There is Nothing Like Price To Change Sentiment - The Nvidia Case Study (chartfest and linkfest) and The Anthropic IPO This Week

What a crazy week it was in the world of technology and markets last week and this week will be just as wild as the global narrative evolves around AI with the $NVDA ( ▼ 2.01% ) / Jensen scandal and the IPO of Anthropic. Polymarket has it at 99 percent that the Anthropic ( $ANT ( 0.0% ) ) IPO will happen this year and the pricing is supposed to take place Thursday.

Before I get started on these topics…

On Wednesday I will be doing a fireside chat with Yoshi, the co-founder and CEO of Alpaca (discussing of course the global volatility caused by Nvidia, the demand for the Anthropic IPO and the acceleration of tokenization) at the Tomorrow X Conference in Austin (that is if flights are happening). I have been excited to be participating in the conference because Jensen Huang of Nvidia is the keynote speaker. While I doubt Jensen takes the stage, the list of speakers has the biggest names I have ever been a part of including Michael Dell, Stanley Druckenmiller, Linda Su and David Solomon.

The event starts Tuesday and there is a good discount at the bottom of today’s newsletter if you can make it to Austin.

Onward…

If you read me you know I follow price over fundamentals and narratives because prices lie less than people and companies.

There is nothing like price to change sentiment! (click here to dive a bit deeper)

The Economist set of magazine covers below - just

TWO months apart - is the latest great reminder of the above.

Jensen was the sorcerer of AI as the stock hit all-time highs and now they depict him falling into the abyss on this weeks cover as the stock

This ‘bosom’ chart of Nvidia was my fave of last week…(note to self at conference this week)

I do NOT own the stock directly (I own it through ETF’s), but I would be a buyer at the ‘bosom’ area of the chart 🙂 .

The earnings call led by the CFO/interim CEO will be THIS WEEK, November 17th, after the close. On Stocktwits you can click to calendar all your stocks earnings calls.

The Wall Street Journal seems to be enjoying this the most and they are like a dog with a bone on the China/Spy/Megaspeed angle.

I went down the rabbit hole to read all I could on the bigger picture now that the narrative is up for grabs and that price has crashed sentiment. This volatility is creating opportunity and will change many trends. Here is a linkfest for you of my favorite reads…

‘Jensen Huang was always going to lose’ was an excellent read.

Michael Parekh on the world without Jensen the kingmaker and central banker of AI.

Tom Tunguz - ‘When the central banlk of AI changes chairs’.

Ben Thompson - deep dive podcast on all things AI, Chip bans and Nvidia after Jensen Huang…

‘AI on the ballot’ from Ben Thompson - I linked last week but it is worth reading again with the Jensen resignation and the Anthropic IPO set for this week.

The Megaspeed partnership and the White House infighting about who is to blame most is underway. As for Trump’s fall guy for Jensen, that seems to be Howard Nutlick. There are 50 bootlickers ready to take his place so does it even matter?

Howard Marks - A Layman thinks about AI

What blows my mind most about this past week and The Jensen fall from icon/grace status is how fast and how broad and wide the story has been covered. Jensen and Nvidia have moved from niche (genius, legend, hero) to mainstream cultural villain and the butt of jokes and memes in record time (Comedy Central and Beeple)…

Which brings us to…

The one trend that has been amplified to a new extreme which is the ‘cult of the tech founder’. The stock price justifies all means and ends of founder behavior/ethics etc.

The Twittersphere of tech bros and venture capitalists led by Elon Musk of course started a petition to have Jensen reinstated as CEO.

The prediction markets have it at 31 percent that Jensen returns as CEO by end of 2027 (I’ll take the no on that one as a bet) and 9 percent by the end of 2026 (I will also take the no).

Maybe this is the end of that trend and the only survivors are Elon Musk and Zuckerberg. I doubt that as the new tech ‘oligarchs’ realize that they need to negotiate for dual class shares earlier and more often from the oversized/drunk venture capitalists who don’t dare speak ill of their founders or companies.

This chart below explains a lot about why tech bros and venture investors are demanding Jensen return and just how big and imprtant the Mag 7 -10 companies have become.

People have been paid well market cap weighted indexing and owning the Mag 7.

The temptation to pontificate and bet on the end of this trend right now is very high.I am thinking hard about this for my own portolio and risk management.

I lean towards relying on the Mag 7 even more in a world where owning Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple seem to be the most global diversified way to just own the consumer, the cloud and AI.

Meanwhile…

Anthropic is set to IPO this week and the conspiracy theories are abundant as Jensen is out…

The noise this week will be deafening and I will rely on my filters to get through it.

Have a great Sunday and week. I am off for a ride here in Phoenix with some friends.

TomorrowX Summit · November 17–18 · Austin

iConnections, Atreides and Valor are bringing together the CEOs, investors and operators driving TMT for two days at the Moody Center. Main stage keynotes span public and private markets — Nvidia, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Databricks, Arm, Cerebras, Crusoe, Vercel, DoorDash, 8VC and more — with breakout tracks across labs, silicon, power and capital. I will be attending and speaking.

Howie Town readers get 20% off tickets with the link below.