Markets Week-Ahead
📅 AI Stocks Week-Ahead — Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Prior week recap: SPX +1.2% · NDX +0.6% · DJI +0.9%
The S&P 500 printed a record 7,844.52 on Tuesday, then spent the rest of the week digesting a bond-market rout that pushed the 10-year to 5.36% — the highest since 2002. Defensives led (staples +4.0%, utilities +3.9%, energy +3.6%) while info tech actually finished red at -0.3%, so the index gain masked a rough week under the AI hood: OpenAI's revenue figure got revised down to roughly $50B annualized from the $68B that had circulated, dragging NVDA, ORCL and CoreWeave lower Thursday before a $70B year-end run-rate clarification sparked Friday's bounce. Nasdaq Composite still notched a fourth straight weekly gain.
Sunday futures: S&P +0.12% · Nasdaq +0.24% · Dow +0.05% (~28 pts)
Quiet, constructive drift. Weekend headlines: Nvidia is reportedly in talks to acquire or further invest in open-weights startup Reflection AI — possibly structured as an acquihire to dodge antitrust review. Anthropic brokered a $1.25B/month compute deal with SpaceX. Trump signed a voluntary AI accord with the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI and Nvidia. On the macro side, Iran floated a seven-day ceasefire tied to reopening the Strait of Hormuz — rejected, but talks continue, and crude is modeled in the $87–93 band for Monday after Brent's spike above $108. Note: Monday is Columbus Day — equities open, cash Treasuries closed, so no par print to anchor yields.
Earnings this week:
• Monday, Oct 12 — nothing material; bond market holiday
• Tuesday, Oct 13 — JPM, GS, C, WFC, JNJ (the official Q3 kickoff)
• Wednesday, Oct 14 — ASML (watchlist), BAC, MS, BLK, STT, PGR, FAST
• Thursday, Oct 15 — TSM (watchlist, 2:00 AM ET), UNH
• Friday, Oct 16 — TFC, CFG
No other watchlist names report this week — NVDA, MU, AMD, AVGO, ORCL and the megacaps are all later in the cycle.
Economic calendar:
• Tuesday, Oct 13 — NFIB small business index, existing home sales (10:00 AM), September federal budget (2:00 PM)
• Wednesday, Oct 14 — September CPI: consensus +0.6% m/m, 3.6% y/y headline; core +0.2% m/m, 2.5% y/y. This is the week's main event. A core print of 0.3% or hotter pulls October hike odds up from ~17% and likely pushes the 10-year back through 5.31%, which is exactly the mechanism that hurt long-duration AI names last week.
• Wednesday, Oct 14 — Fed Beige Book (2:00 PM)
• Thursday, Oct 15 — PPI (+0.5% headline, +0.3% core expected), retail sales (+0.3%, +0.5% ex-autos, decelerating hard from +1.2%/+1.4%), jobless claims, Empire and Philly Fed — all at 8:30 AM
Fed events:
• Monday, Oct 12 — Hammack (Cleveland) at 12:10 PM
• Tuesday, Oct 13 — Waller 3:45 AM, Barkin 1:00 PM, Collins 4:00 PM
• Wednesday, Oct 14 — Bowman 5:40 AM; Beige Book 2:00 PM
• Thursday, Oct 15 — Chair Kevin Warsh speaks from Bangkok (23:30 ET) — his first appearance since the President said he should have voted against September's hike, and the last scheduled Fed word before the October 28 decision. Markets currently price 84% hold / ~17% hike for Oct 28, but 75–85% odds of a hike by December.
Watchlist catalysts:
• ASML — Q3 Wednesday, Oct 14 (Amsterdam morning). Guided €11–12B revenue, 55–57% gross margin. No more quarterly bookings disclosure, so the tell is the first steer toward 2027, China exposure, export controls, and memory-driven demand.
• TSM — Q3 Thursday, Oct 15, 2:00 AM ET. Monthly sales already imply ~$46.7B, above the top of its own guide, on ~50% y/y growth. Revenue's known; the stock trades on Q4 outlook, gross margin, and 2nm ramp commentary.
• NVDA — Reflection AI deal headlines plus read-through from both ASML and TSM. Also the name most levered to any further OpenAI revenue-math revisions.
• MU — highest beta to ASML's memory-demand commentary Wednesday; bounced Friday on the OpenAI clarification.
• PLTR, SOUN, IONQ, BBAI, SMCI — longest-duration, least-profitable cohort. Pure CPI/yield sensitivity Wednesday morning. A hot core print hits these first and hardest.
• ORCL, AVGO, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META — no earnings, but all carry AI-capex headline risk from the OpenAI funding narrative and the new White House AI accord.
• Anthropic / OpenAI — not publicly traded. Watching as IPO/funding items only: Anthropic's SpaceX compute deal and OpenAI's revised revenue run-rate are both moving listed AI infrastructure names this week.