Dear readers,
On Saturday, we flagged Nvidia’s Wednesday report as the event that could drag the entire technology sector lower if results fell short of extraordinary expectations. The bar, we noted, had been set extraordinarily high. In a few hours, we find out whether Jensen Huang can clear it.
Seven hundred billion dollars. That is the combined artificial intelligence capital expenditure expected from Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon this year—a 60% surge over 2025. As the closing bell approaches this afternoon, the entire market is waiting to see exactly how much of that massive war chest is flowing directly into Nvidia’s coffers. The chipmaker reports fiscal Q4 2026 results after the bell, and expectations are priced for perfection.
Meanwhile, the 150-day tariff clock we discussed over the weekend keeps ticking, the bond market is quietly rallying, and Bitcoin has staged a sharp recovery from a brief bout of panic. Here is what is driving the action.
The Silicon Center of Gravity
Nvidia has transcended its identity as a semiconductor company. It is now the macroeconomic weather vane for the entire 2026 tech cycle.
Analysts are projecting earnings per share of $1.53—a 71.9% year-over-year jump—on revenues of $65.7 billion. Impressive numbers, but Wall Street will barely glance at them. The real interrogation will center on guidance for the transition between the Blackwell and Rubin chip architectures. Management expects $500 billion in GPU sales across these two generations alone, a figure that demands scrutiny for any signs of softening demand or production bottlenecks.
If you need proof that the AI infrastructure build-out is still running hot, look no further than Nvidia’s rival. AMD shares leaped roughly 9% on Tuesday after securing a mammoth deal to supply Meta with up to 6 gigawatts worth of AMD GPUs. The arms race has not slowed. It has intensified.
The Picks, Shovels, and Cables
While retail investors fixate on GPU makers, institutional capital is quietly hunting secondary beneficiaries of the AI boom. Keysight Technologies (KEYS) just announced itself as one of them—loudly.
Shares of the electronic measurement company skyrocketed 23% to a 52-week high of $301.48 following a blowout Q1 earnings report. Keysight delivered $1.6 billion in revenue—up 23% year-over-year—and shattered EPS estimates. The logic is straightforward: you cannot build next-generation AI data centers or deploy 6G networks without advanced connectivity and semiconductor testing equipment.
More telling than the backward-looking beat was the forward guidance. Management projected roughly 30% revenue growth in Q2, confirming that the AI capital expenditure wave is spilling over from chip designers into the broader networking and testing ecosystem. The second-order effects of a $700 billion spending surge are becoming investable.
The Disrupted: IBM’s Reckoning
Good news for the AI builders is rapidly becoming bad news for legacy tech—and the contrast has rarely been this stark.
According to a fresh note from Morgan Stanley, IBM just suffered its worst trading day since 2000, contributing to a slide of more than 20% over the past month. The catalyst: the release of Anthropic’s “Claude Code” tool, which analysts say has thrust “AI disruption risk” squarely into the IBM debate.
The market’s bifurcation is now unmistakable. AI is a powerful tailwind if you are selling the infrastructure. It is an existential threat if your legacy software and consulting models can be automated by the very same technology. Saturday’s newsletter raised the question of which companies would find themselves on the wrong side of disruption. IBM appears to have its answer.
Tariffs, Bonds, and the Bitcoin Bounce
Beyond the tech sector, macro forces are pulling the strings. During last night’s State of the Union address, President Trump touted falling inflation—noting core CPI hit 2.5% in January, its lowest level since April 2021—while simultaneously floating a plan to use tariffs as a replacement for income taxes, pushing to raise the global tariff rate from 10% to 15%.
That 150-day tariff window we discussed on Saturday just got more complicated. Companies already navigating the temporary 10% global levy under Section 122 now face the prospect of an even higher rate, layered atop the refund claims many are still pursuing from the invalidated IEEPA tariffs.
The bond market absorbed the news with relative calm. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to a three-month low near 4.05%—a notable move given the Fed’s paralysis we outlined over the weekend.
Bitcoin’s reaction was more dramatic. BTC slid below $65,000 on the tariff headlines, briefly touching $62,500 amid “Extreme Fear” readings and over 120,000 trader liquidations. But the dip proved short-lived. By this afternoon, Bitcoin has clawed back above $66,100, supported by $257 million in spot ETF inflows and a weaker U.S. dollar. The 24/7 CME futures trading announced last week may soon dampen these kinds of weekend-to-weekday dislocations—but not yet.
MicroStrategy, predictably, bought the dip. The company completed its 100th Bitcoin acquisition—592 BTC at an average of $67,286—and immediately announced it is increasing its planned bond issuance to $700 million to buy more.
The Takeaway
The market is ruthlessly sorting companies into two camps: those building the AI future and those being displaced by it. The billions flowing into infrastructure are visible in Keysight’s 23% revenue surge and the expectations loaded onto Nvidia’s after-hours report. The consequences are equally visible in IBM’s worst month in a quarter century.
When Jensen Huang takes the stage at 4:00 PM ET, his numbers will not merely dictate the Nasdaq’s trajectory for the rest of the week. They will validate—or puncture—the thesis that $700 billion in AI spending is money well allocated.
The earnings call starts in a few hours. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Best regards,
The StocksToday.com Editorial
