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Luke Kawa

The Magnificent 7 prevented a market crisis even as Nvidia cratered

Another silver lining from Monday’s market rout: though one tech titan lost more value than any other company has before, crucially, US megacap tech giants did not decline in unison.

Apple — perhaps because of its dearth of AI prowess — had a huge rally, as investors seemingly flocked from Nvidia to the iPhone maker. Meta booked a solid gain as well, while Amazon also inched higher.

Call it protective rotation. Even on a very dark day for stocks, more money seemed to move between the Magnificent 7 cohort than out of the market completely, the latest piece of momentum behind a trend that’s generally been gaining strength for well over a year.

We’ve discussed at length how low correlations between these trillion-dollar companies are the key feature of this market backdrop that’s kept realized volatility suppressed. It was one of our top charts to watch for a reason, and just passed a pretty challenging test.

Occasionally — but not always — this holds true even on no good, awful days for the market. Monday’s session was something of a positive outlier in this regard. Some things worth highlighting when we look at the 35 sessions in which at least two members of this cohort fell by at least 3% since the start of June 2023 (when news mentions of “Magnificent 7” started to ramp higher): 

  • We don’t have that many instances of two or more members of this club falling in excess of 3% in the same session — this happens about two times every five weeks. That’s a big reason why realized correlations and volatility have been low for most of this period, to begin with!

  • Of the 20 times besides Monday when exactly two Magnificent 7 stocks have fallen at least 3%, we’ve tended to see broader downside participation.

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Matt Phillips

GitLab shares dive as death-of-human-coding theme strengthens

Shares of software development service GitLab tumbled Wednesday after lackluster guidance undermined an otherwise solid set of Q4 results.

The hard numbers, however, may be less important for the shares than the hardening narrative entombing the company, whose stock price is down roughly 60% over the last year, at last glance.

In short, the problem is that GitLab sells coding and software development services long used by human coders and software developers. And investors think rapid advances in AI coding, through programs like Claude Code, mean there will be far fewer flesh-and-blood programmers to use GitLab in the future.

To wit, this report from The Information notes that OpenAI is developing an alternative to Microsoft’s GitHub — not to be confused with GitLab, an independent company, though both offer similar services such as code repositories and collaborative software development tools.

For sure, it’s not clear that human coders are destined for the dustbin of history. But it does seem fairly obvious that far fewer will be needed.

As I’ve written recently, that makes the AI boom somewhat distinct from other recent tech frenzies, in which programmers were typically insulated from the job losses their work often unleashes.

GitLab Stock Tumbles Again. Why the Software Pain Isn’t Over.

Monster robot attacks

In short, the problem is that GitLab sells coding and software development services long used by human coders and software developers. And investors think rapid advances in AI coding, through programs like Claude Code, mean there will be far fewer flesh-and-blood programmers to use GitLab in the future.

To wit, this report from The Information notes that OpenAI is developing an alternative to Microsoft’s GitHub — not to be confused with GitLab, an independent company, though both offer similar services such as code repositories and collaborative software development tools.

For sure, it’s not clear that human coders are destined for the dustbin of history. But it does seem fairly obvious that far fewer will be needed.

As I’ve written recently, that makes the AI boom somewhat distinct from other recent tech frenzies, in which programmers were typically insulated from the job losses their work often unleashes.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Ross Stores climbs after posting stronger-than-expected Q4 sales

Shares of off-price retailer Ross are up more than 6% on Wednesday morning, following the release of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report after-hours on Tuesday.

Ross posted adjusted earnings of $2 per share in its Q4, ended January 31, beating Wall Street’s expectations of $1.90 per share. Total sales climbed 12% year over year to $6.6 billion, ahead of the $6.4 billion consensus.

CEO Jim Conroy credited some of the company’s success on growth in 18- to 34-year-old customers.

Looking ahead to the current quarter, Ross expects earnings of between $1.60 and $1.67 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expect $1.68.

markets
Matt Phillips

Palantir’s ties to Anthropic reportedly under strain amid Pentagon spat

Palantir Technologies may have to cut ties with AI lab Anthropic after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared his department would restrict military contractors from using Anthropic’s technology, according to a story by The Information published Tuesday afternoon. Anthropic’s models are deeply embedded in the Palantir software packages the US government uses to analyze classified data.

Information reporters Aaron Holmes, Sri Muppidi, Rocket Drew, and Julia Hornstein wrote:

“Palantir CEO Alex Karp appeared to criticize Anthropic on Tuesday without directly naming it. Speaking at a defense tech summit hosted by Andreessen Horowitz in Washington, Karp upbraided Silicon Valley for going against the U.S. military, and warned that AI companies risked angering both liberals and conservatives.

‘If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take everyone’s white-collar jobs… and you’re going to screw the military, if you don’t think that’s going to lead to the nationalization of our technology, you’re retarded,’ Karp said. ‘That’s where this path is going.’”

Anthropic-Palantir Partnership at Risk After Pentagon Decision

Information reporters Aaron Holmes, Sri Muppidi, Rocket Drew, and Julia Hornstein wrote:

“Palantir CEO Alex Karp appeared to criticize Anthropic on Tuesday without directly naming it. Speaking at a defense tech summit hosted by Andreessen Horowitz in Washington, Karp upbraided Silicon Valley for going against the U.S. military, and warned that AI companies risked angering both liberals and conservatives.

‘If Silicon Valley believes we are going to take everyone’s white-collar jobs… and you’re going to screw the military, if you don’t think that’s going to lead to the nationalization of our technology, you’re retarded,’ Karp said. ‘That’s where this path is going.’”

markets
Luke Kawa

Crypto-adjacent stocks rebound as return of geopolitical risk prompts reversals in 2026 market trends

Crypto-adjacent stocks are ripping on Wednesday morning as bitcoin soared above $70,000, exceeding a key resistance area flagged by multiple analysts in recent weeks.

Big gainers include:

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Bitcoin has performed terribly in 2026, and is down nearly 50% from its peak in October.

And it’s not the only beaten-down pocket of the market to have its fortunes change as geopolitical risk flares up.

Shortly before the US strikes against Iran, Renaissance Macro Head of Technical Research Jeff deGraaf flagged that the gap between winners and losers within the tech sector had reached levels not seen since the dot-com bubble; the nascent reversal in hardware versus software since tensions in the Middle East have ratcheted higher also seems to be manifesting as a rebound in crypto, as well.

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