IN THIS ISSUE (22) - 02 November 2026
🚀 Anthropic files for its IPO, Bitcoin watches
📉 The AI trade wobbles from China to Wall Street
📱 Apple’s foldable debut has a crack or two
🏛 The Fed keeps rates steady (for now)
THE WEEK IN MARKETS
The AI trade’s wobble has now crossed oceans and sectors. It started in China, where blue chips entered a bear market last Thursday, with the CSI 300 down 20% from its June peak after 11 straight weekly losses, as Bloomberg reported.
On Wednesday evening it reached Wall Street. Alphabet fell 10% after hours despite Google Cloud revenue doubling, as a search advertising miss and roughly $9 billion of negative free cash flow wiped nearly $400 billion off its value, according to Reuters. Microsoft rose about 3% on stronger cash flow. ServiceNow fell more than 14% on weak fourth quarter guidance. That makes three companies, three explanations and one direction. Contagion or coincidence is the question earnings season is worst equipped to answer.
The Fed held at 3.75% to 4% on Wednesday on a 10 to 2 vote, with both dissenters wanting a hike. Chair Kevin Warsh again declined forward guidance, and traders see a December hike at about 85%. Crypto held steady through all of it, with Bitcoin near $80,000 and Ether around $2,300.
🔥 WHAT’S UP: Microsoft | +3% | after hours
💧 WHAT’S DOWN: ServiceNow | -14% | after hours
Data correct as at 29 October 2026.
ALPHA CHECK
Got your answer? Read on to see if you nailed it.
THE BIG READ
Anthropic files, Bitcoin watches
On Monday morning, Anthropic filed its S-1 publicly and Meta announced plans to raise up to $95 billion, part of a global race to raise cash for AI. Reports point to an Anthropic raise of up to $100 billion, with pricing targeted for mid-November. Bitcoin sat near $80,000, down about 5% on the month. It watched.
The loss that mostly isn’t
Revenue: $16.3 billion in the first half, up from $1.2 billion a year earlier.
Net loss: $80.7 billion, of which $72.4 billion is a non-cash charge on convertible notes that grew with the company’s valuation.
Operating loss: $693 million.
A loss that is mostly
Why the market cares
The seven layers of the AI investment stack show where listed AI exposure sits and where it doesn’t.
Last Thursday the Nasdaq fell 2.6% on doubts about AI spending. By Monday, a filing had the sector rallying again.
The shift worth noting is who pays. Big tech’s data centre spending was once funded from cash flow. Meta’s raise follows Alphabet’s $85 billion share sale, and the sums have outgrown the till.
The case for: revenue is arriving, with AWS growing 37% in the second quarter, its fastest pace in 18 quarters.
The case against: funding now leans on capital markets while borrowing costs rise.
The Bitcoin comparison
Anthropic’s last private round valued it at $965 billion. IPO talk starts around $1.5 trillion, against Bitcoin’s market cap of about $1.61 trillion. Nothing says IPO money would otherwise have gone into Bitcoin. What it shows is a crowded issuance calendar, not demand drying up. Spot ETFs have added 87,000 BTC since the June low, which is not what an exit looks like.
QUICK TAKES
⛏️ Miners leave for AI, hash rate stays
Listed miners have disclosed more than $70 billion of AI and high performance computing contracts, of which about $1.1 billion is billed annually so far. Bitcoin’s network has not noticed. Hash rate sits about 6.5% below its record, and difficulty is projected to rise roughly 5% to 6% on 29 October. Private operators and new regions are filling the gap. Someone is always plugging in. Read more
🐋 XRP whales hold more than they have in four years
Wallets holding at least 10 million XRP now control about 68.5% of supply, the highest share since November 2022, according to Santiment data. XRP trades near $1.29. Large holders are either buying the dip or positioning to sell higher, and the data cannot say which. More than two thirds of supply now sits in wallets of that size. Read more
📱 Apple’s foldable is off to a cracking start
Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, starts above $2,000, and early buyers are already posting screens with the same horizontal crack. Apple says a small number of units are affected and is offering replacements through AppleCare. It is the first test for new CEO John Ternus, whose first results call in the job is due Monday. The seven year wait to avoid a flawed foldable was supposed to prevent exactly this. Read more
ALPHA CHECK - REVEALED
PROBABLY SOMETHING
Kevin O’Leary puts Bitcoin’s plateau down to two worries: institutions waiting for regulatory clarity, and quantum computing unsettling some holders. Both are out in the open, which is more than most plateaus can say. On clarity, the SEC has proposed its own rulebook even after the CLARITY Act failed in the Senate. O’Leary, for his part, still owns Bitcoin. Watch here
