The daily briefing

28 October 2026 | Information cutoff: 06:48 Europe/London Morning View The overnight evidence shifted the AI debate back from financing structures to delivered earnings. SK hynix reported an 80% operating margin and said supply will remain structurally short through 2030, Seagate converted nearline scarcity into a 57.8% non-GAAP gross margin and record free cash flow, while Corning and Teradyne showed that optical connectivity and semiconductor test are compounding alongside accelerators.…

Morning View Tuesday, 27 October 2026. Information cutoff: 06:52 Europe/London. The overnight narrative shifted from whether AI demand exists to which balance sheets can finance it without destroying per-share returns. Meta Platforms launched an equity programme of up to $95bn, SpaceX secured a binding $40bn GPU finance-lease commitment, and Anthropic filed publicly for an IPO while disclosing extraordinary growth, losses and founder control. These are not isolated capital-markets events: they…

Morning View Sunday, 4 October 2026. Information cutoff: 06:50 BST. The weekend’s dominant shift is that AI’s funding and governance constraints are becoming part of the earnings debate rather than externalities. SoftBank’s newly completed $4bn acquisition of DigitalBridge creates a third-party capital channel for projects too large for SoftBank’s own balance sheet, while cooling IPO demand has pushed SB Energy and OpenAI to delay listings. At the same time, Washington…