Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the needle this Monday.
Big Tech is opening the spending taps wider than ever. Morgan Stanley says capital expenditures across the sector are on track to hit record highs, with Meta and Amazon leading the charge on AI infrastructure buildout. The message from the Street is clear — the race for compute isn't slowing, it's accelerating, and the bill is measured in the trillions.
Shifting from Wall Street to soft commodities, sugar and cocoa are both taking a beating in today's session. Sugar futures slid to two-week lows after improved monsoon rains in India raised expectations for stronger cane output. Cocoa is off nearly four percent, pressured by easing supply concerns out of Ivory Coast, where fresh delivery data suggested the supply crunch may be loosening its grip.
And Palantir CEO Alex Karp is sounding a note of caution about the very industry his company profits from. Speaking with Axel Springer's CEO, Karp warned that AI is on track to generate enormous wealth — but concentrated in very few hands. He called the wealth disparity that could follow a genuine societal problem, and described the broader overselling of AI by its own makers as, quote, disconcerting.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
