Morning Wrap: ASX 200 futures flat, S&P 500 and Nasdaq gain as Anthropic files for blockbuster IPO

In a nutshell:

• Wall Street started a busy week higher as chipmakers led a revival in the AI trade ahead of Big Tech earnings and Wednesday's Fed decision

• Anthropic made its IPO filing public, revealing US$16.3bn in first-half revenue and an US$80.7bn paper loss ahead of a Nasdaq listing as soon as November

• Oil eased from near six-month highs as Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani officials held talks in Tehran, while Trump said he is nearing a decision on a deal or renewed strikes on Iran

Let's dive in.

• Major US benchmarks higher and finished off best levels, in a largely tech-led session where recent high-flying defensives lagged 

• Chipmakers rallied after Anthropic's IPO filing, sending a closely watched semiconductor gauge up 3.3% as the S&P 500 halted back-to-back losses 

• Brazilian markets cratered after Lula's surprise re-election, with the real and the benchmark stock index each down more than 10% and some stocks sinking 50% (BBG)

• Neocloud stocks hovered at their lowest in more than a year, a basket of eight AI landlords down over 40% since late July as the cost of insuring CoreWeave debt doubled (YF)

• HSBC's Max Kettner cut his stock allocation to neutral from maximum overweight, his first step back since mid-March, citing sharp mood swings ahead of the midterms (BBG)

• RBC says the S&P 500 could pull back 5% to 10% (CNBC)

• S&P 500's 10 largest stocks have started to falter relative to the rest of the market, says RBC's Lori Calvasina, who stays at Market Weight on tech (YF)

• Retail trading volumes have fallen about 20% since mid-summer, with retail now 9% of US equity volume and near the lowest since 2020, says Goldman's Ben Snider (YF)

• Meta is seeking up to $95bn in common and preferred stock to fund AI spending, a $35bn offering plus a $60bn at-the-market program, one of the largest equity raises in history (BBG)

• Tesla bearish analyst ratings fell to an 11-year low as SpaceX merger hopes build, with Barclays upgrading to overweight and lifting its target to $450 from $370 (BBG)

• Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada and India as it reshapes for the AI era (YF)

• Anthropic filed publicly for its IPO, planning to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT after filing confidentially in June 

• Goldman Sachs took the lead-left role, with Morgan Stanley second and acting as stabilisation agent, mirroring their roles on SpaceX's record US$86.2bn listing

• Formal marketing could start as soon as the week of 9 November, with Anthropic expecting to match or beat the size of SpaceX's IPO, people familiar said 

• Anthropic was last valued at US$965bn in May, ahead of OpenAI's $852bn in March, with Wall Street expecting a valuation near $2tn at listing 

• First-half revenue reached $16.3bn, more than triple the $4.6bn generated in all of 2025, while AI infrastructure spending hit $9bn versus $7.3bn for 2025

• Second-quarter revenue jumped to $11.6bn from $4.7bn, delivering a first operating profit of $974m versus a $1.7bn first-quarter loss as compute costs rose more slowly

• The first-half net loss was $80.7bn, mostly accounting charges, compared with a $42bn loss for all of 2025 

• Non-cancellable compute deals total about $430bn, led by Broadcom at roughly $161bn, Google $115bn, Amazon $110bn and Microsoft $45bn, per Yahoo Finance calculations 

• The seven co-founders will hold 50.1% of the vote through Founder LLC, whose sole members include Dario and Daniela Amodei 

• Anthropic could qualify for fast-track Nasdaq-100 entry at the $1.5tn to $2tn valuation under discussion, though SpaceX fell 15% in its first week in the index 

• Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani officials met Iran's leaders in Tehran, the first high-level Mecca Pact contact since the kingdom was drawn into the wider Iran conflict (RT)

• Trump says he is nearing a decision on whether to make a deal with Iran or resume military action, with the US midterms on 3 November (CNBC)

• Flávio Bolsonaro called for Brazil's election to be annulled after Lula came from behind to win a fourth term (BBG)

• The EU plans more import curbs on China in early 2027, using safeguard measures such as quotas on chemicals, furniture and machinery, people familiar said (BBG)

• USTR Jamieson Greer says short-term tariff pain is overblown after Trump lifted Canadian duties on plywood, paper and machinery, with a Fox poll showing 69% of voters disapprove (BBG)

• The Bank of Canada is expected to hike 25bps to 2.50% on Wednesday, with 19 of 34 economists polled by Reuters tipping a move to stem energy-led inflation (RT)

• Bank of England officials are the most hawkish in over three years, per a Bloomberg Economics language model, laying the ground for a hike as early as November (BBG)

No major economic announcements

• Cedar Woods Properties reaffirms FY27 guidance of ~15% NPAT growth to around $75m, with over 90% of forecast revenue already settled or presold. Gross sales fell 57% on pcp to 167 as rate rises and cost-of-living pressures bit, though 311 settlements ran ahead of budget (CWP)

• Elevra Lithium produces 54,907 dmt of spodumene in the September quarter, up 1% QoQ, with unit costs down 14% to US$780/dmt and revenue of US$74m on 58,134 dmt sold at US$1,276/dmt. Quarter-end cash of US$319m excludes US$71m from the completed Ewoyaa sale (ELV)

• Perseus Mining produces 92.6koz in Q1 FY27 at an AISC of US$2,035/oz, ahead of plan, lifting cash and bullion to US$900m on US$171m of notional operating cashflow. Reaffirms FY27 guidance of 420-480koz, with Nyanzaga 88.4% complete and on track for first production by January (PRU)

• Serko flags a modest upward revision to FY27 total income guidance of $128-134m at its 1H27 result on 16 November, after completed room nights accelerated through the first half. Core business momentum is now the main FY27 driver, with the US corporate initiative not expected to contribute (SKO)

• Nature is healing. Quite a few sectors are trying to make the turn after the recent 15-20% pullback. From our overnight ETF watchlist, Semis, Defence, Airlines and various miners are all ticking higher after what’s felt like a straight line down since late August. The catalysts vary, from solid defence earnings at Northrop Grumman (up 4.5% on results last Tuesday and another 5.8% since) to Anthropic’s IPO filing and a slight pullback in oil prices. This isn’t an ‘out of the woods’ moment, but part of the bottoming process. As these sectors catch a bid, the recent pivot into defensives like Staples, Utilities and Healthcare is taking a pause. You could see it locally yesterday, with Staples (-1.5%), Discretionary (-0.8%), Utilities (-0.6%) and Telcos (-0.6%) all lagging. It adds up to an awkward juncture where it’s hard to have conviction either way, whether that’s miners and tech having bottomed or defensives having topped.

Stocks trading ex-dividend:

• Tue 27 Oct: Bank of Queensland (BOQ) – $0.20

• Wed 28 Oct: None

• Thu 29 Oct: Autosports Group (ASG) – $0.03, Benjamin Hornigold (BHD) – $0.062, Waterco (WAT) – $0.13

• Fri 30 Oct: None

Other ASX corporate actions today:       

• Dividends paid: 360 Capital REIT (360)

• Earnings: None

• IPOs: None

• AGMs: Amotiv (AOV), Austal (ASB), Credit Corp (CCP), CSL (CSL), Kelsian (KLS), Omni Bridgeway (OBL), Star Entertainment (SGR)

Economic calendar (AEDT):

No major economic announcements