This is why we can’t have nice things… (Thanks, AI) 

The market has a fever and the only medicine is NOT AI. At least not today that is. Case in point: The S&P 500 slid almost 1%, the Nasdaq ate a full 1.4% faceplant, and the Dow did that annoying thing where it flirted with a new record in the morning before getting taken behind the barn and shot (falling 160 points). 

Live look at my portfolio today… 

Oh, and tech got smoked. Again. The reason mainly, is because OpenAIs less unhinged cousin Anthropic dropped an absolute bomb of a headline regarding their new Cowork capabilities in the legal space. Soooo legal workers are now #opentowork? It’s starting to look eerily like it as Toni Kaplan from Reuters stated: “We view this as a sign of intensifying competition, and thus a potential negative.” Woof.

Naturally, Microsoft threw up -3%, while Meta wasn’t too far off with a -2% decline. Apple, on the other hand, was barely clung to green presumably because every vibe coder in America rushed to stock up on mac mini’s over the weekend to extort their Clawdbots on Molthub.com (iykyk). As for Obi-Huang Kenobi and his Iron Throne that is Nvidia, shares dropped another -3%... and officially moves it from “AI god” to “what if expectations were simply too high?” territory.

(Source: Giphy) 

Over in the software land. Well, again… it was an absolute crime-scene. ServiceNow and Salesforce both dumped ~7% like the market suddenly remembered that AI can write code faster than a mid-level SaaS sales team can book a demo. From there, money rotated straight out of “future narratives” and into “things that exist in real life.” Walmart popped 3% and casually crossed a $1 trillion market cap because Americans refuse to stop buying groceries and random stuff they don’t need. Pepsi ripped 5% after reminding everyone that sugar, salt, and brand loyalty are undefeated. Oh, and banks caught some bids as JPM (+2.15%) and Citi (+1.26%) mooned. 

Even metals were rocked hard as gold jumped ~5% and silver bounced 6%. Meanwhile, the real damage showed up where people weren’t looking. Private credit–exposed names got absolutely kneecapped. Blue Owl, TPG, Ares, KKR took double digit drops across the board while Apollo and Blackrock both plunged -5%. Why? Because if AI starts eating software margins, and software companies start shrinking, and private credit is funding a lot of that ecosystem… yeah. Do the math. The market did.

Silver traders be like: 

That said, Palantir was the clear winner of the day, up 7% after earnings simply because no one still really knows WTF they do other than help ICE out. Translation: Defense + government contracts + “AI but scary” still prints. If that wasn’t enough chaos for the day, Congress narrowly voted to end the government shutdown (217–214). Bigly. 

So yeah… it was definitely a day. Of course, some may look at today's havoc and say the market is anti-AI. It’s not. It’s simply anti-paying infinity for it. Capital is rotating out of dreams and back into balance sheets. Out of “maybe someday” and into “we make money now.” And today, tech got the invoice. Meaning, keep your head on the swivel and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends… 

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

 

☕ Market Gossip

> House Republicans move toward reopening U.S. government (CNBC): Just four days of shutdown? That’s rookie numbers in this racket… 

> ‘Get Me Out’: Traders Dump Software Stocks as AI Fears Erupt (Bloomberg): “I am the one who knocks” - your AI agent on Moltbook 

> Ray Dalio warns the world is ‘on the brink’ of a capital war (CNBC): Define: Things to say to increase book sales. 

> Lotus Health nabs $35M for AI doctor that sees patients for free (TechCrunch): Meanwhile, “I am surgeon” plays on repeat… 
 

“WTF” Meme of the Day

On a positive note, at least there’s three years left for Donnie to turn things around… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Microsoft, Meta, and Pepsi as mentioned in the article.