| TQ Morning Briefing | The AI trade split in half yesterday. The builders are accelerating. The companies in AI's path are getting repriced. CPI at 8:30 AM decides whether the market gets room to sort winners from losers, or sells everything into the weekend. | | | | | | The Worst Session of 2026 Meets the Most Important Number of the Week. | S&P 500 futures are flat at 6,832 ahead of the January CPI release at 8:30 AM. Nasdaq 100 futures are down fractionally. | The options market is pricing a 1.1% move on the session, implied range this year. That's not panic. That's positioning stretched and unwilling to carry risk through the print. | The 10-year sits at 4.17%, off Wednesday's spike. July remains the first cut on the board, with roughly 50bps priced by year-end. That's a fragile path. CPI either reinforces it or erases it. | The dollar index held at 96.89. It remains below its 50-day moving average and down nearly 10% over twelve months. Strong employment data didn't break the structural weakening trend. | Gold fell 3% alongside equities, which is not how a clean risk-off tape behaves. That was deleveraging, not rotation. | WTI crude slipped to $62.74 after the IEA cut its demand forecast and maintained its call for a deep supply glut this year. | Bitcoin dropped to roughly $65,000, confirming cross-asset deleveraging. | Thursday was the ugliest session of 2026. | The Dow shed 669 points. The S&P lost 1.57%. The Nasdaq fell 2.03%. | All seven Mag 7 names closed red. Cisco (CSCO) lost 12%. Apple (AAPL) lost 5%. | After hours split sharply. | Applied Materials (AMAT) guided Q2 revenue to $7.65 billion, well above the Street's $7.02 billion. Shares jumped 13%. Rivian rose 16%. Pinterest plunged 18%. | Trade Implication | If headline CPI prints at or below 2.5% and core lands between 0.3% and 0.35%, beaten-down names catch a bid: IWM, XLRE, oversold software. If core runs above 0.35%, Thursday's defensive rotation extends through XLP and XLU. |
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| | | | The New #1 Stock in the World? | A tiny company now holds 250 patents tied to what some call the most important tech breakthrough since the silicon chip in 1958. | Using this technology, it just set a new world speed record — pushing the limits of next-generation electronics. | Nvidia has already partnered with this firm to bring its tech into advanced AI systems. | This little-known company could soon become impossible to ignore. | See how it works. |
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| | | | | WHAT ACTUALLY MOVED MARKETS |
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| | | Three Forces Collided. AI Disruption, Cross-Asset Deleveraging, and a CPI Positioning Vacuum. | The AI disruption repricing | The market stopped pricing AI as a rising tide and started pricing it as a sorting mechanism. | Cisco's guidance showed AI-native networking cannibalizing legacy demand. | Apple's drop reflected delayed AI features and FTC scrutiny. | The damage spread beyond tech. CBRE and JLL fell on fears AI would compress fee-based models. | Trucking stocks CHRW and RXO plunged 16% and 20%. | The cross-asset flush | Silver's 10% crash was the tell. | Crowded retail positioning met margin calls that cascaded into forced selling. | Gold down 3%, bitcoin down to $65,000, equities selling simultaneously. | When gold, silver, bitcoin and equities all drop together, that's forced selling. Not narrative. Not macro. Positioning. | The CPI vacuum | No one wanted to carry directional exposure into a binary print after the worst session of the year. The selling wasn't new information. It was risk reduction. | The sell-off accelerated Thursday without a fresh catalyst. | That's a market reducing risk into uncertainty. | Execution Bias | The AI hardware-software divergence is the structural trade. AMAT's guidance confirmed the supply side is accelerating. The short side, enterprise software (IGV) and AI-disrupted services, hasn't found a floor. If CPI cooperates, hardware extends. If it doesn't, both sides sell. |
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| | | | Staples Led. Small Caps Bled. Breadth Broke Down. | Thursday's sector map was textbook risk-off. Consumer staples and utilities gained more than 1%. Staples hit a fresh record close. Tech and communication services led the decline. | The Russell 2000 fell 2.09%, underperforming the S&P by 52 basis points. Small caps had been leading in early 2026 on domestic revenue optimism. That edge evaporated in one session. | Walmart gained 3.8%. McDonald's added 2.7% after an earnings beat. | When the names leading the tape are defensive consumer franchises, the market is paying for safety, not growth. | Execution Bias | Watch whether AMAT's strength rotates into the broader semis group (LRCX, KLAC, TSM) at the open. If it does and CPI cooperates, the growth-value spread reverses. If semis can't hold gains through the morning, Thursday's defensive posture carries into next week. |
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| | | | This AI Stock Just Had Its Biggest Jump in 20 Years | Eric Fry was one of the first to say "Sell Nvidia." Instead, he pointed to a little-known AI hardware company with almost no competition. | While Nvidia's customers turn into rivals, hyperscalers are fighting to buy more from this firm — not replace it. | This week? A historic $6B deal and the biggest surge in two decades. | And Fry says this may only be the beginning. | Get the full story here. |
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| | | | The Variables That Haven't Priced Yet. | The Fed transition is the quiet variable. Kevin Warsh takes over in May, and markets are still pricing cuts under a Powell framework. | BofA's economics team wrote this week that the path to cuts under Warsh "now looks narrower". If unemployment holds near 4.3% and inflation refuses to cooperate, that assumption tightens quickly. | Today's CPI matters more in that context. A hot print doesn't just delay cuts. It compresses the window for any easing at all under new leadership. | Oil is pricing geopolitical risk the IEA says doesn't exist. | Crude is up roughly 10% year-to-date despite the agency calling for a 3.73 million bpd surplus. OPEC sees demand rising 1.38 million bpd. | Someone is wrong. If the IEA is right, the energy trade unwinds. | Investor Signal | The Warsh transition creates a policy uncertainty window from May through September. If today's CPI runs hot, that window gets more volatile. Watch the 2-year yield. Above 4.1% post-CPI, the market starts pricing zero cuts this year. |
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| | | | Applied Materials Just Told You the Buildout Is Accelerating. | AMAT reported Q1 revenue of $7.01 billion against estimates of $6.88 billion. EPS of $2.38 beat the $2.25 consensus. Q2 revenue guided to roughly $7.65 billion versus $7.02 billion expected. | Next-quarter EPS guided to approximately $2.64 against estimates of $2.28. | CEO Gary Dickerson said he expects global semiconductor industry revenues to reach $1 trillion in 2026, years ahead of prior forecasts. | Advanced packaging and HBM tooling were cited as primary growth vectors. These are the physical bottlenecks in AI chip production. | Thursday priced AI as margin compression. AMAT priced AI as capex acceleration. Both can be true. The buildout is what enables the disruption. | Edge Setup | If AMAT holds its 13% gain in the regular session, it confirms the semi equipment cycle is intact. The pair trade, long physical infrastructure (AMAT, LRCX, KLAC) against short disrupted software (IGV), widens. |
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| | | | Economic Data: CPI, Core Inflation Rate, Inflation Rate | Earnings: Moderna (MRNA) | Overnight: Nikkei -1.21%, Shanghai -1.26%, FTSE 100 +0.02%, DAX -0.16% |
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| | | | | | When Bitcoin Bounces, This Altcoin Could Explode | When Bitcoin rebounds, altcoins don't slowly climb — they explode. | In past cycles, early buyers captured gains of 700%, 2,600%, even over 15,000% by getting positioned while fear dominated the market. | Right now the market is down and fear is high — but major funds are quietly buying one altcoin with a market cap still under $1 billion, leaving massive upside potential. | With Trump's pro-crypto policies kicking in and the next bull run approaching, this coin could be perfectly positioned for a major breakout. | Get the #1 Coin for the Trump Presidency Bull Run here. |
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| | | | Two signals arrived after Thursday's bell and they point in opposite directions. | AMAT says the semiconductor buildout is accelerating faster than anyone modeled. | The VIX at 20.82, up 18% in a single session, says the market isn't sure it can absorb that pace without casualties. | CPI resolves one of those signals this morning. | If core prints at or below 0.35% and the 2-year stays contained below 4.1%, the market gets room to separate builders from casualties. | If core surprises higher and the 2-year pushes through 4.1%, the easing path compresses and Thursday's liquidation extends. | The reaction in rates will tell you more than the headline. | The answer arrives at 8:30. |
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