to 15%. The 2-year jumped 13 basis points and the 10-year pressed toward 5%. Nvidia’s slide below $170 removed the market’s most important leader just as the rate backdrop turned hostile. Monday’s 2.35% surge now reads as short-covering after an extreme oversold condition, not a durable bottom. Until the S&P 500 reclaims 7,650 and the 10-year turns back from 5%, the Fed controls this market, and the Fed is hiking.