Nvidia: What’s the Bull Case? What’s the Bear Case?
🐂 Bull Case: The AI infrastructure boom is still in its early innings. Demand has no visible ceiling, and Nvidia continues to command extraordinary pricing power despite new entrants. Every major hyperscaler, enterprise, and startup is still rushing to deploy more compute. 🐻 Bear Case: Gross margins have slipped from 78% → 73%. The product transition introduces execution risk. And if hyperscalers don’t see the ROI they expect, they could slow down spending — even temporarily. What does Nvidia say? On the earnings call, the CFO addressed it directly: ➡️ AI demand remains extremely strong — strong enough that Nvidia is raising Q4 guidance again. Source: Bloomberg Activate to view larger image,
🔴The 3x leveraged short Nasdaq 100 ETF, $SQQQ, saw +$12 BILLION in net inflows on Thursday, the largest daily inflow on record in data going back to 2010.
This means some investors bet hugely that the tech stocks will decline. Many retail investors are piling into investment products they do not understand.. This will not end well. Source: Global Markets Investor
Goldman: As Panic Index Nears Record, Chase For Downside Protection Is Off The Charts
After an early post-Nvidia rebound, markets reversed sharply on Thursday, and the demand for hedges became obvious. Goldman reported “a massive bid for puts,” with option activity staying extremely elevated. As the chart shows, total put volume hit its third-highest level of the year, while overall option volume climbed to one of the highest readings on record. The scramble for downside protection has pushed normalized put/call skew to one of its highest levels in the past three years. Another way to illustrate the sheer surge in activity: average daily trading volume in SPX options has now reached $3.5 trillion. That’s an all-time high—and, remarkably, larger than the entire market capitalization of the Russell 2000 (RTY). Source: zerohedge
Crude oil trading near 4.5 year lows as U.S. hails progress in Russia-Ukraine peace talks 👀📉
Low oil prices could be another stimulus for US consumers in 2026(in addition to rate cuts, tax cuts, cheques, more lending by banks dur to financial deregulation, etc.) Source: Barchart
Google went from 5% to 14% market share BEFORE Gemini 3 launch👀
WSJ: "Gemini 3’s surge past ChatGPT and other competitors on benchmark tests has handed Google an elusive victory". OpenAI/ChatGPT continues to have a massive lead but the market share has been clearly eroding. DeepSeek, Perplexity and Claude come after Gemini-. Microsoft/Copilot is barely visible on the chart. Source: Josh Wolfe @wolfejosh
The world now has 11,030 data centers:
• Americas: 4,995 • Europe: 3,476 • Asia & Oceania: 2,068 • Africa & the Middle East: 494 Source: Investing visuals @InvestingVisual, Visual Capitalist
A great chart by Bitwise - 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨
While retail panic-sold the dip, something very different was happening under the surface. The number of Bitcoin wallets holding 1,000+ BTC just went vertical. That’s ~$91 million per wallet. Translation? Short-term hands are handing their coins straight into the pockets of deep-pocketed, long-duration buyers. And yes — they know exactly what they’re doing. Markets have been jittery: • Rate-cut uncertainty 📉 • Overheated AI equity spending 🤖 • The classic “crypto cycle fear” 😬 Sentiment gauges? Extreme fear. Long-term capital? Completely unfazed. Case in point: Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund reportedly tripled its BTC exposure last quarter — now sitting near $500M. These aren’t tourists. They’re the ones who buy when everyone else hesitates. So if you’re selling your Bitcoin today… You might want to take a closer look at who’s on the other side of your trade. Now zoom out 👇 Global liquidity is sitting at record highs — and still expanding. Over 80% of major economies are easing or injecting capital again. Crypto regulation is finally becoming clearer. Historically, when: ✅ Liquidity rises + ✅ Policy clarity improves → Risk assets rally. → Crypto rallies the most. Will it happen again this time? Source: Bitwise, Tommy Rogulj @tommyrogulj
Fed Williams's speech this morning dramatically changed the outlook for the December 10 FOMC meeting.
As highlighted by Jim Bianco, the current tally looks like this: * 5 Voters have strongly signaled they do not want to cut rates next month (Barr, Musalem, Schmid, Goolsbee, Collins) * 5 Voters signaled they want to cut rates (Miran, Waller, Bowman, Williams, Cook) * 2 Voters are unknown (Powell and Jefferson) If the Fed is truly becoming independent, then it should be a 7-5 vote ... either way. Time will tell...
