The daily briefing

1 November 2026 | Information cutoff: 06:47 GMT Morning View The weekend produced the clearest evidence yet that private capital is beginning to apply the same return discipline public markets imposed on AI equities on Friday. OpenAI has reportedly secured about $11bn against an original $30bn fundraising ambition, reduced its maximum target to $20bn and accepted a $1.25tn valuation rather than the $1.4tn it initially sought. Demand for frontier models…

31 October 2026 | Information cutoff: 06:44 GMT Morning View Friday’s selloff marked an important narrative change: investors did not dispute that AI demand is strong; they rejected the idea that strong demand automatically produces attractive equity returns. The Nasdaq fell 2.9%, its largest decline since June, while the semiconductor index lost 7.2%. Intel fell 28.6%, Advanced Micro Devices 10.9%, Dell Technologies 10.8% and Nvidia 4.2%. The common denominator was…

30 October 2026 | Information cutoff: 06:50 GMT Morning View The overnight tape sharpened the distinction between AI demand and AI economics. Amazon Web Services accelerated to 39% growth and Amazon projected growth above 40% in both 2027 and 2028, yet the shares fell because a roughly $220bn 2026 capital program has pushed trailing free cash flow deeply negative. Intel delivered a much stronger quarter, but a manufacturing interruption, server-chip…