Good Morning! Hong Kong’s IPO boom is throwing a lifeline to China-focused private equity firms desperate for exits. JPMorgan’s trading desk told clients the recent equities slump is a dip-buying opportunity. And investors can now make bets on the price of labubus and sneakers.

Brookfield is raising $10 billion for a new AI infrastructure fund. Block popped 9% on its gross profit forecast and 3-year financial outlook. Michael Burry said his firm may be deregistered, but he’s still trading.

Plus: The JPMorgan bankers behind the U.S. bailout for Argentina, Pakistan’s retail investors have fueled a 40% rally in stocks this year, and five habits of people who get twice as much done in half the time.

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Nvidia Quiets Bubble Fears

Investors were worried about AI bubble concerns, but Nvidia just eked out another monster quarter that Wall Street desperately needed.

And, most importantly, a strong forecast that undercuts the idea that the AI boom is slowing. The company said it expects $65 billion in sales for the January quarter, easily topping Wall Street’s $62 billion estimate. Shares jumped about 4% in after-hours trading.

The last quarterly results were just as strong, too. Revenue rose 62% to $57.0 billion, topping expectations of ~$54.9 billion. Profit came in at $1.30 a share, above the ~$1.26 estimate. Nvidia’s data-center business generated $51.2 billion, outpacing consensus of ~$49 billion.

The scale is insane: Nvidia is now on pace to earn more annual net income than Intel and AMD will report in revenue, and sales are nearly 10x what they were just three years ago.

Jensen Huang used the earnings beat to push back on AI bubble fears. “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once,” he said, adding that Blackwell demand is “off the charts” and cloud GPUs remain sold out.

CFO Colette Kress said Nvidia sees potential to go beyond the $500 billion revenue opportunity Huang outlined last month.

The results sent ripple effects across the ecosystem. CoreWeave popped more than 10% after hours, Nebius climbed over 8%, and Big Tech rallied, too, with Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all traded higher post-earnings.

Not everything is smooth, though. Nvidia is effectively locked out of China, one of the world’s largest AI hardware markets, due to U.S. export controls. Investors are also uneasy about Nvidia’s megadeals with customers like Microsoft and Anthropic. 

Competition is picking up too. But even so, Nvidia still controls more than 90% of the AI accelerator market and has widened its moat by building the full stack: chips, networking, software, and services.

With Nvidia now representing roughly 8% of the S&P 500, its results have become a pulse check for both the AI boom and the entire equity market. Investors were bracing for cracks. Nvidia gave them acceleration instead.

Takeaway: Nvidia didn’t just beat expectations. It reinforced that the AI boom is still gaining momentum, demand is still outrunning supply, and the company remains the single most important player in the ecosystem. Bubble talk may return, but this quarter made one thing clear: the AI trade is nowhere near done.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Hong Kong IPO boom offers lifeline to China private-equity exits (CNBC)

• JPMorgan trading desk says selloff offers dip-buying opportunity (BB)

• Kalshi and StockX let investors bet on prices for sneakers and Labubus (BB)

• Brookfield seeks $10B for AI infrastructure fund (WSJ)

• Michael Burry says he’s active in markets again after deregistering his fund (BB)

• Retail-investor wave fuels a 40% surge in Pakistan stocks this year (BB)

• The JPMorgan boys behind the U.S. bailout for Argentina (WSJ)

• Larry Summers steps down from OpenAI board over Epstein ties (YF)

• JPMorgan’s super-sized checks are blowing away all other lenders (BB)

• Klarna co-founder challenges trillion-dollar spending on AI (FT)

• U.S. trade deficit drops 24% as imports fall sharply (YF)

• Nvidia earnings run into a market suddenly afraid of AI spending (BB)

• Walmart in talks to acquire RA Data to fight marketplace counterfeits (CNBC)

• Nvidia’s $24B AI deal blitz raises Wall Street concerns over circular investments (YF)

• Mortgage rates hit highest level in a month as loan demand falls 5% (CNBC)

• Block unveils 3-year outlook, sees gross profit in 2028 of $15.8B (CNBC)

• Investors pull record $523 million from BlackRock's flagship bitcoin ETF (YF)

• JPMorgan Chase unveils $40M in philanthropic funding for housing (Axios)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks closed higher on Wednesday as investors focused on a heavy slate of corporate earnings.

• Target, Lowe’s, and TJX all beat earnings expectations, though sales trends and guidance were mixed.

• Communication services and technology led gains, helped by Google’s launch of Gemini 3.

• Asia finished mostly lower, while Europe moved higher after U.K. CPI fell to 3.6%, the lowest since June.

• Bond yields edged higher after FOMC minutes showed a split on whether a December rate cut is appropriate.

• Futures markets now price only a 33% chance of a cut next month.

Economic Data Highlights

• FOMC minutes revealed a divided committee: “several” members would support a December cut, while “many” prefer to hold steady.

• Retail earnings showed resilient profitability but cautious guidance, reflecting a still-solid consumer backdrop.

• Tech stocks remain under pressure in November, with the Nasdaq down 5%, which we attribute primarily to valuation resets.

Labor Market Update

• September nonfarm payrolls (delayed by the shutdown) will be released today, with expectations for 50,000 jobs added and an unemployment rate of 4.3%.

• The October employment report is expected in December and will exclude the household survey, meaning no unemployment rate due to data-collection gaps during the shutdown.

• Private data continues to show a cooling but stable labor market:

  • ADP payrolls rose 42,000 in October.

  • NFIB surveys show 32% of small businesses still have open positions.

  • Jobless claims remain low at 232,000, signaling limited layoffs.

• The labor market remains softened but fundamentally healthy, supporting ongoing consumer spending.

Earnings Today

• WMT — Focus on grocery traffic, price sensitivity, and holiday-season momentum.

• INTU — Key to monitor small-business software trends and early traction of AI-enabled tools.

• WEBULL — Watch for trading-activity levels, customer asset flows, and margin performance amid market volatility.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) La-Z-Boy ($LZB) +20% after the furniture maker reported strong Q2 earnings.

• (+) Alphabet ($GOOGL) +3% because of strong optimism with the Gemini 3 AI model.

• (–) Power Plug ($PLUG) -11% after announcing a $375M convertible notes offering.

Prediction Markets

• How quickly will the Mamdani-effect take place?

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Adobe agreed to buy Semrush for $1.9 billion

• Lambda, a cloud infrastructure provider, raised over $1.5 billion 

• Kraken, the crypto exchange, raised $800 million 

• Suno, an AI music platform, raised $250 million 

• Artios, a biotech focused on DNA damage response, raised $115 million

• Majestic Labs, an AI server developer, launched with $100 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Crossing the Dessert

Description: A powerful memoir and reflection on purpose, this book tells the story of Payam Zamani’s harrowing escape from religious persecution in Iran, his climb in the tech world culminating in a billion-dollar IPO, and his reinvention as a values-driven entrepreneur. He explores how the hardest journeys—personal, spiritual and professional—can become pathways to transformation and leadership grounded in integrity.

Book Length: ~352 pages

Ideal For: Entrepreneurs, survivors, leaders, and anyone who has faced adversity and wants to turn it into opportunity.

“Challenges are inevitable. All crisis are followed by victories. The key is to have the courage to move forward with optimism.”

DAILY VISUAL

Don’t Quit Your Day Job

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DAILY ACUMEN

Practice Like a Pro

Most people think they are getting better at their craft simply because time is passing. Ten years on the job sounds impressive, until you realize it is one year of experience repeated ten times.

Deliberate practice is different. It is not just doing the reps. It is staring straight at the parts of your game that embarrass you, then designing uncomfortable, focused work to attack them.

On Wall Street, this is the difference between the analyst who “builds models” and the one who sits with their worst calls, tags every mistaken assumption, and then rewrites their research process around those mistakes.

In startups, it is the founder who does not brag about “hustle” but keeps a scoreboard of customer calls, conversion experiments, and failed pitches, then changes the script every week. Deliberate practice feels more like surgery than repetition. It is specific, tracked, mentally heavy, and rarely fun in the moment.

The payoff is that it compounds in a way talent never does. The market eventually discounts credentials and charisma, but it almost never discounts someone who has spent years deliberately tightening the screws of their thinking. If you want to be rare, stop counting hours and start counting high quality, uncomfortable reps.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Emotionally intelligent people use 5 short phrases to strengthen relationships

• Five easy steps to fight seasonal affective disorder as 5pm sunsets become the norm

• If you’ve lived through these 11 things, your resilience is rare

• 5 habits of people who get twice as much done in half the time

• How leaders respond to small annoyances in business

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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