The October 17 briefing's central point is that the AI abundance thesis was not refuted this week. Demand data (TSMC, ASML) set records, while the discount rate used to value that future jumped. The 10-year Treasury yield is 5.09%, CoreWeave's bonds yield above 15%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 11.4% on the week. The briefing's advice is to keep exposure in companies that don't need outside financing.
Key signals
- US Sept CPI was 3.7% and PPI rose 1.3% month on month. The Fed hiked to 3.75–4.00% in September, and a December hike is put at over 90% likely. The 10-year yield is 5.09%, the 30-year 5.43% and WTI crude $99.
- CoreWeave's 2031 bonds yield above 15–16%, and its 5-year CDS briefly topped 1,140bp on debt and obligations above $51B. Nebius, Applied Digital, IREN and Cipher each fell more than 10% on Friday.
- TSMC's Q3 revenue was a record $46.7B and it raised 2026 growth to about 44%. ASML said supply will fall short of demand through 2027–2028. Even so, the SOX is down 15.7% from its October 6 peak.
- China's September exports rose 36.3% with a $133.5B trade surplus, while CPI was only 0.9%. Q3 GDP, due October 19, is expected at 4.4%.
- Next catalysts: Tesla and Meta on October 21, the FOMC and Alphabet/Microsoft on October 28.
By theme
AI
- Google's Gemini 4 Argon became generally available on October 13 at an intro price of $2/$10 per million tokens. It ranks first on Arena Text and ties GPT-6 Astra on the Artificial Analysis index at 53.
- Meta released Muse Spark Open (816B parameters, 42B active) as an open-weight model. NVIDIA released Nemotron 3.5 Super VL and is reportedly in talks to acquire or take a stake in Reflection AI (about $25B valuation).
- Per second-hand CNBC reports, Anthropic's Q3 revenue was about $16.8B, up 45% quarter on quarter, with an IPO reportedly in November (unverified). Anthropic also opened its fifth Asia-Pacific office, in Singapore.
- Software lost about $260B in market value on Friday. Microsoft alone lost $83B, and Palantir has fallen five days in a row.
Robotics
- Intuitive Surgical reports on October 20 and Tesla on October 21. The briefing says Optimus and Robotaxi guidance matter more than Tesla's EPS.
- Korea approved 20 humanoid robots for factory-line testing. Hyundai Motor Group (HD Hyundai in the briefing) debuts its own humanoid next week.
- Private funding was strong: about $510M across five robotics rounds, including MMI ($125M, surgical) and ICON ($200M).
Space
- Rocket Lab pushed Neutron's first flight to 2027, and six brokers cut price targets without cutting ratings. The stock fell 7.98% on Friday and is down 25.5% on the week.
- Blue Origin announced a $330M Florida expansion, and SpaceX asked the FAA for 456 Starbase launches a year.
- L3Harris rose 3.33% and is the one space/defense name the briefing rates Buy. It reports October 29.
Biotech
- Two Nature papers (October 14) from the Baker lab describe enzymes designed from scratch that cleave targets such as amyloid-β and TDP-43.
- Iambic's IPO raised $150M and rose 16–18% on its first day. Recursion fell 16.7% the same day, so the primary market looks healthier than the secondary.
- Big pharma acted as a safe haven: Eli Lilly gained 6.6% on the week, and ESMO runs October 23–27.
Hong Kong, A-shares and crypto
- The Hang Seng Tech index hit a two-year low on Thursday, then rebounded 1.16% on Friday. Lenovo jumped 8% on starting Vera Rubin NVL72 deliveries, and Apple's Qwen integration with Alibaba was approved. CXO stocks fell, with WuXi AppTec down 6.6% in A-shares.
- A-shares led in low-altitude economy, defense and carbon fiber. Rockchip (瑞芯微) hit its daily limit-down (-9.99%) after a Q3 sequential decline, which management attributed to PCB shortages.
- BTC is near $81,500 and ETH near $2,419. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows, and about $1B of leveraged positions were liquidated after the CPI print.
Rating highlights
| Ticker | Company | Call | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSM:NYSE | TSMC | Buy | Forward PE 18 against 44% growth; three brokers raised targets after earnings. |
| NVDA:NASDAQ | NVIDIA | Buy | Forward PE 13.6; capital concentrating in the most certain recipient of AI spending. |
| AMAT:NASDAQ | Applied Materials | Watch (downgraded) | Eight straight declines; CEO declined to give a WFE forecast; stop-loss broken. |
| AVGO:NASDAQ | Broadcom | Watch (downgraded) | Broke stop-loss; custom-ASIC customers' financing is the exposure. |
| LITE:NASDAQ | Lumentum | Watch (downgraded) | Down 25% on the week with no company-specific bad news; stop-loss broken. |
| CRWV:NASDAQ | CoreWeave | Sell | Bond yield 15%+ implies equity is the residual claimant; stress-test case. |
| PLTR:NYSE | Palantir | Sell | Price-to-sales of 73 with a 5.09% 10-year yield; only 12% upside to target. |
| ASTS:NASDAQ | AST SpaceMobile | Sell | Price-to-sales of 137, 35% short interest, negative cash flow. |
| RXRX:NASDAQ | Recursion | Sell | 33% short interest, a 17% one-day drop with no announcement, and binary trial risk. |
| LHX:NYSE | L3Harris | Buy | Defense cash flows are rate-insensitive; forward PE 18; small position before earnings. |
| 0992:HKEX | Lenovo | Buy | Forward PE 9.4; first-wave Vera Rubin NVL72 deliverer. |
| 6160:HKEX | BeOne Medicines (百济神州) | Buy (upgraded) | ESMO catalysts ahead; high-volume +4.4%; stop-loss moved up to cost. |
| 601138:SSE | Foxconn Industrial Internet (工业富联) | Buy | Forward PE 12.9; revenue up 56%; builds AI server racks. |
| LLY:NYSE | Eli Lilly | Hold (downgraded) | Only 8.5% upside to the average target; RSI 68.6 before October 29 earnings. |
| 603893:SSE | Rockchip (瑞芯微) | Watch (downgraded) | Limit-down and broke stop-loss; "Q4 recovery" claim needs verification. |
Tenbagger radar
The briefing text provided has no tenbagger radar section (the "十三、十倍股雷达" module), so there is no change to report for today.
Risks to watch
- Rates and inflation: Oct 19 China Q3 GDP (consensus 4.4%) and Oct 20 China LPR (expected unchanged). Oct 28 FOMC: a hike is put at about 29–33% likely, and at least one hike by December at over 90%.
- AI financing: If a CoreWeave-style credit event spreads, 2027 orders could be revised down. Cipher, IREN, Nebius and Applied Digital remain exposed.
- Earnings: Lam Research Oct 21 (after the close), Tesla and Meta Oct 21, Alphabet and Microsoft Oct 28, Amazon and Intel Oct 29, Lilly Oct 29, Cambricon Oct 24.
- Geopolitics and policy: Singapore's MAS stablecoin framework (consultation closed Oct 16; final rules not yet published), Cambricon (Oct 24) and Hygon (Oct 20) as China compute benchmarks, and the WuXi 1260H-list overhang.