🎙 'Zhixing Talk: U.S. Stocks | Comprehensive Analysis of U.S. Stocks and the Macroeconomy — November 4'

Hello everyone. Today is Tuesday, November 4. After closing October with a strong rally, U.S. equity markets entered their first trading day of November with mixed performance across the three major indices. Capital continues to concentrate in large-cap tech stocks, while small- and mid-cap stocks and cyclical sectors broadly underperformed. I. Earnings season intensifies: Corporate earnings remain solid This week’s earnings season remains highly active, with several high-profile technology companies set to release their results. So far, corporate earnings in the U.S. continue to demonstrate resilience: To date, over 300 S&P 500 constituents have reported earnings, and approximately 64% have exceeded market expectations. The S&P 500 is poised to post its ninth consecutive quarter of earnings growth, with an expected profit increase of 13%—nearly double the pre-earnings-season consensus estimate of roughly 7%. Overall, forward-looking guidance from companies has been broadly optimistic. After-market today, Palantir (PLTR) released its earnings: Q3 revenue totaled $1.18 billion, up 63% year-on-year and surpassing the expected $1.09 billion; EPS was $0.21, up 110% year-on-year and above the expected $0.17. The company guided Q4 revenue at $1.33 billion and raised its full-year revenue forecast to $4.42 billion (previously ~$4.15 billion). Following the announcement, PLTR’s stock surged nearly 7% after hours but later pared gains—primarily due to concerns over stretched valuations, as the share price had already reached record highs and some short-term traders opted to lock in profits. II. AI-related trading heats up: Tech giants deepen AI investments Last week, all five mega-cap tech firms emphasized continued heavy investment in AI, further fueling AI-related trading activity. IREN—a company that pivoted from cryptocurrency mining to cloud services—surged nearly 30% pre-market before moderating gains during regular trading. The company announced a five-year, $9.7 billion GPU cloud services contract with Microsoft, including a 20% upfront payment. Under the agreement, IREN will provide Microsoft access to NVIDIA GB300 GPUs; Microsoft thereby becomes IREN’s largest customer. IREN’s CEO stated that once fully implemented, the deal is expected to generate $1.94 billion in annualized revenue—approximately 10% of the company’s total capacity. To fulfill this commitment, IREN simultaneously signed a ~$5.8 billion GPU procurement agreement with Dell, with deployment scheduled for completion in Texas by 2026. The news propelled Dell Technologies (DELL) up over 5% pre-market, though shares opened strongly only to retreat during the session. Another crypto-mining-turned-AI firm, CIFR, jumped 22% intraday. Although its Q3 revenue of $71.71 million (up 197% YoY) and EPS of $0.10 slightly missed expectations, the company announced a 15-year, $5.5 billion long-term partnership with Amazon Web Services—driving its share price higher. Meanwhile, Amazon’s stock hit a new all-time high. The company also signed a seven-year, $38 billion computing-power supply agreement with OpenAI, and will deploy hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA’s high-end AI chips to support ChatGPT’s generative responses and next-generation model training.

Tech Earnings Season Begins: After AI Spending Spree, How Is Doo Group Assessing Whether Capital Expenditures Are Translating into Revenue?

As late October approaches, U.S. tech giants are beginning to report earnings. Doo Group has been closely tracking this earnings season—and observes that market focus has shifted from “How much has been spent on AI?” to “How much has AI actually earned back?” Over the past two years, capital expenditures have essentially served as the sole narrative underpinning tech stock valuations. This quarter, however, investors demand evidence: Can revenue, profits, and cash flow keep pace with those massive investments? Doo Group’s Earnings Season Kickoff: SpaceX Sets an Early Benchmark After market close on October 20 (U.S. Eastern Time), SpaceX released its Q3 2026 results: revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% YoY; net income of $4.4 billion—the first profitable quarter since its June IPO; adjusted EBITDA of $8.809 billion. Its so-called ‘Superintelligence’ (SI) AI business generated $7.6 billion in revenue—up 830% YoY and 195% QoQ—exceeding traditional Starlink connectivity revenue ($5.248 billion) for the first time, and turning from a loss-making operation into an operating profit. This is a representative case: AI is no longer merely a cost center—revenue from GPU leasing and enterprise services is now generating real cash flow. Yet another reality is equally clear: SpaceX’s capital expenditures for the quarter reached $19.593 billion—roughly doubling YoY—with the vast majority allocated toward data center expansion. Doo Group believes this tension—between early monetization and accelerating investment—is precisely the central theme of this earnings season: monetization has begun, but capex continues to surge; whether these two forces can achieve balance will determine the sector’s valuation trajectory going forward. Tesla and Meta Tonight: The Market Awaits Two Answers At 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on October 22, Tesla and Meta will release their earnings after the U.S. market close, followed immediately by earnings calls. Tesla previously announced Q3 global vehicle deliveries of approximately 486,500 units and energy storage deployments of 13.7 GWh—above prior consensus estimates, albeit down modestly YoY. What the market truly seeks from the earnings report is underlying automotive gross margin and cash flow, plus commercial progress on Robotaxi, Full Self-Driving (FSD), and new vehicle models—these fundamentals, not just unit sales, underpin long-term valuation. Meta’s key focus lies in whether advertising revenue can absorb its AI infrastructure spending. Market estimates suggest its capex for this quarter will rise sharply; investors must assess whether AI-powered ad targeting tools, recommendation engines, and agent-based products can sustain profitability even amid expanding investment. Doo Group’s FinTech Services team notes that for such high-investment, delayed-monetization companies, even a slight downward revision to earnings guidance could trigger significant valuation volatility. From Semiconductors to End Devices: The Entire AI Value Chain Is Under Scrutiny

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Kronos Worldwide will report quarterly earnings on November 5th, forecasting $0.19 per share on $537.4 million revenue. Analysts maintain mixed sentiment with a 'Reduce' rating following a recent $0.05 dividend declaration.

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