Market Analysis

Anthropic reported record Q3 revenue of $16.8 billion and its first adjusted profit, yet talk of its IPO valuation slipped from $2 trillion to around $1.5 trillion. The reason is growth speed: revenue rose 45% after more than doubling the quarter before, and investors are pricing how fast the number grows, not how big it is.

A hotter-than-expected US inflation print knocked chip stocks and the Nasdaq lower, yet AI demand looks as strong as ever. The real shift is in financing: as borrowing costs rise, the market is sorting AI companies by how much they depend on cheap money, with debt-heavy neoclouds like CoreWeave under the most pressure.

The question was never whether AI is real. It's whether today's prices assume intelligence stays expensive, and China is attacking that assumption from underneath.