1The Fed held, and the market priced a December hike more firmly, not less
The Federal Reserve left rates unchanged on 28 October with two dissents, one from Cleveland's Beth Hammack and, for the first time, one from Governor Lisa Cook. Several headlines called the outcome dovish. Barchart wrote of a "dovish tint", and Reuters quoted Chair Kevin Warsh saying the economy is not running too hot. The prediction markets read it the other way. On Kalshi, a 25bp December hike rose to 79% from 75% the day before, and a hold fell to 20% from 24%, on about $155,000 of 24-hour volume in the hike contract. Polymarket prices the same hike at 77.5% on $441,000 of 24-hour volume. A move larger than 25bp sits at 4%.
Joseph Wang, the former New York Fed trader, sided with the markets in his debrief. His key line was Warsh's phrase that financial conditions are tighter but that he is "unwilling and unable to call them tight". Wang reads that as a chair still in hiking mode. Warsh also argued that higher rates are already reaching AI spending: "interest rates get in the cracks", he said, pointing to wider credit spreads on some AI assets. Wang's one exception is an AI-led equity correction, which in his view would take December off the table.
Bill Ackman, on Equity Mates, disputes the premise. He thinks a hike may be a mistake, because today's inflation comes from war-driven oil and AI capital spending, which rates do little to cool. September's consumer price index rose about 0.65% in a month, on FRED's index (336.3, from 334.1), so the inflation Warsh is fighting is real. Whether rates can reach its causes is the open question. Neither side can settle it before the next CPI print.
Warsh also changed the calendar. Next year keeps eight meetings, but only seven will be live for rate decisions, and 2028 may have six. The curve reacted at once. The gap between 10-year and 2-year yields widened to 0.38 point from 0.29, FRED shows, as short rates fell and long rates rose. Wang suspects some of that is futures traders re-mapping which meetings can move rates. The so what: fewer live meetings make each one carry more, and the December meeting is now priced as a likely hike.
2Big Tech's results are splitting the group, with cloud rewarded and search punished
Microsoft and Alphabet reported after the close and went opposite ways. Microsoft rose between 2% and 4% after hours, by different outlets' counts. Investing.com credited Azure, which Microsoft disclosed on its own for the first time, and the New York Times reported profit up 32% despite heavier spending. Alphabet fell after hours. Reuters cited a search-driven revenue miss and worsening cash burn. Nasdaq futures were down about 1% overnight on Yahoo Finance's snapshot, while Dow futures were up, so the damage is concentrated rather than broad.
Ackman's book lines up with that split. He sold Alphabet because its price had risen until the expected return fell below his target. He still holds Microsoft, Amazon and Meta , and calls the capex-driven selloffs in those names buying opportunities. He also re-bought Netflix after it roughly halved. That last call meets open disagreement. Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick, on Animal Spirits from The Compound, think Netflix "will never grow like it has in the past". They point to its shares being down about 6% over five years while operating income rose. CNBC framed the wider pattern the same day: correlation inside the "Magnificent Seven" has broken down.
Beneath the big names, the hosts cited a Goldman figure for the median S&P 500 company's net margin: 13%, against under 6% in the 1990s. A Wall Street Journal tally they quoted ranked Micron and Nvidia first and second by contribution to the index's earnings gain. That leaves the group's earnings heavily concentrated. The so what: with the group no longer moving as one, each report is now a separate test, and Amazon's comes tonight.
3Anthropic's growth cooled sharply once the token rush ended, and the filing stops before showing it
Steve Eisman, on Prof G Markets, put numbers on the slowdown. "Token maxing" was the first-half practice of companies ordering engineers to use AI around the clock regardless of cost. Through that period, Anthropic's sequential revenue growth ran at 135% and then 147%. Eisman cites reports of third-quarter figures that show growth falling to 45%. Revenue as a multiple of compute cost fell from 2.08 to 1.7 over the same quarter. The filing's headline charts stop at the second quarter. Eisman called that choice "very intentional". He also cited an unconfirmed report that Anthropic cut prices by about 50% in October to win back share from Chinese open-weight models.
His conclusion was blunt. Asked whether to invest, he answered "No". He argued that a business committed to roughly $800 billion of compute, competing mainly on price, has no moat. Ed Elson added a correction from the other direction. The $80 billion first-half net loss is mostly an accounting write-up of convertible notes, so the operating picture is better than that figure implies. Batnick and Carlson read the same filing as "a real company", noting its operating loss narrowed to $693 million. Both sides accept the filing's numbers. What divides them is whether the first half or the third quarter is the representative period.
Prediction markets have not moved much. Polymarket prices an IPO by 31 December at 94.6% ($5,900 of 24-hour volume) and a valuation of $1.50–1.75 trillion as the most likely bucket at 53.7%, on thin volume. The CoreWeave link matters too. Eisman reckons its debt costs about 15%, which he called prohibitive for a business that borrows to build data centres. Yahoo reported the cost of insuring that debt has doubled. The so what: if third-quarter numbers must appear before listing, they become the first public test of whether AI demand holds once usage is paid for.
4Energy costs are reaching corporate guidance while war-risk odds stay low through the midterms
Oil swung around the Fed. Prof G Markets put Brent near $114 at Tuesday's close. Traders Union reported crude topping $115 on strike reports before Wednesday's open. Overnight, December WTI traded around $101, down 1.4%, as Reuters reported peace hopes offsetting fears of a wider conflict. Iran said the latest mediation contained "only unacceptable ideas". Wang flagged a Wall Street Journal report that attacks on Iran could resume after the midterms. Ackman gave the same timing, arguing Iran's Revolutionary Guard is unlikely to settle before the vote.
The costs are now appearing in company statements. Reuters reported Unilever flagging price increases, airlines cutting fuel hedges and warning on fares, and European gas touching €100 for the first time since 2022. Phillips 66 posted a record refining profit, which shows who gains from the same squeeze.
Polymarket prices the US–Iran ceasefire holding through the midterms at 93.5%, up 4 points on the day, on $94,000 of 24-hour volume. Holding through 31 October is at 96.2%. Near-term war risk is priced low; what the headlines carry is cost. The so what: the November–December window after the vote is where the war-timing reports and the market odds could diverge.
What the sources recommended
Sixteen single-name calls came from three videos, and fourteen of them came from Bill Ackman describing his own portfolio. Read them as a disclosed book rather than independent picks. Ackman also said he was on the show to address demand for his listed vehicles. On Equity Mates he named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , both traded over the counter. He is their largest shareholder and puts their value near 20 times earnings against roughly one to one-and-a-half times today, with the catalyst a post-midterm release from government conservatorship. He conceded the position has cost his fund heavily this year. He named Howard Hughes , which he is turning into an insurance-float holding company, and his own Pershing Square USA and London-listed Pershing Square Holdings , at roughly 24% and 37% discounts to asset value. He described those as "a real bargain", a manager's view of his own funds. His other holdings: Microsoft , Amazon , Meta , Netflix , Uber , Restaurant Brands , Visa (bought "in the low 20s" times earnings) and Mastercard . His one sale was Alphabet , on price rather than quality.
Ross Givens said in a Short that he bought Rapid7 , which he called the cheapest cybersecurity stock, up from about $12 to $16 in 12 days. He framed AI agents as new security entry points. His video sells a paid membership, and the pitch is chart-led. Steve Eisman's "No" on Anthropic is the day's one avoid call on an unlisted name.
The next 36 hours mark these claims to market
Alphabet's after-hours drop meets the cash session this morning. Amazon, Intel, SanDisk and Starbucks report after today's close. Eli Lilly, Caterpillar, Merck, Mastercard, CRH and Quanta report before the open. Exxon, Chevron, AbbVie and Cameco follow on Friday morning. Amazon will show whether the cloud-versus-search split holds. Exxon and Chevron will show how much of the oil premium reached earnings. For the Fed, the next inflation print matters more than any speech: a hot number keeps December's 79% intact.
