🥶 Markets Frozen After AI Panic

😎 Market Vibes

🥶 Markets Frozen After AI Panic

Happy Friday the 13th - and for once, the markets aren't playing horror show. After yesterday's brutal tech selloff based on AI disruption fears, stocks opened this morning mostly flat as traders digested cooler-than-expected inflation data.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped its January CPI report this morning, showing consumer prices rose just 2.4% year-over-year - below the 2.5% forecast and marking the slowest inflation pace since May 2025. Core inflation matched expectations at 2.5%, the lowest since March 2021. Month-over-month, prices ticked up just 0.2%, cooler than December's 0.3% jump.

Translation: inflation is behaving itself, but the market's too shell-shocked from yesterday's tech carnage to throw a party about it.

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📊 Earnings After Dark: Applied Materials and Rivian Crush It, Pinterest Crashes

While you were sleeping, the after-hours earnings parade delivered some wild swings. Applied Materials surged 11-13% in premarket trading after the semiconductor equipment maker crushed expectations and issued bullish guidance. The stock's already up 27% year-to-date, and last night's performance added rocket fuel to that rally.

Rivian turned heads with a 14-20% premarket surge after reporting better-than-expected Q4 results and projecting 2026 vehicle deliveries between 62,000 and 67,000 units - a potential 47% to 59% jump from 2025. The electric truck maker's adjusted loss of 54 cents per share beat the 68-cent loss analysts expected, while revenue of $1.29 billion topped the $1.26 billion estimate.

On the flip side, Pinterest tanked 18-24% after the social media platform posted disappointing Q4 results and issued weak Q1 guidance.

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🩸 Bitcoin Bleeds, Gold Consolidates After Recent Rollercoaster

The crypto king continues its standstill, trading around $68,000 this morning - still down from its all-time high above $126,000 hit back in October.

Gold's having its own consolidation moment, trading around $5,100 per ounce after yesterday's recovery bounce. The yellow metal remains down roughly 16% from its January peak above $5,100 (when it briefly kissed those historic heights), but analysts see this as healthy profit-taking rather than a trend reversal. Indian markets show 24-karat gold around 15,578 rupees per gram, with buyers treating the dip as an opportunity rather than a disaster.

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🤖 Thursday's Tech Bloodbath: The AI Disruption Fear Spreads

Let's rewind to yesterday's carnage for context. The market didn't just punish tech stocks - it went on a rampage. Cisco plummeted 12.5% on weak guidance. Apple dropped 5%, its worst session since April. Disney tumbled 5.3%. The AI-exposed names got demolished: Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and Palantir all fell between 2.3% and 4.8%.

The culprit? Growing skepticism that massive AI capital expenditures will actually generate returns, combined with fears that AI automation could disrupt traditional business models.

Meanwhile, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index has surged more than 12% in 2026 while U.S. benchmarks tread water. Why? Asian chip manufacturers with actual pricing power and locked-in demand (hello, TSMC and Samsung) are cleaning up while American AI hyperscalers burn through billions on infrastructure that may or may not pay off.

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🏦 Fed Rate Cut Odds: June Looking More Likely

The cooler CPI print this morning revived some bets on a June rate cut, with traders now seeing a majority probability of a quarter-point reduction by summer. Most still expect just two cuts total by year-end 2026, though a larger percentage is now betting on more aggressive easing.

For now, CME FedWatch data shows just 21.1% odds of a March rate cut, with 78.9% expecting rates to stay at 3.50-3.75%.

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🎢 Week Ahead: More Volatility, More Questions

This week's been a representation of 2026 so far - initial optimism meeting harsh reality checks.

The fundamental question remains unanswered: Are we witnessing a healthy rotation from overvalued AI stocks to quality value plays, or is this the beginning of a broader market reckoning? Thursday's price action suggests investors are reacting quickly when it comes to AI disruption fears.

Next week brings more corporate earnings and economic data, plus the ongoing soap opera of Trump administration policy announcements. Buckle up - if Friday the 13th taught us anything, it's that 2026 markets don't do boring.

📌 Bottom Line

Today's market action perfectly captures the 2026 mood: inflation cools exactly as hoped, yet stocks can barely muster a yawn. Why? Because Thursday's AI disruption panic exposed a deeper anxiety - after years of betting everything on artificial intelligence revolutionizing the world, investors are suddenly wondering if maybe, just maybe, that revolution might bankrupt as many companies as it enriches.

Gold's consolidating after its wild ride, Bitcoin's testing support levels that would've seemed insane just six months ago, and the Fed's watching from the sidelines with inflation behaving but not conquered. Happy Friday the 13th.

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✌️ Thanks for vibing with us.

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