The AI Cash Test: Who Passed and Who Didn’t

Microsoft Passes, Alphabet Stumbles, Meta Turns to the Capital Markets, and Memory Sells Out to 2029

Key points

• Demand for AI infrastructure remains strong, but funding is becoming more selective.
• Meta’s free cash flow turned negative for the quarter, and it has priced 37.5 billion dollars of equity, with up to 60 billion more planned.
• Lenders are getting tougher with companies that depend on AI data centres, and debt markets are starting to sort borrowers into tiers.
• SK Hynix and ASML both report demand ahead of supply into 2028 and beyond.
• Microsoft combined growth with positive free cash flow. Alphabet’s spending ran ahead of its cash, and the shares fell around 10%.
• The Fed held rates in a split 10–2 vote, and AI-driven inflation came up at the press conference.
• Oil remains strong on tight crude and diesel supplies and Gulf risk.
• China’s suspension of rare-earth export controls runs to 10 November.
• Most semiconductor charts are recovering, but they haven’t yet confirmed an uptrend.

Chapters

(00:05) - Who Can Afford to Wait?
(03:07) - Borrowing Costs and the Fed
(06:21) - Funding the AI Build-Out
(15:02) - Energy, Copper, and Constraints
(17:55) - Geopolitics and Supply Risks
(19:27) - A Cautious Market View
(24:09) - The Fed and Earnings Update
(25:56) - Which Companies Can Fund Growth?
(28:21) - Putting PRISM to the Test

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Tags

AI Supercycle, AI financing, credit spreads, cost of capital, interest rates, CoreWeave, Nvidia, neoclouds, Nscale, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, ASML, TSMC, AI data centres, AI data center, grid connection, Brent crude, oil risk premium, Strait of Hormuz, Federal Reserve, Meta, earnings season, global macro

• (00:05) - Who Can Afford to Wait?
• (03:07) - Borrowing Costs and the Fed
• (06:21) - Funding the AI Build-Out
• (15:02) - Energy, Copper, and Constraints
• (17:55) - Geopolitics and Supply Risks
• (19:27) - A Cautious Market View
• (24:09) - The Fed and Earnings Update
• (25:56) - Which Companies Can Fund Growth?
• (28:21) - Putting PRISM to the Test