On 5 November, markets gave a harsh first verdict on the elections: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12.3%, as investors weighed what Democratic gains in state governments could mean for the cost and pace of the data centre build-out, at a time when local communities already question its impact on electricity bills.

AI assistants are challenging Google's dominance in Search. That story is now well known. Far less attention has been paid to what Alphabet has been building on the other side of the AI race: a full stack stretching from its own chips to products used by billions. At its heart is the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a chip developed for internal use a decade ago that has since become a product rival that AI labs are willing to pay for. This combination is difficult to replicate and is already driving growth. The catch? The economics are far less attractive than those of Search, with significantly lower profitability.

The privacy coin sector is the only part of the crypto market trading above last year’s peak, and the US market’s main settlement house has just launched a tokenisation service on a confidential blockchain. Hiding transactions, long seen as a red flag, is starting to look like a condition for institutional adoption.

Alphabet, OpenAI and the battle for the world’s most valuable ad auction

US tech giants are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the most advanced AI models. Meanwhile, Chinese companies are developing models with similar capabilities at a fraction of the cost, often making them freely available to download. Some analysts see this as a form of subsidy, but the economics behind it are more complex.

Donald Trump has delivered on some of his biggest promises, from border security to tax cuts and deregulation. But as Americans prepare to vote in the midterms, rising prices, stubborn borrowing costs and two unresolved wars have exposed the limits of his agenda.

One of John Ternus’s first major launches as Apple CEO takes the company into a market already served by Amazon and Google. With HomeView, Apple is betting that a smarter Siri and its tightly integrated ecosystem can persuade consumers to pay a premium for a place in their homes.

Why the hyperscalers’ spending spree and circular AI financing deserve scrutiny, why the AI boom may still have years to run, and where the best investment opportunities may lie.

Anthropic told investors at its third-quarter results briefing that revenue reached $16.8bn, up 46% from $11.5bn in the second quarter, and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis and cash-flow positive for the second quarter running.

Wall Street closes at 4 p.m., but a growing share of trade now carries on through the night. Welcome to the world of tokenised assets.