The Final Tally: Too Big to Fail? More Like Too High to Care... Thanks to Microsoft’s AI Supply

One reason I love buying the dip in quality stocks is because the market almost never acts like it’s seen the same economic reports the rest of us are doom-scrolling through. And Thursday was a textbook case. Wall Street threw on its noise-canceling headphones, cranked up the “AI is too big to fail” playlist, and danced right past a backdrop of shrinking GDP, rising jobless claims, and Trump treating trade policy like a game of Wheel of Fortune… “I’ll take ‘Tariffs on Allies’ for $500, Pat.”

But as the old saying goes… “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if it’s your own.” That gem comes from Baron Rothschild, a British financier who knew a thing or two about chaos and opportunity. And on days like this, his advice feels like gospel.

Because if you did buy the dip, you are starting to reap the rewards. The Nasdaq jumped 2.1%, recovering all of its “Liberation Day” losses from when Trump declared war on every country in the universe on April 2. The S&P 500 climbed 1.1%, and the Dow added 246 points, marking its longest win streak of the year. You’d never guess we just logged a 0.3% GDP contraction and the highest jobless claims since February (241,000)... but who needs economic growth when Microsoft is building Skynet?

Speaking of, Microsoft soared 9%, its best day since the COVID lockdowns, after obliterating earnings expectations and announcing plans to spend even more billions on AI. “Cloud and AI are essential inputs for every business,” said Satya Nadella (as the market collectively nodded its head in agreement and smashed the BUY button). Meta jumped 5% after Zuck bragged about strong ad sales and doubled down on building data centers.

That sent a jolt through the entire tech landscape… Nvidia rose 4%, AMD tacked on 3.5%, and even Alphabet, still brushing off its Gemini disaster, managed a 2.2% gain. But not all chips were invited to the AI rave. Qualcomm wet the bed 8% after whispering, “tariffs are bad and phones aren’t selling,” then missing revenue guidance by a rounding error. Citi quickly yanked it off its “catalyst” list like it never happened.

Big Pharma had quite a day as well (just not the one they wanted). Eli Lilly dropped a fat 10% (and $90 billion in market cap) after CVS decided Wegovy from Novo Nordisk is the skinny pill of choice. Lilly’s CEO tried to play it off like exclusive deals are “so last decade,” which sounds a lot like what Sears said about ecommerce.

Then there’s Tesla, which had a “don’t worry, everything’s fine” moment after a WSJ report said the board was looking for Elon’s replacement. Chair Robyn Denholm (likely in the middle of selling more shares) clapped back with a statement saying it was “absolutely false” and that the board is totally, completely, definitely confident in Musk.

And yet… none of it mattered. The market didn’t blink. AI is the new religion, and Wall Street is fully converted. Forget rising unemployment, shrinking GDP, and a trade war with no peace treaty in sight… as long as tech promises more servers, investors will keep the faith.

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.