Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk, your close on the stories moving money tonight.
Thursday was an ugly session on Wall Street, with the S&P five hundred shedding more than four percent and the Nasdaq one hundred cratering over six percent, as investors staged a broad capitulation out of chipmakers and artificial intelligence names. The selling was sharp and indiscriminate, the kind of move that signals genuine conviction to the downside, not just routine profit-taking.
Against that backdrop, Cloudflare stood out as a rare bright spot, its stock staging a significant comeback after the company reported its fastest sales growth in nearly four years. Demand for AI-driven network protection is accelerating, and Cloudflare is capturing it — a reminder that not every corner of the AI trade is unwinding at the same pace.
Meanwhile, the Anthropic IPO story is getting more complicated by the day. Major institutional investors are signaling deep skepticism that the artificial intelligence company can sustain a one-point-five trillion dollar valuation at listing, suggesting the company may need to come to market at a significantly lower price to attract the capital it needs. That kind of pushback from serious money is worth watching closely.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
