US STOCKS-Equities end higher as Anthropic's IPO filing buoys AI stocks
By Chuck Mikolajczak and Shashwat Chauhan
NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - US stocks closed higher on Monday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq coming off consecutive weekly declines, as Anthropic's IPO filing helped boost sentiment in AI-related stocks in a week filled with a host of market catalysts.
Anthropic disclosed steep losses and red-hot revenue growth in its filing for a US initial public offering, laying out its ambition to build AI systems capable of reshaping the global economy despite the high costs of developing the technology.
The AI lab is pushing ahead with its listing plans even as a once-lively autumn IPO calendar has slowed, with recent market volatility prompting companies to delay offerings.
Anthropic's filing comes as investors increasingly dissect the potential payoff from massive AI spending and at the start of an eventful week. On tap are the Federal Reserve's policy statement on Wednesday, readings on economic growth and inflation on Thursday and a slew of corporate earnings reports throughout the week.
More than a third of S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report earnings this week, including hyperscalers Alphabet GOOGL.O, Microsoft MSFT.O and Amazon.com AMZN.O, whose results will be parsed for signs of whether the hefty AI investments are translating into growth.
"Today's all about the Anthropic release, so we're back on a little bit of an optimistic tilt, I would say. But there's a lot in that release. It will be interesting to see how well things are received when they actually come to list," said JP Powers, chief investment officer at RWA Wealth Partners in Boston.
"The risk is maybe a little bit of a whipsaw if things aren't all moving in the same direction. A little optimism today, but who knows what will happen from some of these other releases this week," he said.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 53.35 points, or 0.70%, to end at 7,677.03 points, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 214.02 points, or 0.83%, to 26,169.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 146.60 points, or 0.28%, to 52,361.76.
Semiconductor and chip-related companies, widely viewed as some of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, helped fuel the gains. The broader Philadelphia chips index .SOX was up about 3% on the day but is still down nearly 12% on the month.
Meta said on Monday it plans to raise up to $95 billion in equity to fund its AI-related expansion of data centers, cloud computing power and other infrastructure.
The AI trade has come under pressure this month amid concerns that debt-funded spending may become harder to justify in the face of climbing borrowing costs.
The Anthropic filing helped buoy sentiment, however, as neocloud firms, including CoreWeave CRWV.O, erased earlier declines.
Other AI-linked companies, including photonic product makers Lumentum LITE.O and Coherent COHR.N, were among the best-performing S&P 500 stocks. The technology index .SPLRCT led gains among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors.
Megacap and growth stocks were also mostly higher. Tesla TSLA.O jumped to its highest intraday level in more than three months after Barclays upgraded its rating on the stock to "overweight" from "equal-weight."
Markets are pricing in only a 12.7% chance of a rate hike from the Fed on Wednesday, according to CME FedWatch. But with inflation pressures showing no signs of abating, market participants do not believe the central bank will be on hold for long.
Investors are also bracing for the November 3 midterm elections, which will decide control of the US Congress.