On October 20-22, by the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professor who "rescues" people from anxiety and the era of involution, Macfarlane, will hold a live dialogue with Xiang Biao!
Spots are limited, so act fast. Let us embark together on this sustainable journey! [Click to register] The top headlines that global financial media focused on overnight and this morning are mainly as follows: 1. Chip stocks plummet, wiping out a trillion dollars, yet leveraged ETFs attract record capital inflows. 2. U.S. mortgage rates remain unchanged at 7.4%, and the real estate market struggles. 3. Meta launches its "most powerful" open-source weight model, which can run locally on Apple computers. 4. Jensen Huang says CoreWeave's financial strength has improved and Nvidia does not need to provide backstop support for it. 5. A Wall Street veteran says Brent crude has become an "emotion contract" and has decoupled from the real world. 6. Citigroup strategists expect tech stocks to contribute the vast majority of global earnings growth in 2027.
Chip stocks plummet, wiping out a trillion dollars, yet leveraged ETFs attract record capital inflows
As chip stocks evaporated $1 trillion in market value, ETF investors aggressively bought into this wave of selling, and a fund that triples investors' daily exposure to the industry is on track for record weekly inflows. Data shows that the $72 billion VanEck Semiconductor ETF (ticker SMH) attracted more than $430 million in inflows over the past three trading days, and this week's inflows are expected to be the highest since early September. Some investors have been even bolder, pouring about $3.8 billion into the triple-leveraged Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF (SOXL), even though the fund's market value has fallen nearly 21% this week. Inflows of this scale are enough to give this $19 billion fund its largest single-week inflow on record. However, the broader environment is far from reassuring: as investor concerns about artificial intelligence spending and intensifying global competition continue to weigh on the sector, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has fallen 12% over the past six trading days, with constituent stocks losing about $1 trillion in market value. Concerns about excessive valuations and rising interest rates have also exacerbated volatility in the sector.
U.S. mortgage rates remain unchanged at 7.4%, and the real estate market struggles
U.S. mortgage rates remained unchanged over the past week, offering almost no relief to a housing market that has been hit by borrowing costs returning to 7%. Freddie Mac said in a statement on Thursday that the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage remained at 7.4%. The rate is hovering at its highest level since November 2023. A year ago, it was 6.27%. The surge in borrowing costs has dealt a heavy blow to both buyers and sellers. Mortgage rates broke above 7% last month and have still not fallen back. As housing affordability worsens, rising rates are forcing sellers to cut prices while also deterring potential buyers.
Meta launches its "most powerful" open-source weight model, which can run locally on Apple computers
Meta has launched in the United States what it calls its "most powerful" open-source weight model. The model is named Muse Spark Open, and one of its major features is that it is specifically designed to work with Apple Mac computers. Meta released evaluation results on Thursday saying that this new model has 816 billion parameters and a 1 million token context window, performing better than other mainstream open-source weight models. Muse Spark Open natively supports multimodality, is developed for complex coding tasks and agent-based work scenarios, and can run locally on Apple computers. However, according to Engadget, locally deploying this model places extremely high demands on hardware memory, requiring at least 1TB of memory; Mac Studio devices equipped with the M5 Ultra chip can achieve the best operating performance.
Jensen Huang says CoreWeave's financial strength has improved and Nvidia does not need to provide backstop support for it
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that CoreWeave Inc.'s financial condition is improving. This data center operator purchases Nvidia's computing equipment. Speaking at an event in Stockholm, Huang said, "CoreWeave's strength is increasing every day." He believes there is no need for Nvidia to provide backstop support for CoreWeave. "I am very optimistic. Their cost of capital is actually declining." Huang is trying to boost confidence in the company at a time when the credit market has turned more negative toward CoreWeave and believes its default risk is rising. CoreWeave is an important case for testing whether the business models of a group of emerging companies can hold up. These companies emerged to meet what Nvidia and others describe as nearly endless demand for AI computing power. Companies such as CoreWeave have borrowed heavily with support from suppliers including Nvidia, which has raised market concerns about "circular financing," namely the view that this financing model may create false demand.
A Wall Street veteran says Brent crude has become an "emotion contract" and has decoupled from the real world
Wall Street veteran Jeff Currie said that the world's most important oil benchmark futures have now almost become an "emotion contract," weakening their usefulness as a tool for managing price volatility. "Everything related to energy is rising, except Brent crude," Currie said on Thursday. "It has decoupled from the real world." Currie is the founder and CEO of investment firm Real Macro. He said that Brent crude's current price of about $106 per barrel does not reflect the degree of threat to supply from the Strait of Hormuz to the Black Sea. Recently, threats facing the oil market have further escalated, with frequent attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz and increasingly intense Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. The freight market has also surged.
Citigroup strategists expect tech stocks to contribute the vast majority of global earnings growth in 2027
Citigroup strategists said that tech stocks are expected to contribute nearly 70% of global earnings growth next year, so if the artificial intelligence boom begins to cool, the stock market rally could face risks as a result. Citigroup's analysis shows that in terms of industry contribution, this proportion would place 2027's earnings growth concentration among the highest on record. The team, including David Groman and Beata Manthey, said that over the past 30 years, the largest contributing sectors on average accounted for about 40% of earnings growth. Strategists said that with overall earnings per share growth expected to slow from 35% in 2026 to 16% next year, this high concentration poses a risk. However, they noted that there is "almost no relationship" between earnings concentration and overall stock market performance.
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