ZUUAS·Bullish@100.25
Loading...
NVDA's Wednesday announcement showed that the spending commitments are still growing. It is advancing $1.1B to reserve KYEC capacity and plans to expand substrate capacity to 2.5 times its current level over three years. SOXX nevertheless continued lower. The supplier is securing capacity today for demand expected over several years, while financing that demand is becoming more expensive. The next stage of this story is whether customers can fund deployment and earn a return on it. Strong chip demand does not close that gap.
09992.HKThe recent weakness was not confined to September's online channels. A mainland offline tracker puts Pop Mart's Q3 same-store sales growth at only 0.4%, against more than 8% at Miniso and TOPTOY. October checks on the new Labubu launch and flagship-store traffic are more encouraging, but the shares have now broken 140. The next test is whether the new releases produce sustained sales, not just an initial burst of traffic.
01810.HK
00700.HK
601899
This week, GDX filled the first of those August gap-ups I didn't like when they formed.
XLFThe regional-bank results released this week have not caught up with the deterioration in traded credit. KeyCorp's Q3 net charge-off ratio fell to 0.32%, down 10bp both sequentially and year on year. Western Alliance's fell to 0.30% from 0.37% in Q2, although it was still above 0.22% a year earlier. These are realized losses from the September quarter; the spread widening is happening now. The next quarters will show how much of that financing pressure reaches provisions and loan losses.
TSLA's Wednesday results showed a different cash-flow sequence: Q2's $1.09B outflow became a $1.53B inflow in Q3, helped by both stronger operating cash flow and lower capex. Operating profit also improved from Q2, although it remained 56% below a year earlier and automotive revenue fell 3% year on year. The next test is whether that sequential repair continues alongside the spending programme, rather than mistaking one better quarter for a full recovery.
METAWednesday's Meta results were not a demand collapse. Revenue grew 26%, and operating profit increased year on year after excluding the $9.89B legal charge. But $34.91B of capital spending, including finance-lease principal, exceeded $32.79B of operating cash flow, leaving free cash flow at negative $2.12B. The lower end of full-year capex guidance also moved up to $135B from $130B, with the upper end unchanged at $145B. The rest of the year now faces a higher spending floor, not just the hurdle of another revenue beat.
META MAGSmade the cash-flow debate concrete this Wednesday. Next week, Alphabet and Microsoft report on October 28, followed by Amazon on October 29. The focus now shifts from the size of AI demand to how quickly backlog becomes revenue, how much cash remains after capex and how the next round of spending will be funded. The biggest buyers will be answering those questions while the credit market is charging more for risk.