Roller coaster with a car full of screaming people (MyLoupe/Getty Images)

How bitcoin's moves show that the stock market is actually fueled by vibes

Bitcoin has been strongly correlated with the S&P 500; the low-volatility stocks within the S&P 500 have not.

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Bitcoin is behaving more like the S&P 500 than the boring, safer stocks within the S&P 500 are.

The 21-session correlation between the daily change in the iShares Bitcoin Trust and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF recently got above 0.75, a level not seen since early April when both were cratering on the announcement of reciprocal tariffs. Meanwhile, the 21-session correlation between SPY and the Invesco S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF, which holds the stocks that tend not to move as much, has collapsed. It’s gone negative, but could reasonably just be described as simply uncorrelated.

These correlations hint at what’s been a key driver for benchmark US index: the ebbs and flows of speculative appetite. (I’m operating under the assumption that changes in sentiment, willingness to take risk, and ride momentum are the proximate causes of why bitcoin goes up and down.)

I have received more than a bit of pushback across social media recently for suggesting that bitcoin is behaving like a leveraged, low-fundamentals tech stock. I’m happy to correct the record — but only to change the chain of causality here.

That is, stocks are behaving like a de-levered version of bitcoin.

It seems fairly clear at this juncture that rollovers in bitcoin and other speculative pockets of the market in October were the bleeding edge of the retreat from risk that’s gone on to infect even the AI megacap leaders as of late.

Luke Kawa1h

Nvidia spikes on report that the Trump administration is considering letting Nvidia sell its best Hopper chips to China

One big headline really can change price action.

Shares of Nvidia popped 2% after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is internally discussing the idea of letting Nvidia sell its H200 chips to China. These chips, unlike the H20, are not the nerfed versions that Nvidia designer specifically for sale to China, but rather, are its best chips from their Hopper generation, which preceded Blackwell.

The president had mused about allowing Nvidia to sell Blackwell chips to China ahead of talks with President Xi in late October, but this item was reportedly axed from the agenda at the last minute, per the Wall Street Journal.

Nvidia’s success in 2025 has come despite, not because of, its China business. New export restrictions weighed on its ability to send H20 chips to the world’s second-largest economy. The company took a $4.5 billion impairment charge in its Q1 earnings related to this export ban, and said Q2 sales would be $8 billion higher if these curbs were not in effect.

After Nvidia reached a deal with the Trump administration that restored their ability to ship that chip, China reportedly responded by banning its technology companies from buying these semiconductors.

“Sizable purchase orders [for the H20] never materialized in the quarter due to geopolitical issues and the increasingly competitive market in China,” said CFO Colette Kress on a conference call with analysts on Wednesday.

Ahead of Nvidia’s earnings report, this headline had hit the wires:

*TRUMP: IF NVIDIA'S HUANG IS HAPPY, I'M HAPPY

Well, the CEO didn’t seem too thrilled by the market’s reaction to the chip designer’s strong Q3 results. Perhaps this will cheer him up.

Pharmaceutical Company Eli Lilly Headquarters

Eli Lilly jumps into the tech-dominated $1 trillion club

Lilly is crossing $1 trillion in market cap just as Wall Street is getting jittery over a potential AI bubble.

J. Edward Moreno3h

Max Knoblauch3h

Airlines climb on falling oil prices as the US pushes for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal

Oil prices fell on Friday, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures down more than 2% amid a US push for a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine. The US has reportedly pitched a deal that would see Ukraine cede land to Russia and agree to never join NATO.

As the market repeatedly shows: what’s bad for crude is good for airlines, which stand to benefit from lower fuel costs. Shares of major US carriers are up on oil’s price action, with Southwest Airlines up more than 5% and the rest of the big four airlines — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines — up more than 3%.

IBM initiated at overweight by Oppenheimer analysts

IBM gets a Wall Street-high price target from Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer slapped a price target of $360 on the stock as it initiated coverage.

Matt Phillips3h

Luke Kawa4h

There’s a full-blown meltdown in the AI boom’s supporting cast of speculative, volatile stocks

Nvidia’s results weren’t good enough to help the chip designer, but the reaction has been so much worse for other parts of the AI trade. The meltdown in the AI boom’s supporting cast of more speculative, volatile stocks is deepening sharply on Friday:

Bitcoin miners turned data center providers Cipher Mining and IREN are in a world where the market seems to have soured on everything they’re associated with. Shares of both have tumbled more than 7% on the day.
Neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius are both off about 5% or more. The former is now 66% off its record closing high, while the latter is in a 40% drawdown.
Nuclear energy firm Oklo is down 8%, and has lost over half its value since mid-October. Its trailing price-to-sales ratio remains aggressively unchanged through this rout (because it is a zero-revenues company).
The Bloom (Energy) is off the rose, with the fuel cell company off more than 40% from its peak. Shares of Bloom Energy are cratering amid bearish options activity, with its put/call ratio at a four-month high as of 10:55 a.m. ET.

The rollover in these speculative pockets of the market (as well as bitcoin!) starting in October seems to have presaged the current bout of pain for major US indexes.

To repeat myself, when the question of, “Oracle will be able to pay me back, right?” enters your mind, that’s probably not consistent with a world where smaller companies on the outskirts of the AI ecosystem can continuously be bid up to the moon.