Amazon shares tumbled as much as 10% in extended trading after the company reported mixed fourth-quarter results and outlined an aggressive 2026 capital spending plan of about $200 billion. Earnings per share came in at $1.95, slightly below analyst estimates of $1.97, while revenue beat expectations at $213.39 billion versus roughly $211.5 billion forecast. Key businesses outperformed, with Amazon Web Services generating $35.58 billion in revenue and advertising bringing in $21.32 billion, both narrowly topping Wall Street estimates. CEO Andy Jassy said strong demand for artificial intelligence, chips, robotics and low Earth orbit satellites is driving the higher investment, and he expressed confidence in “strong long-term return on invested capital.”​

Amazon projected 2026 capital expenditures far above the $146.6 billion analysts had expected and up from roughly $131 billion in 2025, putting it at the forefront of a broader tech spending race on AI infrastructure that also includes Alphabet and Meta. Jassy told investors most of the spending will flow to AWS, which saw cloud revenue grow 24% in the quarter, its fastest pace in 13 quarters, even as rivals Microsoft and Google reported faster growth in their own cloud units. The company forecast first-quarter sales between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion, implying 11% to 15% growth and roughly in line with market expectations. Net income rose to $21.19 billion, or $1.95 per share, from $20.0 billion a year earlier, as Amazon continued to trim white-collar headcount with plans to cut about 16,000 corporate jobs after eliminating roughly 14,000 positions last October, while its global workforce stood at about 1.56 million employees at year-end and its advertising business grew revenue 23% to $21.3 billion.

Investors are rapidly fleeing once-popular trades as a broad market selloff deepens, knocking down everything from mega-cap tech stocks to gold and cryptocurrencies. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% on Thursday, its third straight daily decline, while the Nasdaq 100 extended its steepest slide since April, reflecting mounting concern over stretched valuations and AI disruption. Silver, which had closely tracked gold to record highs, plunged about 17%, and Bitcoin slumped roughly low‑teens in percentage terms, leaving it trading back below where it stood when President Donald Trump was re‑elected about 15 months ago. US Treasuries rallied as investors sought safety, and Amazon shares dropped more than 8% after the company announced a $200 billion investment plan that heightened worries about excessive AI spending.

Market participants describe a sharp shift from optimism at the start of the year, when Wall Street strategists were calling for an extended equity rally supported by the AI boom, resilient growth and expected Federal Reserve rate cuts. Instead, traders are reassessing risks tied to overvalued assets such as gold, Bitcoin and tech giants like Alphabet, as well as potential losers from AI advances and policy uncertainty if Kevin Warsh replaces Jerome Powell as Fed chair. “People are definitely going more defensive,” said Brian Frank of Frank Funds, calling it a “shoot first and ask questions later type environment,” while another investor, Kim Forrest of Bokeh Capital Partners, characterized the moves as a needed “reset” after momentum “strung itself out.” The pullback has been especially severe in crypto, where Bitcoin’s slide toward roughly $63,000 has dragged down other tokens, ETFs and companies with large digital-asset treasuries, underscoring what one market participant described as evident “fear and uncertainty across the market.​

Novo Nordisk shares slumped on Thursday after US telehealth company Hims & Hers Health launched a low-cost oral weight-loss pill that mimics the Danish drugmaker’s new Wegovy tablet, a move Novo denounced as illegal. The copycat pill comes just days after Novo rolled out its own Wegovy pill, a flagship product intended to drive its comeback in the booming obesity market. Hims is offering its version starting at $49 for the first month and $99 a month for subscribers on a five-month plan, undercutting Novo’s branded pill, which starts at $149 per month. Novo warned that Hims’ product amounts to “illegal mass compounding that poses a significant risk” to patients and vowed to pursue legal and regulatory action to protect its intellectual property and the US “gold-standard” drug approval system.

The clash triggered sharp moves in weight-loss drug stocks, with Novo Nordisk shares dropping about 7.9% in Copenhagen, Eli Lilly falling around 6% in New York, and Hims shares reversing early gains to trade modestly lower by midday. Hims defended its approach on X, calling criticism from big drugmakers “predictable” and “outdated and false,” and argued that its pill uses a different formulation and delivery system than US-approved oral semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy. Novo executives countered that their pill relies on proprietary technology to protect semaglutide in the stomach, with CEO Mike Doustdar saying that alternatives lacking this protection “just simply don’t work” and that consumers would be “wasting 49 dollars” on copycats. The dispute underscores intensifying competition as telehealth firms and compounders target blockbuster obesity drugs, even after earlier supply shortages eased, by tweaking dosages and ingredients to stay just outside the boundaries of brand-name protections.

Anthropic’s new Claude Opus 4.6 model uncovered more than 500 previously unknown high-severity security vulnerabilities in widely used open-source libraries, using only its default capabilities and minimal prompting. The company’s frontier red team tested the system in a sandbox with access to Python and standard security tools but provided no specialized instructions, then manually validated each zero-day with in-house staff or outside researchers. Anthropic says the results mark an inflection point in how AI can strengthen cyber defense at a time when adversaries are also weaponizing advanced models. “It’s a race between defenders and attackers, and we want to put the tools in the hands of defenders as fast as possible,” said Logan Graham, who leads Anthropic’s frontier red team.​

Claude Opus 4.6 identified flaws ranging from crash-inducing bugs to serious memory-corruption issues, including a crash vulnerability in GhostScript, buffer overflows in OpenSC and CGIF, and other weaknesses that traditional fuzzing and manual review had missed. In some cases, the model drew on advanced reasoning, combing through Git commit histories and even writing its own proof-of-concept exploit code to confirm a suspected vulnerability. Anthropic argues these capabilities could transform how open-source software is secured across enterprise systems and critical infrastructure, with Graham suggesting this method could become a primary way such code is protected in the future. At the same time, the company has added new safeguards and real-time monitoring to detect and block potentially malicious use of Claude’s security skills, acknowledging that these protections may create friction for legitimate researchers and pledging to work with the security community to refine them.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticized Anthropic’s upcoming Super Bowl ad campaign as “funny” but “clearly dishonest,” after the rival AI startup used the high-profile event to attack OpenAI’s decision to test advertising in ChatGPT. OpenAI recently said it will begin testing ads with free users and ChatGPT Go subscribers in the U.S., while Anthropic announced it will keep its Claude chatbot ad-free. The Anthropic campaign includes a 60-second pregame spot and a 30-second in-game ad built around the tagline, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.” Altman said the commercials are “deceptive” and insisted OpenAI would “obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them,” adding, “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers who split over the company’s direction, has emerged as one of OpenAI’s fiercest competitors as both firms raise billions of dollars and battle for users and enterprise deals. Altman escalated his criticism by alleging that “Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI” and “serves an expensive product to rich people,” contrasting that with OpenAI’s larger base of free users and the “differently-shaped problem” that scale creates. OpenAI has said ChatGPT ads will be clearly labeled, appear at the bottom of responses and will not influence the chatbot’s answers. Altman also framed OpenAI’s own Super Bowl commercial as focused on “builders” and the idea that “anyone can now build anything,” signaling that the ad battle is as much about public positioning as it is about product features.​

Financial Trends: McDonald’s is expected to deliver mid‑single‑digit global systemwide sales growth in 2025 with high‑30s operating margins and annual EPS in the low‑to‑mid‑$12 range, supported by pricing and unit expansion.

Strategic Initiatives: The company is leaning into “Best Burger” kitchen upgrades, digital loyalty expansion past 200 million members, and accelerated store openings in high‑growth international markets to sustain traffic and check growth.

Key Metrics: Investors will watch global and U.S. comparable sales, franchisee cash flow, operating margin, and digital mix of sales as key signals of pricing power and customer health.

Progress: Recent quarters have shown resilient comps despite consumer pressure, continued unit growth, and robust shareholder returns through dividends and buybacks, underscoring the durability of McDonald’s cash-generation model.

Focus Areas: The call will likely center on traffic versus pricing mix, value messaging, franchisee sentiment, and any changes to 2026 development and margin outlook amid a choppy macro backdrop.

Risks Potential: Rising labor and food costs, political scrutiny of pricing, and FX headwinds in key international markets could constrain margin expansion and EPS upside.

Concerns: After a long run, the stock’s premium multiple leaves little room for disappointment if comps slow or management strikes a more cautious tone on low‑income consumer demand.

Market Trends: Slowing discretionary spend and heightened value sensitivity favor strong QSR brands, but intensifying competition and delivery aggregators’ fees make share gains harder to sustain.

Financial Trends: Marriott is coming off record results with 2025 net room growth of about 4.3% and healthy RevPAR gains, and Street models call for mid‑ to high‑single‑digit annual revenue growth and steady EPS expansion supported by fee-based margins.

Strategic Initiatives: Management is driving growth via aggressive global unit expansion, the acquisition of citizenM, and a push into luxury and branded residential projects that deepen fee streams and customer loyalty.

Key Metrics: Investors will key on global RevPAR by region, net unit growth, pipeline signings, and incentive management fees as indicators of cycle strength and earnings leverage.

Progress: Marriott added roughly 700 hotels and nearly 100,000 rooms in 2025, expanded its luxury and residential footprint, and maintained a strong development pipeline, confirming its ability to compound rooms and fees through the cycle.

Focus Areas: The upcoming call should clarify 2026 RevPAR guidance, China and Europe demand trends, integration of citizenM, and capital return plans versus ongoing growth investment.

Risks Potential: A travel slowdown, geopolitical shocks, or recession fears could hit high‑margin luxury and business travel, while elevated construction and financing costs may temper development momentum.

Concerns: With the stock near cycle highs and investors baking in sustained mid‑single‑digit RevPAR growth, any hint of decelerating demand or weaker fee growth could trigger a sharp de‑rating.

Market Trends: Global travel demand remains solid, but normalization from post‑COVID surges and shifting mix toward leisure and lifestyle brands will shape how investors handicap lodging earnings power.

Financial Trends: Robinhood has pivoted to profitability with 2025 revenue above $4 billion and consensus looking for continued double‑digit annual top‑line growth and expanding margins as net interest income and options trading scale.

Strategic Initiatives: The company is broadening beyond pure trading into cash management, retirement accounts, credit cards, and derivatives/venue ownership via the MIAXdx deal to deepen engagement and diversify revenue.

Key Metrics: Investors will focus on monthly active users, assets under custody, net deposits, trading volumes by asset class, and net interest margin to gauge the durability of growth.

Progress: Recent quarters showed record net revenues around $1.27 billion in Q3, growing profitability, and rising customer and asset metrics, even as the stock has often sold off after strong prints.​

Focus Areas: Management commentary on customer growth momentum, new product monetization, MIAXdx integration, and any 2026 guidance for revenue and operating margins will drive the post‑earnings reaction.

Risks Potential: Elevated reliance on trading activity, competitive pressure from incumbents and neobrokers, and regulatory scrutiny of payment for order flow and options access remain key overhangs.

Concerns: The pattern of negative next‑day moves after positive results highlights positioning and valuation risk if expectations for growth or operating leverage prove too optimistic.

Market Trends: Retail trading has normalized from meme‑era peaks but remains structurally higher than pre‑pandemic levels, with higher rates supporting brokerage economics even as risk appetite swings with macro and crypto sentiment.

From a young age, Evan was fascinated by the stock market. At just 11 years old, he received a Wall Street Journal subscription for his birthday, sparking a lifelong passion for investing. Evan spent his formative years studying the strategies and philosophies of legendary investors like Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, and George Soros, absorbing their wisdom and developing his own unique approach to the markets.

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