AI trade — the labs ask for a slowdown: Kospi −3.3%, SoftBank −11%, Nasdaq futures −1.2%, oil back above $106
The week opens on a sentence the AI trade has never had to price: the people building the frontier models asked, in public and together, to slow down. Anthropic’s chief executive published “We Must Pace the Frontier” on Saturday; OpenAI’s chief executive backed it on Sunday and set aside an IPO for this year; xAI’s owner wrote “Dario is right.” Whatever the essay means for the models, the market read it as a statement about how much compute gets bought and how fast, and it sold the companies that sell the compute. The Kospi fell 3.3% to 6,679, SK Hynix 6.7%, Samsung 4.0%; SoftBank lost 11.3% in Tokyo, its largest one-day fall since June; Kioxia fell 6.4%, Resonac 6.1%, SUMCO 3.6%. Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.2%, the S&P 500 contract 0.5%, the Dow contract is flat — the overnight is a technology sale, not a market sale.
AI trade — the labs ask for a slowdown: Kospi −3.3%, SoftBank −11%, Nasdaq futures −1.2%, oil back above $106
1 The weekend: Anthropic asks the industry to pace the frontier, OpenAI agrees and shelves a 2026 IPO, xAI endorses it — Nasdaq-100 futures −1.2% to 29,031, S&P contract −0.5%, Dow flat; Intel and AMD −4%, SanDisk −4.5%, Micron −3.9% in overnight trading
2 Asia sells the compute layer: Kospi −3.3% to 6,679, SK Hynix −6.7%, Samsung −4.0%; SoftBank −11.3% in Tokyo, Kioxia −6.4%, Resonac −6.1%, SUMCO −3.6% — Nikkei only −0.7% to 63,532, Taiwan −0.7%, TSMC −1.2%, Hang Seng +0.4%
3 Friday, for the record: first gain in five — S&P 500 +0.9% to $764.29, Nasdaq-100 +0.9% to $714.88, Dow +1.0%, Russell +0.4%; technology +1.3%, industrials +1.1% led, health care and utilities red; week −0.8% on the S&P, −2.4% on small caps, health care −3.6%; VIX 15.84, −11%
4 The sort on Friday: chips bought back in the order they were sold — semiconductor ETF +1.9% to $527.07, Marvell +4.0%, Intel +2.6%, AMD +2.5%, Astera +2.4%, Nvidia flat — while memory and storage stayed sold, SanDisk −3.5%, Western Digital −3.0%; the software ETF +0.3%, its first green close in seven; and overnight takes the bounce back
5 Oil and rates go the wrong way again: Brent $106.71, +2.0%, WTI $102.12 with Saudi Arabia’s Hormuz-bypass pipeline shut and Gulf states meeting Iran in Oman today; the 10-year 4.975% and the 5-year 4.79%, up 24 basis points on the week; the dollar 99.45, yen 154.24; gold $4,371, −0.9%, copper −1.2%
6 Our indices on Friday’s closes: Rubin +0.8% to 1,962.86 with the factory layers up and the memory layers down — US constituents +3.1%, Japan −3.4%; HALO flat at 1,019.89 after a −3.5% week; AW40 +0.5%, −4.8% on the week; Agentic −0.3% with the security names sold again; Euro-AI +0.7%
7 Outside view: Situational Awareness is back — options on AMD, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, SK Hynix, SanDisk and the memory ETF, bought in the first ten days of September, after assets fell from more than $45 billion to about $10 billion in July; three of the six are down 4% to 7% overnight
8 Print record: Oracle $150.28 on Friday, 1.7% under its $152.94 entry after giving back the whole after-hours jump; Adobe $252.23, 1.4% over $248.83 — both inside their windows, both scored at Tuesday’s close; a pacing weekend lands on the one software name whose beat was a compute story
9 Cross-asset check: credit slipped all week — high-yield ETF −0.7%, investment-grade −1.1%; the Magnificent Seven fund $69.89, above the 69.5 weekly line it has held since August; the ex-tech Nasdaq fund $98.60, −2.9% on the week and negative on the year; the VIX at 15.84 into a Fed week, a pacing weekend and a war
10 The clock: Gulf states meet Iran in Oman today; Empire State manufacturing 12:30 UTC; the Fed meets Tuesday and Wednesday, retail sales 12:30 UTC Wednesday, the decision 18:00 UTC with a hike about 82% priced; Oracle and Adobe scored Tuesday; Bank of Japan Thursday and Friday; quarterly options expiry Friday — and the levels: $757.83, $708.69, $517.43, $107.63, 5.00%, 6,650
AI trade — the pacing call splits tech: chips −5%, software +4.5%, security +12–15%, 10-year hits 5%
1 ETF board: index flat, AI trade split — SPY −0.4%, QQQ −0.7% back above 704, DIA flat, IWM −0.2%, equal-weight flat; SOXX −5.2% to $499.81 through $517.43 and $505, SMH −4.4%, tech −1.4%; software +4.5% to $106.07; energy −0.2% with oil +2.4%; TLT +0.4%; VIX +6% to 16.9; memory ETF −6.5% to $55.05, below $58
2 Security names +12% to +15% on the pacing weekend: Zscaler +14.8%, SentinelOne +14.6%, CrowdStrike +14.7%, Palo Alto +12.1%, Okta +11.3%, Fortinet +7.9%, Cloudflare +6.6% — the thesis of Sunday’s Weekly, paid in one session
3 The components priced for a race: Astera −9.9%, Arm −8.9%, SK Hynix −7.3%, Lam −7.2%, Marvell −6.3%, SanDisk −6.3%, Bloom −6.4%, Micron −5.6%, Super Micro −5.5%, CoreWeave −5.2%, Intel −5.0%, AMD −4.8% to $491, Broadcom −4.2%, Western Digital −4.0%, Nvidia −2.9% to $211.96, TSMC −2.9% — the six Situational Awareness names down 5% to 7%
On Saturday Anthropic’s chief executive asked the AI industry to slow the rate at which models grow more capable; on Sunday OpenAI’s chief agreed, committed to outside evaluators and set aside an IPO for this year, and xAI’s owner endorsed it in two words. Nothing in it cancels a purchase order, and the market sold the physical layer anyway: the Kospi lost 3.3%, SK Hynix 6.7%, Samsung 4.0%, SoftBank 11.3% in Tokyo, Kioxia 6.4%; Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.6% with the tracker at $703.64 before the open, under the 704 shelf we have carried since August, while the Dow contract is nearly flat. Brent is $108.33, above Thursday’s $107.63 and the high of the run, and the Fed decides on Wednesday with a hike about 82% priced. This Pulse is about one question: is the market repricing the premium on scarce compute, or the volume of compute that gets bought? The order in which names fell says premium — memory and SoftBank first, equipment near flat, the buildings and power that carried Friday not yet sold — and we set out the test that would say otherwise.